The end.

My very last blog post. Permit me to get a little cheesy here as with a lump in my throat I try and sum up our amazing adventure. Here goes.

Seven months, eleven countries. The highest mountains, the most beautiful seas, sparkling lakes, myriad flowers. Humming birds, southern right wales, mountain gorillas, elephants and lions. Music. Street parties, African singing that made our hair stand on end and tears fill our eyes, South American rhythms forcing our feet into action. Remote villages, camera shy children, old men with heavy loads and kind smiles, con artists, crowded buses.

We've travelled thousands upon thousands of miles, eaten hundreds of delectable meals and met people who have shown us immeasurable kindness. We have shared memories that will last forever and a sense of perspective on our own lives that we will endeavour to employ to good ends.

We were happy - every day - even when floods stopped our progress and when we were stranded in places we never meant to go. We were free - to go where we wanted, when we wanted and to change our plans at the last minute. Most of all we were lucky. Lucky that we were able to do this trip, lucky that we could do it together, lucky that we returned home safely and lucky that we have what we have - so much more than so many people we met along the way.

It's not a Panama

1. The balcony of our enormous room in Cuenca 2. Hats, hats, hats 3. View from our balcony 4. Local market 5. A very damp Mike at Parc Nacional Cajas

Cuenca. A world heritage centre - stunning architecture, cobbled streets a-plenty, flower markets outside gorgeous churches, atmospheric squares, funky bars and restaurants and - most important of all - one of South America's finest cake and ice cream shops. Oh, and they sell hats. The straw ones that most certainly are not from Panama.

Apparently a popular pastime in these parts is to debate the relative beauty of Quito and Cuenca. Cuencans obviously have a hectic schedule of pastimes, because this debate would take all of half a second. The winner is Cuenca.

We checked into a fancy place overlooking Cuenca's principal church. We had a balcony each and floor to ceiling windows framing the church in a room so enormous you could rollerblade around it (oh, for a pair of rollerblades).

We spent a lovely day visiting hat museums and local markets, munching on a plate of roast hog for lunch, and eating enormous ice cream sundaes. We spent a second lovely day visiting three local villages and browsing their bustling Sunday markets, avoiding eating roast guinea pig for lunch, and topping it all off with an enormous ice-cream sundae.

On our very last day of seven months of travel it rained - relentless and varied Andean rain that explains the thick mat of hair covering a llama. Undeterred, we donned layer upon layer, hats, gloves and scarves and headed high into the mountains for a hike in the bleak landscape of Parc Nacional Cajas. A bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and we slipped and slithered along steep pathways past hundreds of tiny lakes in the rolling mist, occasionally startling a llama in the undergrowth. Despite the rain it was a stunningly beautiful walk and we returned with rosy cheeks to toast our sodden feet and cradle a milky hot chocolate in front of the fire in the friendly national park guard's office. We made it back to Cuenca just in time for a sizable ice-cream sundae.

And then there it was. The inescapable deadline we'd been trying hard not to acknowledge. The end of our trip.

The loop and the devil's nose

1. View on the Quilotoa Loop 2. Laguna Quilotoa 3. Saqsuili market 4. My new husband 5. The Devil's Nose train

From Cotopaxi we headed for Latacunga, gateway to the Quilotoa Loop - a string of highland villages clinging to impossibly steep cliffs where the infrequent buses screech past llamas at breakneck speed to a soundtrack of manic and relentless cumbia. Now when the Lonely Planet say somewhere is 'remote and untouched' but then feature it as one of the top places to visit I always smell trouble, but this time I was wrong - there were a few tourists kicking about but the people were still pleased to see them and the atmosphere was unblemished by their hiking boot-clad presence.

We checked into Mama Hilda's in the village of Chugchilan. Roaring stoves in every room, the elderly owners playing cards in the dining room through a cloud of smoke, home cooked food and humming birds dipping in and out of the flower-laden balconies. Paradise!

The next morning we set off for Laguna Quilotoa. We took a local boy to guide us through the myriad pathways down and back up the steep sides of the plunging valley. It was a really tough walk but at the end we were rewarded with the most incredible view of a perfect cone of azure blue within the volcano's collapsed crater. We packed our guide off on the return bus, bought a few souvenirs from the straggling market at the crater rim and headed back down again, constantly checking ourselves that we were following the right path. We trudged back through thunder and lashing rain along the slippery paths before finally reaching Mama Hilda's where we steamed ourselves in front of the stove sipping a very welcome hot chocolate after 7 hours of walking.

The next day we set off on horseback to visit the local cheese factory. Horses and cheese - what a perfect day. Our horses were uncharacteristically crazy for South American mounts and we galloped haphazardly up sandy roads with the promise of cheese at the end. The cheese wasn't bad so we bought a large hunk and set off again. Our guide managed to fall off his horse and it proceeded to gallop on without him so he ran on in front of us into the cloud forest until we finally found his horse waiting patiently at the lunch stop. We spent a couple of hours wandering through the forest before ambling back down the mountain for a relaxing afternoon swinging in the hammocks, nibbling cheese and watching the humming birds.

The next morning we were up and out at 2am for the only bus of the day around the loop to the famous Wednesday market at Saqsuili. It was worth the ridiculously early start and the freezing cold temperatures on the two hour bus ride. There were several different markets but the highlight for both of us was the animal market. It was pulsating with life - throngs of people in ponchos and felt hats bedecked with peacock feathers chatted and bargained over a cacophony of grunts and squeals. The locals didn't resent us wandering through the slippery mud in amongst the livestock and I spent a happy hour chatting to vendors about the price of llamas, piglets and sheep. It was all going well until the local horse trader spotted me. He called forth a crowd and announced that he was going to buy me to be his new wife, explaining that there was a slight problem as I was already married. Someone from the crowd shouted out 'everything is negotiable' and to much hilarity my new husband wrapped his arms around me. And where was Mike? Shrinking into the crowd whilst capturing the whole thing on camera like any good husband would.

From there we headed south again to Riobamba, hopping on point for the famous Devil's Nose train. Except the train wasn't actually running properly due to some severe landslides. In for a penny, in for a pound, we caught the bus down to a little village further south where we boarded a fake train to nowhere and went for an hour long trip with a carriage full of noisy Germans up and down the nose (a series of steep switchbacks), complete with photo stops and a Japanese trainspotter wearing the guard's hat and taking notes in his spotter's notepad. It was a bit surreal but the scenery was incredible and the sun shining.

From there, onwards to Cuenca, our final stop on the 'crouching rhino hidden llama grand tour'.

