Week 45 - USA - New York to Charleston, SC

On Monday, we got up to the alarm at 6.00 am, got ready hurriedly and rushed downstairs to the basement to have breakfast. After breakfast, we manoeuvred our new suitcases down five floors to check out of the hostel, then along the street, down to the Metro station and on to a train. We had to change to another train at 59^th Street through Queens and then on to the Air Train to JFK Airport.

It was a very short flight to Washington Dulles Airport with the excellent budget carrier Jetblue (half the price of the Delta shuttle). At the airport, we went to the Alamo depot to see what cars had a boot large enough for our two outsized roller cases. To our horror, the only car that was suitable was an enormous Impala LT! We told ourselves it might be a good idea as it was probably safer in the winter conditions that we were unused to driving in. Back at the terminal we caught a couple of Metro buses to downtown Washington. As we drove along, we could see snow piled up in the gutters and in the garden beds. It felt much cooler here and there were none of the New York skyscrapers and high-rise buildings. We were dropped off a couple of blocks away from our hotel and after checking into our lovely room we wandered into the cold to find an overdue lunch. Our room was such a contrast to our accommodation in New York. For less money we got a room three times the size, with its own bathroom, kitchen facilities, a safe, two TVs and a sitting room.

After lunch at a sandwich chain called Cosi we walked to the White House a few blocks away. We enjoyed the views of the White House and the surrounding monuments in the sunset and walked back to the hotel where we spent a happy evening with a takeaway dinner and a glass of wine in front of the TV with 42 channels to choose from!

After a lovely sleep in our outsize comfortable bed, we woke up on Tuesday morning and had breakfast in our room before heading out for the day. We caught a metro to Union Station where we talked to Alamo to see if they could do us a good deal on a rental car. To our disappointment, the lady behind the counter insisted that the online rate was a good rate and that we would not be able to do better than that. We had a quick look at the holiday market stalls in Union Station and then walked to the nearby National Mall.

The National Mall was a two mile long green stretch of parkland between the United States Capitol Hill and the Lincoln Memorial with the Washington monument in between. We started off at the Capitol building and then zigzagged between a couple of grand avenues flanked by trees, gardens and ponds (which were frozen and hard enough for us to stand on) lined with beautiful white neo-classical monuments and museums.

We paid a lightning visit to the West Building of the National Gallery of Art. With the help of a brochure from the Information Desk, we were able to concentrate on twelve of the museums highlights including the only da Vinci in the Western Hemisphere, some Dutch masters, a Turner and a Whistler.

We walked into Chinatown and ended up having lunch at Fuddruckers. After lunch we walked through some more holiday markets back to the National Mall. We walked to the obelisk-like Washington Monument and then across some green lawns and past a long rectangular pool to the Lincoln Memorial where a large statue of Lincoln was seated presiding over the mall.

It was cold and dark by this time so we headed back to the hotel.

After breakfast on Wednesday, we went down to the hotel's business centre to book our rental car and print our booking confirmation.

Then we caught a metro to Arlington National Cemetery where over 320,000 servicemen and their family members are buried. The green slopes overlooking the Potomac River and the Lincoln Memorial were marked with row upon row of marble and granite headstones. At Arlington National Cemetery, our first stop was the Kennedy gravesite where John F Kennedy was buried with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and two of their children who had died in infancy. At the head of the graves an eternal flame burned from the centre of flat circular granite stone. Nearby were the more modest graves of Robert F Kennedy and Charles E Kennedy. We walked to Arlington House which was once the home of Confederate General Robert E Lee. The house was undergoing renovations so all of the furniture was in storage, but there was an interesting display with information about Robert E Lee's family and the American Civil War. Then we walked to the marble Memorial Amphitheatre behind which the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier rested. In front of the tomb maintaining a constant vigil, was a very smartly dressed sentinel. The sentinel paced 21 steps down the mat in front of the tomb, paused for 21 seconds and then returned. We were lucky enough to be there at the changing of the guard which also involved a presentation of arms. We walked around the cemetery trying to find a way out close to the Pentagon building which we could clearly see across a freeway. We couldn't find another exit so we had to walk back around the perimeter wall adorned with plaques of recently deceased people.

We exited the cemetery and caught a metro into town for a late lunch. Then we walked a couple of blocks and popped into the Museum of Natural History where we saw a full size elephant in the rotunda, the Hope diamond and a lot of other extraordinary gems and meteors, displays of animal skeletons ranging from echidna, platypus, anteater, and sloth to whale before they kicked us out at 5.30 pm.

On Thursday, we woke up to the alarm at 7.00 am, had breakfast, finished packing and then checked out of the hotel. We made our way to the Dupont Circle metro station where we caught a train to Union Square. At Union Square we went to the Alamo rental desk where we finalised the paperwork for our car and made our way to the garage to collect our car. Luckily they had an Impala LT in stock for us so that we could fit our monster suitcases into the boot. We were really pleased because it turned out to be a really comfortable car and we had a lot of driving to do over the next seven weeks.

We drove south out of Washington DC. It was much easier than we thought it would be thanks to some very clear road signs and the help of our new Garmin GPS unit. We drove out of District of Columbia and stopped at a pretty riverfront town called Occoquan just before we left Virginia. We admired the bridge with geese in the river and snow on the banks and retreated from the cold back to the car. We drove south on the Interstate Highway 95 and stopped at Millie's diner in Richmond for a delicious lunch of grilled mahi mahi with avocado, rice and beans, and a hamburger with bubble and squeak type potato, washed down by a fizzy grapefruit adult soda and pineapple juice, and followed by pecan crusted chocolate pie.

Then we continued on the highway past large rivers, pine forest plantations, Civil War battlefields and endless advertising until sunset. Soon after dark we passed exit 56 for Fayetteville which was our goal for the day but instead of turning off, we continued down the highway as we had decided to get closer to Charleston. We turned off at Exit 22 at a town called Lumberton and parked at Holiday Inn. We walked around and compared prices and rooms at 5 motels and ended up at Super 8 for $60 including tax and breakfast. We had dinner at a nearby Asian restaurant and then afterwards we walked over to Walmart where we saw hordes of Xmas shoppers snapping up last minute bargains and queuing patiently in long lines.

We began Friday with breakfast in the motel lobby. We started off with cornflakes and made ourselves some waffles in their waffle machine. After breakfast, we checked out of the motel and hit the road. Despite all our driving yesterday, it still took us over three hours to get to Charleston.

We arrived at Charleston after 1.00 pm, parked our car in the historical centre and went for a walk around to check out our accommodation options. We looked at a couple of options before falling in love with a room at the Meeting Street Inn. It was a heritage building and our room had a four poster bed, beautiful old furniture, paintings, fireplace, wallpaper and a walk-in-robe. As well as breakfast they included wine and cheese in the afternoon. It was more than our budget so we decided to have lunch before making a final decision.

We went to Jestine's Kitchen which served up traditional Southern "Low Country" food in a casual atmosphere. Everybody was really friendly when they found out we were from Australia and offered suggestions about what we should order. We had crab cakes and cornbread to start, followed by pork chop with rice and collard greens, and fried flounder with red rice and okra gumbo. We washed this down with some refreshing sweetened tea, and a YooHoo Chocolate Milk. For dessert, we had a lemon tart and tried coca cola pie – a very sweet and moist, slightly chocolaty cake. We staggered out of the restaurant and looked at a couple more accommodation options before deciding to take the room at the Meeting Street Inn for three nights.

We checked in, parked the car and then went for a walk around town. We didn't get very far because Suzie spotted a sale sign at Banana Republic and we spent the next 40 minutes selecting and trying on clothes. It was cold and getting dark by the time we left the store, and as it was almost wine and cheese time, we made our way back to the hotel. We sat on the beautiful couches in the hotel lobby and had tiny sausages in BBQ sauce, cheese, a delicious spicy crab dip and crackers with Burgundy wine while chatting to some other guests.

Already we could see that we were going to love Charleston. The town felt very different from New York and Washington and the people were very charming and polite.

We slept in on Christmas Day and had a leisurely breakfast in the hotel lobby. We chatted with Dean and Cindy over coffee, cereal, fruit, yoghurt and muffins before heading out for the day.

We walked to the end of Market Street past some empty market stalls, and then along the promenade past the neo classical Customs House and into a waterfront park with a flower bed of silver beet, rhubarb and purple cabbage, gorgeous pineapple shaped fountain, jetties with seagulls, reed fields with white and grey herons. Further on, we wandered along the boardwalk where we saw a couple of dolphins in the water. We walked past elegant historic mansions and townhouses to Battery Park at the tip of the Charleston peninsula, where we enjoyed some beautiful views across the water out to Fort Sumter. It had a monument to the Confederate defenders of Charleston and several cannons next to piles of cannonballs. We turned up King Street and zigzagged backwards and forwards across the street to take a closer look at some of the magnificent buildings and mansions. Some of the houses were up to three storeys high and many had for sale signs on them. The old buildings were different to anything that we had seen before. The antebellum plantation homes and mansions had a strong neo-classical influence with Greek style columns, capitals and facades with wooden shutters and beautiful wrought iron balcony and stair rails, gates, and window screens. Many of the more notable examples had plaques attached explaining the history behind the building.

We stopped at one of the few shops open and had a light lunch after queuing for a while. After lunch we walked to the north part of the historic centre where we saw a model of the Hunley, the Confederate submarine outside the museum. As we walked further north the upmarket features of the southern half of the historic centre soon fell away. Many shops on the main King Street were empty and some buildings were quite dilapidated and boarded up.

We arrived back to the hotel just in time for wine, BBQ meatballs, spinach dip, cheese and crackers. We chatted to Cindy and Dean and then went out with them to the King Street Grill for dinner. We shared a plate of mussels in red (spicy tomato) sauce followed by a spicy chicken, shrimp and sausage jambalaya and pepperjack chicken pasta with a delicious salad. It was raining when we walked home. Luckily the forecast rain had not materialised until late in the evening and we had enjoyed clear blue skies for most of the day. All in all it was a beautiful day for Suzie's special day.

The sky was grey and it was raining when we woke up on Sunday. We chatted to Dean and Cindy over breakfast in the hotel lobby and then headed out to spend another lovely day wandering around Charleston's historic centre admiring the beautiful heritage buildings.

Our first stop were the market stalls under the Daughters of Confederacy Museum where we particularly admired the Gullah woven sweet grass baskets and some recycled pressed tin ceiling tiles. We walked up the other side of the Charleston peninsula where we saw an artificial lake before making our way to the College of Charleston complex. In the centre of the modern complex were the original Victorian buildings surrounded by old trees dripping with Spanish moss.

We walked down King Street, stopping to do a little post-Christmas sale shopping and then had lunch at Groucho's deli. When we came out it was snowing but the snow was melting as soon as it hit the pavement. We took photos of some art deco buildings on King Street and a synagogue on Hassett Street. At the Charleston Place Hotel we saw a lovely fountain topped with four horses and a falcon – the water was coming out of spikes on the horses' heads. Further down King Street, we window shopped at jewellery, antique and art shops including an Audubon shop with beautiful pictures and models of birds. Luckily for our wallets most of the shops were closed. We found a small laneway off King Street which took us past three churches and their graveyards. We walked past the Town Hall on Broad Street and turned up East Bay Street. Back on Market Street we were sucked in by a free sample of hot fresh praline (pecans, butter and sugar) and before we knew it we had spent $20 on three boxes when all we had wanted was two pralines to give to Cindy and Dean as a wedding present.

