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The people are more genuine and sweet, they will often welcome you in the street, and will be happy to have a chat given the chance—all this, without trying to sell you anything, as is often the case in Thailand. And in the remotest parts they stare at you as if you came from Mars. When we were there with our blonde friend Chloe, children would drop their jaws and hide behind their mothers’ skirts, unsure what to make of us.

On a slightly more negative side, it’s a more conservative country than Thailand and, because the predominant religion is Islam, alcohol (a top priority for some…!) is harder and more expensive to come by.

We started off by heading straight for the island of Borneo in the South China Sea. We had great plans to climb mountains and explore jungles, but our first foray trekking in the area made us realise that walking for hours in high heat and humidity were not what we were looking for at the end of our trip. Hiking in 35 degrees of heat and with humidity levels of up to 75% did not make for an easy stroll.

That was our experience in the Bako National Park, allegedly one of the best parks to spot wildlife. We dragged ourselves up and down steep paths for hours and saw nothing until we got back to the park headquarters, where we finally saw proboscis and macaque monkeys, bearded pigs, and monitor lizards aplenty. We really didn’t need to walk far. Neil also paid a visit to the Semengoh Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, where he had a close encounter with a hungry male orang utan. ‘Watch your bag and never turn your back on him’ said the ranger before being chased by the ape around the headquarters for the big bag of fruit he was carrying.

Defeated by the heat, we took ourselves off to Sabah, the North Eastern region of Borneo, home to a star diving attraction—Pulau Sipadan.

This is a beautiful volcanic island with pristine waters and soft white sand and from which all resorts have been banned to preserve its rich tropical habitat. Here, large shoals of oceanic fish, groups of sleepy reef sharks, and dozens of giant turtles all await you at the drop-off, just a few metres from the beach. Sometimes when you are diving you can see nothing around you but fish.

During one of our dives, we found ourselves in the eye of a tornado of hundreds of circling barracuda. Another time we could not see the reef or even each other for hundreds of panicking, hunted trevally. Lounging on the beach in between dives, we made friends with a monitor lizard who came round like a dog demanding food. There was a lot more that we could have seen in Borneo, but time was running out and we were determined to catch a glimpse of manta rays, so we headed back to Thailand for yet some more world-class diving.

This time we were not disappointed. After some glorious diving in the Similans, we headed further north to Richelieu Rock. This is a pinnacle jutting out of the ocean, surrounded by glassy seas, multitudes of fish and— occasionally—mantas and whale sharks. We just missed seeing a whale shark one late afternoon.

Another group of divers passed us in a boat yelling, laughing and screaming about it. But by the time it took us to get kitted up and jump into the water, it was too dark to see anything. Needless to say, we were gutted, but how could we not be happy when on three other dives that day we had enjoyed the company of manta rays, materialising out of the blue like giant ghosts? And yet, that was not the highlight of our dive cruise. The next day, at Koh Bon, we were rewarded not with just one ray per dive, but with four in one go, gliding effortlessly past us on their huge wings in their search for plankton.

What a sight! Nothing prepares you for their majestic elegance, how these four-metre beasts sweep past as if they want to play with you. We thought that once we had seen one, we would be satisfied, but no, the experience is so mesmerising that we want to do it time and time again. We’ve heard that they grow twice as big off the coasts of Mexico and Costa Rica…

So, after many months in Thailand, to-ing and fro-ing from our chosen adoptive SE Asian country, it was time to return to Europe. We found our way back to Singapore (where we had previously caught a glimpse of the Hindu Thaipusam festival) and on the sad morning of May the 6th we landed at Heathrow. So, like all beautiful things, our adventure around the world came to an end. Given the chance, we would definitely do it again, but not for as long.

Now reality has come butting into our life Zizou-style. It has been great to be with all our friends and family again, who we hadn’t seen for a year, but a decision loomed over us: would we really move to Italy or settle back in the UK? We’d been trying to make up our minds during the trip, but we couldn’t decide what would be best for us. When we were in London, we wanted to escape that expensive and grey city, but now we are in Italy we’ve realized that the advantages of being there—the job opportunities; the vibrant multi-ethnicity; the courses on offer; the museums, parks, restaurants and theatres, and not least the presence of so many of our friends—far outweighed these disadvantages, so we’ve decided to ship everything back to the UK. After all, it’s been our home for so long now. Now that we’ve made this decision we can’t wait any longer to get back into normal life. So instead of spending five or six months in southern Italy, as we originally planned, we’re now looking to move back over the next couple of months. London, here we come! And for many of you, see you soon!!!