Balancing eggs at Easter

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1. Old town, Quito 2. The real equator 3.Basil and Milo, Cotopaxi 4. A glimpse of Cotopaxi

From the Galapagos we landed back with a bump in overcast Quito. Some people rave about Quito but Mike and I found it one of the only cities in South America unable to seduce us. Perhaps it was the interminable grey suburbs and perpetual clouds? Or the fact that every morning over breakfast in our hostel yet another backpacker would recount their scary mugging tale from the day before?

So we caught a few buses out of the city to the centre of the world to cheer us up. Now, just to confuse things, there are two equator lines. The old one, before GPS cleared things up, where you can straddle the fake equator in front of a grand stone monument and buy 'maybe' Alpaca jumpers. Or the real equator - in a tarted-up parking lot around the corner - where you can balance an egg on a nail head, watch water go down the plug hole in different directions and walk along a painted line with your eyes closed and your thumbs up. It was gimmicky but fun, we were duly cheered.

After a few more days in the big smoke, with our wallets shoved in our underwear and eyes in the back of our heads, making repeat trips to see our new best friends at the immigration office to sort out the visa issue, we headed onwards and ever upwards to the foothills of Volcano Cotopaxi for Easter weekend in a remote lodge. It was a lovely few days spent sitting by the fire, risking our marriage over fraught games of scrabble, hiking and playing with the dogs at the lodge, all the time waiting for the clouds to lift their skirts and reveal the jaw-droppingly beautiful conical volcano underneath.

On Easter Sunday we gasped our way up a steep slope of scree to 5000m and had a hot chocolate at Cotopaxi's base camp. I surprised Mike with a Kinder egg which I had frantically run around Quito trying to find a few days before - explaining to bemused old ladies in corner shops that 'los huevos de chocolate' were very important to our Easter celebrations. They keep it simple and while we tuck into our hot cross buns they parade around the streets dressed as Jesus with heavy crosses, in a gory exhibition of mass self-flagellation.

It was an Easter different to any other, tucked up in our cabin with a roaring log fire, far away from the raucous family gathering we usually enjoy, but there are worse places to be than up a volcano beating your husband at scrabble (I am going to get crucified - excuse the Easter-related pun - for that comment).

Galapafantabugos

"In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment."
Charles Darwin

Nowhere in the world is this brought home more clearly than in the Galapagos - a string of volcanic islands which literally rose up out of the sea as their tectonic plate mooched slowly over a hot spot in the ocean floor. Some of the islands are still growing - reshaping with each new eruption. Others are in the last throws of life, sinking slowly back into the Pacific. Every example of indigenous flora and fauna either floated or flew to the islands - tortoises carried on their backs from the mainland, penguins and seals getting lost somewhere and finding themselves in an equatorial paradise. On each and every island the species have evolved differently - the finches on Santa Cruz have different shaped beaks to the ones on Isabela, on some islands the giant tortoises have shells shaped for pushing through the undergrowth, on others they have an arched shell and longer necks to help them reach up to hanging vegetation.

The animals you see there today are there because they were flexible and inventive enough to adapt to the inhospitable environment. Perhaps the most impressive example is the land iguana that learned to swim and took to the waves in search of lunch when he couldn’t find anything tasty among the lava. His ancestors are still braving the pounding surf.

In this slightly surreal world where you almost expect your passport to be stamped by a pelican and for seals to be driving taxis, the wildlife is smack in your face before you’ve finished your airport transfer to the harbour. Pelicans and frigate birds circle overhead as you head towards the dock, blue-footed boobies whistle at you as you step off the bus and on the way to your dinghy you have to step over seals lounging on the gang planks.

We had booked ourselves on to a pretty swanky 14 berth catamaran called the Nemo II and it was worth every penny. The crew and guide were excellent and absolutely lovely. Our fellow passengers were also great – a fantastic Canadian family of four travelling the world for a year with two lovely kids of 10 and 12, a Russian-American family and their bubbly friend and a Viennese opera director. We were all leveled at about the age of twelve and a half in the face of the hopping, splashing and leaping wildlife about us.

The Galapagos is a tough proposition when you’re on a tight budget as one week there is the equivalent of 5-6 weeks travelling on the continent. But, this was yet another opportunity to put my friend Cheryl’s favourite saying into practice ‘Long after the price tag fades, the memories remain’ (I’m misquoting, but you get the picture). I can’t disagree - we will never forget our ten days on these mesmerising islands.

It’s almost spooky how completely unexcited the animals are by your flat-footed or splashing presence. Not for the Galapagos is the experience of stumbling across a flock of rare birds only to step on a twig and flutter them into oblivion before you’ve taken off your lens cap. When the Bishop of Panama washed up on the Galapagos after taking a wrong turn somewhere near the Columbian coast in the 1500’s he wrote, in a letter to the King of Spain, that the birds were ‘so silly that they didn’t know how to flee and many were caught by hand’. Legions of rich middle-aged Americans in high-waisted khaki walking pants and factor 480 suncream has done little to change the animals’ behaviour. Thank goodness.

I am lost for words with how to bring the beauty of the islands to life, so let me just sum it up in 20,000 words. I’m kidding, please keep reading.

Galapagos is all about the fauna, every minute of every day was spent watching seals, twitching in the bushes or tripping over heavily-camouflaged marine iguanas lounging on the lava. There were a few stars of the show.

White tipped reef sharks. Your guide has told you that they’re friendly, but that does nothing to quell the fear as that slithering, eerie shadow of a shark passes beneath you in the dark water. When you realise there are four of them and you’re surrounded, the pulse rises a bit more. But they largely ignored us and went about the important business of devouring fish.

Blue-footed boobies. Thankfully our fellow passengers were far too cool to be irritated by the fact that every time I saw a boobie I just had to shout “BOOBIES” at the top of my lungs in a silly voice. These birds are very cool. They have blue feet. They attract females by lifting their feet and whistling. They nest in open ground and lay their eggs on lava. Plus they are called boobies. What’s not to love about them?

Marine iguanas. They look like miniature black dinosaurs as they lounge about, draped over each other in an orgy of scaly skin on the roasting hot lava rocks. When they fancy a bit of tasty, crunchy algae they take a deep breath and dive deep before resurfacing to spend the rest of the afternoon snorting salt out of their noses.

Frigate birds. I’ve never really got hot under the collar over men with enormous goiters, but that’s what gets female hearts a-fluttering on planet frigate. “Oh check out that guy over there Mavis, he’s got the biggest and reddest goiter I’ve ever seen, I think I’ll go and nestle my head into it like a big squishy pillow”. Love takes many forms.

Pelicans. Yes, yes, I know you can see them all over the world but they seem to fly and swim closer on the Galapagos. Plus they actually can talk. (Oh, actually, that might have been part of a dream I had the other night- see below.)