Back at the hotel, we caught up with Dean and Cindy over wine, crab dip and crackers. Then we headed out to Fleet Landing which was a seafood restaurant housed in an old US Navy building on the waterfront. The food was delicious – we started off by sharing a creamy "She-Crab" soup, followed by shrimp and grits (a surprisingly good creamy corn porridge) and black grouper with green beans and red rice.

We hurried back to the hotel in the snow and had one of our rich pralines in our room before bed. It was a lovely end to our last night in Charleston.

Week 44 - USA - New York

On Monday morning, we woke up when the lights were turned on to serve breakfast at 5.30 am. We landed at JFK Airport at 7.00 am and we managed to collect our bags and sail through customs with no problems. However they did take our photographs and fingerprints from both hands.

We caught a shuttle bus with an entertaining driver for the scenic drive through Queens, then Downtown and Midtown where other passengers were dropped off and then finally to our hostel at Central Park West in Uptown. We had a tiny room on the 5^th floor for USD 99 a night. We caught the metro to Canal Street and walked into Chinatown where we enjoyed a much anticipated Yum Cha washed down with copious amounts of Chinese tea. The streets in the area were overrun with young "brothers" all selling copy watches and hand bags, counting money surreptitiously and keeping an eye out for the cops. After lunch we walked up Broadway to find a T. J. Maxx store. When we tracked it down we managed to buy coats, socks, hats, scarves and gloves so that we were properly prepared for the New York weather. It was just as well we did because shortly after we left the store, we saw our first snowflakes falling out of the sky. We walked further up Broadway to Union Square and checked out the colourful Christmas markets there. The streets were such a mix of people and every second person seemed to be speaking a different language which was easily established as every second person was on their mobile phone. For dinner, we went to the Food Emporium – a deli-supermarket – where we tried a hot pastrami sandwich. It was absolutely delicious as it was crammed with a generous amount of warm pastrami, melted cheese, mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato. We decided to call it a night and hobbled to the subway where we caught a couple of trains back to the hostel. Outside the hostel, the cars were covered in a fine dusting of snow.

We had a sleep-in on Tuesday and then spent some time in the basement checking our emails before heading out for the day. There was no breakfast included in our room rate so our first stop was a little cafe called L'Exquisitus, where we had a large mug of coffee each and shared a delicious salmon and cream cheese bagel followed by a fruit salad with yoghurt. Despite the cold (22°F), it was a really beautiful morning. The sun was shining and the sky was blue, so we decided to walk downtown through Central Park. Apart from a few hardy dog walkers, Central Park was deserted. Almost all the trees had dropped their leaves except for a few conifers. We walked along the paths with the remnants of last night's snow fall crunching beneath our feet, meandering past the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis reservoir where we saw ducks and coots. Across the reservoir, we had a fantastic view of the city skyline. We saw some squirrels, sparrows, finches, jays and a large hawk.

We turned onto Broadway to Columbus Circle to see if Best Buy could help us with a 32GB memory card. They couldn't, but sent us on to B & H Photo & Video at 34^th street. This was an amazing Jewish run business. It was the largest photographic shop we had ever seen. They had an information stand near the front door where an old Jewish man sat reading the Torah with a young Afro-American girl standing next to him providing help. At the service counters they had bowls of sweets so that you could have a sweet while you were waiting. The shop was manned by an army of Orthodox Jews. Near the entrance of the store there was a lady handing out free water, coke and cups of pretzels. Above you a noisy conveyor belt sent green crates whizzing around the shop at high speed. We found out later that these were orders flying down to the collection area. After you ordered your goods from the sales people they printed a receipt and an order which you took downstairs to the bank of cashiers and paid. You then went to a separate counter to pick up your goods before leaving the store.

We caught the subway back to Canal Street and Chinatown and found the Shanghai Cafe on Mott Street where we had Xia Long Bao dumplings. These were amazing tiny pork and crab soup dumplings that we first tasted in Shanghai China. These were hand-made at the front of the store and steamed on cabbage leaves in a bamboo basket. To eat them you dip them in black vinegar and then bite a small hole in the top to suck out the hot soup before eating the rest.

Afterwards we walked through Chinatown and then along Fifth Avenue to see the shops, Christmas themed windows and Christmas lights. We stopped at a diner for dinner and then we continued our walk along Fifth Avenue past the limestone Empire State Building and the New York Public Library with a magnificent white staircase flanked by lions until we reached 42^nd Street. At this point we turned off and headed towards Times Square and the theatre district. Times Square was an assault upon our senses. It was full of gaudy billboards, flashing neon signs and large electronic advertising screens. After walking around the square where we were accosted by spruikers who were trying to sell tickets to a comedy show, we walked to the nearest subway station to catch the Metro back to the hostel. We got off one stop early and bought milk, bananas and cereal for breakfast. Back at the hostel, we fell into bed exhausted. It had been a long day.

After breakfast on Wednesday, we spent some time on the internet in the hostel's basement lounge, before walking to the Post Office to find out how much it was going to cost to post our stuff home and buy some packaging. Then we caught the subway to the last stop on Manhattan Island and found ourselves back in Chinatown. We started making our way towards the river, stopping at a food market for a lunch of roast duck and noodles on the way. Further south at East River, we had to make a little loop past Police Plaza (NYPD headquarters) and through the ornate archway of City Hall onto the Brooklyn Bridge bike path and walkway. We walked most of the way across the bridge where we had beautiful views of Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.

We walked back to Manhattan and then headed south through the financial district to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. We waited for the free ferry and stood out the front admiring the view of sunset on the Statue of Liberty. It was icy cold over the water and when we reached Staten Island we stayed in the terminal and got straight on another ferry going back.

We walked up Broadway past Wall Street and the big bronze bull, stopping at Borders bookshop for a browse in the warmth. We continued to walk up Broadway looking for somewhere for dinner and searching for some jeans for Suzie. We bought some Levis eventually at half the price we pay in Australia. After stopping in No Ho for dinner, we found a metro station on 6^th Avenue and headed back to the hostel.

On Thursday, we went back to the Post Office to post our parcel. It weighed over 12 lbs, so we were very happy to be rid of it! Then we caught the subway to the Rockefeller Centre to take in the views of New York City from the "Top of the Rock" observation deck. There were three open air observation decks and it was a sunny clear morning so we had unobstructed views of the city in all directions. We could even see the Goldman Sachs Building across the river in New Jersey!

Afterwards, we caught a subway back to Chinatown where we had a lovely lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant. While we were eating lunch there was a small altercation near the front of the restaurant. Apparently a small Asian male customer started throwing his soup at a couple of female customers. When the staff remonstrated with him, he took exception and started swearing, cursing and threw his remaining soup on the floor. He was thrown out of the restaurant, however when we left the restaurant, we saw him hanging around outside and peering in the windows. Just another New York psycho!

After lunch, we slowly made our way back uptown, stopping to try some egg tarts and to buy a bottle of wine to share with Bill (who Keith worked with in Sydney) and his wife Louisa. Back at the hostel, we had a quick shower and then caught the subway to Penn Street where we caught the Long Island Rail Road to Locust Valley to meet Bill. Bill collected us from the station and we dropped into Friends Academy (where he and Louisa have taught for over 22 years) to pick up his books before heading to their apartment for a pre-dinner drink and chat. We spent a couple of hours chatting, met their daughters Kira and Katrina, and then Bill drove us to the Bryant & Cooper steak house. At the front of the steak house there was a window through which we could see big sides of beef that had been hung up to age. Inside the majority of the clientele were males and it was very noisy. We had gorgonzola salad and clams casino (similar to oysters Kilpatrick) to start, followed by porterhouse (T-bone) steak for three, with creamed spinach, sautéed mushrooms, broccoli hollandaise and mashed potato. The steak was enormous and although it was delicious and cooked to perfection we couldn't finish it. After dinner, Bill and Louisa dropped us off at Manhasset station, where we caught a train back to Penn Station and then the subway back to the hostel. We had a really great time, it was so good to share a glass of red wine (excellent Nieto Senetiner Malbec 2009) and Louisa gave us a free pass to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

During breakfast on Friday, we booked our flight on the internet with Jet Blue to Washington DC. This meant we had an extra day in New York (originally we were planning to drive out of New York on Sunday morning to avoid the mind blowing traffic), and would save on the car rental by hiring it a few days later in Washington DC. The car rental quote was substantially cheaper than renting the car from New York. It appears that everything is more expensive in New York. A couple of girls we talked to in the hostel told us that it was cheaper to buy almost anything on the West Coast.

After breakfast, we walked to 105^th Street and Columbus to drop off our laundry. It was very busy with heaps of black ladies in there doing their washing. Then we got on the subway and headed for the Meat Packing District and Chelsea Market. It was a glorious day, clear sky and the warmest day we had had so far. On the subway, we saw some young black guys with their pants half way down their thighs. Suzie was itching to ask them how they managed to defy gravity as when they stood up their pants should have fallen down, but they didn't.

We walked from the 14^th Street subway to Chelsea Market which was a pretty upmarket place with beautiful food and other goods. We saw great bakeries, meat and seafood stalls with the freshly steamed bright red lobsters most memorable. After a delicious carpolocco ham sandwich from a deli and some dried cantaloupe dipped in chocolate, we walked through the Meat Packing district on Bleeker Street towards Greenwich Village and then turned south on Lafayette towards the financial downtown area. Along the way we walked past memorable buildings, gorgeous restaurants, boutiques, parks and gardens. We stopped and bought a piece of New York cheesecake at Pasticceria Rocco and ate it on a bench at the neighbouring Father Demo Park. We saw lots of plump, fluffy brown squirrels at City Hall Park where there was a beautiful fountain framed by decorative winter plants and the surrounding skyscrapers. We stopped at Dunkin' Donuts for a donut and then St Pauls chapel with George Washington's pew carefully preserved along with a lot of 9/11 memorabilia. Out the back was a cemetery and across the road the twin towers site which was alive with construction work. Next to this was a Century 21 department store where we found a couple of hard cases at a bargain price which we decided to buy even though we were unsure if they would fit in the rental car boot! Then we wheeled our new purchases down Broadway to Borders to get a road atlas of the USA for the upcoming road trip.

We caught the subway home and dropped off the two cases before heading back on the subway to Hell's Kitchen for dinner. We walked up and down the main drag with numerous restaurants on either side. Spoilt for choice we opted for a tiny Indian place where we had pappadums, pepper lamb fry, spicy okra, naan and rice. It was all freshly made with large amounts of spice including dried chillis and ginger. We ate every grain and stopped on the way home at a Donut Ice Cream shop where we had chocolate, Irish Coffee and raspberry ripple home-made ice cream. If you have money then New York is definitely one of the best places in the world to be.

