The big one - Inca jungle trail to Machu Picchu: 18th - 21st March

With the original Inca trail walk being long since booked up, prohibitively expensive and obviously waaaay too mainstream for us, we instead embarked on the Inca jungle trail with Lorenzo Expeditions, which included a first day mountain biking instead of walking, nights in hotels, incredible food three times a day and the trail almost all to ourselves, all for half the price of the classic trail. It's fair to say that going on that trip was one of the best decisions we made.

It didn't seem like that on the first day as we biked down a mountain road from way up in the pissing wet clouds at over 4000m, only emerging out a good two hours and 2500m of descent later just before the end of the ride, only redeemed by beers down by the river with our fellow trekkers and of course excellent food and pisco sours in the village bar.

However, the remaining two days of trekking had it all.

On the first day we visited local families and learned of the farming and way of life of the people whose land we walked through, walked along an incredible remaining section of another Inca trail, sweated a lot on the 20km hike (and endured crossing the 100m deep valley in a little box dangling from a wire and hoiked across by a burly man on the other side) to be repaid with hot springs at the end of it, and almost witnessed a bus load of moronic American gap year travellers tumble down a cliff after trying to drive through a mudslide. I guess many trips leave you with some form of regret...

An interesting talking point was the many fields of coca leaves that we walked past. In the last decade the president of Peru had tried to outlaw the cultivation of coca in order to move the country away from cocaine production. This was met by strong opposition amongst the indigenous community, who have been producing coca for many centuries and believe strongly in the properties of coca as a reliever of altitude sickness. It makes a darn tasty cup of tea too.

In the end the ban was reversed with the agreement that coca growers would have to register their intent if they wanted to conduct large-scale operations (it takes roughly 100g of coca leaves to produce one gram of cocaine). The fact also remains that cocaine is big business and Peru produces the most coca leaves of any country in the world, so it's in the government's best interests to leave people to it.

The next day (after we'd recovered from the spectacle of a young Brazilian girl keeping us awake with some excessive ass-shaking outside our hotel the night before) we headed off to zipline at speeds of 60mph between four mountains, some of us (me) even managing to hang upside down above the valley below. After an hour we finally had our first sight of the big MP far up above, and spent the rest of the day walking around the mountain (also called Machu Picchu - no one knows the original name of the city) on which it stands by the way of the train line from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes.

Aguas Calientes has only existed for ten years as a tourist town to make the trip to Machu Picchu more comfortable, and the unrealistic way that the train line cuts through the city like those little 'cities' you encounter by the entrance to Disneyland certainly feels pretty false. It served us very well as a place to have a five star meal as a group sendoff (I never wanted each mouthful to end) and get an early night before the 4am alarm the next day.

We met at 4.20, trudged down to the over the river to the Machu Picchu side for its 5am opening, and then set off with the hundreds of other pilgrims on the race up the 1772 steps to the entrance in the muggy dawn before sunset at roughly 6.20am.

The hour it took us to this would not rank as one of the most purely enjoyable of my life, nor was the feeling of getting there drenched in sweat to find we'd been beaten there by hoardes of freshly showered tourists who took the bus up there. However Wilbert, our excellent and knowledgeable local guide, took us up to a less-trodden vantage spot from where we saw the clouds slowly part at 6.20 to reveal one of the most eerily beautiful sights I've ever seen.

At Machu Picchu you're prepared for the look of the place, that big, improbably steep mountain behind it, and the llamas, of which there are many. What you're not prepared for is the truly stunning scenery, with steep drops over every side that you look and lush forested vegetation surrounding the site. The feel of the place demands a real reverence and as such even the large numbers of visitors can't spoil that feeling that you're somewhere very special.

We were taken on a tour around to learn of how the citizens probably lived and the sacrificial ceremonies to the gods of the sky, before our guide left us to our own devices.

I had booked a ticket to hike up the Machu Picchu mountain (everything is ticketed), and almost didn't make it after leaving it with Mareike and racing around the site for half an hour to find her. Ticket procured, I had to race up to the summit, another 500m and countless steps above the ancient city, to catch up with the group. The views (not that I was hanging around to look at them) on the way up were stunning, but the summit at 3000m above sea level meant we were in the clouds and unable to see the tiny-looking city below.

Nevertheless, we were so enthused by the experience that on the train back to Cuzco that evening we hatched a plan to get tattoos inspired by the trip. 24 hours later I had an Inca sun surrounded by an Ecuadorian design on my inner bicep, and Mareike had an Inca cross on the back of her neck. A guarantee, as if that was needed, that we'll never forget that trip.