Giant tortoises. They floated a long way to get here which is pretty impressive even before you take into account their enormous size, their fragrantly audible mating grunts and the fact they live to be 150 years old. It was rather odd looking at the teeny tiny little baby giant tortoises in the breeding farm and thinking “I’ll be pushing up the daisies when you’re still in the throws of middle age”. We met Lonesone George, the only surviving tortoise of his kind. Match.com is, as I type, scouring the earth for a Mrs Lonesome who may have been smuggled off the island way back when in someone’s handbag and sold to a petting zoo in Western-Super-Mare. Apparently however, even this may not work as George may have problems down there. A very competent Swiss lady with industrial strength rubber gloves and years of experience extracting sperm (now that’s a resume I’d like to read) couldn’t even fill a thimble with Lonesome’s seed. Poor sod.

The sea lions. I have fallen head-over-heels with sea lions. They might have slightly fishy breath, a tendency to poo in the bath and the burping habits of a student rugby player, but god they’re lovely. Our first few experiences of seals were in slightly murky water where a dark and streamlined shape scared the bubbles out of us as we snorkelled by. “Oh my God. It’s a shark!” I spluttered to our captain as the dark shape passed beneath me. “ Don’t worry Sarah. That’s just a seal. That’s a shark over there.”

But then came a day when Mike and I hung back at the edge of a small bay as the rest of the group moved on. The water cleared and three medium sized sea lions swam up to take a look at these strange neon-clad monster fish. We stared back, they stared back. They did back flips, we did back flips. We dived down deep, they dived down deep and tumbled in the water, eyeing us under water to see what would come next. Mike and I splashed and rolled in the water as the three happy seals darted around us. Eventually we swam around the corner and joined up with Charles, a fellow passenger, and the three of us were joined by three pups, even more playful than the last crew. They were playing ball with some chunks of cactus and span and darted around us at a ferocious speed.

I was so astounded by what happened that when I got back on the boat for lunch I couldn’t say a word for over an hour. That doesn’t happen very often.

That was the first of many amazing encounters with our slightly furry friends and I left the islands today feeling sad that I will no longer be able to frolic in the water with them. The last two nights I actually dreamed I was a seal and woke up very disappointed to find myself in bed with legs.

The Galapagos really is another world - supremely remote, untouched, captivating and magical. The animals are undoubtedly what draws the tourists, but the islands themselves are a spectacle. Barren lava landscapes, white sandy beaches, gently sloping volcanic cones, cacti. Each island has its own character and ecosystem distinctly different from its neighbour.

I really could wax lyrical about the Galapagos for many tortoise lifetimes but rather than hear it from me, start a piggy bank, save those pennies and one day make the trip of a lifetime to surf with seals, trip over iguanas and dance with boobies.

Check out some photos of the Galapagos here

The day the earth moved

Warning: quality of blog will be temporarily poor as I have been let loose on the keyboard.

There are several differences between Sarah and I. One of them relates to timing. Having had a fantastic stay in Vilcabamba, we had to catch a flight up to Quito. Someone had mentioned there had been landslides on the road to the airport, so Sarah wanted to take the 60km transfer the day before. I of course thought this was way too conservative and somehow managed to persuade Sarah that we should stay in Vilcabamba one more night, and get an early taxi to the airport. However as the rain poured and poured all night, I wondered if we’d made the right decision.

We shared a taxi with a lovely couple from the States and soon hit smallish landslides. Unperturbed we carried on in the morning darkness until we hit the big one. We were told by our taxi driver in no uncertain terms that we would not be going anywhere and missing our flight was inevitable. There were lots of “I told you so” faces being pulled, and I had to admit we’d made the wrong decision. But salvation……if we walked with our bags in the pitch darkness through a thick slurry of rocks and dirt, with the very real possibility that more big boulders could tumble onto us, then we could get another taxi on the other side. As missing our flight could have screwed up our Galapagos trip, we took the risk and waded through. After one false alarm, which sent the crowds screaming from a clatter of falling rocks, we set off. Of course this kind of adventure was like water off a ducks back to us.

We clambered over barbed wire fences listening for the ominous sound of falling rocks as others came towards us through the darkness, muttering ‘buenos dias’ as we passed. The American couple made an observation that seeing the locals coming the other way moving quietly, clad in blankets with bags and cases, it looked like some illegal crossing from Mexico to the States.

Our saviour arrived in the form of an Ecuadorian business man who was due to catch the same flight. Ironically he was working for a road construction company that had just started tarmacing this same stretch. He called for someone to pick us up on the other side, and we were taken at breakneck speed to the airport and just made the flight. Once again we have proved that the journey is our destination.

Arriving in Quito we booked into a hostel overlooking the old town, and instantly met a friendly couple of guys that we ended up chatting to for ages. For the first time in a while we acted like proper gringos, and pretty much stayed on the hostel terrace drinking, eating and talking the universal language of English - sacrificing a cultural stroll around the city (shock horror). We picked up our tickets for the Galapagos, and I tried unsuccessfully to postpone the trip for a day when I realised that Brazil were in town for a key World Cup qualifier against Ecuador. I seem to have managed to be in the right place at the wrong time on several occasions for such things, but a trip to the Galapagos is a pretty good alternative.

We got up nice and early on Saturday to catch the two hour bus ride to the famous Otavalo market. There were seven of us that went along and we rather cleverly got separated when we took two taxis to the bus station. Even more clever was that Sarah and I were in separate taxis, and I ended up spending the day with two lovely ladies instead. I also had all the money, umbrellas, cameras etc. I thought a cheap day was on the cards with Sarah stranded with no cash but I had underestimated my wife who had begged and borrowed enough money to acquire an array of souvenirs.

We all managed to stay together long enough to go into the new town in the evening, and were surprisingly treated to dinner by Horacio. Cheers mate (real name Nick by the way). We would have partied long into the night, but we had an early flight to the land of the boobies. The anticipation was quite frankly too much.

Centegenarians ahoy!

1. Hammock action at Izhcayluma 2. Vilcabamba butterfly 3. Corazon and me on my birthday

Vilcabamba. Even the name has a nice, round, clean and friendly feel to it. Our first glimpse of the town was no disappointment. It is nestled in the bosom of a circle of lush green hills where clear mountain streams rush through meadows of colourful flowers, butterflies of many shapes and sizes loop through the hedgerows, the cows munch the grass and centegenarians potter down the middle of the wide streets, passed more frequently by horses than cars. People come here to relax and watch the clouds race up the valley, and to swing in hammocks whilst listening to the patter of the various types of rain that falls each day.

We checked into Hosteria Izhcayluma, perched atop one of Vilcabamba´s hills with sweeping views of the valley. We have a cabin with a hammock on the terrace and views into a secluded valley. There is a pool, fed by a mountain stream which trickles down through the flower-filled gardens. There are birds living in the wall above our bed and we awake to the towns of hungry chicks chirping for their breakfast.

