One of the best things about our stay in Quito was that it coincided with the annual QuitoFest celebrations and the whole city was fiesta mode, with party buses prowling through town, blaring salsa music while scores of festive Ecuadorians boogied along on-board, on the sidewalks and in the street. Every park and square had…
With my birthday very fast approaching, we headed to another beach town called Canoa, which we hoped would be a bit livelier than Puerto Lopez. It certainly was; we arrived into a town in the midst of a weekend-long, town-wide party celebrating the town’s centenary (or something along those lines). The streets were closed to…
Since it was basically a choice between visiting the (very spendy) Galapagos Islands or around 2 more months of travel, we sadly resigned Darwin’s islands to the “next trip box” and instead headed to the very aptly nicknamed “poor man’s Galapagos”; Isla la Plata, located an hour by boat from the town of Puerto Lopez.…
Next up we headed through to Riobamba, a large town an hour or so from Baños, where Brad had organised us another mountain biking expedition. We met with the manager of Pro-Bici Tours at his office, on the 2nd floor of a fabric and haberdashery store, to discuss our upcoming descent of Mount Chimborazo, then…
Our arrival in Ecuador was miserable. Our very-semi cama “overnight” bus dumped us at the bus station in a town called Loja at 4.30am, with no onward buses to our destination of Vilcabamba for at least another hour. On top of this I was suffering some gastric issues and spent that hour alternating between…
After Lima it was time for the beach. We headed to a small town called Huanchaco that we’d read was one of Peru’s top surf spots and great place to chill for a few days. Huanchaco turned out to be a dusty little one horse town with half a dozen hostels and maybe twice as…
A lot of people we’d met ripped on Lima. No one seemed to like it very much. I liked it quite a lot. We stayed in the Miraflores district, which does not perhaps give the most authentic experience of the city, being a modern, upscale seaside neighbourhood where only very wealthy Peruvians and expat gringos…
Our flight from Puerto Maldonado to Lima went via Cusco and the first leg to Cusco was incredibly bumpy and felt like our small plane was being thrown all over the sky and at imminent risk of breaking apart. Ironically for someone who loves to travel as much as I do, I’m not a particularly…
After returning from Machu Picchu, we stayed a couple more days in Cusco, catching up on sleep, finally getting Brad’s arm checked out by a doctor, and scoffing a couple of final Fuego burgers, before climbing aboard an overnight bus to Puerto Maldonado, a small town right at the edge of the Amazon Jungle. Having…
After killing several days in Cusco, it was finally time for one of the really big ticket items on our trip; Machu Picchu. To do the classic Inca Trail, you need to book your tour around six months ahead. We really didn’t want to commit to a date so far in advance so we chose…
Eat The World 