12:24:18 - Wednesday, 09.08.06

We started off in Phang Nga, a bay famous for its limestone crags and towering islands, and a perfect introduction to the coasts of southern Thailand. It’s a landscape that burns itself into your mind; once you see it you don’t forget it. The streaked limestone, dripping with stalagtites, was like melting candle wax. Towering islands spiked out of the water, apparently defying the laws of physics; some were actually larger at the top than at the bottom. One unique feature around there are the ‘hongs’, circular lagoons only accessible by a narrow strip of water when the tides are right. Once you’re inside one, civilization seems a million miles away. An inevitable part of the tour was a stop-off at James Bond Island, the setting for Scaramanga’s hang-out in ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’. We didn’t recognize it, though. We’ll have to rent out the film when we get back.

From Phang Nga, Krabi was just a short hop away. We planned to stay there just one week. We actually tore ourselves away after three. Neil was recovering from a cough which stopped him from diving, and this place turned out to be perfect for taking it easy. Most of the time, we were based in Ao Nang, which has everything a self-respecting backpacker needs - decent restaurants, bars, minimarkets, and a decent beach - and an incredible number of Swedish tourists. It was unnerving to be greeted by Thai shopkeepers with a hearty “Hur star det till?” Evidently, Neil has a Nordic look. There is loads to do around Krabi. It’s a rock-climbing mecca, and inland there are waterfalls and jungle to explore. We settled for boat rides to beautiful beaches and islands, and lazy kayaking trips through mangrove forests and limestone canyons. Our favourite days were spent on Phra Nang Beach and feeding the fish in the turquoise waters off Ko Hong. Perfect!

After that, Ko Lanta came as a bit of a disappointment. Billed as an island of white-sand beaches, the sand is actually coarse and yellow. We weren’t tempted to do much there, and the manta rays (six-metre monsters) we had ome to dive with had all disappeared. We contented ourselves with snorkelling trips to Ko Rok and Ko Phi Phi. Phi Phi was especially beautiful, with excellent snorkelling, but there are signs that it could get ruined by unregulated development again, following the tsunami. The beach where the longtail boats tie up is disfigured by building rubble, and we heard talk of raw sewage pumped out into swimming areas… Paradise lost?

At this point, we decided to tear ourselves away. Uppermost in our minds was that the temperatures were rising fast in Cambodia, and it’s no fun to clamber over temples in the baking heat. We flew in to Siem Reap, the base for the temples of Angkor, perfectly coinciding with a week’s worth of freak rain and cloud. The weather curse had hit us again. In the end, we did get some sunshine, but it was no fun getting up at five in the morning, trying to catch a sunrise over one temple or another, only to find that the sky was clouded over… When the sun did find a break through the clouds, though, the sights were unforgettable. Ornate towers, dramatic carvings, mirror-like moats, all set amidst luscious vegetation, left us breathless. To reach some of the temples, we were taken on a romantic tuk-tuk ride through rice paddies dotted with water buffaloes, ricketty wooden huts and some of the loveliest people in the world. The Cambodians must rate as one of the most smiley peoples anywhere. The food was another discovery. We got the chef in our hostel to write down her recipe for ‘amok’, fish curry in coconut milk and peanut sauce.

Neil had totally recovered from his cold by this time, so it was back to Thailand for some serious diving. We joined a liveaboard boat for three days of diving in the Similan Islands, one of the top ten dive sites in the world. We were blessed with a fantastic dive operator (Sea Dragon) who couldn’t look after us enough, and great company. The trip was rounded off with a rather merry BBQ party on the upper deck, in the course of which four of us decided to throw ourselves off into the water. Mari still has a bruise on her leg to prove it. Ouch! Still no whale sharks or manta rays - we’re beginning to think that these animals are some kind of hoax - but the diving was excellent anyway. There were loads of fish, turtles, some sharks, and we even saw a Minke whale just a few metres away, a very rare sighting.So ended our stay in Thailand! We really loved it there and would snap up an opportunity to go back any time, maybe for some more diving…Right now, we’re in Malaysia. We hope to bring you another update before we get back! Only a few more weeks to go…

Till next time!