We have now been here for 6 days, and although it doesn´t come naturally even I have been able to sit still and while away some hours swinging in the hammocks, watching the rain, devouring books. It was my birthday on Sunday and we went horse riding in the morning, cantering lazily through the lush green fields on beautiful, spirited horses and then I had a massage and a facial in the afternoon and a fantastic dinner where Mike had organised a surprise cake. Yesterday we went for a whole day ride, sitting tight while the horses clambered up and down impossibly steep and slippery paths to the Podocarpus National Park. At the end of the day, having reached the bottom of the mountain safely, the horses needed to burn off some energy and we galloped home in a huge thunderstorm, as rain drops the size of golfballs soaked us - and the horses - to the skin in seconds.

They say that the water, fresh air and healthy diets of the Vilcabambans contribute to the extremely high numbers of healthy golden oldies cruising the streets here. Perhaps though I have gained a year in Vilcabamba, I have lost a few months in the process. Let´s hope so!

Chachas to Vilcabamba, roads less travelled

How many times can you change transport in one day? Well nine is a personal record for us. Leave Chachapoyas...taxi-moto-taxi-moto-taxi-moto-taxi-walk across the border-ranchero - arrive in Zumba! We decided to head north into Ecuador via a remote border crossing known as La Balsa. To get there we snaked (painfully slowly as we stopped for numerous road building projects) down from the cold cloud forests into the hot and sticky lowlands past countless rice fields, banana plantations and coffee plants. From there we climbed again as the roads became bumpier and the villages smaller and prettier. It was an amazingly beautiful journey and the people we met on the way were extremely friendly.

The main mode of transport was shared taxi and despite the fact that you are subject to any number of delays as you wait for each taxi to fill with people heading the same way as you, we made excellent time. A particular highlight was when our kindly taxi driver picked up a rabble of children walking along the road from one village to the next - some 10km away. Mike was squished in the back with no less than six wide-eyed, solemn children, including a pair of identical twins who blinked in unison every time I turned around to look at them. Eventually we said goodbye to Peru crossed the river into Ecuador and had some fun and games wrangling with the type of jumped up immigration officer you hope never to meet, who refused to give us more than a 30 day visa (we need 32 days) despite the fact that common practice in Ecuador is to give you 90. We stayed calm, pleaded with him but eventually had to give up and head on.

From there we piled into a ranchero, a flat bed trek with rows of seats bolted inside- kind of like a giant rollercoaster - which wobbled and slid along impossibly steep roads with plunging drops off the side. We finally arrived in Zumba, a completely miserable town where the only accommodation we could find was a hotel that looked suspiciously like it would be possible to rent rooms by the hour. Mike´s pillow had a muddy footprint on it and the owner was drinking neat alcohol out of a litre bottle in a paper bag. We piled our bags against the door and slept on top of the covers in our own sleeping sheets and tried not to think about the sordid lives of the mattresses.

The next day we endured a bumpy ride in a rusty old bomb of a bus, and many delays for landslide clearances, before we eventually made it to the stupendously beautiful Vilcabamba, Valley of Longevity where the fresh water burbling down off the mountains reputedly ensures you a few extra decades of healthy life. And....relax.

Humming with the birds in the Chachapoyan cloud forest

1. The sarcophagi at Karajia 2. Indiana Jones examining pre-Inca bones 3. Valle de Belen at sunset 4. Long-distance locals 5. Lunch time cat-nap at Lanche 6 & 7. Kuelap

From Trujillo we hopped on yet another night bus to navigate the winding roads inland to Chachapoyas, a relatively untouched town nestling amongst dramatic cloud forests bursting with humming birds and delicate orchids. Peppered with unexcavated ruins and crowned by Kuelap, a ruined city second only to Macchi Picchu in scale and grandeur, the region has mercifully not made it on to the gringo trail and Japanese tourists are as infrequently sighted as the Andean Spectacled Bear.

A contributing factor to the relative lack of tourists is that the only way to get there is by night bus. And what a night bus - we were forced to take seats in the penultimate row. Between us and the frequently-visited toilet was a fat, hairy man who, in between quarter-hourly trips to the loo for a (not very) circumspect cigarette would unbutton his shirt and snore with all the fervour of a trapped pig while his head bounced against the back of my seat. The air conditioning broke and the temperature climbed, we rolled from side to side on the switchback turns. The end of our teather was reached and surpassed by quite a margin. Still - we arrived, we slept, we recovered.

Hoping that the best thing for my cold was a bit of trekking we booked ourselves onto a 4 day expedition in to the hills, culminating in a trip to Kuelap. This being the rainy season and tourists being in even shorter supply than usual, we set off alone the next morning with Jose, our guide. It had rained all night the night before and we hadn´t gone far before we were stuck in a quagmyre and Mike was called on to push the car with Jose. Apparently someone was needed to weigh down the front wheels so I stayed put inside and shouted encouragement out of the window while Mike sank into the slippery mud. It was a tough job.

We made it through several sticky spots before we left the taxi and trekked down to Pueblo de Los Muertos (village of the dead), a burial site left by the Chachapoyan people, a civilisation previous to the Incas. It was pretty incredible. A series of sarcophagi are perched precariously on an easterly facing niche in the cliffs above a stunning valley. Like many of the ruins in this area the sarcophagi had been looted by local bounty hunters but some of the more inaccessible examples remained high in the cliff tops. We picked our way along a narrow path through fragments of human bones left behind by the looters.

From there we trekked back to the taxi and continued to a tiny village for lunch before heading to Karajia, another set of sarcophagi, this time constructed of bamboo and mud with human faces and brightly coloured decorations and human skulls perched above them. As we climbed the steep path back to the taxi we passed through fields of myriad varieties of potatoes being harvested by cooperatives of local people.

Again we hopped in the taxi and climbed higher and higher on narrow muddy roads. The going got tougher and tougher until eventually the car got comprehensively lodged in a deep rut in the road. At this point, having felt strangely queasy all afternoon, I decided that the most constructive thing I could do was lose my lunch on the side of the road as two men, hacking at the deep furrows in the road, looked on in bemusement.

Jose decided that the best thing we could do was abandon the car at this point and continue on foot, knowing full well this would mean a hike down the slippery paths in the dark. Mike and I had our head torches at the ready and were up for the challenge so we set off, me on rather wobbly legs but feeling fine after my little episode. We trudged along the road as the sun set in the Valle de Belen, a bucolic, lush valley filled with gently grazing cattle and criss-crossed by a sparkling river meandering snake-like through the valley floor. Soon it was dark and we slithered carefully down a narrow track before finally arriving at a small cabin on the valley floor. Jose cooked up some hot soup and I had barely finished a few mouthfuls before my stomach turned once more and I was forced to admit that I did perhaps have some kind of tummy bug. I was up most of the night - fantastic preparation for the 7-8 hour hike the following day.