Being treated like a royal couple on a charity visit near Cuzco: 17th March

By far the most unexpectedly wonderful experience of this trip were the events of the 17th of March, when we visited a sponsored child of my parents, her family and their rural community 45 minutes drive from Cuzco. To explain: they give money to a charity called actionaid every month to help improve the lives of people in poorer communities, and part of the experience is that you 'sponsor' a child, and send regular letters back and forth to help learn about each other's lives.

We've been sponsoring this family for a good number of years and so I had been expecting a warm welcome. What I hadn't expected was to arrive at Annabel's (our sponsored child) school classroom to balloons, a seat of honour at the top of the classroom and a full programme of performances by the class to welcome us into their world. It was clearly a big deal for the whole class to have us their and they all seemed very nervous in presenting to us.

Next followed several speeches of appreciation for our support and a huge wreath of freshly picked local flowers for each of us, which they must have been up since the early hours preparing. We were then given a dry potato and cheese and were left to eat it with most of the class staring in wonder at us, and perhaps a certain amount of jealousy that one of Annabel's sponsors had actually come to visit her.

Potato eaten, we managed a slightly awkward question and answer session with the kids (maths is everyone's favourite subject!) before some photos, an attempt by me and Mareike to express our thanks in Spanish, and then it was on to see some of the projects in the community that the money has helped to fund.

We visited three separate viviendas (self-sufficient farms) on our tour, including that of our sponsor family, and in each one the goals of the projects were quite similar.

The aim was to help them to be truly self-sufficient and do it in a sustainable and hygienic way. So families had received paving to stop the courtyard from flowing and increase crop production, toilets and hot showers to make that hole in the ground redundant and an outhouse in which to breed guinea pigs and keep them away from the kitchen area where they had previously been running around as a 'part of the family' and making the children ill.

A big part of this is education about why these new methods are better than their old methods and tutelage so they can keep them up. We were proudly presented newly-built and furnished digs for volunteers who stay with them and do so much more good work than I could hope to have done.

Oh yes, and the guinea pigs... I had already tried guinea pig twice and had presumed it to be either a curiosity that is rarely eaten, like rabbit or lobster for us, or a bit of a touristy gimmick. Oh no. It was outlined several times to us the crucial role that these low-maintenance and protein-rich critters play in the livelihoods of the families there.

Not only do they eat one as a family around three times a week, but they can also take them to market and fetch a handsome 5 dollar price tag for them, more than enough to keep their children going to school. When you realise that after 6 months of having a large outhouse for them one family was breeding 300 guinea pigs at any one time, you see the huge difference that this is making to people's lives.

As the final part of our visit we were driven around as Annabel proudly showed us the lake near the village and the honey production. We were then taken to the family vivienda, where we were served guinea pig, played chess with Annabel's brother, and were shown a lovingly kept folder filled with our letters and photos.

It was then that I realised the importance of these correspondences which she so cherished - money is clearly very helpful, but it is the communication that makes it special and makes a little girl feel there's a family on the other side of the world that really cares for her. And by the end of the day, we really did.

Lima to Cuzco via a desert oasis: 15th - 16th March

The number of foreigners on the streets rises steeply once you arrive in Lima, and you soon realise that the vast majority of them are only there in passing from flights and buses before making the trip to their true destination of Cuzco. The importance of little old Cuzco to big bad Lima is emphasised by the fact that 30 years of attempts to build an international airport have been resisted by Lima due to a fear of being bypassed altogether.

It certainly makes for a pretty long and interesting road-bound trip between the two. We left at 12pm with the Tena bus company very excited about our 'presidencial cama' seats, which turned out to be the same as everyone else's. Not sure Obama would stand for that, but to be fair they came with plug sockets and use of the on-board library, which was a nice touch.

Four hours later we arrived in the desert town of Ica, jumped in a mototaxi for the 10 minute trip around the corner to the oasis at Huacachina, were offered a buggy trip straight out of the taxi for 35 soles (8 pounds), dropped our stuff off at a local hotel and within 15 minutes of stepping off the bus we were heading to the dunes in a 12-man dune buggy. For that reason:

Reasons to love Peru #3: total spontaneity/recklessness

What followed was my best experience in all of Peru. First we bumped along the uneven sand near the dunes entrance, before reaching smooth sand and hitting top gear. The buggy used the flatter parts to pick up speed as we raced across Lawrence of Arabia style landscapes before aligning itself directly with a 45° sand dune, hitting it head on and climbing upwards up to what felt for all the world like a tipping point, where we would sharply peel away to the side and descend that very same improbable slope.

