Funnily Cuenca in Ecuador is in fact the home of the Panama hat! Long story but basically the hats were exported via the Panama canal and the locals in Panama started wearing them and so they got their name. Anyhow Gareth and I had a great time watching them being made and trying them all on!One of our main reasons for coming to Cuenca was to visit the most important Inca site in Ecuador, Ingapirca, but only when we arrived into Cuenca did we find out that its a...

After almost 48 hours on buses in the last 4 days we finally arrived into Ecuador and a sleepy little town called Vilcabamba. Vilcabamba is located in a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains covered in cloud forest and the scenery really is breathtaking. The valley is overlooked by a mountain called Mandango, the Sleeping Inca, and the locals believe that the spirit of the sleeping Inca protects the area from earthquakes and other natural disasters. We made th...

We finally arrived into North Peru and made a beeline for the coast only to find that as its winter it was all mist and not much sun. Still its nice to see the ocean again and watch the waves breaking against the shore. Lots of brave surfers out in their wet suits and also lots of the local fishermen trying to catch dinner from the pier and from their reed canoe type boats. Another benefit of being by the coast was the amazing seafood and we made the most of it, ...

Lima was never on our itinerary but an 18 hour bus which turned into a mammoth 21 hours meant that we found ourselves stranded here for a day before our next 8 hour bus north! Not much to say about Lima, we spent the day wandering around, shopping and eating. Plaza de Armas was pretty and totally traffic free but lots of armed vehicles around, we later found out that all of the Latin American Presidents were meeting in the Presidential Palace on the square that w...

Machu Picchu was one of the must dos on our travel list when we left home and it did not disappoint. Machu Picchu (which means old mountain) was built by the Incas in the 15th century and its located in the most amazing place with cloud forest covered mountains on all sides. It remained undiscovered until 1911 when an American researcher and historian was brought to the site by a local farmers son and discovered the ruins with 2 families living among them in orde...