Into the mountains

I love mountains. There's something about the sight of a peak soaring above my head that makes my heart sing.

Georgia is ringed by mountains, with the whole of its northern border a line of high peaks that at this time of year are snowcapped. We knew we wanted to try and visit the mountainous areas, but weren't sure if the weather was going to let us get there. Enquiries at the not terribly helpful tourist information office in Tbilisi suggested we'd be all right, so we duly added mountains to the itinerary.

Kazbegi

The first mountain stop was Kazbegi, officially known as Stepantsminda. Above the village there's one of the most famous churches in Georgia, the Holy Trinity Church perched on a cliff edge - the sort of sight used in tourist information to attract you to Georgia. In fact it was one of the things which had attracted us to Georgia and we were really looking forward to Kazbegi. In the event it probably surpassed expectations.

The trip there was easy - a simple marshrutka, or minibus ride, from Tbilisi which took about three hours including an unexplained stop in a traffic queue at the top of a beautiful mountain pass. The scenery was spectacular.

As soon as we got off the marshrutka in Stepantsminda we could see the church high above us, and we had a great view of it from the terrace of our homestay. Our host Gela was utterly delightful - he spoke only Russian and Georgian, and preferred Georgian - but with the help of Google Translate and Gela's son over the phone we managed to have a perfectly good conversation. This was helped by Gela insisting on us toasting our arrival with chacha, the local vodka or whisky which is made with grapes - like grappa in Italy or pisco in Peru. After initially telling us we must have three shots we ended up with five, so by the time he left us (to drive to church!) we were a bit giggly.

The next morning dawned clear and bright and watching the sun rise over the church opposite was a magical experience. Gela bundled us all into his minivan and drove us up the road to the smaller church on the village side of the valley, where we arrived just as one of the monks was ringing the bell for prayers. Inside the tiny church, painted in bright beautiful frescoes, we listened as the monks chanted and lit candles which Gela got for us. Georgia is a very religious country, especially by British standards, and everyone has enormous respect for their Orthodox branch of Christianity. Julie and I are now quite used to donning a scarf and sometimes a sort of wrap-around skirt in order to go into a church.

The village main street is full of men - including Gela - who spend their days driving Mitsubishi Delicas up the hill to the church. Even if you've literally just come down someone will stop you and say "church?" But we wanted to walk, and followed the Lonely Planet's basic instructions to get there. We crossed the river, walked up through the smaller village of Gergeti, turned left at a T-junction, and followed the path up past a ruined tower and round the hillside to the top. It was a fairly steep climb but the scenery was lovely and I think we all felt better for having walked it!

We spent a good two or three hours up there wandering around, taking endless pictures of the church and the high peak of Mount Kazbeg. The church itself was fairly simple, but lovely anyway, but it was the views from it and the views of it from various vantage points around which really made the place special.

In the evening we stuffed ourselves with Georgian food cooked by Gela's wife Lela, who had been in Tbilisi when we arrived. The following day we wandered along the valley floor, accompanied by a very pregnant friendly dog who we named Tamar after a famous Georgian queen. Dogs tend to pick up tourists round here, wanting food or company or both.

Svaneti

After Kazbegi the next stop was the Svaneti region. You have to go back to Tbilisi and travel west to get to Svaneti, as while they're pretty close as the crow flies the disputed region of South Ossetia lies in between and you can't go through that. We took an overnight train from Tbilisi to Zugdidi and then another marshrutka to Mestia, the main touristy town in Svaneti.

The Svaneti people are known for their very distinctive architecture. Back in the Middle Ages they built high defensive towers to protect themselves against invaders and all the villages have a huge number of these towers still standing. They're pretty impressive and on our arrival in Mestia we set out to find one of the local museums where you're supposed to be able to visit a tower. The museum was closed, but we bumped into a bloke from Milton Keynes called Trevor (as you do) who was working in one of the guesthouses, who showed us the way to a tower you could climb. We scrambled up several rickety ladders to the top and stuck our heads out of the roof; Trevor said when it's not covered in snow you can sit on the roof but we all decided it was too slippy and snowy to risk!