We awoke to the greenest grass I have ever seen, the lush hills stroked by tendrils of low cloud and cattle and horses grazing around the lodge. It was more than enough to erase the memory of my uncomfortable night and we set off full of hope that I was fully recovered. It was not to be. Any attempts to eat anything were met with a violent reaction from my stomach, and there was nothing for it but to keep going, so I thought of all those people, in wars or in famines who walk for miles and miles with no sustenance at all for days. I would just have to rely on the old fat reserves and keep on trudging.

In the mid morning we met exactly the people to give me the inspiration to carry on. An elderly couple on foot and accompanied by two mules with heavy loads came towards us. Like all of the people in the region they were full of smiles and friendly greetings and we asked where they had come from and where they were going. They had left at 4am and had been walking for 7 hours and had a further 4-5 hours to complete their journey that day. They had inadequate footwear, no wet weather gear but it was all water off a duck´s back to them. This was their life.

We climbed through the most incredibly diverse forests on muddy pathways cut into strange ridges by the footfall of countless mules. Jose had a real skill for spotting miniscule orchids glistening with dew drops in the hedgerows and we both learned to listen for the distinctive sound of an approaching humming bird. On route we stopped at an unexcevated ruin almost totally reclaimed by the jungle where round platforms nestled on the steep hills. Eventually in the late afternoon we reached our bed for the night in the peaceful village of Congon. We relaxed on the terrace and watched a group of local children playing in a pile of sawdust and sliding down an earth mound to the side of the house. As we unpacked our stuff in the bedroom a dog strolled through, followed by a chicken, and as we ate our dinner we could hear the squeals of the guinea pigs on the kitchen floor. Tomorrow´s dinner perhaps.

Mercifully my dinner stayed down and we both slept like babies and woke ready for the day ahead - an 8 hour climb followed by 2 hours down hill to the next village. The night before, knowing that we had a tough 10 hour hike to complete in only 12 hours of daylight and with no guarantee that I would be at full strength, we decided that we should rent a mule in case I got ill again so we set off at 6.30am with our four-legged friend in tow. In the morning I managed to walk for most of the time, at quite a pace, and with only a few brief breaks on the mule we reached our destination, the ruin of Lanche and our lunch! What a lunch! We sat at a wooden table overlooking a sweeping panorama of the surrounding hills. The lunch was a tortilla packed full of vegetables from the owner´s garden, washed down with fresh mint tea. While Mike snapped photos of the idyllic spot I snoozed on a bench with a white cat sprawled across my legs. Heaven!

The afternoon was a hard slog up and up into the clouds and I hopped aboard the mule, like a vomitous queen with three muddy foot soldiers, for the most terrifying ride of my life as we navigated steep rock faces and slippery rutted pathways with plunging drops to the side. As I clung desperately to it´s back, imagining my lifeless body sprawled on the rocks below, the mule didn´t miss a step - they are incredible animals.

At the very top, we said goodbye to the mule and his driver and snaked our way down to Choctamal, accompanied by a young shepherd girl and her dog. As she walked down the steep path at quite a pace she nonchalantly knitted a blanket without missing a step or a stitch.

At Choctamal we sat on the back porch of the hospedaje and watched the village going about its business. Mike even had the pleasure of watching our chicken dinner meet its fate! We tucked into some hearty chicken soup and played cards with Jose before climbing the stairs to bed. At 4am I awoke with a familiar feeling - the bug was back. I was up and down the external stairway to the bathroom for the rest of the night, stepping over a gaggle of sleeping dogs. At 6am, on the way back from the loo, the dogs awoke and decided to guard the property and would not let me pass, so I found myself in the street in my pajamas, feeling decidedly unwell, throwing small stones at the bedroom window to wake Mike to come and resue me. Just the ticket!

Dawn broke on our final day and as we waited (and waited and waited) for the taxi to come to take us to Kuelap we had plenty more opportunities to observe village life, including playing with the village dogs and helping to catch an escaped piglet. Eventually our ride to the ruins arrived, complete with a group of astoundingly unfriendly Peruvian daytrippers - so different from the local people - and we finally reached Kuelap.

Set in the middle of a steep ridge with stunning 360 degree views of the surrounding valleys and encased by a steep inpenetrable wall, Kuelap is quite a sight. The ruins are remarkably well preserved and Jose impressed us with his excellent knowledge of the many theories surrounding the lives of the Chachapoyan people and the function of the many circular buildings within Kuelap´s walls. Like the Incas, the Chachapoyan´s had no written language so almost all of the theories on Kuelap´s history are speculation by the few archaeologists who have studied the site. It was a very rare privelege to spend time in a site so impressive, but yet in such an early stage of excavation and still so deeply shrouded in mystery.

We returned to Chachapoyas, a little bit thinner, a hell of a lot muddier but full of fantastic memories of an enchanting world in the clouds.

Mud walls and sea cowboys

1. Caballito de tortora and pier at Huanchaco 2. Mike exploring Chan Chan

From Lima, still full of cold and with a cough that would land me a leading role in an anti-smoking advert, we boarded the night bus to Trujillo on the northern coast of Peru. We stayed in Huanchaco, a sleepy fishing village on the outskirts of the city, whose main claim to fame is the "caballitos de totora", small ´horse´ fishing boats made of reeds which the ´cowboy´ fisherman sit astride to paddle through the surf.

We spent an interesting afternoon exploring the ruins of Chan Chan, a once spectacular city of the Chimu empire constructed entirely of adobe bricks and decorated with maritime emblems. Sadly little remains due to the ravages of the coastal climate and El Nino, but it didn´t take much to imagine its former glory. Before we moved on we managed to consume a lip-smacking mountain of a fresh sea food at a little cafe on the waterfront which was a welcome break from the prevalent diet of llama and potatoes in the Andes.

Huanchaco was a pretty enough place, especially with the sun setting and the quaint little pier full of fisherman, but not a place to linger. The mountains beckoned once more.

Ceviche and Pisco Sours in Lima

1. The ceviche platters 2. Puddings 3. It´s a potato 4. The Museo de la Nacion

We hadn´t really planned to stop in Lima but by the time we boarded the plane from Cusco I was nursing the mother of all colds and we decided that rather than hopping on to the next long haul bus to head north we should stop and recuperate. After spending the first day mosying around the district of Miraflores, watching the locals walking their dogs along the cliff tops at sunset, high above the nasty looking beaches below, Mike decided that there was no point hanging around the city unless we lived it up in style. So, the next day, he dragged me - roll of toilet paper stashed stylishly in my handbag, snivvling and watery-eyed in the bright sun - to the best ceviche restaurant in the best district of Lima to hang out with a gaggle of botoxed and bleached ladies-what-lunch and a herd of chauffeur-driven suits in aviator sunglasses. We fitted right in as you can imagine.

