Matthew’s Website

I was always going to give some awards at the end of my trip, but so they stay relevant I am going to do some as I go along. So I’m going to split my trip into thirds. Firstly the Americas, then Oceania and Japan, and finally mainland Eurasia. Then finally I’ll sum up the [...]

On Sunday I again got up fairly late (I clearly needed to catch up with my sleep) and at about 11 I headed back to the centre. First I headed to the national history museum on the Plaza de Armas. Unlike the description n the guide book it was a well organized history in mostly [...]

So I got my flight down to Santiago yesterday morning and arrived at my hostel in the early afternoon. I got the bus in from Santiago airport and then the clean modern and extremely frequent (there are practically trains every minute in the week) metro to my hostel.
After grabbing some cheap lunch I headed [...]

So after a fairly uneventful bus ride from San Pedro with the nice Tur Bus drivers making sure I got on the right buses and stuff I arrived in Iquique. Then I got a taxi to my hostel via waiting a while on the seafront for the chilean football supporters to celebrate their world cup [...]

So on my last day in Arica I headed to a nearby archeological museum. To get there I cycled up the valley, which although the gradient uphill was subtle it was still hard work. Also I couldn’t get the highest gear to work which I usually use practically exclusively which slowed me down. The scenery [...]

Firstly a boring economic note to my UK readers. The pound has weakened quite dramatically against the US dollar since I’ve been away and by xe.com there are currently only 1.75 US dollars to the pound. If Obama wins the presidency so this continues I might even make some money when I convert my US [...]

After leaving Puno I spent a couple of relaxing days in Arequipa. I left there a day later than planned as the accommodation in Tacna was going to be really expensive so I stayed in Arequipa for an extra day. On Sunday afternoon I went to a food festival in Arequipa and tried stuffed peppers [...]

So on Wednesday I got the early morning bus with Cruz del Sur to Puno. The bus wasn’t as nice as the ones I’d been on before and it didn’t redeem itself with it’s movie choice of Miss Congeniality. By the afternoon I had arrived in Puno and got a “taxi” (actually a three wheeled [...]

Today us my last day in Cusco. I got up at 9am and had breakfast. Then after that I headed up to Saqsaywaman which is an inca site just above cusco which I had missed earlier in the week. It was pretty impressive even after seeing Machu Picchu and it was basically a fort overlooking [...]

So this weekend was the final weekend my friends from Oxford were here in Peru. On Saturday we went to a locals Market in Cusco but didn’t buy much the best bargain was a set of playing cards for 2 soles (US$0.67). After that we went to McDonalds for a late lunch where I had [...]