On Monday it snowed, heavily and constantly. The flakes were enormous and the town quickly became a picture postcard. We ventured out around lunchtime to find something to eat and do some grocery shopping, which included a giant 3L plastic bottle of red wine for less than £6, but otherwise stayed in the warmth of our guesthouse and looked at the snow falling.

By Tuesday morning the snow was lying heavy on the ground, but nevertheless we'd found a driver to take us up the valley to Ushguli. This is a UNESCO heritage site, a half-abandoned village which is the highest continuously-inhabited place in Europe at over 2,000m above sea-level. Vakho, our guesthouse owner's brother, owns a decent 4x4 and there was space not only for the three of us but also a Korean girl and Japanese guy who'd travelled to Mestia on the same marshrutka as us. They made good company on an eventful day.

The 4x4 was making easy work of the snow, which was thick but packed hard under the previous night's dusting. There were cheesy tunes on the radio and it was all going well until we approached a corner on a switchback, saw another vehicle coming up fast, and Vakho didn't quite have time to brake. Crunch! The other 4x4 hit ours and we stopped. We'd come off worst with significant damage to the front of our Mitsubishi, prompting Vakho to comment wryly to our Japanese companion: "Japanese Mitsubishi. Russian tank." But the car still ran and so we carried on to Ushguli.

The road was pretty hairy at times, with the last section the most nerve-wracking - a track hugging the cliff with a sheer drop to the river below, covered with snow and quite windy. When we finally arrived in Ushguli, safe and sound, the place seeemed deserted, but Vakho found us a café where we watched the owner make fresh khachapuri and khubdari (the local Svan meat-filled bread pie) and gorged on hot carby goodness.

After lunch we ventured out into the cold and visited the local museum, which had a collection of beautiful ancient icons housed in one of the towers. Outside it was bitter, but with the sun starting to come out there was much less snow on the way back to Mestia. It was a good day, despite the accident, although we felt bad for Vakho who'd incurred more cost than he'd earned from the day's work.

We left Svaneti on Wednesday with the mountains clearing and all of us vowing to come back - probably in the summer, when there's supposed to be a lot of good walking in this part of the world.

 

Monasteries in caves!

After a week in Tbilisi it was good to get out of the city and on to the road. Through our helpful guesthouse host Irakli we booked a tour/transfer to the Georgian wine region Khakheti via the Davit Gareja monastery complex.

Davit Gareja was founded in the 6th century by a Syrian monk called Davit, or David. These days it sits on the Azerbaijan border, just under two hours from Tbilisi, with the second hour or so on increasingly bad roads. Luckily our driver Giorgi has been to Davit Gareja a lot, and he navigated around the potholes admirably.

First up you visit the part of the site still in use – a collection of attractive brick buildings and some cells built into the rock walls. The monastery is still working and monks were praying in the small church; as ever the chanting was haunting.

We then climbed up a pretty decent hill to the ridge line separating Georgia and Azerbaijan. En route we passed a couple of Georgian border guards keeping watch – we didn’t see any Azerbaijanis the whole day and it was unclear whether we’d ever technically crossed the border or not! My phone thought we had as I got one of those “Welcome to Azerbaijan” messages telling me how much calls cost.

On the Azerbaijan side of the ridge we came upon Urbano monastery, a complex of about 80 caves hewn into the mountainside. It’s soft sandstone so must have been fairly easy to dig out and some of the caves have brick elements too.

More interesting are the ancient frescoes still visible in a number of the caves, some dating from the 11th century. Despite the years many of the colours are still bright and you can easily pick out the scenes the monks were depicting. One of the little churches built into the mountainside needed a bit of scrambling to get into but once inside we were rewarded with frescoes of deep indigo blue and well-preserved faces painted over 800 years ago.

But the beauty is slightly marred by history. Davit Gareja was a popular tourist destination during the Soviet era and the Soviets had no respect for religion. So the walls are covered in graffiti from across the years, mostly in Cyrillic although there’s some Georgian too, the signs of 20th century visitors erasing the legacy of the monks who once lived in this harsh environment.

It was an extraordinary place, the other worldliness accentuated by the strong wind whipping up the dust from the rock face.

