Cusco I arrived from Cusco with a little less than my A game, having taken the 23 hour Cruz del Sur bus from Lima. At the time of writing this blog I'm now pretty used to night buses but this was my initiation into what is very much a right of passage for the South America Traveller. The bus itself was amazing with the exception of the solo urinario rule for the toilets and the Peruvian woman who decided to but here affairs in order through the means of a length...

Lost City Trek I was picked up at 9 from the office of Magic Tours and we spent 2 hours travelling to the start of the trek in a 4x4. Luckily as I had arrived with some random english girl they assumed we were a couple and gave us the front seats which was immensley preferrable to riding in the back where the offroad track meant we were bumped around alot. Two amusing points on the drive were when we stopped briefly for our driver to collect a machete from a man...

This was my introduction to Latin America and my first real experience of a place where most of the people I would meet would not speak english. It´s fair to say I had been farily blase about my lack of Spanish, as even on the plane over from Canada I had elected to watch 30 Rock in preference to learning any spanish. When I arrived at the airport this was something of a shock as non of the customs officials I spoke to knew any english and even the woman in the...

I arrived in Montréal after a better than expected night's sleep on the Megabus but found myself at the hostel at 7.30 before the doors were even open, let alone was I able to wait for the 3pm check in. So I got myself a Croque Martin from the café over the street and in doing so completely wussed out of my first opportunity to speak any French. After an hour and a half of trying in vein to decipher a French newspaper I headed over and checked in. The first th...

Toronto I`m sure every one will tell you Canada is a great place and it is but there is a few annoying points about it (not all unique to Canada) that you should know:- - In Ontario you can only by booze from government run outlets, not from corner shops or supermarkets and these places shut at 9 at night - They never show prices including tax and they add a 14% or so sales tax to just about everything except water - Like the US, tipping of 10% - 20% is expec...