So our journey up to La Paz wasn’t the night bus from Uyuni as planned but a local, 3.5hours, service from Oruro. Our unscheduled stopover didn’t offer anything to warrant spending time in the town. Oruro is a functional, mining town and the gateway to the altiplano of Southwest Bolivia, where we had just come […]

We are going to the Bolivian desert which is at high altitude being between 4,800m and 3,400m (14,600ft – 11,400ft). This involves clearing Immigration and Customs in San Pedro in Chile and then driving 40km into the high desert to the Bolivian border. There is a queue to clear Chile of about 50 people as […]

We arrived in the desert town of San Pedro de Atacama (altitude 2,436m) after another early start and unpleasant airport experience. Here we are back in wasteland again! This time we are in luxury, staying at a relatively new hotel called Alto Atacama, 3km north of San Pedro in Pukara de Quitor which is home […]

Our next destination is the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile. In order to get there from Arequipa we have to fly north to Lima, then south to Santiago, then north again to a tin-pot airport called Calama, or spend 26+ hours on a bus. Going to Santiago is actually a bonus for us, since it […]

A 9-hour overnight bus stretched out ahead of us requiring some steel and determination to ensure that we were not going to arrive in a completely wrecked state. So armed with some food, warm clothing and books we settled down into our ‘beds’. The bus only travels overnight because Arequipa bus terminal is regarded as […]

Departed Lima in the rush hour, our conclusions are: Debbie indifferent about Lima, Sven reaching a view that he quite likes the place. It’s yet another very heavy, overcast day. We wonder if Lima ever sees the sunshine! We’re travelling south and the drive down was a complete surprise. Beyond the beaches which are popular […]

We arrive at Lima Airport, Peru. The airport is in the north of the city and we have a 40 minute taxi ride south to the area called Miraflores where we are staying. Our first impression is how Americanised the city is. This is a place that McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks and other US chains […]