This morning finds your correspondent in the Starbuck’s in Cuzco sucking on a triple shot latte having just had a huge breakfast at Paddy’s pub. Am surrounded by ever-so-serious looking designer tourists talking earnestly of their impending adventure to Machu Picchu. They seem to have no idea that they are in the company of bicycling…

Forget the Olympics! In the history of human endeavour July 2012 will be marked not by beach volley-ballers bearing their collective firm buttocks for country and ratings or synchronized swimmers doing whatever the hell it is they do for reasons that still elude this author. It will, rather, record that on the 27th of July…

Well Peru has cranked up the volume on the scenery another few notches as the road cuts through the Huascaran National Park and the magnificent Cordillera Blanca mountain range. The ride across the range is one of the highlights of the Peru part of the trip and the Punta Olimpica Pass that crosses the range…

Regular readers of this blog will understand how it pains me to ‘big-up’ any of the incredible feats of dering-do that I am somehow able to perform as part of this bicycle trip. They will therefore appreciate that this posting is going to be complete and utter torture for me because the road running South-East…

Guide books usually kick off an introduction by saying something nice about the population of the country to be visited. In the case of Peru this appears to have been a bit of a challenge and the best that my edition of Lonely Planet could muster is to describe the people as “stoic”. They obviously…

With the crossing of the Maranon River negotiated via the good ship ‘Not Very Good’ I decided to head off on a circuitous route to the south-east into the Amazonas region. Chachapoyas, the capital of the Amazonas Region is a charming highland town with a lovely central square. There are many tour operators offering to…