I was on Craigslist Buenos Aires today looking for a job and I came across this little gem: “Argentinean are just at the bottom of the bottom out of all the scumbags you can find in this world… THIRD WORLD COUNTRY like it or not… There are not jobs like in the US other than [...]

  I almost died on the way home to Cusco from Lima. Maybe that’s a little dramatic.  But it felt pretty damn real at 4 am, when our driver took a little nap behind the wheel and we veered dramatically across the narrow Andean road before one of the wheels blew.  This was enough to [...]

In Atacames, in northern Ecuador, I swapped my Argentinian copilots for a Colombian band. I waved Ari, Ale, and Diego on their way Colombia-ward, and from that day on had the van full of tambores and the cheerful Carribbean rhythms of cumbia. We took the roof off, the sun shone down on us, and the [...]

I’m not holding a cup full of bloody spit, or the hand of a screaming, squirming or silently crying child.  I’m not comparing a large, frightening, painful dental anesthetic needle to a mosquito bite, or searching for the best way to explain the process of dental fillings in Spanish.  I’m not trekking up the road [...]

Update 27/07/2011 – I’ve been advised the project described in this post is currently on hold for family reasons.  I’ve heard vague reports of other permaculture projects in the Sacred Valley, and will try to track down firm details in the next few weeks.  In the meantime, feel free to get in touch for the [...]

Sunday, mid-afternoon. It seems like all of Trujillo has escaped from the sweat and grime of a summer’s day in the city to the rocky, charming but now way-too-crowded beach of Huanchaco. It’s the last day of my beach holiday, and I’m hoping for a miraculous three-shade deepening of my tan in the few hours [...]

Milagro, Trujillo, Peru. In what I hope was not a deliberate act of irony, the barrio’s name means miracle.  It’s hot and dusty and dry, and I’m reminded of my first trip outside of Lima, to discover to my surprise that much of Peru’s coastal region was featureless sandy desert. I’m with Leander, Helen and [...]

Attentive readers will remember that back in February I was in the Sacred Valley for a day helping out at some of the communities badly affected by the heavy rainfall and flooding of earlier this year. Recently, I returned to one of them, just outside of Ollantaytambo.  It was wonderful to see the newly constructed [...]

The most beautiful shots of “El Perro del Hortelano” are of the river, and the cameras repeatedly, inevitably return to it. From the first, haunting scene as laughing indigenous children launch themselves into the brown water, to Angie’s water nymph-like pose by the waterfall, life in the communities of the film resolves around the life-sustaining [...]

Ugh. I hate this room. If I don’t wake up to the sun on my face it takes me an age to get going. And it’s so cold out here in the casita, the little laundry shed that will soon be knocked down to make way for our new hostel bar. The sooner the better, [...]