Similar insane rollercoaster antics followed before our guide slammed on the brakes at the top of one such slope and shoved a sandboard in each of our hands. Instead of driving down a steep dune we were to lie headfirst on a thin piece of wood. It was a very cool experience but felt kind of tame in comparison to the buggy ride, which gives you an idea of how awesome that was.

Luckily the rest of the tour only consisted of one more sandboarding session and plenty of buggy insanity, until after the shortest hour of my life we parked up above the oasis to gawp unbelieving at a truly unreal sunset.

Then, seemingly as quickly as it had started, it was over. We were left to sit by the faded grandeur of the oasis-side architecture (it used to be a playground for the Peruvian aristocracies) and try to take in the experience and THAT sunset. We had time for a couple of fittingly delicious pisco sours before a taxi back to Ica for a quick restaurant meal before joining our bags and jumping on the 9.45 bus for the final 17 hours to Cuzco.

It started fairly inauspiciously as we half-asleep kicked in the lids of our unwanted airline-style dinners and the sharp curves of the ascent sent food flying through the air, which our 'bus hostess' found hilarious. However a stunning sunrise (see below - sometimes a sleepless night on one of those buses is a blessing) and some of the best landscape I've seen out of a bus window and we were in the capital of the Incas to be offered massages around every corner like the rest of the gringos. And very happy we were too.

Underestimating the power of the mountains and paying the price: 12th - 14th March

The dangers of a slightly time-pressured schedule (we needed to be in Santa Cruz in the east of Bolivia for Mareike's flight on 4th April) is that you can try to take certain shortcuts in your aims to see everything possible in a short space of time, and in that not show certain geographical features the respect they deserve. This was true of our fisherman 'guide' who sent us into the waves perched on a few sheaths of reed from my previous entry and it was certainly true of us when we took a night bus from the coast to Huaraz.

Huaraz is a gateway to the Cordilleras mountain range, the highest range of mountains in the Andes (bit like how Skipton is the gateway to the dales I guess), and as such sits at around 4000m above sea level. And that is as a base to explore higher climes... If I told you we gave ourselves a day to acclimatise straight off a night bus before setting off on a trek to Laguna 69 way above 5000 metres high then you can already guess how that ended up.

Yes, predictably even copious amounts of coca tea (more about that famous Peruvian export later) couldn't prepare us for that dramatic climatic change. After the tour company had teased us by taking us to the very last café before the end of civilisation and also after stopping for photos by the clearest blue lake I'd seen since, well, Quilotoa in Ecuador two weeks previous, we found ourselves huffing and puffing up a valley surrounded by Everests.

We were struggling even before my girlfriend's tube broke. To clarify, she is not an unborn foetus but a diabetic, and has a tube attached to a needle in her belly which pumps insulin into her body. To compound matters her glucometer (measures sugar levels in the blood) chose that moment to give up the ghost.

The problem with being at altitude is that the symptoms of altitude - dizziness, loss of breath, thirstiness - are very similar to that of high blood sugar. With no way of telling, we had to turn back after one more glance at the awesome scenery. I was secretly relieved as we hadn't even reached the climb and I was out of breath, and I consider myself to be in pretty good shape.

Luckily we could ramble back to the road, jump into a passing car, find a pharmacy and get Mareike the batteries and injections that she needed. There was then time for me to almost pass out from exhaustion and worry (leading some passers-by to ask 'estás muerto?') before getting lost one more time on the way to Huaraz with our tails between our legs.

One good thing came out of the day though - that evening whilst waiting for our night bus we experienced a local spirit frothed up with egg white aka

Reason to love Peru #2: pisco sour.

It wouldn't be the last time we savoured that little delicacy.

Our bus took us with Cruz del Sur overnight to Lima, where the lady in the Che Lagarto hostel took pity on our frazzled-looking faces and let us have the breakfast before checking in. Our only full day in Lima then consisted of sleep, hanging out with homeless cats in the Parque Kennedy, looking down on the sad little city beach from up on the cliffs, eating an anorexic guinea pig for 20 quid at a tourist restaurant (plus a pisco sour each tbf) and being almost hustled out of a few more notes at an outdoor chess betting syndicate whilst waiting for a sandwich.