On Saturday morning, we booked our accommodation in Washington DC and chatted to Hiroko from Japan. It turned out that Hiroko was also going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art so we caught the subway together to 81^st Street and walked across Central Park to the museum. It was so cold that the lakes in Central Park had begun to freeze over.

Nothing had really prepared us for the size of the museum. With well over three million items in seventeen departments, we didn't know where to start. At the Information Desk, we found that there were several guided tours available with a "Highlights of the Museum" tour starting in forty five minutes. While we were waiting for the tour to start we bought a book of the highlights of the museum and browsed through the Greek and Roman collections. There we saw some fine mosaics and some red and blue painted walls from Roman mansions. The walls were painted with pillars, fountains and urns.

Our tour guide, Sherry started the tour by taking us to the Greek Galleries where we admired the Kouros (athlete) sculpture. Then we visited the Roman Galleries to see a temporary exhibit – a magnificent 300AD mosaic floor excavated from a mansion in Lod, Israel. At the African Galleries, Sherry pointed out a wooden sculpture of a Dogon couple from Mali and a modern art piece made from aluminium wine bottle tops and copper wire (which we weren't too excited by). In the Pacific Islands collection, we saw a ceiling from a ceremonial hut constructed from shields (the shields were made to commemorate a successful head hunt!) and some bis poles (decorative poles carved from tree trunks and used to hang head hunting trophies). We saw a neo-classical sculpture of Perseus with the head of Medusa in the European Sculpture collection before heading past the Christmas Tree to the Medieval Art collection where we looked at a walnut Virgin and Child Reliquary from Auvergne and a limestone Virgin and Child sculpture from Bourgogne.

Then we went to the American Wing which was once a separate museum that had been cleverly joined on the main building by a glass roof structure. It had a neo-classical facade with Ionic columns and vertical windows that had once been part of a bank. We admired a beautiful porch/loggia designed by Charles Tiffany. It had beautiful columns, topped with capitals constructed from ceramic peonies, magnolias, lotuses and poppies with fine glass stems. There were beautiful glass tiles in a frieze above the columns and in the porch were beautiful lamps and windows painted with flowers.

Our final stop was the European paintings collection where Sherry pointed out "The Harvester" by Pieter Bruegel, a "Madonna and Child" by Duccio (the museum paid $43 million for this item ten years ago), a self portrait by Rembrandt and a portrait of Juan de Pareja by Velazquez.

By this time we were ready for lunch so we made our way to the cafeteria where had soup and sandwiches before heading back to the galleries.

The Islamic Art galleries were closed for renovation, but we were able to see a small part of the collection on a balcony before going back to the European paintings collection. We spent the next few hours browsing though paintings by Rembrandt, Velazquez, van Dyck, Titian, Tintoretto, Vermeer, Gossart, Fra Angelico, El Greco, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, Monet, Manet, Picasso, Cezanne, Renoir, Degas and others. While we were shopping for carpets in Kashmir, we had seen some copies of silk rugs that were held in the Met so we tried to find them without success. Instead we found ourselves looking at Chinese sculptures, paintings and porcelain in the Chinese and Asian galleries.

We made our way to the American Wing and visited a series of "period rooms" full of stunning furniture. On our way out of the museum, we walked through part of the Egyptian Art collection and the reconstructed Temple of Dendur which was even surrounded by a water-filled moat! We left the museum after 7.00 pm after having spent over eight hours there.

We caught a subway to Hell's Kitchen, where after wandering around a bit we settled on the Pam Real Thai Food restaurant for dinner. It was really delicious and the closest thing to real Thai food that we'd had in a while. After dinner we caught the subway back to the hostel and then crashed – exhausted after yet another long day.

After breakfast on Sunday, we caught the subway north to Harlem and walked a few blocks. It was pretty quiet as it was Sunday morning, but it definitely felt different to the rest of Manhattan. It was a bit more run down with 99¢ shops advertising ATMs supplying $10 notes. There were signs about a gun amnesty, prominent NYPD cameras and a sign of court ordered closure of a restaurant due to supply of minors with alcohol. There were street vendors selling incense sticks, perfume oils and raw African shay butter. The fast food chicken outlets were advertising genuine Southern food including collard greens, catfish, macaroni cheese etc. Some places had a distinct Jamaican twist with jerk chicken, beans and rice etc. There was a guy with a van sporting posters of the Black Panther party, hands off Zimbabwe, and an African nation flag but he was pretty friendly. He explained that the USA was really two nations – a white nation and a black nation. He also told me that Ho Chi Minh had lived in the area and listened to black speakers on that corner in 1916. It could well be true although we thought he lived in Paris before returning to Vietnam?

We got back on the subway and headed further north to Washington Heights and Fort Tryon Park on 190^th Street. Here, overlooking the Hudson River was a European style monastery cloister built with pieces imported from various European monasteries and churches. It was part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the iconic item here was the Unicorn Tapestries. We had seen copies in Stirling Castle in Scotland. The building was very interesting because it was composed of two internal cloisters and two external cloisters. Most of the capitals, gargoyles, stained glass, sculpture, reliquaries, mausoleums, wall hangings, and furniture were from different parts of Europe – Spain, France, England and Germany. The cloisters had a very authentic feel about them - even to the extent of the gardens which were planted in medieval monastery style with herbs and trees and there was even pomegranate in the external cloisters. We worked our way around methodically and left after a jam-packed couple of hours.

We caught the M4 bus from outside and it carried us down Broadway, across the northern side of Central Park and down 5^th Avenue past many museums including the New York Museum, the Solomon Guggenheim Museum, the Ukranian Museum, Neue Galerie and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We jumped off just after this on the southern point of Central Park with the Plaza Hotel and very upmarket stores lining the street. We walked through to the Rockefeller Plaza with its ice rink but the crowds were so large and we were starving for lunch so we took a couple of photos and fled down 5^th Avenue. Eventually we found a diner called Toasties where we had a couple of the best sandwiches we have ever had. We had spicy roast beef and a Cobb with bacon, chicken, lettuce and tomato.

Afterwards we wandered around town with its incredible Christmas shopping crowds and bought a GPS to use with our rental car as it worked out a lot cheaper to buy one. We walked to the Grand Central Terminal which was a terrific building. Outside were massive columns and golden eagles crouching on globes, inside was a cavernous marble hall with the tracks leading off it and the night sky painted on the roof with the various constellations outlined and highlighted. In the entry was a small high quality market and the light fittings hanging off the ceiling carried about 60 electric light bulbs each in an oval configuration. Considering all the dodgy stations we have seen around the world it was remarkably clean. There were still some weird people around including one androgynous individual with hair spiked to a single point a good 30 cms above his head.

We walked back to the Rockefeller Plaza but if anything the crowds were now larger and it was nearly impossible to get to the skating rink. When we did manage to get close it was empty as they were cleaning it so we gave up on the idea of ice-skating. We took a couple of beautiful photos of the surrounds including a huge conifer tree decorated with lights, angels and lights in an adjacent garden bed and a light show of snowflakes playing on the front of the Saks 5^th Avenue building where there was a queue to get in.

We walked across to Hell's Kitchen again and queued up at Totto Ramen on the corner of 52^nd Street and 9^th Avenue. We had to wait a while but it was worth it for the avocado and tuna, and tonkotsu miso ramen. It took us back to Japan immediately – the tiny cramped ramen shop and the perfect ramen soup. We caught the subway home, packed for Washington DC and crashed again after a great week in New York.

Week 43 - Peru - Arequipa to Lima

We slept in on Monday, had a leisurely breakfast and checked out of the La Casa de Melgar. We walked to Plaza de Armas where there was a huge parade going off with police, army, and cadets all represented with lots of uniforms, flags and speeches. The South Americans seem to be really good at this stuff. All the roads leading to the plaza were blocked off by fleets of official cars and motorbikes.

We walked across the Rio Chilli on Calle Bolognesi into a dodgier part of the city to see the Museo La Recoleta located in a convent. The street was lined with leather workshops all the way down to the bridge. They had the usual handbags, belts and wallets but also chaps, saddles, and whips as well. The Rio Chilli was running quite strongly but one local was up to his thighs fishing with a large cane rod. The old stone walls on the river side looked in various stages of collapse. We found the museum on the far side but it was just about to close for siesta from 12.00 pm to 3.00pm so we decided to come back later. We walked back towards the centre over Puente Grau with a grim statue of the general overseeing the traffic. We took a couple of turns and got completely lost and walked for an hour through busy market streets. Eventually we found our way back to the Mercedaria pedestrian strip and Capriccio where we had lunch. Then we wandered back to the Museo La Recoleta and wandered through several cloisters with exhibits on pre Colombian art, colonial religious art, the nun's cells, Amazon animals, Amazon tribes' artefacts, and an old and impressive library upstairs.

We walked back to the hostel and sat down in the bar to update our diary, upload our photos and read. We went out for dinner at around 7.00 pm to a parilla (BBQ). Back at the hostel, we caught a taxi to the Terrapuerto bus station and got on our overnight bus.

We woke up after sleeping reasonably well on Tuesday morning to see huge tawny brown desert dunes with a belt of green running through the middle. These were trees and fields of various crops including large areas of grape vines. We arrived at the dusty town of Nazca, where most of the passengers disembarked. We rolled on through the desert and then climbed up a mountain range. To our disappointment, we couldn't see any sign of the Nazca Lines. We arrived at Ica two hours later and shared a taxi with Amber from Boston to the little oasis town of Huacachina. We checked into our room at Hotel El Huacachinero and admired the pool and the indigenous art in the foyer. To our delight our bath towels had been folded into the shape of two swans. We walked around town to the lagoon where we could see that the sand dunes were encroaching on the edge of town. There was a picturesque walkway encircling three quarters of the lagoon. The oasis was circled by trees including some large palms with a variety of birds flying around. After an iced passionfruit juice, we walked back to the hotel where we spent the afternoon lazing by the pool, reading, swimming and chatting to other travellers. There were quite a few birds in the pool area including a couple of parrots and a macaw which appeared to be the hotel pets.

Our alarm went off at 5.45 am on Wednesday and we had breakfast quickly so that we could be ready in time to leave for our Ballestas Islands tour at 6.30 am.

We spent an hour or so driving out to the port at Paracas where we jumped on a boat to the islands. On the way to the islands we saw some dolphins and passed the El Candelabro – a 50 metre high candelabra-shape traced in the desert hillside overlooking the sea. The islands were spectacular – eroded into many caves and arches. The islands were home to thousands of seabirds and hundreds of sea-lions. We saw the Humboldt penguin, cormorants, boobies and pelicans nesting in the rocks and on the shores we saw large numbers of sea-lions with their young. On our boat of about 20 people the only person who got anointed with guano was Suzie! Thankfully we were forewarned so Suzie did have a scarf over her head. The islands were completely barren and covered in guano. Every five to seven years when the guano reaches a depth of 30 cms, it is removed to be used as fertiliser. The stench was overpowering so we won't be applying for that job! The sheer numbers of birds turned the red sand of some of the islands black. Huge numbers were constantly flying in and out in formations of long lines or V shapes. The gannets, terns and pelicans also dived spectacularly into the water like missiles. The birds were also beautiful flying along the surface of the water, gliding within centimetres of the surface. There were some fishermen allowed to harvest scallops, squid, octopus and mussels. We arrived back at Paracas and saw a large shark on the jetty. We had a good time on the drive back with all the people in the minibus so we decided to go for lunch together to the Bamboo Cafe. After lunch, we had to rush off on our winery tour.