08:36:09 - Monday, 20.03.06

After Chiang Mai we headed through central Thailand, stopping at the ruined cities of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya. It’s hard to say which one we preferred. Sukhothai had an incredible setting, its temples set in landscaped gardens and enclosed within moats; Ayutthaya, though, was more of an Indiana Jones experience, with crazily-leaning towers crumbling in amongst bodhi trees, and Buddha heads imprisoned within trunks. We then arrived back in Bangkok where we were dazzled by the kaleidoscopic Grand Palace and Wat Pho. Some people really hate this city, because of the noise, bustle and pollution, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves there, a holiday within a holiday. Neil celebrated his birthday there very decadently (he’s now 22) and forced Marilena to join in. After sight-seeing in the morning, it was time for a dip in the roof-top pool before a full-body massage in the afternoon. We had planned a six-course dinner on the river, but no taxi driver would take us to the pier (it was Friday night), so we satisfied ourselves by pigging out and drinking a bar dry locally.

We had to tear ourselves away from Bangkok eventually, though. We caught a train south and then a ferry to the remote rocky island of Ko Tao, one of the best diving sites in Thailand. Not too many photos from here, we’re afraid. We were either underwater surrounded by hundreds of fish or trying to cool down in a beach bar somewhere. Somehow, doing anything more energetic lost its appeal. After about a week spent in this fashion, it was time to renew our visas, so we headed for depressing Ranong, a fishing town close to the Burmese frontier, the closest to us at the time. We commissioned a local agent to coordinate his network for a visa run. With mobile phone in hand, Pon greased our way through Thai immigration and then dropped us off at the pier, entrusting us to one of his mobile phone-wielding lieutenants. This guy then handed us over to another operator, who ran us into Burma and back on his boat, waving our passports and money at border officials, whereas all we had to do was walk ten metres into Burma from the boat and back. It was a smooth two-hour operation…

So now we have an extra 30 days to enjoy southern Thailand. We’re now in Phang Nga, close to Krabi. More photos soon!

10:06:25 - Thursday, 19.01.06

We crossed the Pacific to reach New Zealand, where we met up with Mark, a Kiwi friend of ours. Mark drove us around Auckland, showed us the sights, and introduced us to life in Kiwi-land. We didn’t have a lot of time in NZ (or Oz, for that matter), so unfortunately we couldn’t see everything. After Auckland, in the North Island, we headed south to the glowworm-riddled caves of Waitomo, and Wellington, but our favourite place there was the geothermic wonderland of Rotorua. This town, a thriving Maori centre, is actually set inside a volcanic crater and the sulphuric rotten-egg stench hits you as soon as you arrive. As the coach rolled in, we passed what looked like a normal English-style park, until we spotted the clouds of steam rising up from fenced off volcanic pools. The real highlights, though, were the geysers in Te Puia and the psychedelic mineral-stained pools at Wai-O-Tapu. In the South Island, we only made it as far as the laid-back Abel Tasman National Park. There we went kayaking along the coast, and were taken out to swim with fur seals by mad John the Walrus, who chose to entertain us with songs about blues-loving prehistoric penguins and other topics. The seals were really curious, and came almost an arm’s reach away, swimming around and underneath us. They took a good look at us with their big round eyes. They probably couldn’t believe what poor swimmers we were.

In Australia we did the standard ‘Rock, Reef and Harbour’ tour. Our first stop was in the Red Centre - the Uluru-Kata Juta National Park. Our views of Uluru (Ayers Rock) weren’t quite what you usually see in the postcards. We went to see it catch fire at sunset, but were caught in a dramatic rain and sand storm instead. Water sluiced down the Rock in sheets, and the air turned orange from the sand blowing in waves across the desert. We then got treated to an incredible electrical display and a rainbow right on top of Uluru. The next morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed in the dark to see the park at sunrise and hike around Kata Juta (The Olgas), vast scoops of red rock, where we spotted our first (and only) kangaroo. A couple of hours by plane took us from dry desert to the sticky humidity of Cairns. We went there, of course, for the Great Barrier Reef, but, after diving in the Caribbean, we were disappointed. The reef was bleached out, and to reach the best sites we had to share a huge catamaran with a hundred or so others. After that we decided to stick on land and went to visit a crocodile farm-cum-zoo, where we patted koalas, watched sparring wallabies, and paid our respects to the huge numbers of crocodiles there. The star of the show was Sollie, a 4.5m giant of a reptile who was removed from the wild after making a bit of a nuisance of himself. One Xmas morning, some boys decided to take their dog for a swim in the local waterhole. Luckily for them, the dog was the first one in the water… The croc was named after the dog, his last victim. Our last few days in Oz were spent in the Sydney area, hiking in the Blue Mountains and messing about around the Harbour, and then it was time for our flight to South-East Asia.

