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A Journey Through Peru - Part 4 - Colca Canyon, in search of the Andean Condor

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After two days exploring Arequipa we leave early in the morning to drive through the Patapampa Pass, which reaches a height of 4,910 meters before dropping down onto the Peruvian Altiplano (high plain) with an elevation ranging from 3,700 - 4,000m above sea-level. This vast plain, that stretches into Bolivia, is home to Vicuña; a wild relative of the Alpaca and Llama. A family of Vicuña on the Altiplano against the backdrop of the El Misti stratovolcano Vicuña wool is the finest and softest animal fibre in the world at roughly 12-13 microns in diameter; finer than cashmere and merino wool. It is also extremely rare since Vicuña can only be sheared once every two to three years through a protected communal gathering process requiring a massive human chain to corral them. Consequently a sweater made from Vicuña wool will likely set you back about £5,000! The Imata Stone Forest We continue our five-hour journey by road before dropping further, into the Colca Valley, to our lodge near the ...
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A Journey Through Peru - Part 3 - Arequipa, the White City

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Arequipa is Peru’s second largest city after Lima, with a population of nearly 1.2 million people and a fascinating place to start to acclimatise to the high altitudes we would encounter over the 10 days or so, peaking at nearly 5,000m on the next leg of our journey. The city sits in the verdant Chili River valley in the Andes and is surrounded by three major volcanoes and high-altitude deserts. Chili River Valley Arequipa is also called “the White City” partly because of the white coloured sillar stone used for the buildings. Sillar is a lightweight and porous volcanic rock that can easily be cut into regular building blocks… Arequipa Basilica Cathedral, late afternoon …or worked into intricate carvings Iglesia de Yanahuara Within Arequipa the Santa Catalina Convent is a citadel within the city and is a warren of brightly coloured houses and streets, which at its peak, was home to 300 nuns. Despite the number of tourists it feels a very tranquil place and it is ideal to amble around s...
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A Journey Through Peru - Part 2b - The Amazon Rainforest - Macaw clay lick and oxbow lake

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Thunderstorms rage above us and wake us at 1am, which is not great since we need the sleep ahead of our 3am start to travel to the Macaw clay lick. We have to start early because the Macaws only visit the clay lick for a short time just after sunrise to eat the sodium-rich clay, gathering in huge numbers before flying off to feed elsewhere. I am also getting worried that the trip might be cancelled if the thunderstorms do not abate. We assemble nervously at the meeting point but when we tentatively ask the guides if the trip is still going ahead, they just shrug and say "Of course". Indeed the rain has stopped and, remarkably, the ground remains quite dry apart from a few small tell-tale puddles. What to us seemed like a storm of biblical proportions has just been absorbed by the dry and thirsty rainforest floor. The journey along the river is in pitch darkness apart from, what seems to me to be a too sparing use of a searchlight at the bow of the boat. Occasionally the boat ...
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A Journey Through Peru - Part 2a - The Amazon Rainforest - Night walk, day hike and canopy tower

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Just under two hours after leaving Lima our flight lands in Puerto Maldonado. A further hour by bus and 45 minutes by boat and we arrive at the Amazonas Refugio Lodge in the jungle, just a few hundred yards trek from the Tambopata River. That evening our guide, Jair, takes us on a night walk where we encounter snakes, frogs, scorpions, leaf cutter ants and this Net-casting Spider, which catapults the web held between its front legs to capture its prey. A Net-casting Spider waiting for unsuspecting pray to walk along this leaf The following day, after being woken in the early hours by the impossibly loud calls of Howler Monkeys we hike through the forest in search of more wildlife. The humidity is so high that we are all sweating after just a few yards of walking. We can hear the wildlife everywhere but it seems impossible to spot without Jair. Who seems to be able to spot the smallest thing on the rainforest floor or high up in the canopy. A Peruvian Chicken Spider (Tarantula) emerging...
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A Journey Through Peru - Part 1 - Lima

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I have just returned from three weeks travelling in Peru and I’d like to share my journey through this amazing country with you in a few words and photos over a series of travelogue posts. Peru is such a large and diverse country with many natural wonders. It is purported to have 28 of the world’s 32 bioclimatic life zones packed within its borders and, whilst I’m sure we didn’t experience them all, it certainly felt like it. We travelled from the extremes of the hot and humid Amazon rain forest to the arid, high altitude of the Altiplano in the Andes and this does present some challenges for the body. There are also man-made wonders to be discovered here with the architectural fusion of the Incan empire and the Spanish colonialists. I hope this series gives you an entertaining insight into the country as we experienced it. Anyway, let me start at the beginning of our adventure…. Most international visitors, like us, fly into Lima and, consequently, tourists tend to view it as a gatewa...
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Outer Hebrides - Arrival

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Ullapool, just before boarding our ferry   “Oh, he’s adorable!” I look down the lead in my hand to the small, scruffy brown and white dog at the other end. Sherlock is slowly dripping water, collected in his undercarriage fur from the rain-soaked streets of Ullapool, onto the hotel reception floor. We’ve just been for Sherlock’s last walk of the day before we turn in ready for our early start tomorrow.   “I have a cockapoo just like him back home.” I return my gaze to the small, white-haired lady standing in front of me. From her accent she is from the US.   “Um, he’s actually a Cavachon.” I reply, knowing that I’m treading a well-worn verbal path. “He’s a cross between a Cavalier King Charles spaniel and a Bichon Frise.” I add.    Not for the first time I am struck by the irony that this handily shortened breed name has to be explained long-windedly every time someone meets Sherlock. Unbowed by my pedantry, Sherlock’s new admirer bends down to pe...
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Dubrovnik Old Town

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For some time I had hankered after travelling to Dubrovnik, the bustling and beautiful UNESCO world heritage city, as part of a wider Croatian ramble  This plan had been foiled last year when my lack of basic Balkans geography had put paid to a plan to visit to the Istrian peninsula before heading south to Dubrovnik. Without direct flights between Pula and Dubrovnik airports the travel logistics of combining the divided north and south of the long, spindly coastal part of Croatia, proved too challenging for a family holiday. A trip by land would mean the significant complication of negotiating the 12-mile wide Neum corridor. Neum gives an otherwise land-locked Bosnian and Herzegovina a corridor to the Adriatic Sea that, undoubtedly to the delight of many Bosnians, but much to my personal annoyance, separates Dubrovnik from the rest of Croatia. By sea, concerns about the reliability of the Adriatic ferries and their ability to disrupt my obsessive-compulsive derived travel plans was...
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