We were ferried off in a battered mini taxi to Tacama winery on the other side of Ica. We passed cotton fields, grapes, pecan trees, avocadoes and mangoes. The winery was previously a monastery but had been a winery since 1889. The view over the grapevines from the bell tower was lovely. We tasted some wines and pisco but couldn't get too excited as the Peruvians preferred sweet wines and the pisco was a strong grape spirit which didn't really appeal to us.

Then we drove to the next place which was called El Catador. In contrast to the last place this was an "artisan" or boutique winery and it was located with a handful of other similar sized wineries with a field of grapes on one side and antiquated equipment on the other. They had some interesting tastings including a lemon flavoured pisco which we mixed with honey before tasting and "Peruvian Baileys", a mixture of pisco, milk, vanilla and honey.

We got dropped off back at Huacachina, and spent some time back at the hotel and organised our bus tickets to Lima. Today our towels were folded into a dog.

We slept in on Thursday morning and then had a leisurely breakfast in the hotel garden with the parrots and the macaw. We went for a walk around the lake which looked beautiful in the morning light, took photos of oasis, dunes, palms, turtle, tiger herons and a red insect eater, bought some water and then headed back to the hotel to read and laze around the pool area. It was a hot day and there was a lot of construction work going on around the hotel.

In the middle of the day we went out briefly for lunch, then we went back to the hotel pool until it was time to leave for our dune buggy trip. We got into the strange contraption with big wheels, big motor and roll cage, with six other people. We roared out of town and into the sand dunes. It was a bit like a ride at the Ekka with climbs up near vertical dune faces and then stomach turning drops down the other side. At first, we were convinced that the buggy would roll. After a while we began to relax and enjoy the harsh desert sand scenery. We stopped five times to sand board down large dune faces and it was actually very easy because we lay down on our stomachs, tucked our elbows in and went straight down. To slow down we could use our feet as brakes, but we were all trying to go the furthest. Poor Suzie split her cargo pants getting back in the buggy towards the end. We stopped at another small oasis hidden in the huge dunes and that was amazing – to see in the midst of all that sand another patch of green and palm trees that had obviously been there a long time. We watched the spectacular sunset with the light and shadows changing the dune colours and all the shades of gold and purple that came and went.

We got back to our hotel, where we found our towels were now an elephant.

On Friday morning, we woke to the screeching of the parrots in the huarango tree behind the pool. After a shower we had breakfast with the parrots and had a last walk around the Huacachina oasis to get a bottle of water. Then we were in a taxi to the Cruz del Sur terminal in Ica where we boarded the bus for Lima. It was hot and sticky when we got on but the bus had air con, music and a movie before lunch of chicken or beef with rice. First we headed back to the coast for our first stop at the port of Paracas, then we rolled along the coast on the flat Pan American highway. At first the scenery was desert sand with spectacular mountains on one side – dark rock half covered with drifting sand. There was intermittent irrigation with fields of tomatoes and corn. Later on we saw surf on the coastal side and the water looked a dirty brown. There were fields of avocado trees and construction of extra lanes for the highway. Small one room hut settlements sprang up, some with livestock in makeshift wooden pens. There were long wire barracks full of brown chickens in poor condition. The cold Humboldt current meeting the warm air caused a surreal fog to roll in over the dunes so that visibility was poor on the highway and the view became snippets through the mist. As we got closer to Lima the slums became more congregated with the tiny box dwellings joined together like beehives. After over five hours we arrived in smoggy Lima and caught a taxi to our hotel in Barranco. We were very careful as we had been warned that petty theft was particularly prevalent prior to Christmas!

Our hotel in Barranco was really modern and we had a lovely large room with silver Japanese stencils on the wall. We had a cup of tea in the lobby and then we went out. We stopped at a very large artisan store a couple of blocks away and then walked along the cliffs and flower gardens overlooking the sea. It was late afternoon and the sun was just beginning to set so the views were magnificent. We walked through the Larco Mar shopping centre on our way to Miraflores. We had a light dinner at Hot & Cool and then we walked back to our hotel in Barranco through the main shopping strip in Miraflores. After all the negative feedback from travellers our first afternoon in Lima was surprisingly pleasant.

After breakfast on Saturday, we headed out for the day. We had decided to spend the day in downtown Lima and we caught the "Metro" into town. The "Metro" turned out to be a very efficient banana bus with a dedicated lane and special stops so that it didn't get caught up in Lima's crazy traffic.

We arrived in Lima after about half an hour and made our way to Plaza San Martin with its lovely gardens, fountains and the usual equestrian statue of General Jose San Martin. From there it was a short walk through a pedestrian mall to the Plaza de Armas right in the middle of Lima's Historic Centre. Around the plaza were the Cathedral of Lima, Government Palace and Archbishop's Place.

After admiring the plaza and its surroundings, we made our way to the Iglesia de San Francisco. The church was a striking yellow and white colonial building. The baroque church had a red and white Moorish style ceiling and an impressive neoclassical altar. There was some sort of military awards ceremony/service going on and so we decided to visit the monastery next door.

The visit to the monastery was by a guided tour which took us past the cloisters to a fine museum of religious art, with scenes from the life of Saint Francis of Assisi and a series of portraits. The cloisters and the rooms were lined with hand painted glazed ceramic tiles from Seville . We climbed up a staircase with a breathtaking domed carved cedar Moorish ceiling to visit a fantastic seventeenth century library containing 20,000 books. While we were upstairs our guide took us to the choir where we saw beautifully carved saints above the choir stalls, a pipe organ in need of restoration and an elaborate rotating bookstand. Back downstairs again we visited the refectory, where there was a painting of The Last Supper – Peruvian style with potatoes, chillis and guinea pigs on the table. In the Chaplain's room was a series of paintings depicting the Passion of Christ that had been attributed to Peter Paul Rubens and in the Sacristy, there was a large painting of the Franciscan family tree.

The final part of our visit was the descent into the catacombs, a series of crypts underneath the church which served as a burial ground for the monks. We filed past pits of bones which had been arranged by size and type by archaeologists. The most macabre sight came last - a round well lined with perfectly laid out skulls and femurs.

We had a late lunch and then we paid a quick visit to the Casa de Benardo Higgins. There were some traditional masks and costumes on display but we were more interested in the beautiful colonial building with its lovely cornices, columns with roman capitals and stained glass doors. We walked over the Puente Trujillo with the dirty river flowing underneath. In the distance colourful slums climbed up the hills and the other side of the river was considerably run down. We spent a few minutes walking around the mall before retreating back to the Plaza Mayor. We walked to the Plaza Bolivar with the Congress building behind heavy security and vultures resting all around in trees and lamp posts.

Then we gradually made our way back to the Metro stop. We walked along a very busy street which seemed to be the bus stop for lots of old clapped out 1950's style local buses. There were lots of people coming and going and street vendors selling fried liver, fried pork, fried chicken gizzards, corn with cheese, popcorn, stuffed potatoes and churros.

We walked past the huge Mercado Comercio 5 Continents which extended off the street on a couple of levels. We turned onto Avenida Grau and found the Estacion Central where we caught the metro bus back to Barranco and had a short rest at the hotel before heading off to central Barranco for dinner.

We walked down Avenida Grau across a bridge and through a night market to the small Puente de Suspiros. At the church next door a wedding was taking place and we spotted the Fiesta de Sabores nearby. This was a collection of stalls manned mainly by women with home-made Peruvian foods. We tried a couple of dishes and the sweet maize beer followed by some dessert before walking back to the hotel.

We slept in on Sunday and after another fresh breakfast in the interior garden of the hotel we prepared for leaving for the USA. We walked down to central Barranco stopping at a salon on the way for a haircut for Keith and a pedicure for Suzie. We walked around the same route that we had taken last night. In the daytime we could see the views out to sea and appreciate the old colonial buildings. We walked back towards our hotel stopping at the Canta Rana (Singing Frog) restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet where we had some lovely fish ceviche (raw fish with lime, chilli and onion). We bought a pair of leather sandals – leather is generally good quality and cheap in Peru. We walked back to our hotel to drop them off and ate our granadillas and mangoes. The fruit and fruit juices have been outstanding in South America and we will miss that. Then we walked to Miraflores and started shopping for boots and jeans for the New York weather. The leather boots looked good and soon we had found what we needed. We caught a taxi back to Barranco and went to an Italian restaurant near our hotel. We had a quick dinner and then we raced back to the hotel for a shower and some last minute packing before the taxi picked us up at 8.45 pm. We drove through some dangerous looking parts of Lima on the way to the airport and the processing took ages so we were just in time to board our flight. On board, we quietly celebrated making it around South America without any problems.

Week 42 - Peru - Aguas Calientes to Arequipa

On Monday, the alarm went off at 4.30 am and we got up, packed up and had a rushed breakfast. After checking out of the hostel, we walked to the bus stop to try and catch the first bus at 5.30 am to Machu Picchu. We wanted to get there early because we wanted to climb Wayna Picchu (the big mountain that overlooks the ruins) and only 400 people per day were allowed. We arrived at the bus stop at 5.00 am and there was already a long queue of people waiting. Despite this we managed to get on one of the first buses and we arrived at Machu Picchu at 6.00 am. We walked up the long trail to the Hut of the Caretaker of the Funerary Rock which gave us an overview over the site. The cloud was billowing around and we managed to get a few atmospheric shots. The size of the site was impressive and the setting with huge mountain peaks all around and cloud rising out of the valleys was picturesque. The mountains fell precipitously down to the river winding far below. We walked through the middle of the site with temples, buildings and terraces all around us, to the start of the trail up Wayna Picchu at the Ceremonial Rock. We followed the trail as it went past a turn off to a smaller peak and then down before the really steep climb started up Wayna Picchu. It took us an hour to get to the top and we were sweating profusely. Near the top, huge flights of rock steps led straight up in a vertigo inducing climb. Then we had to crawl through a small cave tunnel to get to the summit. Unfortunately it was clouded over when we got there but we rested on the jumble of rocks at the summit before climbing down to the first terrace. It rained on and off and most people gave up and left. Just when we were ready to give up ourselves strong gusts of wind started blowing up from below and incredibly the clouds blew away and the whole site was revealed below giving us the classic postcard of Machu Picchu. We took a few photos and left, very happy that the climb and the wait had not been in vain.

It was now much wetter because of the rain and the descent of the steep steps was nerve wracking. Many of the steps were rounded or at the wrong angle and extremely small which made it harder. You also had to really concentrate and keep your eyes on the steps or you could lose your balance and there was precious little to hang onto. Once down to the zig zag path it was a lot easier and the harder sections had a thick wire hand rail. When we got back we had a short rest in a hut next to the Ceremonial Rock to get out of the rain.

