All the way south

"Duuude! You look like a hobo." Those were the welcoming words that greeted me when I emerged from arrivals at Mexico City's main airport, the words of my great friend Daniel, who himself was on a bit of a trip, returning to his native country for a few months to work on a personal project. I hadn't realised just how much my beard had grown, growing from hipster to homeless in the three months since I saw him last, and his reaction was probably justified. The trip started as it would mostly proceed and end, with lots of eating. We stopped off at a chain called Casa de Toño to sample some pozole rojo  (soup), with some flautas  and a little taco thrown in for good measure. It was a lot of food, but holy crap...flavor! Variety! Spice! Parts of my tongue were tingling, parts that hadn't tingled in months. Daniel had always hyped up the food in Mexico, and it made a spectacular start in living up to expectations. I was already looking forward to the next meal. W...

Day one The first big challenge of the Inca Trail trek was packing my duffel bag that the porters would carry. I had brought a way too much crap. We had received the duffel bags at the briefing the night before, and I thought I had packed it fairly lightly, but having to squeeze the provided sleeping bag in at the start of the trail was a big challenge. I normally travel light, but this time I had definitely over-packed. The poor porters. The packing challenge took place after a comfortable three-hour pre-dawn bus journey, where I managed to get some extra sleep in. Once everyone's duffels were sealed, and we got our rented hiking sticks, at last it was time to get going. After bouncing, full of beans, across the footbridge that marks the beginning of the trail, the first gentle little uphill section was...a little too breathless for comfort. We were above 3000m, and the lack of oxygen made you feel like you hadn't walked in about a year. This would take some getting use...

A big delay in my flight to Peru gave me the unexpected opportunity to sample two completely unrelated things I had wanted to try - an Outback Steakhouse (an American chain with an Aussie theme that was randomly in Quito airport) and more Ecuadorian craft beers. The flight was delayed long enough for me to try a surprisingly delicious steak and the whole brewery range - pale ale, lager, porter and stout. The god of airports doesn't allow such fun to go unpunished however, so the compensation for my merriment was being forced to spend nine overnight hours in Jorge Chávez International in Lima. I'm not sure who decides the airport flight schedules, but I imagine whoever organizes the one for Lima is an insomniac who loves to inflict his sleepless suffering on others - so many flights there leave at ridiculous early morning hours. I landed in Lima at 9.30pm and was departing for Cuzco at 4.30am. I had to wait until 1am before I could check my bag in, so in the end I only got 1...