Finally we realised that given our mental states and the lack of options in Lima that was a pretty decent day, and slinked off to bed. The next morning we revisited the clear highlight of Lima (the homeless cats of course) before a bus outta there to join the rest of the gringos on the way to the capital of the Inca empire.

Bad first impressions of Peru: March 9th - 11th

After almost 6 months in Ecuador I was definitely ready to head for Peru and check out if all the bitching I'd heard about Peru and its people (horrible spicy food, rude loud people, dirty unimpressive scenery, surround you straight off the bus shouting gringo gringo gringo!, slit your bags open when you're not looking and run off with your stuff, the list goes on...) from Ecuadorians had any truth behind it.

Worryingly, the first impressions backed this up somewhat. We crossed the border at 4am on Sunday 9th March, and as soon as we'd walked over the bridge separating the two countries I felt the mosquitoes surrounding us, and Peru's welcome present turned out to be 20 or so itchy little red marks on our arms and feet.

The border crossing went off without a hitch and as day broke driving through northernmost Peru it revealed a dry, dusty, desert-like landscape with hoardes of tiny mototaxis (scooter-driven rickshaws that you might expect to see buzzing around New Delhi) driving along litter-strewn roads. The immediate impression was of a country where life is rougher and tougher than its northerly neighbour.

This impression was strengthened on arriving in the tumbledown streets of Piura, our end destination, but it was there in the 'Movil Tours' bus station - Peru would rather present you with 20 individual bus stations than one big one - that things started looking up.

It was there that we saw we could pay 40 soles (about 13 quid) for an eight hour bus journey to Trujillo, complete with 180 degree reclining seats, airline style at-seat service and drinks and meals included. The 8 hours on that coach rank amongst the highlights of the entire Peru trip, hence:

Reasons to love Peru #1: the buses

We begrudgingly got out at Trujillo, jumped into an old camper van converted into a bus and shuddered our way along the coast to the resort of Huanchaco, constantly looking around for any lurking bag-slitters. We settled down in the beachside Hostel Sudamérica run by the self-proclaimed gringa Julie and then watched the sun go down and ate Peruvian ceviche, literally just fish in lemon juice with chilli, super spicy and not very nice. What else had the Ecuadorians been right about???

The next day we visited Trujillo city centre where we met the friendliest tourism officials ever, one of which insisted on showing us personally around the government building and conducting a practical photoshoot around the building and main square for us. I guess the north of Peru often gets left out by tourists for reasons already mentioned and due to a certain old Inca city somewhere in the south, so they're making a special effort. Bless their hearts.

It was then on to some pre-Inca ruins in the form of the built-on-sand chan chan, where we stalked some people who had paid for tours and learnt of the ceremonial sacrificing to children to mother earth, which by all accounts was a hell of a party for those guys. The day ended with some major bonding between my German girlfriend and a Chilean bloke over a love of Chris Stark AKA Scott Mills' assistant on BBC Radio 1. Strange world we live in...

On the second day in Huanchaco we had the dubious pleasure of going out with a genuine local fisherman to try and catch some tasty morsels. The difference between this and normal fishing is that you're perched with your legs either side of a long cigar-shaped reed boat armed with a piece of drainpipe halved down the middle to paddle through the waves and a polystyrene block with washing line hanging from it and a couple of baited hooks on the line. The idea is to chuck your polystyrene block into the waves and then paddle after it to retrieve any fish washed onto the hooks.

Clearly easier said than done. Our 'guide' was a typical long-haired laid-back South American surfer dude and after a brief demo I was sent off to catch dinner. The chucking the block was the easy bit, retrieving it not so. My boat was swept back to the shore without me a galling three times before I finally grabbed the bugger to reveal surprise surprise not a single bloody fish. Mareike fared even worse, being dragged out to sea and having her boat dumped upside down by the waves and fighting to not be completely dragged out (she also lost her sunglasses for her troubles). Not that our guide was bothered as he sat on the beach with his feet up.

Despite us only managing one pathetic tiddler between the three of us, we were invited to his home to eat some fish he'd caught earlier in the nets (no one is crazy enough to ACTUALLY fish like we did anymore), which were served together with their eggs in a very fresh hot sauce, a true delicacy! It was actually pretty damn tasty and helped us forgive the 'guide' for our earlier trauma.

A sunset surf later (i stood up twice whoop) and all was forgotten, and I guess I can say with hindsight that our early Peru adventures taught us that you definitely need to learn to take the rough with the smooth in that country.