We landed in Bangkok, jet-lagged and bleary-eyed, and sped off almost immediately to Luang Prabang in Laos. Before going there, we had this image of a poor Asian country, with no English spoken, and terrible hygiene. However, in Luang Prabang, at least, lots of locals speak some English, and we had no problems with the food - other than knowing when to stop, that is! When we’ve not been stuffing ourselves or getting pampered with Lao massage, we’ve been exploring temples and waterfalls, seeing traditional dance, and riding elephants. Laos was a great place to chill out after rushing around Oz and New Zealand, and the Lao are a lovely, genuinely friendly people. Our innkeeper told us that they think the PDR in the Lao PDR (People’s Democratic Republic) should really stand for Please Don’t Rush. It was really appropriate, then, that we took the slow boat up the Mekong into northern Thailand, arriving on Xmas Day. We’ve now been in Thailand for around ten days, but we’ll tell you more when we have the pictures up. For the moment, Sawat-dii!

09:15:08 - Wednesday, 04.01.06

Hi Everybody,

We hope you have a great time in this season of slobbing and pigging out. Not too many mince pies where we are, but we’ll be thinking of you anyway.

Neil & Marilena

11:18:16 - Tuesday, 20.12.05

We arrived in El Calafate after a 23-hour bus journey around the south of Argentina. Luckily, South American buses are the most comfortable on the planet. On overnight buses, especially, it’s like travelling Business Class on a long-haul flight, with wide seats that recline completely, footrests that come right up to make an acceptable bed, and waitress service. So, incredibly for us, we arrived in good shape.

El Calafate was a glacier wonderland. We were scratching our heads when we arrived, trying to remember descriptions of glaciers from school geography lessons, but nothing can really prepare you for these amazing rivers of ice. What astounded us the most was the unearthly beautiful blue of the compressed ice. The glaciers and the icebergs that came off them were some of the most incredible sights we’ve ever seen. Also, it was mesmerizing to watch and hear them in action when huge chunks of ice thunderously calved off into the glacial lakes. We started off with the prima donna of them all, Glacier Perito Moreno, and then took a boat trip on Lago Argentino to visit three more - Glaciers Spegazzini, Upsala, and Agassiz - amid mirror-like, iceberg filled waters.

After that came the serious hiking. In Argentina we did walks from El Chalten, in the northern end of the Los Glaciares park, where we enjoyed tremendous views of the spikey Torre massif, and Mount Fitz Roy, looking ominously like Dracula’s castle. We saw the Torre massif in beautiful weather, but when we got close to Mount Fitz Roy it started to snow, and after an hour of toiling up an incredibly steep mountainside, our view of lakes, glaciers and peaks was snowed out. In Chile we did the ‘W’ circuit in the Torres del Paine park, where the crown for us was the bi-colour Cuernos (Horns) from across emerald green lakes. The sights were incredible, but some stretches took us some ten hours of hiking over rough and often steep ground. Our knees felt the after-effects for days afterwards.

Continuing our love affair with glaciers we also leaped at the chance to go ice trekking and climbing on Glacier Grey in the Torres del Paine park. It was amazing to see the glacier up close and see it as an actual river with its flows, waves and falls. We jumped over deep crevasses, climbed ice walls, and finally took an inflatable boat ride through the icebergs back to our lodge.

After our stay in Patagonia, we really didn’t have enough time in the Chilian Lake District to do it justice, which was a shame, because it was stunningly beautiful with snow covering the peaks of the volcanoes and the lush, spring-time growth. We stopped briefly at Puerto Varas to take a boat ride on the bottle-green Lago Todos los Santos, next to Volcan Osorno, before heading up to Pucon. There we had just enough energy left to hike up Volcan Villarica (a six-hour slog), stare into the lava-spewing crater and the volcano-studded panorama, and slide down again on our backsides in just one-and-a-half hours. The sliding down was definitely the best bit: imagine a helter-skelter the size of a reasonable mountain, except that the tracks are just snow ruts and you have only an ice-axe for a brake, so spinning and wipe-outs were all part of the fun. After that, we only had enough time for a brief peek at the beautiful Parque Nacional Huerquehue. This is a place we definitely want to come back to.

We’re actually finishing this post in Sydney, towards the end of our Antipodean stint, but we’ve run out of space and time for that. More next time (which hopefully won’t take as long…).

