Vibes

That first sight of the Amazon (Jungle & River) from the plane was such an intensely overwhelming moment. Even now I'm still in disbelief that we're actually here, it feels like a dream! I definitely maybe did a little cry when we saw the beautifully green rainforest from a distance. We had been told by the retreat that a taxi would collect us from Iquitos airport, and under no circumstance to get into any other unauthorised taxi so we found the guy holding the card with our names on and he led the way to the 'taxi'. Now, this was a clear indicator of just how conditioned my mind is to certain 'luxuries' in life because can you imagine the look on our faces when this was our taxi? What an adventure! After dropping our stuff off we had a little tour of Iquitos with one of the 'tour guides' who honed in on us whilst we were admiring the Amazon close up (we learned this was a perfect place for them to pick up wa...

We've now been here 2 nights, arriving late Friday night and are already saying goodbye to our first Airbnb apartment, £40 per night for a huge place in an incredibly interesting neighbourhood named  Lince. It's difficult to explain the culture at first glance, as whilst having some similarities to London (obviously as it is a capital City) there are also vast differences. I'm not going to claim to be an expert, nor that my upcoming experiences won't change my initial point of view, we've been here 48 hours and are in holiday mode, both conditions make it unfair to expect a full rounded view so I'll say this; Lima is SUCH A VIBRANT PLACE! There is lots of poverty in Lince, it's everywhere you look and at first thought you'd think that is a bad thing, yet I am maybe seeing this from innocent/ignorant eyes but it seems to have brought people together (?) it's Summer here so I'm sure that helps but everywhere you look there is a grou...

Having been on my Bucket list for several years I'm finally on my way to visit the beautiful country of Peru. As I write this I am 35,000 feet in the air above somewhere in France en route to our stop over in Madrid and surprisingly, I'm pretty chilled considering this recent onset of flying fear in my later years so I'm doing pretty well. The mystical ancient Incan ruins of Machu Picchu was the reason the destination first appealed to me all those years ago, there's something that seems so magical about that place, (plus Llamas, who wouldn't want to meet those?) and since then the appeal has developed more depth.  Ross and I will be stopping at Lima briefly before flying to Iquitos, a city located in the North East of Peru and within the Amazon rainforest (which you can still not reach by road!). More recently, Iquitos has been named the 'Ayahuasca Capital of the World' so on top of visiting La Isla De Mono (Monkey Island) we will be partici...