The food was amazing. Lubricated by a couple of pisco sours (Lima´s answer to Day Nurse) we tucked in to huge platters of spicy tuna, squid, prawns and octupus in the sunshine, tucked in amongst the trying-to-be-beautiful people. We even sampled the delectable puddings and outstayed most of the other diners.

We passed the afternoon in a drunken haze perusing more ceramic representations of potatoes at the Museo de la Nacion. Even geographically-challenged Lima can be beautiful given the right tonic.

Cusco and Macchu Picc-queue

1. View over Cusco from our room at the Sweet Daybreak Hostal over Cusco 2. Yoga posing at the top of Putucusi 3. The ladders at Putucusi 4. Two plonkers in silly hats at Macchu Picchu

Cusco made me cry. We arrived in the rain after 12 hours on a nasty old bus from Bolivia, crammed ourselves into a taxi the size of a matchbox and then got driven around by a driver who didn´t know his arse from his elbow but refused to admit he was lost. We were then unceremoniously dumped on a street corner and told our hostel was ´up there´. Up meant up, and up, and up. There were no signs, it was dark, no-one was about to ask for directions and even when you´re fully acclimatised it´s no small matter lugging backpacks up steep steps at over 3500m. So I stopped and thought the best thing to do was have bit of a cry. But crying at altitude took me a bit by surprise. Rather than enjoying a little dribbly whimper, my sobs came out in huge, noisy, breathless, melodramatic gulps. Almost immediately the empty streets were filled with helpful people and rather than having a big dramatic cry in private I had an audience. How embarrassing. Mike shrank into the shadows and pretended he didn´t know me. Still, it worked, and soon we were tucked up in our little room with cracking views of the city.

I don´t know who had the foresight to enforce this, but Cusco has uniformely lovely terracotta tiled rooves, so as dawn broke over the city we were treated to a lovely sight. We tumbled down the steps, dodged a few million Japanese tour groups and found an unashamedly touristy place for breakfast serving up a very un-Peruvian asparagus and poached eggs with roasted tomatoes. A town over run with rich American tourists and european honeymooners does have some benefits. We only had a day in the city so we raced around a fantastic museum filled with amazing ceramic exhibits with exciting titles such as ´a mythical representation of a potato´. Then we ran our fingers over some fine Inca masonry before tucking into some alpaca stew.

The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn for a four hour train ride up to Aguas Calientes, hopping off point for Macchu Picchu. The train was hideously late, but the time passed quickly as we were squashed into tiny seats opposite a lovely, quirky French couple. We dumped our bags and set off for a walk up Putucusi, a hill facing the ruins. But this was no ´walk´, and this was no ´hill´. We started off up some pretty steep steps before rounding a corner to find about 100m of vertical wooden ladders attached to a sheer rock face. Gulp. Hand over foot we slowly climbed upwards, rounded another corner and found... another 100m of vertical ladders. I think this the only time on this trip that bionic Mike has looked genuinly knackered. It was a hard, hard climb. Still, what better motivation than knowing that you have a view to Macchu Picchu at the top? We finally made it and sat atop a rock, completely on our own, and admired one of the world´s greatest man-made wonders.

At 4am the next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed, queued for the bus to the ruins, queued for the gates to open at 6am, and queued again for a ticket to climb Wayna Picchu, the lump you see in the background of the classic postcard shot of the city. Another thigh-burning climb, another eye-popping view. And, unusually for us, the sun shone, and shone.

The ruins were every bit as awe-inspiring as I imagined and even though there were crowds, there was also peace and space. Although I have seen so many images of Macchu Picchu it was not without some surprises. The cloud forest surrounding the ruins amazed me the most - wild strawberries nestle in the hedgerows, huge butterflies with iridescent wings that make them appear to pulse with light skip across the rocks, llamas graze on the terraces, humming birds dip in and out of purple flowers and lizards dart away as you walk. The Incas seem to have had a real talent for finding the most dramatic and magical spots imagineable and saying. ´I´ll have that for my kingdom, thank you very much´.

We spent a very long day exploring every nook and cranny and reluctantly left to get the train back to Cusco. By this time after spending the day hearing and speaking (badly) both Japanese and Spanish my brain was mush, and the poor central American couple opposite us were treated to sentences like ´of donde wa kimasu son are you?´.

It was all a bit much for one day, so as we returned to Cusco I thought I´d have a little cry.

Bowler hats and llama tikka masala

1. Witches market, La Paz 2. Jelly munching bowler-hatted lady 3. Government square, La Paz 4. Inca ruins, Isla del Sol 5. Mike chilling in a hammock at La Cupula

Three things I didn´t imagine we´d be eating in Bolivia

- delicious melt-in-the-mouth sushi
- divine llama tikka masala
- crunchy guinea pig testicles in an alpaca-spittle jus

When we left Argentina Mike and I savoured our last meal, tucking into a big fat steak before we headed into the culinary wasteland of Bolivia - or so we thought. In fact, humongous steaks aside, I have to admit we found Argentinian food a little boring. From south to north the cuisine is the same. Steak, pasta, pizza, pasta, steak -none of it particularly well acquainted with pepper, salt or herbs, and in terms of vegetables, if it isn´t a potato, it´s about as welcome as a British Falklands War veteran.

La Paz on the other hand was a pleasant surprise. Spices, herbs, local variations. Hurray! We tucked in to everything in sight with gusto. Everything that is, except for the guinea pig testicles- I made that bit up.

We spent a few days in La Paz expanding back into our jeans and wandering the steep cobbled streets being bumped aside by wrinkled old ladies in bowler hats carrying enormous packs of... well we can´t say exactly as the mysterious contents are always snugly wrapped in a technicolour cloth. Suffice to say that each pack is roughly 185% bigger than the old lady herself. One afternoon we hung out in one of the main squares watching children feeding pigeons and old ladies eating jelly and counting the bullet holes in the parliament building.

Many people give the city a bad press, but we really can´t see why. It´s teeming with life and not of the tourist variety - the locals are fascinating, the buildings are deliciously decaying and the vistas knock your socks off. It´s also a city of oddities -where else in the world can you buy a mummified llama foetus for good luck or visit a museum dedicated to the coca leaf where you can chew some as you browse?

From La Paz we headed onwards and upwards to Lake Titicaca to stay at Copacabana. ´Enchanting´ says the Lonely Planet. Trawling the dusty streets, furnished with dour, unsmiling women and scabby dogs we couldn´t quite see what had ushered up that adjective. Then it became clear. We checked into the suite at La Cupula - panoramic views of the lake, a domed ceiling above the bed, a private rooftop glass sun lounge with a hammock and a restaurant serving up amazing food at Bolivian prices. Sitting at the next table, cosying up over dinner with the owner of the hotel, was the author of the Bolivian Lonely Planet. Copacabana could indeed be called enchanting if you view it from the luscious La Cupula.

