With 2,500 people trampling over its manicured lawns and shooing its herd of chilled-out llamas into the optimally photogenic pose, finding an unseen corner of Machu Picchu seems impossible. And it is:  almost.  But there is one corner you can slip away into, if you have the time and energy.  You won’t see an incredible [...]

“Bad news, guys.  The engine’s doing that thing again.” It’s 4:30 am in the morning and we’re at a service station in a place called Huacho, somewhere between Lima and Trujillo.  This is not news we want to hear.  The five of us plus dog that are heaped on top of each other in the [...]

The rainy season will finally come to an end in a few weeks, Cusco will once again be blessed with too-blue skies and clear mountain air, and all of a sudden every time I turn around there will be a raging Andean fiesta going on. Peruvians, like all latinos, love their festivals.  Most tend to [...]

I know, I know.  The Internet is saturated with Machu Picchu photos taken by hugely talented photographers, but I’m so excited to have finally made it to this spectacular corner of the world (after a year of living on its doorstep) and I just have to share. No llamas, and no shots of the ciudadela [...]

Last night I realised how far I’ve come. I arrived in Cusco almost 10 months ago, backpack on my back, sweaty and dusty, with just enough Spanish to chat up boys in bars and negotiate taxi fares. Every night was a party. I would walk home through the Plaza de Armas at 6 o’clock in [...]

Image: unojofuerte via flickr Sorry about the radio silence the last few days, everyone – Yamanyá Backpackers will be opening its doors in 12 days (!) so I’ve had my hands quite full (as an even cursory look at our still below par website will tell you).  Uni also started back this week.  What sound [...]

Inti Raymi, or the Festival of the Sun, is the peak of Cusco’s June festivities.  An Incan ritual that was declared pagan and outright forbidden by the Catholic church in 1572, to be revived almost 400 years later, it takes place every year on June 24, the winter solstice.  On this day Inti, the Sun [...]

June in Cusco: an entire month of fiestas. What a terrible place I live in! It all kicked off with Corpus Christi on Thursday – 16 icons of saints from the surrounding districts were paraded about the Plaza de Armas and deposited in the Cathedral. Next Thursday, after a week in the Cathedral soaking up lots of holiness, they’ll be marched back out and home.

An 8 km pilgrimage, to the snow-line at the foot of Mt Ausangate, at 4,700 metres above sea level.  A night passed there, at the sanctuary of Sinakara, fingers and toes frozen, and a strictly-enforced ban on alcohol consumption (ukukus – half-man, half-bear, with whips – think I’ll leave the vino at home, thanks).  And [...]