I left Cusco and headed for Puno which is located on Lake Titicaca - one of the worlds highest lakes. Heading out on the lake is a must do in Puno, and I was curious to see what they refer to as the floating islands.

The Islas Flotantes have to be seen to be believed. They are made by the island people by digging up the roots of the reeds and tying them together block by block. When they have enough blocks they secure the island to the bottom of the lake using rope and then put a thick layer of reeds on the surface. Even the houses were made mostly of reeds!

The houses can be picked up and moved around the island so that the reeds can be replaced! The people on the islands were very welcoming and showed us around their simple homes. We left the floating islands to head further out on the lake to the island of Taquile!

The first thing you are greeted by on the island is small children looking for money. They are so sweet and very hard to say no to. We had lunch in the main square of the island and while we were there the local government was presenting all the mothers on the island with gifts, as mothers day had been the day before. Each mother was presented with a coloured basin and a bottle of fizzy drink- just shows you how different life is here.

Men on the islands wear different coloured hats according to their marital status and women wear red and black clothes if they are married and multicoloured clothing if they are single. Also if women are married they tie their plaits together and if they are single they leave them untied.

After Puno it was south to Bolivia, and to one of the highest cities in the world, La Paz. La Paz is a vibrant city with so many market stalls its hard to imagine that they all make a living! A great place to shop and get bargains though as Bolivia is one of the cheapest countries in South America. La Paz is home to the worlds most dangerous road and what do tour companies do but bring tourists mountain biking on it! From the beginning of the tour until the end, our tour guide Dale told us horror stories about people getting hurt and killed on the road and you can see why.

The road hugs a cliff and the drop is about 300 feet in some parts and to make it more dangerous you go down the road on the left side i.e beside the drop. To make things even more adventurous there road is gravel and stone for two thirds of the ride down! Anyway guys I survived! I had a few skids on the way down which resulted in near heart failure but I did it. I promised my mother that this would be the last dangerous thing I do before coming home to Ireland!

Next on the agenda was Uyuni a small town in the south which was our entry point to the massive Salt Flats. I had seen pictures of the Salt Flats and was curious to see a never ending landscape of Salt. Imagine a desert, completely white, flat, and covering 20,000sq kilometres! We took a day tour out in a jeep from Uyuni. Walking on the salt for the first time is strange because it looks so much like snow but has a completely different texture. The locals stack up piles of the salt which are then taken away to be processed for consumption.

We stopped in one village and were shown how they process the salt. Our guide told us that there was a sea where the salt flats were thousands of years ago, and that is why so much salt still remains. We stopped at the Salt Hotel which is a complete hotel built with salt bricks, everything inside was made with salt too! It was a sight to behold. We then headed up to Isla de los Pescadores which was a strange island in the middle of the desert covered in cacti; there was coral on the island again indicating that there was sea there at some stage. Our final stop was the nearby volcano where some pink flamingo birds were feeding.

I’m heading to Argentina next. It’s going to be a long journey to Buenos Aires! I’m hoping to find some warmer weather there as I’ve been freezing since I first arrived in South America!  I’ll let you know how it goes amigos!
Rois x

I arrived in Santiago, Chile, at 12:30 pm on the 25^th April after a 13hr flight, having left New Zealand at 16:00pm on the same day due to the crossing of the International Date Line. A great way to go back in time!

The first thing you notice when you hit Santiago is the smog that seems to sit over the city. Taking a photo of the city skyline is an impossible task. I spent a day strolling around the city which has a great atmosphere, lots of music on the streets and lots of stalls set up as it was the weekend. There are nice parks near the city. One of them Cerro Santa Lucia had lovely ruins in it and the Parque Metropolitano was near our hostel. From Santiago I headed to the port city of Valparaiso for the day, as it was a Sunday it was very quiet but a much more low key city than Santiago.

From Santiago I got a 30 hour bus journey to Arica which is on the border between Chile and Peru. A thirty hour bus journey sounds woeful but really it wasn’t that bad. I got a Cama or bed bus with really comfortable leather reclinable seats, food was brought to your seat and there was entertainment too.

We drove through the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world, for a lot of the journey. About 2 hours before Arica there is a prison in the middle of nowhere and beside it Coca Cola have printed a massive logo on the sand. It was really random. Arica is a lovely city with lots of atmosphere. The town was bustling during the day, there is a lovely beach there but it was eerily deserted when I went down there for a walk.

From Arica the next stop was Cusco in Peru which was a bit of a nightmare journey. I got a bus across the border to Tacna and from there found out that I had to wait 6 hours for the next bus. I took a 12 hour bus from there to Puno overnight and then another 7 hour bus to Cusco. The buses were not as comfy as the bus from Santiago had been so I was wrecked by the time I reached Cusco. As it had taken so long to get to Cusco I had to go straight for my orientation for the Inca Trail which was starting the next morning at 5.45. I was slightly worried that I hadn’t spent more time in Cusco as they say you should acclimatise for a few days but thankfully I was fine!

