Peru 2005

Sometimes when I've travelled I've planned the whole trip on my own, and travelled alone. Sometimes I've gone with friends, or on an Earthwatch. My trip to Peru in June 2005 combined both aspects: an organized tour from Overseas Adventure Travel in the company of good friends; and a visit to the Peruvian Amazon on my own but with arrangements made by the lodges I visited and my own very competent travel guide.

Both parts were very much "soft" adventure: we didn't climb the Inca trail to Machu Picchu, nor did I row my own boat down the Amazon. But with many of the challenges of everyday existence in an unknown land passed off to others, we were free to see more and just enjoy the fantastic scenery, the people we met, the culture we encountered which is so different from that of North Americans and yet so much the same.