Tag Archives: UNESCO

In Cusco, a woman having breakfast at our hotel was complaining about her muscle aches and pains. She had just returned from the Inca Trail, and when I said we were starting it the next day, she looked me up and down and said: “Well, I hope you are fit!” in portentous tones. What had […]

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Two of the great joys of travel are eating and shopping! Any visitor to these pages know I love exploring markets. I love the colour and the chaos; I love the photographic challenges they present; I love the insight they give into local people’s lives. I don’t even mind the pseudo ‘workshop’ visits that are […]

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When you are trekking at altitude in Nepal, the Sherpas will tell you: Go high, sleep lower. In the Peruvian Andes, the guiding companies seem to take the opposite approach. Cusco, in the south-east of Peru, is the starting point for most Inca Trail tours. This little city in the Central Peruvian Andes sits at 3350 […]

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I was breathless with excitement! Or maybe it was just the altitude? Or the psychoactive effects of the coca tea we’d been drinking? Flying into Cusco (previously Cuzco) felt like flying into another world. And it was: it was a world away, and a long time ago. My husband and I were planning to walk […]

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Everyone I know who had ever visited Wadi Rum in the south of Jordan has come away awestruck. As did I. It is the most extraordinary landscape: steep sandstone cliffs rising tall and textured out of a flat sandy valley with colours changing every moment from warm yellows and rusty browns through to the more […]

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