Inca Trail: Day 1 Early start from our hotel in Cuzco. The journey to the beginning of trail takes 2 hours by van. Most of our belongings (5kgs worth) are carried by porters. Our guide tells us they carry a maximum weight of 30 kilograms each. Embarrassingly they overtake us within an hour of us starting the trail. Our first day is relatively easy going where we have the chance to see Inca sights. Uniquely, our trail passes various local homes and farm stead...

Early start today (530am) heading out on the 2 hour teeth clattering trip to one of the highest points in the Colco Canyon in an attempt to spot a Condor. Unfortunately we discovered that condors are shy and elusive creatures but we did see an eagle which we now refer to as the "baby condor". Despite our epic fail the trip was well worth the drive if only to see the canyon itself which is immense. I'm told it is twice the depth of the Grand Canyon. Our tour guide...

Took a trip from Arequipa to the Colco Canyon. At one point in our journey we reached 4800 meters. I haven't been that high since my visit to Jamaica in 2007. Sticking to that theme I was encouraged to chew coco leaves to help me "adjust to the altitude". This with the 2 paracetamol and 1 ibuprofen I took seemed to do the trick and also left me with a strangely numb tongue. While chewing on my leaves I was afforded spectacular views of the snow topped volcanoes ...

I am in no way taking for granted how lucky I am to be in Peru but last night's 11 hour overnight journey between Nazca and Arequipa was awful. Broken air con resulted in Ruth waking me up to inform me that she thought she "might die" or at the very least pass out. We survived to tell the tale but needless to say I am not a fan of long distance travel by bus. All part of the adventure of course and totally worth it when you first lay eyes on the massive volcanoes...

As we're not doing much today I thought I'd shed a little more light on our touring party and other related things. Currently the group we are in consists of 8 people including our tour guide. We're all English speaking, hilariously we have two Gregs (Scottish Gregor and Aussie Gregory), a Grant also from Oz, Brian and Nicky from Merton, literally 10 minutes from where Ruth and I were living prior to starting our trip, and of course Ruth and I. The four us who's ...