From the harbour we hopped aboard the world´s slowest and most uncomfortable ferry to Isla del Sol - birthplace of the sun according to Inca legend. The sun chose well - it´s a sparkling gem of twinkling bays, terraced hills and meandering llamas. We sprinted along an Inca pathway, spectacularly carved along the backbone of the island, to meet the boat which had laboriously chugged its way down to meet us. A fabulous last day in Bolivia.

And so, on to Peru after the ups and downs (emotionally and geographically) of Bolivia. The thing we like best about the country was that we left with so many questions unanswered.

Why are the women´s hats too small for their heads?
What is the ´male itch´ which appears as an English translation on every menu?
Exactly how old are those women with more wrinkles than Grandma Simpson, and are those their children or grandchildren that they are lugging around?
And what is in those bundles?

Rain stops play

After the horse riding adventure we booked up with the same company for another adventure, a four day jeep trip into the high Andes, passing geysers, colourful lakes of flamingos and ending up in the world's largest salt plain. It sounded fantastic and we set off full of anticipation with Yzhar and Dor, two young Israelis, and Hugh, an older gent from Canada, a real character with an unusual and colourful past. We had heard horror stories about poor safety records, decrepit vehicles and bad drivers on these trips and had done plenty of research to ensure we were with a reputable company. All seemed well.

We climbed higher and higher along dirt roads, traversing passes of over 4700m, struggling through boggy river beds and bumping past herds of llama with their pom/pom tassled ears denoting ownership. As we moved on the skies started to darken and gather storm clouds and the terrain got boggier, on several occasions we had to get out of the jeep so that it could get through the mud. Eventually our luck ran out. The jeep got well and truly lodged into a wide river bed and no amount of pushing, digging around the tyres or wadding the mud with undergrowth would help. As the hail started to fall and the clouds drew in we sheltered in the car for safety to think of a plan. We had one hour left until darkness fell.

In the event there was nothing we could do as an almighty storm raged around us with the loudest thunder I have ever heard, and forks of lightening spearing the plains on all sides. Darkness fell. Our driver Abel set off for a nearby village as we sat in the car, layering on every available piece of clothing in our day packs to fend off the cold as the temperature plummeted. My thermometer read ten degrees in the car shortly after sunset and it could only get colder. Abel eventually returned, muddy and wet, saying that we could walk to a nearby village but as the storm was still raging, and he admitted than he had got lost on the way back to us, we took a group decision that the safest thing to do was to stay put, try and get some sleep and hope that the six bodies in the car would keep us warm.

The night passed slowly, even more so when Mike explicably decided to recount the plot of each of the six Rocky films, and we were up at dawn standing in ankle deep mud to move our packs off the roof of the car and lock them inside the car before we headed to the village. In the village there were only four inhabitants, two elderley women in the traditional garb of full skirts, shawls and bowler hats an old man and a small child. None seemed in any way pleased to see us, five muddy gringos needing food and shelter. We huddled in the makeshift hospital where four narrow hospital beds were piled with thick blankets.

Abel set off to try and extract the car from the river bed, frustratingly refusing to let us help him. The day passed and with still no sign of the rescue jeep we thought was coming, or of Abel, we all set off to hike back to the car to help. We found Abel in his underpants in the freezing cold water frantically digging around the car, but anyone could see it was a helpless task. At this point good humour turned to frustration as we learned that our rescue jeep had not set off until after two that afternoon which meant an inevitable extra night stranded in the mountains.

Directed by a very enthusiastic Hugh, we all helped push the car and managed to move it about a metre but any attemps at further progress were futile. We returned to the hospital to shelter for the night, eventually joined by the rescue jeep driven by Alejandro, the owner of the company. We kept our spirits up, joking about our predicament and playing cards and yahtzee to pass the time before sinking into our tiny beds in our muddy clothes, Mike and I squashed into one bed together, for a suprisingly deep sleep.

The next morning the pitter patter of rain and sleet on the tin roof told us that all was still not well. After the guys had managed to extract the jeep we waited until after lunch for the rain to abate and made the difficult decision that the safest thing we could do was to return to Tupiza once more and try again on a different route the next day. We eventuually arrived after a treacherous journey and checked into a cheap motel, where the promised hot water did not materialise and we also disovered that all of clothes had become soaking wet during their holiday on the roof off the jeep. Still, we whipped out those brave faces once more, had a nice dinner and prepared ourselves to start again the next day, our company having agreed to extend the trip and try again without extra costs. Hugh, who was planning to head south after the trip, decided to call it a day and we set off as a four, saying sad goodbyes to the man whose quirky sense of humour had provided many laughs on our endurance adventure.

The skies were still grey but the rain held off as we drove for six hours up through winding mountain passes and across the desolate but beautiful landscape of the high plains of the Andes, dotted with llamas and the occasional windswept settlement or mining town. The roads were littered with rock falls and in many areas the compacted gravel surface had been washed into the valleys below. We stopped for lunch in a brief show of sunshine while a group of men rebuilt a section of the road. We passed countless vehicles stranded due to breakdowns and an Argentine couple stuck in the mud.

Eventually we got within 60km of Uyuni, our destination, and were told that the final hurdle was to cross two rivers. The first we navigated without much difficulty. The second was a bigger challenge. We drove up stream to find the safest place to cross and went for it, water splashing up over the bonnet. Half way across, the jeep stalled and the water pounded against the upstream side of the car. Abel climbed along the side of the car and managed to open the bonnet and after drying off a few parts with toilet paper the car mercifully started again and we were off, all rejoicing that we were home free. I said to Alejandro casually "so that's all the rivers we have to cross then?" and he replied " there is one more but it has a concrete bottom so will be easy". I passed the message to the others in the back and we were all in good spirits as we bumped along the road.

With 30km to go we saw a long queue of cars on the road ahead and my stomach turned over. This spelled trouble. Sure enough, the 'easy' river crossing was a raging torrent of red mud being fed from the crackling storms we could see in the mountains to the east. We stood and watched as the temperature sank and the torrent refused to abate. Many locals were wading through the wide ditches at the side of the road, picking their way along the railway tracks parallel to the road and wading back through the ditches to reach the far section of the road to Uyuni. We all agreed to try this, Alejandro agreeing to arrange for a jeep to collect us on the other side. In the event, this was all arranged with a Bolivian sense of urgency and it was totally dark before he told us we could try it. After much deliberation we decided as a group that to attemp it would be madness. Instead, reluctant to spend another night in the jeep, we pitched Jose, our trusty tent, on the highway and the four of us squeezed in, shoulder to shoulder, for an amazingly snug night, sending ourselves off to sleep with a huge giggling fit about our predicament and the funny things that had happened along the way.

