Departing Bolivia, we rose at 3am to catch our bus to Calama (Chile). Little did we know what awaited us! Cold and sleepy we got onto the bus surrounded by locals laden with dozens of enormous bags containing what we could only imagine was half of Bolivia`s annual produce to sell in Chile. Spoilt by tourist buses, this would turn out to be the most frustrating journey of the trip. It is hard to explain just how cold we were, thinking our limbs were going to drop ...

After a few uneventful days in disappointing Copacabana, we made our way to La Paz. As usual, the Bolivian travel arrangements were haphazard although somehow seem to work out: we were met in the street, taken to another hotel where we were told to wait until the guides found the other passengers. Finally some 20 minutes later, we were wandering off up a hill, down alleys to what we thought would be our coach. Yet again it was not what we expected and instead we ...

We spent our last day in Cusco on a tour of the Sacred Valley which was slightly disappointing as we were given more time to look around touristy markets than at the actual Inca ruins. However, it improved towards the end of the day, the highlight being a visit to a local textile manufacturer where we were taught how traditional fabrics were cleaned, dyed and woven. This was particularly interesting because purely organic plants and materials are used. Regretfull...

Yet another early start, we were picked up by our guide, Hugo and headed straight into the mountains. Upon the first sighting of the snow capped peaks, we could not contain our excitement and before we knew it, we were getting geared up for our mountain biking adventure which started at 4300m. Above the clouds and completely surrounded by mountains, the nerves kicked in anticipating the long, winding descent. Although terrified every time we approached a sharp co...

We finally made it onto a bus out of Ica and on to Arequipa. However, spending 11 hours on a coach is not ideal but the highlight was definitely the onboard bingo. To continue our bout of bad luck with transport, our taxi broke down half way to the hostel meaning we were further delayed but eventually made it in one piece. After a few hours sleep we were up early again to start our tour of the Colca Canyon. We saw some familiar faces, bumping into the Swiss sis...