There was no question in our minds as to whether we would visit Lake Titicaca. Just the name alone made it an object of intrigue for me growing up. And the more we learned about the actual lake (the highest elevation fresh water lake in the world), that Titicaca actually means ‘grey puma’ and how…
Peru is a fabulous vacation destination because there is something for everyone. Here is our round up of tips if you are planning a trip to Peru. Money – The Peruvian currency is Soles, and we have found consistently across the country that no one has small change. The ATMs dole out large bills and…
When we were preparing for the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu, we turned to a trusted source: the Interweb. We poured over travel forums, blogs and Peru websites to get as much information as possible leading up to our trek. And to be honest, we still felt unprepared. Now, I am not saying that this…
Not long ago, when we had ‘stuff’, an apartment, a cat and a wild dream, the Inca Trail leading to Machu Picchu was high on our list of what we-must-do-in-this-lifetime. When our round the world trip became a reality, the second thing we booked (after our flight out of Canada) was our four day trek.…
We’ve had an exceptionally long stint here in Cusco. It’s been nice to relax and just unwind. We’ve spent our days anticipating the Inca Trail trek, meeting up with travel friends we’ve made earlier on in the trip, wandering and eating. Cusco is a great city to stay in for a while. There is a…
The way that our travels have unfolded has resulted in having time to kill in Cusco in advance of our Machu Picchu trek. This bounty of time has been nice to let us slow down once again and relax. We haven’t done an abundance of anything other than have some of the best meals we’ve…
By day #75 of our trip, the most out of the box thing that Ewan and I had done was our two week Spanish language stint in Puerto Vallarta. Otherwise we had been doing our own thing: booking or finding our accommodation and going with whatever was available and relatively cheap as far as transportation.…
When you think of an oasis, what do you picture? For us, we think of mountains of sand towering over a small puddle of a body of water, surrounded by palm trees. We didn’t see that mental image come to life when we went to the Al Ain oasis in the UAE. But then, we…
We weren’t able to fit the Galapagos Island into our Ecuador adventures based on our budget, so we were delighted to make it to the Ballestas Islands in Peru which are colloquially known as the poor man’s Galapagos. The Islas Ballestas are islands off the coast near Paracas and have neat formations, including little arches…
We hail from Western Canada…an area of the world that is fairly ‘young’. In fact, Canada itself is a pretty young pup. So, it is always mind-boggling to us to visit other places that have a long history and ancient documented civilizations. In our travels we’ve visited cities that have the new right next to…