We took a bus to the beginning of the trail and started our first days hiking at 9am. They say the first day is easy but due to the high altitude you are breathless within minutes. The weather was good and we stopped for a three course meal prepared by the chef that was accompanying our group. We walked again for the afternoon. It was relatively challenging and came to our campsite before dark. Our porters had set up our tents and we had another delicious meal. It was pretty cold that night but I was so wrecked I snoozed. I was not looking forward to the second day of trekking as they say it is the challenging day. We also were climbing 1000m so I was worried about getting sick from climbing so much in one morning.

The morning was really tough, they call the uphill climb Dead Woman’s Pass and literally every couple of steps you had to stop and rest! It was such a relief to get to Warmiwanusa which is 4198m above sea level. We saw two Inca sites on the way down. Our guide was so informative telling us the history of the Incas and how the Spanish took down this great empire.

That night our guides decided to give us Quechan names (Quechan is one of the native languages of the Andes). They give me the name Moo-ni-pee-pin-to which means butterfly in Quechan! We also had Quechan tea which was delicious, full of fruits, black tea and cinnamon.  The next day was less painful thank God. We saw some amazing Inca sites with large terraces. Our guide showed us the irrigation system the Incan farmers used and the stream was still flowing the way they had built it. Our guides explained the possible functions of all the areas of the Inca sites and like Celtic sites the buildings were built with astronomical alignment in mind. The last day we were up at 4 in the morning. We headed to Intipunku (Sungate) to watch the sun rise over Machu Picchu, one of the new 7 Wonders of the World.

Machu Picchu is seriously breathtaking; it takes you a while to take it all in. Our guide explained how the city was considered the scientific centre of the Incan empire, and that only the noble and educated Incas knew of its existence. As a result the Spanish never found it and it remained lost to the world until 1911 when it was rediscovered by an American explorer. We explored the ruins for about 4 hours and learned so much from our guide Abraham. We left in the early afternoon just before the big crowds arrived. I was glad we got there early as it really was overrun by people at that stage. Apparently the whole site is slipping down the mountain at a rate of 1cm per month due to the amount of visitors. One only hopes they can put some sort of restriction on the crowds before the site is lost for future generations.

It was a fantastic trek, one I would highly recommend as it is very rewarding and the landscape in the Andes is one of the most beautiful I have ever experienced. Word of warning, if you are planning on taking the trip, book a porter to carry your rucksack unless you’re super strong and fit!

We took a few days to recover in Cusco. It’s a great town. I took a trip to the Inca museum learn more about the Incan culture. They have a great collection of artefacts and even have some mummies! It is believed that the Incas offered people as sacrifices to the Gods! Glad I wasn’t around then!

I’m off to Puno in southern Peru - I’ll let ye know how the adventure goes!!

Next on the trip was the glacial valleys of Milford Sound. The roads there are really hilly and windy but Milford Sound is beautiful apart from the Sandflies that are everywhere. There is an old Maori story that says they are there so that no one will stay in paradise too long!

We headed south to the city of Invercargill. We took a drive out to Bluff; New Zealand’s most southerly point. It’s actually freezing down this far south and when I wake up and there are hailstones on the ground it makes me think it’s a good thing to be heading north again! We take a drive through the Caitlins which is an area of outstanding beauty with beautiful beaches and mountains but again the weather wasn’t the best for enjoying it!

We arrived in Dunedin on the east coast just in time for the weekend. I was very excited to be in Dunedin as there is a Cadbury’s factory there and they do tours! We headed there early Saturday morning. It was pretty cool and we got to see a ton of chocolate drop down a silo and it smelt really good! Unfortunately we weren’t allowed cameras in so I can’t divulge any secrets!

After the chocolate experience we headed out to Taiaroa Head which is the only place the only mainland breeding colony of Royal Albatross birds. We got to see the baby chicks all nestled in various areas on the cliff and we saw one albatross come in to feed him chick. They are massive birds, the largest in the world, with a wing span of over 3 metres so it was amazing to see one  so close by. We also climbed the steepest street in the world; Baldwin Street.  I wouldn’t like to drive up this street on a frosty morning!

From Dunedin we headed up towards Christchurch and stopped at the Moeraki boulders on the way. They are such unusual rocks, perfectly spherical, with honeycomb type surfaces, such an unusual shape! Instead of heading straight for Christchurch we headed east to the Banks Peninsula to a little coastal town called Akaroa. The town has a really French influence with all the shops bearing French names. The drive from there to Christchurch is a really scenic  one. We drove up north to Kaikoura which is a great spot for whales, dolphins, seals and other wildlife.

I was really keen to go swimming with wild dolphins. We booked a trip for 5.30 in the morning, got our wetsuits on and headed out on the boat. We were on the boat for an hour, saw some dolphins swimming in the water and were then told that the sea was too rough for us to go in swimming with them. I was gutted! But c’est la vie!

I’m now in Christchurch where I’m going to spend my last two days in New Zealand. Then it’s off to South America!

Only 6 weeks left until I’m back in Ireland- scary!