11:11:32 - Tuesday, 06.12.05

Well, we had it so good, things had to go wrong some time. Right until we left Peru, everything went swimmingly, with lots of time to spare. Just after we crossed the Chilean border and added another country (NZ) to our itinerary, the weather started to play tricks on us and has played havoc on our schedule. It’s been a lot of running around, but we´ve had great fun all the same.We first visited the Atacama Desert in Chile, the driest place on Earth, where it doesn´t rain, ever, and the guidebooks guaranteed us sunshine. In our honour, it was overcast for days. From there we went to San Pedro de Atacama, a beautiful oasis village where we could´ve easily spent a couple of weeks. The surrounding desert is incredible, with otherworldly landscapes and colours, and there are no end of activities available, from stargazing to sandboarding.

Freak snow delayed us getting from San Pedro into Bolivia to see the vast salt lake of Salar de Uyuni, an ocean of white with a cactus island in the middle. When we finally got there, we were stunned. This part of Bolivia is really like another planet. As well as the amazing salt lake itself, we saw lagoons stained red, white and green by mineral deposits, seething geysers, strangely eroded rocks, and an ancient burial site set in a fossilized coral bed. To see all this, though, we had to put up with very basic lodging. Our bed on one night was a thin mattress set on top of a concrete block. Electricity was supplied, for a few hours, by a generator the size and power of a small lawnmower engine; and showers came courtesy of a draughty, bare concrete outhouse. We suppose this can be filed under ´life experience´…

We intended to travel into Argentina from San Pedro across the Andes, but the same freak snow blocked the pass on the day the bus was running. We heard that the passes further south were OK so we decided to head to Copiapo, a ten-hour journey away. When we got there, however, we found that buses across the border from there only ran during their summer… We had no option but to travel another 12 hours to Santiago and bring forward our flight to Buenos Aires.

Argentina has been great so far. Apart from being a feast for our tastebuds (the food, wine and coffee are all excellent here), the Iguazu falls make the Niagara Falls look silly by comparison, and are one of the highlights of our trip so far. The Talampaya and Moon Valley parks were also excellent, and the Peninsula Valdes area has been like a David Attenborough film set, with whales, elephant seals, dolphins and penguins to visit.

Our next stop is in the Patagonian Andes and we have a twenty-seven hour bus journey ahead of us. Better dash…

21:43:22 - Tuesday, 18.10.05

We’ve really enjoyed staying here. The people are among the friendliest we’ve found in Peru and it’s been a pleasure to be in a cosmopolitan, developed and relaxed city again. The highlight here has definitely been the Moorish-inspired Santa Catalina monastery, a maze of streets and courtyards enclosed within four high walls, almost a town in its own right. Arequipa also boasts fine Mestizo-Baroque architecture and one of the grandest plazas in South America.

However, our main reason to come to Arequipa is the magnificent canyons and valleys in the region. This area contains the two deepest canyons in the world, at Colca and Cotahuasi, each almost twice the size and depth of the Grand Canyon. Colca Canyon is unique in South America in that it is the only place where it’s possible to get really close to condors, the biggest vultures in the world. These magnificent beasts have a wing span of three metres and stand 1.3 metres tall. It was thrilling to see them glide past just metres from us, as they soared up on the thermals from the depths of the canyon. This was definitely one of the highlights of our world trip so far.

Dropping down to below 3300 metres, Cotahuasi Canyon is in fact the deepest in the world. Our trip there was one of our most memorable in Peru, passing through stunning altiplano landscapes. Herds of graceful vicunas, llamas and alpacas grazed among frozen streams with a backdrop of snow-capped mountains; cliffs and dunes of red, gold, green and grey flowed past us; and primeval lunar landscapes of shattered volcanic rock told stories of the region’s violent past. The canyon itself overwhelmed us with its huge cliffs dropping down to the green terraces below and the gorge snaking through its length. We spent a day there, climbing up to the Forest of Stones, a high formation of strangely eroded rocks, and wandering to a couple of waterfalls. From there we went to the Valley of Volcanoes, a bleak landscape of craters amid badlands of rock, cinders and cacti.

In all, we’ve really enjoyed our stay in Peru. We’ve met some warm and friendly people, seen wonderful sights and tasted some delicious food (though we never tried the guinea pig… ). It’s also been much easier and safer than we expected. We’d recommend it to anyone, especially Huaraz and Arequipa.

That’s all for now. We’ll get some photos up soon. See you in Chile!