When it stopped raining, we wandered through the ruins of the residential and industrial sector admiring the buildings and the views off the edge down the steep terracing or cliffs. The site was exceptionally well preserved because of its remote location and the fact that it had remained undisturbed for so long. There was a sophisticated channelling of water around the site with a small channel carved in the rock winding in and around and down the terraces and buildings. We saw the head of a condor carved into a rock in the floor of one building and two circular stones set into the floor of another. By the time we reached the end of this section and the start of the cascade of large terraces we were tired and hungry so we walked back to the entrance where we had lunch and bought more water before we returned to the site feeling restored.

We walked via the long trail to the Hut of the Caretaker of the Funerary Rock to take the path to the Inca drawbridge. All over the site were llamas grazing on the grass on the terraces. They were obviously the Machu Picchu lawnmowers. We walked along the flatter path to the drawbridge with spectacular views down the mountainside. There were hardly any people here and a little sun had begun to appear. The path ended around a corner where it descended to the drawbridge which was sealed off. The mountain rose above and fell below and the path hugged the side of the cliff. The Incas had built with stone a supporting wall for the path and then left a gap of about ten metres with some timber now bridging the gap. The way through was only wide enough for one person. On the other side overgrown stone steps continued but were soon lost making it difficult to see where the path continued. It was a miraculous construction made more impressive by the incredible natural setting. We walked back to the site and had a short rest atop a terrace before wandering through the side of the site we hadn't seen yet.

We walked through the Sacred Plaza, the Temple of the Three Windows, up to the Intihuatana (Hitching Post of the Sun) atop a small hill with a carved rock connected to the passing of the seasons. We descended a staircase to the flat grassy central plaza with a solitary large tree and wandered back to the circular tapering tower of the Temple of the Sun built atop a massive rock and the only circular structure on the site. It was sealed off but below it was the slightly sinister altar with carved steps hidden inside a natural cave. By this time we had been at the site for nine and a half hours and felt tired but satisfied that we had seen all we could. We walked out of the site with the warm afternoon sun perfect for some last photos.

We caught a bus back to Aguas Caliente and grabbed a quick snack before our train left. On the train we chatted with Larry and Dona, a Jewish couple from LA. Larry was extroverted and eccentric, and meeting them made for an entertaining journey back to Cusco. We shared our taxi back to Cusco from Poroy station and went to Jack's Cafe for a late dinner. We said goodbye to Larry and Dona and went back to the hotel for a much needed shower. It was great to go to bed in a warm comfortable room.

We spent Tuesday morning in our room reading, updating our diary and uploading our Machu Picchu photos.

After lunch, we walked to the Cruz del Sur office outside the historic centre to buy our bus tickets to Arequipa. Then we strolled back into the centre, past Pampa del Castillo (pork street) which was full of budget eateries selling "chicharron" – deep-fried pork ribs.

We paid a brief visit to the colonial church of Iglesia de Santo Domingo built on the remains of the Incan temple Qorikancha. The interior of the church was a combination of whitewash and stone and was quite restrained. However, there were several large oil paintings on the walls and some beautiful frescoes around the arches. We walked around the block looking for the Qorikancha Museum and found a site enclosed by walls and glass doors. Entrance was free and we walked in to find some Inca foundations and lamas, alpacas and vicunas grazing on the lawns. We found the subterranean entrance to the Qorikancha museum on Avenida El Sol. The museum consisted of three rooms containing several displays of Inca pottery, metalwork, textiles, painting and other artwork. The best items were the three mummies in foetal position, some grossly deformed skulls of the social elite and some skulls with holes in them (trepanning). We exited the museum via a stairway up through a hole in the grassy lawn next to the Church of Santo Domingo. We slowly made our way back to the hotel, stopping to admire the textiles in the handicrafts stores and to try a maracuya (passionfruit) sour at Fallen Angel.

After breakfast on Wednesday, we caught a taxi to Tambomachay, a site eight kilometres outside Cusco. It was cool and overcast when we were dropped off in the mountains above Cusco. We walked up a path for a hundred metres to a stone carved complex of niches and water fountains. They were called the "Inca baths" – a set of finely carved aqueducts and fountains originating from nearby springs, set into three parallel terraces with four trapezoidal niches built into the uppermost stone wall.

We walked a hundred metres across the road to Pukapukara, or the "red fortress" with successive reddish stone walls built up a hill and panoramic views from the top.

Then we had to walk a couple of kilometres down the road past an artificial lake and small farms to the next site called Q'enqo. It was built into a large limestone outcrop with a path leading into the rock and down steps into a subterranean cave with niches, altars, steps and channels carved into the rock. It was similar to a temple we had seen in Machu Picchu and both had the eerie feeling of having had living beings sacrificed there.

Another two kilometres downhill, was the entrance to the much larger site of Saqsayhuaman. This was an enormous fortress above Cusco in the shape of a puma's head with the city of Cusco forming the puma's body. It had a large central plaza with three-tiered terraced zig-zag walls forming the puma's teeth, constructed from enormous blocks of stone. It was the location of a Sun Temple destroyed by the Spaniards. After a rebellion by Manco Inca the Spaniards harvested 80% of all but the largest blocks of stone for building Spanish Cusco in order to destroy the fortress.

We walked down the Inca road back into Cusco for lunch.

After lunch we walked up Calle San Augustin to the stunning colonial building of the Mueso de Arte Religioso. The museum contained colonial religious paintings, and was located in the former Archbishop's Palace with an impressive portal and Moorish-style carved wooden doors, balcony, carved-cedar ceilings, stained-glass windows, courtyard with Moorish-style arches and fountain, and small chapel.

Then we walked up to Templo de San Blas, a simple colonial whitewashed adobe church, with an intricately carved 17th-century cedar pulpit (from a single tree trunk) dominated by the triumphant figure of Christ, topped with a skull (supposedly the craftsman). It also had an impressive baroque altar painted in gold leaf.

Then we walked down the hill stopping at a bakery for a disappointing tea and cake. The tea was delivered with hot milk instead of hot water! Te con leche!

On Thursday we checked out and left our luggage at the hotel. We walked to Plaza de Armas and sat in the sunshine planning where to start. We walked across the road to the Templo de La Compania, a church on the plaza. It was built of the same brown rock as the Cathedral with excellent carving. Inside we saw the sacristy, a subterranean chapel with a hole in the stone floor through which we could see crypts and Inca stone foundations, and then we took the stairs behind a side altar to the choir stalls and then up into the bell tower. We had a great view of the plaza below and through a circular window onto the town rooftops and hillside. At the highest point we could reach there were a jumble of large dusty ceramic amphora lying on the floor and abandoned and corroding old clockwork machinery.

From here we crossed to the Cathedral complex, which was three buildings that had been incorporated together over time. Firstly was the Iglesia de la Sagrada Familia constructed in 1723 with plaster work painted to look like imitation marble. It was very simple inside with a whitewashed dome ceiling. We walked through a connecting entrance to La Catedral where construction commenced in 1534. It was only completed 134 years later due to disruption by earthquakes and the size of the large Maria Angola bell which caused technical difficulties. The builders used stones harvested from Saqsayhuaman, massive columns of the black rock supported arches in both directions. It had 64 choir stalls intricately carved in Cusco cedar – under the elbow rests were partially clad women with protruding bellies (looking very much like potatoes), above the choir stalls were 83 sculpted figures of martyrs (one with his head in his hands). Two restored seventeenth century pipe organs rested above and there was a magnificent wooden rotating book rest in the centre of the floor. We visited a small crypt and walked around the large space dotted with artworks and chapels before taking another connecting entrance to the Iglesia del Triunfo. It was constructed in 1538 to commemorate the Spanish victory over Manco Inca in 1536. It was South America's first cathedral with a plain whitewash stone dome, an underground crypt containing the remains of Garcilas Inca de la Vega (Inca chronicler), a sacristy containing oil paintings of archbishops, and intricately carved wooden doors.

We emerged into the sunlight and returned to our bench in the plaza to plan our next move. We saw the Museo de Historia Natural across the road and went to have a look. It had stuffed mammals, birds, insects, reptiles, amphibians, insects, arachnids, and fossils. Most interesting were some beautiful stuffed birds (eg Azulejo, Amazon Umbrella Bird, Motmot) and the water birds we had seen from the train in the fast running Rio Urubamba. There was also a very large caiman skull, various sloths, anteaters, beautiful ocelots and a stuffed condor overseeing the specimens from above. Some horribly deformed animal foetuses were on display in glass jars and tanks full of formaldehyde.

We walked out of the plaza and onto Avenida El Sol to the Museo de Arte Popular where we saw a rather bizarre collection of brightly coloured terracotta figures and ceramics, clay masks, interesting old photos, carved shrines and 3D pictures.

After lunch, we walked to the Convento de Santo Domingo built on the Qorikancha or "Gold Enclosure". It was a Dominican priory built on Inca temple foundations. The Inca empire was divided into four regions with Cusco (or Q'osqo) at the centre as the navel of the world. The main temple in Cusco was Intikancha or "House of the Sun", where mummies of previous Inca emperors and their wives were kept. It was built from andesite rock, green diorite and limestone with parts of the Inca temple incorporated into the colonial structure. Oil paintings of religious art adorned the walls inside the colonnades of arches around the central courtyard with an Inca stone fountain in the centre. Outside, beautiful gardens spilled down the slope towards the Avenida El Sol and there was the Inca trilogy of Condor, Snake and Puma engraved in a grassy circle below. There was information about Inca beliefs including the bizarre concept that the mummies of dead Inca emperors could wield just as much power as the living and their instructions were just as valid! The upstairs section contained a small library and a modern art exhibition. From above we could see what remained of the Inca temple with its massive stone walls and trapezoid niches and doors.

We walked up the Avenida El Sol and at Plaza de Armas we took a laneway through to the Plaza de Nazarenas which housed the Museo de Arte Pre-Colombino in another beautiful colonial building. We walked through a series of rooms downstairs and then on the upper level, each with a different theme - Gold, Silver, Shell, and Ceramics. Then there were a series of rooms with artefacts from individual cultures representing particular regions and particular periods of time – Nasca, Machica, Huari, Chimu and Inca. We also saw a small gallery of indigenous weaving with a couple of women in traditional dress doing the laborious work. The weaving was complex and consequently expensive.

We walked to Jack's cafe and had dinner before collecting our backpacks from the hotel and getting a cab to the Cruz del Sur office. The bus was very comfortable and they were very serious about security. As we checked in, we were filmed and scanned with a hand held metal detector. Once on the bus we were filmed again and asked to put our seat belts on. We did the diary and then tried to get some sleep.

On Friday morning we arrived in Arequipa, Peru's second largest city, half an hour early after having very little sleep on the bus. We caught a taxi to our hostel, where we found that our room wouldn't be ready for another four hours or so. However faced with the prospect of us bedding down in reception for the next few hours, a room was suddenly found for us. To get to our room, we walked through a couple of geranium-filled sun-drenched courtyards. Our room was at the back of the hostel, and was really quiet and peaceful. The hostel was an eighteenth century bishop's residence and was built from "sillar", a pearly white volcanic rock. The walls were at least a metre thick, the sky-high ceilings were arched, and the rooms filled with antique furniture and fittings. Suzie went to sleep for an hour and a half, while Keith reviewed his photos for the last couple of days. Eventually, Suzie woke up and we showered in our surprisingly modern bathroom, had a cup of coffee and then went out for a walk.