Dawn broke, the river had sunk to a safe level to cross and we headed, finally, to Uyuni, Dor joking that our four night, five day journey to travel 250km was akin to reaching the promised land. We killed an hour in Uyuni's steam train graveyard, the rusting metal eerie against the flat grey dawn skies, tucked into a breakfast in the town before finally, finally hitting the salt plains made all the more beautiful by the rains, with fluffy clouds reflected back in the water over the bright white plains.

We spent an amazing day exploring the dramatic landscapes of the plains in bright sunshine. All of us were exhausted from the previous days but it felt like progress and that was enough to keep everyone awake and enthusiastic.

Mike and I booked the night bus to La Paz, feeling secure that our adventure was finally over, but there was one more adventure to come. We turned up to find a hoard of angry people with black eyes, scrapes and bruises. The bus from La Paz had flipped over just outside Uyuni. Two travellers had videoed the driver drinking spirits on the twelve hour journey in which he took not one break. One girl had lost half an ear, a few others had broken bones. Mercifully no/one was killed. Eventually a replacement bus was found for us and we all boarded reluctantly, afraid of the journey but knowing that waiting another day or choosing another route would not change the odds of safely arriving in La Paz. And arrive we did, thirteen hours later in extreme discomfort on a crowded bus full of flies, six days into a journey of never/ending pitfalls, dirty and exhausted.

Travelling is all about adventure but this was not the kind of adventure that anyone wishes for. However, Mike and I cannot say that we regret any of it, nor will we ever forget it. We were incredibly lucky that our fellow travellers were such amazing people and there was never a cross word or any bad humour. Dor, though only 22, had the skills of a diplomat, a clever head on her shoulders and a relentlessly upbeat attitude. Yzhar was incredibly relaxed, sensible with his decision making and quick to find humour in every situation. Hugh, well, where do we start with Hugh? He was one of a kind, off the wall, and a brilliant team member and it wouldn't have been the same without him.

We didn't see flamingos, or colourful lakes or geysers but in many ways we wouldn't have had it any other way.

Ride 'em cowboy

Of Tupiza, our first stop in southern Bolivia, the Lonely Planet says

If there's every a place where you want to throw your leg over a horse, brandish spurs and say 'ride 'em cowboy' then this is it.

Well what could we do. With the bruises from our last cowboy escapade still fading we set off for a two day ride on Espiri (feisty Argentine stallion) Urrocan (speedy Bolivian pony) with our guide Jose. The ride was an extravaganza of red rock formations, cacti, blue skies and dust. The horses were more than willing to kick off for a gallop at every opportunity and we raced through deserted villages of adobe houses, where the only sign of life was a few sleepy donkeys or a small child peaking from a doorway as we galloped by.

With rivers swollen from recent rains we forded many rivers, up to our thighs in the swirling red water as the horses pushed against the strong currents. It was the stuff that cowgirl dreams are made of.

After six hours in the saddle we arrived at a sprawling village of mud huts, set the horses free in a small corral next to one of the houses and set down our packs in a basic room thick with flies and heavy with grime. There were six single beds to choose from in varying states of decay with dirty blankets and straw mattresses. We shared a bottle of water and watched the sun set while the mosquitos feasted on every available portion of tasty gringo flesh. Thankfully, despite the flies and the grime, we slept reasonably well.

The next morning we returned via a different route, following the red river through fields of pampas glowing in the morning sun. There were more rivers to cross and more villages to gallop through. Eventually we arrived at our lunch stop where two large groups of Bolivians were picknicking. Our guide, so careful until now, decided to kick his horse off into a gallop without warning us and we followed suit, unprepared but up for it. As we raced through the groups of Bolivians three cocker spaniels ran out barking under Espiri's feet and as he swerved to avoid them I was jerked out of the saddle and dragged for a few feet along the rocks with one foot in the stirrup. I opened my eyes to find a group of Bolivian revellers surrounding me and my very shame faced guide peering down. Thankfully my injuries were nothing serious, a cut on my hand and some scrapes and bruises down my back and arms. All there was to do was get back on the horse and gallop a bit more on the way home to overcome the fear before it took hold.

We returned to Tupiza without any more drama, the only event of note was Urrocan's shoe fallling off which we managed to fix with my trusty Leatherman Tool (thanks BAA!).

At the end of the day we returned, walking like John Wayne, for a welcome shower, and in my case a bit of first aid and some fun and games picking gravel out of my back. A real cowboy adventure.

Mike goes gaucho

From the very south of Argentina we flew up to Buenos Aires, dolled up and went to La Cabrera - perhaps the best steak restaurant in the whole world, and then hopped on an 18 hour night bus to Salta, in the north of Argentina - gaucho country.

The landscape couldn´t be more different from the south. Salta la linda - ´Salta the fair´ - is a pretty city nestled in the foothills of the Andes, surrounded by lush green valleys. After a few quick changes of plan we headed off to a ranch in the hills for some gaucho action. We chugged up in an aging pick-up and arrived at a crumbling ranch, untouched and unrenovated for years with armadillo skeletons on the coffee tables, an ancient record player in the hall with old tango records standing by and dusty old bathrooms with cracked tiles and dubious plumbing.

We didn´t have long to admire this amazing place because before we knew it we were matched up with some fine horses and were off, riding western-style through the long grass in the burning sun. After a short, sedate morning ride in quite a large group it was back to the ranch for a hearty asado (BBQ) where the steak was plentiful and the wine flowed freely. We played with the children and grandchildren of a local family, there were puppies and kittens to cuddle, and baby chicks pecking around our feet. By the end of lunch we were dancing with the kids on the patio and everyone was on a high. In the afternoon the day trippers returned to salta and we went out for another ride with a lovely dutch girl called Susannah. This time, with a smaller group we were able to go for a good long gallop in the lanes near the ranch and we returned to the ranch elated to share a maté with our host, the gaucho Milagro and his wife Alicia.

After a shower in the creaky old bathroom where I was joined by a bat (cue blood-curdling screams and a very frightened bat) we had a lovely dinner in the ranch and drank yet more of the local wine with Alicia and Milagro, muddling through a range of conversations in broken Spanish and English before retiring to our shuttered room for the deepest sleep imaginable.

The next day, Milagro ensured that Mike, Susannah and I had the fastest horses and we went off for another ride, this time climbing a steep hill before galloping along grassy tracks for a few kilometers with our hearts pounding in our chests. It was paradise, and the image of Mike galloping in front of me through the long green grass on his dappled grey horse will be one of my most treasured memories of this whole trip.