- Neil and Marilena

02:23:48 - Sunday, 11.09.05

Cuzco is an elegant colonial city, amazingly well preserved and not at all as crime infested as we had heard. The city has in fact been cleaned up over the last two years, so the centre is fine, at least until 9 or 10 at night. However, we found the atmosphere tense and unfriendly, and the backstreets smelly (which unfortunately can be said of a lot of towns in Peru). Something else we didn’t expect were the hills. With our usual impeccable judgement, we chose a hotel almost at the top of Cuzco, which meant trudging up a very steep road several times a day. Not an easy task at the best of times, let alone at an altitude of 3300m. We just couldn’t believe the locals skipping up and down the road while we were huffing and puffing our way up the hill. At least this got us fit for Machu Picchu…

There’s lots to see in Cuzco. The guidebooks will tell you about heaps of churches, but after a couple they all blur into one, and the only one we found really worth visiting is the Cathedral in the Plaza de Armas. We also enjoyed two museums, the Museum of Pre-Colombian Art, with beautiful exhibits dating back to before Christ, and the museum of La Merced for its remarkable paintings of the Cusquena school arranged in galleries around a pretty courtyard.The city itself was built by the Spanish on top of Inca walls and foundations. The stonework is so good that it has survived, whereas the colonial buildings it supported have often crumbled away. It’s a kind of a last laugh, after the Conquistadors did so much to annihilate Inca culture and architecture. There are also impressive ruins just outside town. Sacsayhuaman is a fortress of zig-zagging walls built of gigantic stones, in places weighing up to 300 tonnes. It’s amazing how the Incas got these huge blocks to fit together exactly so that even now you cannot get a knife between them. They did not use mortar. Tipon is a scenic set of agricultural terraces irrigated by aqueducts that still work today.

Our next stop was the Sacred Valley, starting with the top tourist destination in Peru - Machu Picchu. We caught the train at the crack of dawn and froze almost all the way there; our first-class train had neither heating nor blankets. Something we have come to realize now is that Peruvians don’t do heating, even though night-time temperatures in some places regularly drop below zero. We visited Machu Picchu over two days and it cost us a fortune. It’s become very expensive and even though they halve prices for locals, the vast majority still cannot afford it and will never know what their biggest national treasure looks like.

The setting is magnificent. The ruined city sprawls over a hilltop surrounded by misty mountains spiking up through the jungle. This is something that no pictures of Machu Picchu can prepare you for (except ours, maybe…). The views are what really makes it special. The citadel is vast and, aside for a few rooftops, very well preserved. The Conquistadors never found it, or it would have been pulled down. However - heresy coming! - after the Mayan temples in Mexico, we found the individual buildings lacked detail. In fact, we wish we’d gone to Peru first and then Mexico.

Visiting Machu Picchu means lots of scrambling up and down mountain paths. A fun hike is the trek up Huayna Picchu, the huge mountain behind the citadel. It only takes an hour to get to the top, because you already start off at 2492m, but the climb is steep and demanding. Sometimes the steps disappear altogether and you have to scramble over boulders, and all that separates you from the void below is a rickety handrail. Neil, never good at heights at the best of times, has had nightmares ever since…

After Machu Picchu we visited the fortresses and temples at Ollantaytambo and Pisac, in the Sacred Valley. However, we particularly enjoyed staying in Urubamba, a relaxed little town a world away from the hectic, commercial pace elsewhere in the Sacred Valley. From there we visited the surreal salt pans at Maras, and the almost alien concentric terraces at Moray. We also got to know interesting locals and ex-pats there.

On our way to Lake Titicaca, the scenery got really interesting as we climbed up to the altiplano. The landscape changed from green hills to rugged, velvety mountains covered with golden straw, and high granite peaks and glaciers. Llamas and alpacas wandered free in large flocks. Lake Titicaca has been claimed to be the highest navigable lake in the world. At 3800m, the air is very thin and even though we came from the Sacred Valley, we found it tough going for the first couple of days. The water is a mesmerizing deep blue, bordered by green and golden rushes. From Puno we visited the fascinating Uros floating islands, constructed entirely from reeds by the local people, and the beautiful Aegean-like island of Taquile. From the top of Cerro Calvario, Copacabana, on the Bolivian side, the lake looks like an immense sea enclosed by hills and mountains, including the white-capped Cordillera Real range. From there we also hiked along the gorgeous Isla del Sol.

We’re off to Arequipa this afternoon, which will be our last destination in Peru. Until the next time, goodbye!

18:51:01 - Monday, 29.08.05