The sun was high in the sky by this time and the city was dazzling. It was full of colonial Spanish buildings built from the white volcanic rock, from which it gets the nickname "La Ciudad Blanca" (The White City). The rock was quarried from the three volcanoes surrounding the city – El Misti, El Chachani and El PichuPichu. We had brunch at a nearby bar/restaurant and then we headed to Plaza de Armas – the city's main plaza. The Plaza de Armas had the usual flower beds and fountain and was surrounded by stately white buildings. We walked around the square and then all the way along the pedestrian mall. We paid a visit to "La Casa del Moral" - a large single-storey colonial house with a central courtyard built in the early eighteenth century. It is considered one of the best preserved examples of baroque-mestizo civil architecture in Peru. Some of the rooms were furnished and some just contained art on the walls. We climbed up on to the roof where we got a rather hazy view of the three volcanoes surrounding the city.

Further on, we stopped to browse through the cloisters of La Compania, now full of Alpaca boutiques. There were two courtyards with columns and arches on all sides. Then we headed back to the hostel for a rest.

Our room was quiet and the wooden shutters blocked out the light so we didn't wake up until 8.30 am on Saturday morning. We had a leisurely breakfast overlooking the garden courtyard and then spent most of the morning doing some research on the internet and planning the rest of our time in Peru. We bought our bus tickets to Ica at the travel agency across the road from the hostel and then walked around town. We had lunch at Cafe Capriccio on the pedestrian street and spent the rest of the afternoon strolling around town, visiting the Compania de Jesus church, and then bought some wine and olives in a supermarket to have in our room.

We went out later to El Turko for dinner. After dinner we went to the hair salon a couple of doors away from the hotel and Suzie had her hair cut. Keith was convinced that the hairdresser and the only other client were lady boys!

On Sunday we walked to the Monasterio de Santa Catalina – a convent founded in 1579. The convent was almost a city within a city with its own streets named after Spanish cities, covering an area of almost 20,000 square metres and surrounded by a high wall closing it off from the rest of the city. It was a large complex of cells, brightly painted walls, picturesque courtyards with ornate fountains and a maze of tiny cobbled streets. Around the courtyards were colonnades of columns and arches with religious scenes painted at the top of the inner wall. In the centre of each courtyard was either a tree or a bed of flowers or a fountain. The cells generally consisted of a couple of small rooms containing a large niche with a small bed, a water channel, a mud brick oven, and grinding stones, with a covered hole in the roof to let in light. There were also communal areas for dining, cooking, bathing and prayer. Outside there were several flower and vegetable gardens, fruit trees and a beautiful laundry area with huge terracotta jars split in half lengthways serving as wash basins, placed on either side of a raised water channel. We wandered around for hours taking photos and enjoying the peace and quiet. Within the monastery was a more modern complex that was still inhabited by nuns, but we didn't see anyone except the caretakers. In some areas we were able to climb onto the roof and enjoy views of the walls around the convent, the city of Arequipa outside and the volcanic mountains in the background.

Week 41 - Bolivia - Isla del Sol to Peru - Aguas Calientes

We woke up to the alarm on Monday morning after a particularly poor night's sleep and had breakfast at the hotel. After a quick breakfast of fruit and quinoa muesli, Catalina shouldered our backpack and we walked down towards the port at Yumani. We walked down the hill on the stone Inca staircase (Escalera del Inca) past a natural spring (Fuente del Inca) from which fresh water was gushing down some stone channels beside the staircase. It was the greenest spot on the island with beautifully terraced flower gardens and lush green trees. There were lots of birds attracted by the flower gardens.

We had to wait for half an hour for our boat to arrive and the boat trip back to Copacabana was about an hour. We checked in, said our goodbyes to Mauricio and then walked to the market for lunch. We went to a stall that Mauricio had recommended where we each got a whole trout plus rice and salad for 20 Bolivianos or AUD $3.00! It was one of the best lunches that we had ever had.

After lunch, we went back to the Basilica de Copacabana. As it was during the week, the figure of the Virgen de Candelaria was no longer visible in the Baroque altar in the main cathedral. Her figure had been turned around so that she was visible in the small chapel upstairs behind the altar.

On Tuesday we slept in and then had a leisurely breakfast before returning to our room to pack up. After we checked out, we sat in the guest lounge overlooking the terrace using the internet and drinking tea until it was time for us to take the bus to Puno. It was only a short drive to the border and the border formalities were completed very quickly and efficiently.

Once we were through Peruvian immigration, we got back on the bus for the two hour drive to Puno. Peru looked just as poverty stricken as Bolivia – dirty and polluted. The roads were in poor condition and we drove past a lot of partially completed mud brick and concrete dwellings with steel reinforcing sticking out. We seemed to skirt the edge of Lake Titicaca where we saw fields of rushes on the banks of the lake and lots of fish rings. The landscape was pretty dry and barren and looked overgrazed. We saw lots of sheep, cows, donkeys, pigs and llamas. As we got closer to Puno we saw some surreal rock formations. We arrived at Puno and we were immediately picked up by a tout who got in our taxi with us to our hotel. She wanted us to book a tour with her immediately but we managed to put her off. We checked into our hotel and went for a walk around town. Our first stop was the Tourist Information Office where we found out that the tout's prices were inflated! We organised our trips ourselves.

On Wednesday morning we had breakfast on the 6^th floor overlooking Lake Titicaca. Then we met our taxi driver Luis in the lobby at 9.30am and drove to Cutimbo, a funerary tower site 20kms outside Puno. We wound through yellow grass clad hills with poor farmers eking out a living from animals and crops. The site was on top of a rocky mesa but luckily a road went most of the way up. We climbed up a track the rest of the way with Luis who had only been to the site once before. Just before the top was a separate track leading around the rock with a sign reading "Pinturas Rupestres". Unfortunately the paintings on rock were faint but there were a couple of human skeletons scattered inside a small rock overhang. We also saw a beautiful orange flowering plant with a nettle like sting we later found out was used by the ancients for arthritis. Once we reached the flat top we followed a track to a group of very well preserved towers, both circular and square. The square tower was by far the largest with large cut stones fitted together perfectly. All the towers had a small door facing east and we crawled inside the square tower. Inside three small niches were visible on the wall facing the door while the adjoining walls each had a large niche and a couple of large projecting stones at a higher level which created a ledge. The ledges were too high to see if anything rested on them. Outside on a round tower we found carvings of a rabbit, a puma and a monkey. The purpose of the funerary towers was to provide a vehicle for the dead to travel into the next life. To this end they were mummified in the foetal position for rebirth and family members, food etc were arranged inside with them to accompany the important leader on the trip. We were the only people at the site which made it a different experience. It was so peaceful, and we enjoyed the scent of the small bushes, the views off the top of the mesa over the surrounding plains, an eagle sailing past, the various towers in differing states of preservation, the flowering cactus, and the different coloured rocks with and without lichens. Apparently the pre-Inca Cholla people built the original small towers, often not much more than a dome. Many of these had collapsed but the later Inca constructions were far more sophisticated with large stones cut into specific shapes which locked together. We took photos and walked back down to the car and drove back to the hotel.

We went for a walk around town and had a good look at the impressive cathedral from the outside as it was closed. We tried a prickly pear fruit for the first time from a street vendor and it was quite good but lots of seeds. After lunch at the Rico Pan bakery, we went back to the hotel to meet our tour to Sillustani. This time we were on a tour bus with about 16 people. The bus drove us to the Lake Umayo with more funerary towers on a hill above. The site had more towers than Cutimbo but they were in poorer condition. It also had a couple of sacred stone circles to represent the sun and moon. As the towers had been partially destroyed by lightning, earthquakes and Spaniards we could see that they were constructed with an inner or female stone lining and the outer cut rock male layer. Also visible on some of the large outer rocks were projecting stumps used by the Incas for transporting the rocks with ropes on rollers. The projections could then be carved off once the rock was in position. They used ramps for raising the huge stone pieces into place. The Umayo Lake with its large mesa island was beautiful, especially with the storm clouds, sun and rain in the background. There were some irrigated fields on the edge of the lake and some flamingos. We got past the desperate locals selling poor quality tourist artefacts and onto the bus. We got back to town and were delayed by a street procession complete with army band to celebrate a local kindergarten's birthday.

We set the alarm for 6.00 am on Thursday, showered and had breakfast early. After we checked out of the hotel, we caught a taxi to the bus station where we boarded the Inka Express for Cusco with our bilingual guide, Juan.

Our first stop was Pukara, an archaeological complex belonging to the Pucará culture. Juan guided us through the small museum where we saw stone and pottery sculptures of human and animal figures. The most significant sculpture was a stone figure of a priest with puma headdress facing the heavens holding a human head in his hand – a clear reference to human sacrifice. Outside the museum were the usual artisan stalls selling alpaca and textiles as well as terracotta Pucará bulls. We had some time to spare before we got on the bus so we visited the small church next door to the museum. It was very plain in comparison to other baroque churches that we had visited. The main altar and chapels had only a small amount of gold leaf decoration and were painted with whitewash. Many of the floor pavers were broken and crumbling and there was a dank smell about it.

The highest point of our journey was La Raya at 4,313 metres above sea level, the border between the departments of Puno and Cusco. We had a short scenic stop here for some photos before continuing on our journey. From this point we saw the scenery change from dry yellow overgrazed plains and hills to lush green fields and hills with trees. As we drove down into the valley, we saw the Vilancota River, known as the sacred river of the Incas. We were now travelling down the Sacred Valley of the Incas. The mountains on either side of the valley had horizontal terracing even on very steep slopes and to great height. This showed that these valleys must have been inhabited for thousands of years and an unbelievable amount of work in building and maintaining the terraces had been achieved. Today though only the most fertile and flat fields around the valley floor are being utilised for growing potato, corn, wheat etc.

We stopped at the small town of Sicuani for a delicious buffet lunch. While we were eating we were entertained by some colourfully dressed Andean musicians playing guitars, pan pipes and a drum.

Our next stop was Raqchi, an Inca archaeological site. The complex was dominated by the remains of the Temple of Wiracocha. All that remained of the temple was an enormous central wall constructed from adobe with a volcanic rock base. On each side of the wall was a row of columns. Adjoining the temple was a series of square dwellings which were the living quarters of the priests and administrators. The Spaniards noted that these nobles exhibited cranial deformation which was produced by binding a baby's soft head with tight bandages. Unfortunately this proved not such a good idea as the Spaniards knew who to kill! All of the dwellings had niches and trapezoid windows and doors. Apparently the trapezoid shape is resistant to earthquakes which are common in the area. The foundations were found to contain many round boulders which also helps to absorb vibration from earthquakes. To one side of the temple was a group of round storehouses laid out in parallel lines – these were used to store corn and quinoa and originally there were 156 storehouses. The complex was surrounded by a 3 metre high stone wall 5 kms long to provide protection.

