Hotel Overode Tingo Maria National Park

... up the various mountains in the taxi, to arrive at kuelap two more hours later. not the kind of adventure i hoped for, but the views were good. i guess another advantage was that we arrived early, and were the only people at the site. we found ourselves a local guide who had grown up and had continued to bring her family up not two hundred metres away from this huge city, perched ontop of the mountain top. with ...

Salimos de Trujillo en un bus cómodo pero quizá demasiado caro para nuestro bolsillo de mochileros inexpertos ($28.000 cada uno). Eran las 8 p.m del día de mi cumpleaños. Unas horas antes habíamos caminado el centro de Trujillo y habíamos comido una deliciosa torta de almendras con café para celebrar mis 28 años. Volvimos a la terminal de Movil-Tours y nos montamos en el bus. En cuestión de minutos caímos en un sueño poco profundo pero prolongado ...

In the day of Christmas Eve, several lovely things happened. Just outside my house, Lupe, the friend I´d met on the bus to Huancayo when I first arrived, had come over to invite me to have Christmas with her family. The phone number I had given her was wrong and she couldn´t get through, so she had decided to come over to the street where she knew I lived and bang on all the doors until she found me. Fortunately, I had come out of the house just ...

Today, I woke up late, there was no hot water and because I was running late I didn´t have time to investigate it and so had to go without a shower. My day got steadily worse - DHL were giving me hassle (my advice is, never bother using them unless you really, REALLY have to) and while I was holding for five minutes before I was cut off, I was robbed by a ´helpful´ woman and her son, who was in school uniform. They started trying to ...

On Saturday, it was time to go shopping for the puppy I´d promised Macca for Christmas. We had walked through the streets of Huancayo earlier this week for two hours, to no avail. We had seen a male Minature Snauzer of four months old, who was very nervous and hated being touched, and decided that a younger pup would be easier to educate. We had been to a covered produce market, where we had seen a good candidate but Macca had decided she wanted to see some ...

One collectivo ride later and we arrive in Huaraz. Huaraz has all the usual 3rd world capital characteristics - dustswept roads, mangy dogs, street urchins, entire families on mopeds, scary taxi drivers, and potholes. Were here for three reasons; to visit a cafe that sells peanut butter and banana sandwiches, visit Peru´s most famous, oldest major culture, the Chavin´s and swim in hot ...

This week as been so strange I feel as if I´m living in a soap opera as one of the full-time actors... The Truman Show has nothing on me! So where shall I start... finding out one emotional Sunday night that Lucho´s brother, Kikito, was pushed to his death off a tenth floor building that hadn´t been completed. And that it was extremely likely that a jealous classmate did it, the only other person with him at the time. Kiko was a genious, by normal standards, and ...

This week, with help from my knock-out antibiotics (two, twice per day, one additional one at night) I started teaching properly. My first class runs from 8-10am each morning, with students aged from 14 to about 24. They are keen, bright and very funny - we´ve had a good time together, especially when discussing cultural differences. You know the sign you make with your hands to indicate ´perfect´ in England? The one where you touch your index finger with your thumb on ...

On Saturday I had arranged to visit a local artisan market with Lazza, my Spanish teacher and good friend. I woke up feeling fine, and watched with interest as the artisans showed us how traditional fabric was made. I bought my mum and female friends some Christmas presents and suddenly felt weak and dizzy. Determined to get to the Silversmith´s house that Lazza knew, we carried on to San Jeronimo via the local bus. The Silversmith was a young woman of maybe 25-28 years and ...

Kourt Demass was a lot like us in many ways. He loved to travel, loved to party, loved to meet new people and have adventures. I didn't know him but from the tributes to him left by friends and family, the beautiful sculpture made in his remembrance at the Burning Man festival in Arizona, the places he'd travelled to, I have a feeling we would have got on. He and his friend were enjoying one of their last days trekking one of the worlds most majestic mountain ranges, the Cordillerra Huay ...