The home of the biggest filming studio in the world and a designated city in it’s own right, complete with Mayor (Bill Cosby), hospital, post office and zip code, Universal is quite unique. As we shared with you in our Los Angeles blog we had decided to see the studios in style with a VIP Experience pass. This involves a guided tour throughout the theme park and studios to include access to a VIP lounge, lunch, a walk around on the sets of movies, access to the prop department and bypassing all queues for rides. We started our day with coffee [View Full Entry]

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Los Angeles, the City of Angels has been fabulous. We have squeezed so much into our five days, this entry covers the first four. Our drive back from Vegas took us through the Mohabe desert. We started the road trip with the hood down, but we had to pull over to put it up and put the air con on, as the temperature was over 110F. Phew, now that is hot! LA conjures up images of Hollywood and the rich and famous. We had made a list of things that we wanted to do and started off our sightseeing with a [View Full Entry]

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Arriving at LAX, Los Angeles International Airport just after midnight, we cleared immigration and customs alot quicker than we expected, then went to get our hire car. It was about 2 am before we left Los Angeles for our drive through the night to Sin City, Las Vegas!! We had been upgraded to a convertable car, so we'd be able to have a few days of topless action in Nevada. It was daylight already when we arrived and I woke Sarah for her first glimps of Las Vegas and the world famous strip. We were staying in Motel 6, and they [View Full Entry]

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We've arrived in Costa Rica, an unscheduled pitstop on route from Peru to the United States. Our reason for being here was really a fluke as our plane had a scheduled stop and our agent asked us whether we wanted to get off and explore for a while. We said, "sure we'll take 4 or 5 days." What a find this little country has been, the same size as our wee country of Northern Ireland. Costa Rica has many things to offer, with only five days we had to choose carefully. With the help of our trusty Lonely Planet and some [View Full Entry]

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WOW, Now this is Peru! Colour, religion, festivals, kids, llamas, cuye and ofcourse "party party!" Cusco, the oldest continually inhabited city in the Americas, at an elevation of 3326 metres, was a shock to our lungs arriving from the seaside city of Lima! Cusco has developed to cater for the influx of international tourists, all here to catch a glimpse of Machu Picchu. However it remains an archeological timepiece with origional Inca walls, streets & roads. The place just oozes history and a feeling like something very important was based here! Ofcourse this is true.......Cu [View Full Entry]

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Well holey moley we have arrived!!!! Seeing the sungate along with the other hikers at around 6.30am we caught our first panoramic views of the lost city of the Incas. It had taken 4 days and alot of determination but we had arrived......almost! We walked slowly down the valley from the sungate & watched as the sun´s rays stretched over Machu Picchu. Unlike the sunrise we had been imagined, the light simply came over the mountains onto Machu Picchu. The surrounding Andes mountains are absolutely stunning at all times of the day. Just looking at them from all angles made us [View Full Entry]

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Both of us would tackle the same Inca Trail and both have our own challenges in doing so. It seems only fair that both of us should outline these personal challenges and highlights to you. Before we do this, we will give you an overview of our route and some of the things we saw along the way. We left our hotel in Ollyantambo at 7am, after a light breakfast and our customary cup of coca tea. The coca leaves are used to give energy and help with the affects of altitude sickness. The starting point of our 4 day Inca [View Full Entry]

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Leaving our hotel in Cusco we headed off to the Sacred Valley. Thoughts of our four day hike on the Inca Trail were at the forefront of our minds as it would be the first time either of us had been hiking at a high altitude. The Sacred Valley is located about 10 miles from Cusco and is named after the Sacred River or Urubamba river that flows through it and eventually on to the Amazon & Atlantic Ocean. This water helps with the crops of corn that are grown here, with some of the largest organic yields in the world [View Full Entry]

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Well, after the partying in Buenos Aires, we have arrived in Peru, a little worse for wear. Lima is where we are joining our GAP adventure tour for the Inca trail to Macchu Picchu. Our brief for Lima was as follows..........Rest and get ready for the trek ahead. This is what we have done totally, spending our first 2 days in the Radisson hotel in Miraflores district of Lima. Lima is a huge metropolis with a population of 9 million residents. We decided to stay around the 'gringo friendly' Miraflores. We felt very safe here, there are security guards on motorbikes, [View Full Entry]

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In one word......................PASSIONATE! This sums up the last week we´ve spent in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. From the fanatical football fans to the sultry tango dacing in the plazas, we have completely fallen in love with this city. There have been so many highlights for us in Buenos Aires & to stop this entry becoming a full chapter, we want to share just a few! We arrived from Iguazu Falls to a gritty Latin American metropolis & were quickly introduced to the passionate taxi drivers & BA road rage! Arriving at our hostel, "Hostel Suites Obelisco" we wer [View Full Entry]

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