Our final stop was the small village of Andahuaylillas, home to the Templo de San Pedro de Andahuaylillas. From the outside the church looked very modest with its thick adobe mud-brick walls, bell tower and facade with two plain stone columns at the main entrance. The interior of the church was covered with Baroque art and many decorations. The main Baroque altar was decorated in 24 carat gold leaf and above it the walls and ceilings were decorated with murals of geometric designs and golden decorations. There was also a mural representing the path to heaven (thorny) and the path to hell (strewn with flowers). The church also contains two pipe organs and on the side walls there were other altars and chapels and oil paintings. It was called the "Capilla Sixtina" or "Sistine Chapel" of America. Shortly after this we drove past an impressive stone wall structure built across a narrow point of the valley as the southern gate to Cusco.

We arrived at Cusco almost an hour late and to our relief, the driver organised by our hotel was still waiting for us. We checked in to our lovely room and walked to the main plaza. We had dinner at Jack's Cafe, a block away from our hotel.

On Friday morning we had to rush to have breakfast before it finished at 9.00 am. After breakfast we walked up to the roof top terrace to admire the view over Peru's 4^th biggest city. Cusco sat in a bowl amongst the mountains and we looked over a sea of red roofing tiles, chimneys at awry angles and an occasional church rearing above the house level. Then we had a walk around town which exceeded all expectations. Most of the narrow cobbled alleys had a large drain running down the centre of the road. Our route to the main plaza, Plaza de Armas, was along the narrow Hatun Rumiyoc Street which was lined with Inca walls of large stones fitted together with a newer construction built on top. This was where the Spaniards had destroyed Incan temples and palaces but retained the base to build upon. This street contained the famous 12-sided stone.

We bought a religious site ticket from a beautifully restored museum building and walked down to Plaza de Armas. Stone cathedrals and churches bounded a couple of sides of the large square with colonnades of arches along the other sides enclosing tourist shops. A large fountain played with water in the centre and the square was filled with trees and flowers. In fact as we wandered around Cusco there were many green flower-filled plazas and plazalettas to enjoy. We bought a ten day tourist entry to some of the surrounding Inca sites and organised a tour of the Sacred Valley for tomorrow. We sat in a small plaza and weighed up our options to get to Machu Picchu, 112 kms away. Our main worry was the weather, although it turned out a beautiful day today, the forecast was for overcast and rainy days for the next week.

We walked to an Australian-owned restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet, Los Perros, then got lost trying to find San Pedro station. We checked out the large covered market opposite the station which was divided into sections – fruit, vegetables, desserts, juices, meals, beef, lamb and pork. We had a fresh orange and passionfruit juice and admired the full pig carcasses. It was here that we saw a man playing a pipe and two dogs stopped and began howling in unison, forcing him to move away, much to everyone's amusement. Then we walked back to Plaza de Armas to talk to Peru Rail and on to Plaza San Blas with its unnatural wide waterfall. We made a final decision and returned to Peru Rail to book our tickets to Aguas Caliente, where we would have to stay overnight before catching a bus at 5.30 am to Machu Picchu.

After an early breakfast on Saturday, we walked up to the Plaza San Blas where we were picked up for our Sacred Valley Tour. The mini bus picked up six more people before we drove out of Cusco over the mountains and then down to the valley floor. The scenery was spectacular. Every inch of the hillsides was scarred with Inca rock terraces overlooking a patchwork of fields. As we drove along the valley floor next to the sacred Inca river, Rio Urubamba we passed little villages, markets and farming communities. We stopped briefly at a small handicrafts market and then drove to the picturesque village of Pisac with a huge, spreading tree dominating its central square. We visited the markets at Pisac and then drove up to the Inca ruins which were set high up above the town. The stonework at Pisac was amazing. Terraces, water channels and steps were made from enormous smooth blocks cut out of solid granite. In the upper sector of the ruins there were the remains of the Sun Temple. Around the temple were more ruins, and in the higher crevices and rocky overhangs we could see ancient burial sites, now a honeycomb of holes in the rock face as they had been opened up. There were heavier defensive walls of interlocking stone with gates allowing major paths through. There was a water fountain complex far below and separate ruins for the agricultural workers operating the complex of stone terraces, the urban sector and the priests and nobility. The vast majority of the population however didn't live in the centre but would have lived throughout the valleys working the land close by.

We continued on to Urubamba where we had a buffet lunch. From Urubamba it was a half an hour drive to Ollantaytambo, an attractive little town built on top of some Inca ruins. We climbed up the steep stone steps to the temple complex where there was a wall built out of a series of large and small fitted stone blocks. Some of the stones were enormous weighing several tons. From the temple complex we could see the storehouses on the hills surrounding Ollantaytambo. Their location at high altitudes, where there is more wind and lower temperatures, helped to preserve the dried food. On the opposite mountain down the valley we could see quarries. The Incas brought stone from these quarries to Ollantaytambo using stone rollers and a series of ramps.

After our visit to the ruins, the rest of the group left to catch the train to Aguas Calientes, and we continued on to the tiny little weaving town of Chincheros on top of the mountains. We left the valley floor and wound up until we reached a plateau on the mountain tops at approximately 4000 metres. It was much colder and peaks all around us were covered in snow. Amazingly the soil on the plateau appeared very fertile with lots of fields full of corn. The town had a colonial church built in 1597 on top of Inca temple foundations and all around were excavated Inca walls and terraces. Inside the church the paintings, murals and decoration including gold leaf were well preserved. We were taken to an artisan workshop where traditionally dressed Peruvian women showed us how they produced the beautiful textiles they were wearing. They showed us how they cleaned the alpaca or sheep's wool with plant product and water and then spun it before colouring it with natural dyes including the dramatically purple cochineal harvested from the prickly pear. Then we headed back to Cusco. We packed up for the next morning's early start to Aguas Caliente for our visit to Machu Picchu.

On Sunday, we got up early, had a rushed breakfast and checked out of the hotel putting our back packs into their luggage room. Feeling strangely bereft because we were carrying only our small day packs, we got in a taxi which took us to Poroy station, 20 kilometres outside Cusco. At Poroy station, we boarded our train which had large windows on both the sides and the roof of the train giving us panoramic views of our surroundings. We started our journey by descending into the Sacred Valley onto the Anta plateau. We passed fields of corn, quinoa and potatoes, and pigs, cows, horses and donkeys grazing. The train passed through extensive areas of agricultural terracing and we saw the remains of Inca fortresses dotted on the hillside. Then the train went through some narrow gorges with the small river rushing beside us and mountains rising up next to us. Luckily it was a sunny day and we got great views from the train. The train stopped at Ollantaytambo to collect more passengers and some desperate women ran along the train with tourist wares. Some of the ancient Inca terraces were still in use with green corn visible and every now and then you would take a corner and see walls, terraces or stone lookouts on the slopes above the train. Soon after we left, the landscape became lush and rainforest-like. We saw orchids and bromeliads hanging from trees and rocky outcrops, waterfalls and hummingbirds. We wound through the jungle with peaks rising on all sides and some cloud appearing and disappearing around the peaks. The river was larger now and the enormous boulders and occasional landslide were reminders that flooding can be powerful in these steep gorges.

We arrived at Aguas Calientes at 11.30 am and immediately we were surrounded by touts. We bought entrance tickets and bus tickets for Machu Picchu and then walked up the hill looking for Pirwa Hostel. We checked into the hostel, dropped off our bags and went off to find somewhere to eat. We settled on Chez Maggy where we had a delicious lunch of avocado salad, fresh passionfruit juice and nachos.

We went back to Chez Maggy for dinner. Then we went back to the hotel and set the alarm for 4.30 am so that we could catch the first bus to Machu Picchu. We had a shower and then turned in for an early night.

Week 40 - Bolivia - Uyuni to Isla del Sol

On Monday we had a delicious breakfast at Minuteman Pizza which was included in our room rate. Instead of the usual white bread rolls, dulce de leche, jam and instant coffee, we had real coffee, fruit salad, muesli, scrambled egg, home baked bread and pancakes with maple syrup. It was amazing. We spent the rest of the day walking around town and in the hotel reading and using the internet. At 7.00 pm we walked to the bus stop to catch our bus to La Paz. The first Bolivian town had been an interesting experience.

The first half of the road (if it could be called a road) from Uyuni to La Paz was not sealed and felt like it was corrugated. This made for a very bumpy bone rattling ride for the first five hours of the journey. At one stage the bus stopped and the driver and bus attendants got out and we heard hammering – so we started worrying about whether the bus would make it to La Paz. The road improved marginally after the first five hours and we managed to get a little sleep.

We were woken up by the sun streaming through the bus windows on Tuesday morning just as we were entering the outskirts of the city. La Paz is the world's highest capital at 3,660 metres above sea level, and is located in the valleys of the Andes. Our first sight of La Paz was spectacular – red brick buildings clung to the hillsides, spilling into the canyon and looming in the background we could see the snow covered Mount Illamani. The traffic was very busy and it took quite a while for the bus to get to the bus station. At the bus station we caught a taxi to the Hotel Rosario – a three star colonial style hotel that had been recommended by Chris from the Hotel Tonito. Our room was lovely with beautiful wooden parquet floors, and French doors opening out onto a wrought iron balcony overlooking the street below. From our room we could see the red brick buildings spilling down the surrounding hills and Mt Illamani in the distance. We had a shower and walked a few blocks to the Angelo Colonial cafe for breakfast. The cafe was like a small museum with beautiful antique furniture, old books, maps, musical instruments (including a guitar made with an armadillo skeleton), weapons, matchbox collection, chandeliers, cutlery, bank notes, paintings etc.

Much restored, we returned to the hotel past the numerous shops and stalls at the Mercado de las Brujas (Witches' Market) on Calle Linares selling all manner of local handicrafts and products. We booked an extra night at the hotel as we could already see that we loved La Paz and would need an extra day here. Then we walked around town and soaked up the amazing vibe of this unique city. The city's main plaza Plaza Murillo was a knockout with the city cathedral on one side and bullet-riddled legislative building on another. There were beautifully dressed guards by the doors and everywhere the traditionally dressed Bolivian women.

We had lunch around the corner from the plaza with a crusty piece of bread and diced vegies and cheese, followed by a hearty soup with pork, vegies and potato, and then a piece of roast chicken with salad and potato, all for 10 Bolivianos, or AUD$1.50!

After lunch we spent the afternoon walking up and down the hills, sometimes slipping on the well worn cobblestones. We walked along Calle Jaen which housed several museums and some beautifully preserved colonial buildings. Then we walked along the main street of La Paz and headed back to the hotel stopping for a brief look at the Iglesia de San Francisco with its intricately carved baroque facade and baroque altar decorated with gold leaf. The streets of La Paz were busy and colourful with dodgy spaghetti wiring overhead in many parts and balaclava clad shoeshine operators everywhere. This was slightly disturbing as you could not see their faces at all.

We had a rest and then headed out for dinner. We walked to Calle Sagarnaga, a touristy market strip full of handicrafts and souvenir shops, travel agencies, budget hostels and cafes. We had dinner at Luna's Coffee Restaurant Pub and then headed back to the hotel for an early night.

On Wednesday we had a lovely sleep-in and then a wonderful breakfast of juice, coffee, cereal, fresh fruit, fried eggs, toast and pancakes in the hotel restaurant. After breakfast, we spent some time with Turisbus, the travel agent attached to the hotel organising some transfers, tours and accommodation in Bolivia and Peru.

We walked back to the Witches' Market on Calle Linares and spent a couple of hours admiring the handicrafts stores with beautiful alpaca jumpers, scarves, hats, ponchos, gloves, scarves and shawls, silver jewellery with semi precious stones, leather handbags, belts and wallets, musical instruments and woven and embroidered wall hangings. There were stalls selling coca leaves, dried herbs, incense, soapstone figurines, brightly coloured candy offerings to the Goddess Pachamama (a kind of mother earth figure), dried frogs, dried insects and grotesque dried llama foetuses (some complete with fur) with horrible popping out eyes. To our relief we found out that the llama foetuses were not for eating, they were just good luck talismans to be offered to Pachamama.

We had lunch at The Star of India and the food was surprisingly good. After lunch we walked along the main street of La Paz and then we walked to the Plaza Murillo where a ceremony was being held to welcome the Brazilian Ambassador. There was a motorcade and a military parade with soldiers in red uniforms sporting bayonets. Then we went to the Museo Nacional de Arte which was housed in a beautiful eighteenth century three storey Andean Baroque style palace with a paved central courtyard and a fountain. We spent a pleasant couple of hours viewing the collection which consisted mainly of religious artworks.

We headed back in the direction of the hotel stopping to admire the facade of Iglesia de Santo Domingo which instead of the usual Catholic art, had carvings of pineapples, tropical vines and parrots.

On the way back to the hotel, we walked through Mercado Lanza, one of the main food markets of La Paz selling all manner of fruits, vegetables, juices, dairy products, breads and canned foods. There were numerous stalls selling sandwiches, soup, salteñas or empanadas, juices and full meals. We stopped to try some chicken and pork chicharron (deep-fried) at one of the stalls. We decided to give dinner a miss and just snacked on a couple of empanadas and some Pringles which we had with some Argentinian Santa Ana 2008 Malbec in our room.

After another hotel breakfast on Thursday, we headed out for the day. The weather was so perfect for walking, clear sunlight and cool air. We walked past the Iglesia de San Francisco and had a good look at its baroque facade in the morning light. As well as the usual Catholic sculptures of saints, the facade had carvings of native looking faces, exotic vines and bunches of grapes.

We walked on to the Museo Nacional de Etnografia y Folklore which had a beautiful collection of textiles, masks, feather headdresses, masks, ceremonial clothing and weapons and ceramics in another colonial building. After we left the museum, we made our way up the canyon towards a lookout. On the way we stopped to visit the Mercado Yungas. It had the usual fruit, vegetables, meat and cooked food and fresh juices sections. From here it was a short but steep climb up several flights of stairs to the Mirador Killi-Killi, where we had 360° views of La Paz. The thousands of red brick houses built up the steep sides of the canyon never ceased to amaze. Then we walked across the city and down to the Parque Mirador Laikakota which also had panoramic views of the city and contained a children's playground as well.

We were pretty hungry by this time as it was 2.30 pm so we made our way down to a bridge crossing the canyon to the main street. We walked up the Prado and stopped at the Plaza Hotel for lunch.

After lunch we decided to try and visit the San Pedro Prison. On the way we walked past the Parroquia de San Pedro de la Nueva Paz, a small Mediterranean-looking whitewashed church near the Plaza Sucre. The Plaza Sucre was surrounded by temporary fencing and so was one side of San Pedro Prison, the largest prison in La Paz. Unlike most prisons, inmates have jobs inside the prison, rent their accommodation, and often live with their families. The rules are enforced by elected leaders with the guards remaining outside the forbidding walls. Stabbings are commonplace. There was a large queue outside the prison entrance so we gave up any notions of going in. Keith attempted to take a couple of photos but one of the guards saw him and insisted that he delete them.

We walked back to the hotel via the Witches' Market again, debating whether to buy leather handbags, belts, wallets and woven wall hangings and post them home. The handicrafts here were so cheap that you wouldn't lose much if the package went missing in the mail but we decided to sleep on it.

We spent all Friday morning walking up and down Calle Sagarnaga and the Witches Market buying souvenirs and gifts. We spent quite a lot of time looking for a primitive red and black weaving of animals and devils from Sucre we had seen in the museum yesterday. Keith got a new wallet and belt and Suzie got a new handbag. Then we spent a long time searching for a matching hat, scarf, and gloves for Suzie in vain. In the end we went back to Angelo Colonial for a delicious lunch. After lunch we went to the post office where the package was weighed, forms completed and the package marked with a prominent "Do not return to Bolivia". After that we were free to walk up to the Plaza Murillo to enjoy watching the crowds and the lowering of the flags by a red uniformed guard of honour. We walked to the museums on Calle Jaen where we saw the Museo Costumbrista Juan de Vargas with displays of colonial costumes and models including a prisoner being quartered. Then there was the Museo de Metales Preciosos Precolombinos with a collection of gold, silver, copper and bronze artefacts. Finally there was the Casa de Murillo which was a restored colonial house with furniture, paintings, textiles and ceramics. We left the museums and walked to the Sol y Luna restaurant for dinner. We walked home and stopped in the hotel shop to buy a matching alpaca poncho and hat for Suzie. We'd spent most of the day shopping and posting gifts but it was great to just soak up the atmosphere of La Paz. We packed up because tomorrow morning we were leaving for Copacabana on Lake Titicaca on a pre-organised trip of five days taking us through to Cusco.

We woke up early on Saturday and had breakfast before heading out of La Paz on the flash Turisbus. We drove up at first out of the canyon and onto El Alto or Altiplano, the flat plateau overlooking La Paz. We drove through several towns with markets and people building houses out of mud brick. It looked quite poor with rubbish and mangy dogs everywhere. We drove through plains of yellow grass with some sheep and cattle grazing. Snow capped volcanic peaks were visible on our right as we drove north towards Copacabana. We came to the 800 metre Straits of Tiquina crossing Lake Titicaca at its narrowest point. We crossed in a little ferry with the minibus coming over on a separate vehicular ferry. Then we were off again climbing up mountain slopes with great views over the lake and its islands. The sparse slopes had very little soil but even so there was the occasional cleared space and ancient rock terracing. On some slopes were donkeys and sheep grazing with their Bolivian shepherds. We wound down out of the heights to Copacabana town beside the lake. We checked into our room with marvellous views of the lake and Isla del Sol in the distance.

We had a delicious lunch of trout from Lake Titicaca in the hotel restaurant. After lunch, we sat on the terrace overlooking the lake, and had a look at the small museum and handicrafts shop in the grounds of the hotel. At 3.00 pm we met Mauricio and went for a walk around town through the markets and then to the Moorish style Basilica de Copacabana. It had a very large courtyard which Mauricio said was for the benefit of the local Indian population who were uncomfortable with worshipping inside such a large building. Inside the cathedral was an ornate Andean Baroque altar painted lavishly in gold leaf. Outside the front of the cathedral were several vehicles decked in flowers – this was for the Blessing of the Motor Vehicles ceremony. The owners were throwing alcohol, rice and flowers at their vehicles. There were also stalls selling miniature houses, shops, cars, trucks, buses and even piles of banknotes – a Bolivian tradition for the blessing of miniature objects and a prayer for those material possessions. Next to the cathedral in a small annex, was the Capilla de Velas (Chapel of Candles). On a large stone bench in the middle of the chapel were groups of candles burning. The tradition is to have one candle for each member of the family – some groups had as many as twelve candles! The chapel was black with smoke and there were pictures and writing in candle wax on the walls. After Mauricio left us, we walked down to the lake shore and then we climbed up the hill behind town for a view of the lake in the afternoon sun. On the hill were the Stations of the Cross and we noticed that some pilgrims were stopping at each station and praying earnestly. At the top of the hill we got views of the lake and boats returning from the Isla del Sol. We returned to the hotel and saw sunset from the terrace and tried a Bolivian cocktail called a "chuflay" which was like a gin and tonic. We did our chores and then had a great dinner of trout and llama at the hotel restaurant with a bottle of La Concepcion Cabernet Sauvignon 2008.

After breakfast in the hotel restaurant on Sunday, we put one of our backpacks into the luggage room and then walked with Mauricio to the lake shore where we got a small boat which took us out into the lake and to Isla del Sol. It was a gorgeous day and the lake looked flat and calm with the blue contrasting with the brown of the islands and peninsulas. Some boats used cheap diesel which produced the most incredible black smoke. We threaded our way through a narrow gap in the peninsula rock and admired the amazing terracing that was evident all the way up steep slopes on the mainland and islands.

Our first stop on the island was near a temple called Pilkocaina. There, we handed our backpack, Mauricio's daypack and Suzie's daypack to a short Andean Aymara lady called Catalina. She tied our backpack and Mauricio's daypack into a large sheet which she then swung onto her back, picked up Suzie's daypack and then set off at a cracking pace up the stony path to the Ecolodge La Estancia, a 45 minute walk away. We felt really guilty because she seemed so small, but we were assured that there was a donkey waiting at the top of the hill to help her. Once we had offloaded our luggage, Mauricio showed us around the ruined stone temple. As it was built against the steeply sloping hillside it had multiple levels. It had elements of Inca construction like stepped lintels, niches and false doors and elements of Tiwanaku construction like trapezoid windows and doors. When we climbed above it, you could see that the complex was exactly symmetrical, with the left hand side mirrored on the right. Then we got back on the boat and cruised north to Challapampa, one of the largest villages on the island. We wandered past the village beach boasting pigs resting in the shade of a boat, sheep, goats and cattle drinking from the lake and donkeys checking the rubbish bins. We walked upwards on a clear track with the views of bays, beaches and headlands changing all the time. We reached Chincana temple complex after a couple of hours. It was a larger complex with spectacular views over the lake and surrounding terraced hillsides. The small rooms and doors were labyrinthine and the complex was separated into a large storage area on one side and a large ceremonial area with a row of niches on the other. Nearby was the sacrificial stone table where the Inca creation legend began. We walked further north up and down the hilltops running along the spine of the island until we stopped at a small eucalypt forest at 3.00 pm for lunch. We were seriously hungry and gobbled our lunch before continuing on. We branched off from the main track and headed across a hillside terraced with small fields. We could see that ash had been mixed with the earth as a method of fertilisation. As we approached the village containing the Ecolodge La Estancia we saw many donkeys, pigs held in small stone hutches, and fields of fava bean plants. We arrived at the lodge at 5.00 pm and enjoyed a cup of tea in the restaurant. The lodge was set high up on a ridge so we had a view over the fields below, and across the lake to snow capped mountains in the distance. It was a spectacular sunset from our cabin window as we did our daily diary and photo sorting. We watched some hummingbirds amongst the flowers beneath our window and two types of sparrow eating grass seed. There was a procession of people and livestock winding up from below as the sun sank behind us lighting up the Isla de Luna and the Andes in front of us.