From Davit Gareja we drove on to Sighnaghi, a town in the south of the wine region perched high on a hilltop. It’s almost Tuscan in look and feel although less well-preserved than most Tuscan towns. Giorgi drove us down to the local convent where one of the best-known Georgian saints, St Nino, is buried. They’re in the process of finishing a new church which has some stunning coloured stonework on the outside, and the old chapel where Nino is buried also has some good frescoes.

Eventually Giorgi dropped us at our guesthouse, run by a warm-hearted lady called Nana, a rickety old house with poor heating that was nevertheless a great place to stay in the heart of the town. We spent that afternoon and the next day meandering the small town, walking a bit of their old city walls (not really a patch on York’s, but to be fair that’s a big ask) and going to the excellent little museum.

The two nights concluded with a lovely meal and wine-tasting at a celebrated local restaurant, where we tried several unusual wines and I taught the waiter how to say “feijoa” – turns out these fruit, beloved of New Zealanders, grows well in Georgia and is a popular ingredient for making fruit brandy. It was a chilled-out couple of days perfect for getting the hustle of Tbilisi out of our systems, before the next adventure.

Six days in Tbilisi

Our Georgian journey began in the capital Tbilisi, a lovely little place with a population of about 1 million. It's a fairly compact city with hills all around and we all liked it a lot.

We stayed in the old city, in a little guesthouse which from the outside looks like it's about to fall down but was furnished with modern furniture and had a friendly and helpful (and talkative!) host, Irakli. He gave us some good food and sights recommendations and helped guide our stay, which after a day of wandering around we decided to extend from the four nights we'd originally planned to six.

The city has a lot of grand but faded buildings, houses and apartment blocks which evidently nobody can afford to quite renovate but live in anyway. The style includes beautiful balconies everywhere, in the old part of town at least.

There are a couple of grand avenues, notably Rustaveli Avenue with a lot of large 19th-century buildings including the wonderfully stripy Opera House and the Georgian National Museum. We've been very impressed with the museums here - clear, detailed exhibits which are well-curated. The national museum's Treasury was particularly good with a gorgeous selection of jewellery and artefacts unearthed from burial sites. Georgia has a long rich history and they keep finding stuff from the Bronze Age and on which is really spectacular.

Bank of Georgia HQ

Otherwise the old architecture is interspersed with a selection of crazy modern buildings. The Peace Bridge, spanning the river below the old town, is really quite nice - an undulating glass curve with the stars of Europe on top (they light up at night). Opposite the bridge there's a concert hall and exhibition centre of two glass and steel tubes, as yet unused, which is pretty cool. Other architectural gems we visited included the 1970s building which is now the Bank of Georgia headquarters, a set of boxes stacked on top of each other in a location which is miles from anything useful except a couple of the university campuses.

The city is also filled with churches of all sizes, from very small to very large. Georgian Orthodox churches are quite different to Western European churches - they're generally square-ish inside, and empty of furniture. The walls are hung with gilded icons and people wander in to pray at all times of the day. Often there's a priest chanting too.

Tbilisi's main cathedral is fairly new, consecrated only in 2004. Inside it's still plain plaster although they're beginning to paint frescoes at the altar end. It's huge and lofty and rather lovely. We got there about an hour before sunset and the sun on the golden sandstone turned the building the most gorgeous colour; inside, we listened as four very ordinary blokes just out of work sang prayers in harmony as a priest chanted.

We also visited the museum of ethnography, which was a little disappointing as not many of the houses from around Georgia were actually open. The ones which were had guides to tell you about the culture of the people who had lived in them. We liked our first guide best, a young lady wearing semi-traditional dress who was happy to chat and answer questions. We discovered that the traditional Georgian nappy involved strapping your baby into a cot and positioning a pipe (different shapes for boys and girls) strategically to catch urine and funnel it into a pot!

Ethnographic museum

The best bit was probably our trip to the market, where we wandered for ages looking at the produce on sale and trying to have conversations with the stallholders in our limited Georgian/Russian (hello! thank you! English!) and their limited English. They seemed genuinely thrilled to have three Brits stopping by and we scored a number of free samples.

A lady checking beans in the market

On our last day in Tbilisi we caught a marshrutka (basically a minibus) to the nearby town of Mtskheta, a UNESCO World Heritage site, where there's a stunning old cathedral decorated heavily inside, and a church on a hill overlooking the town. Normally you pay a taxi driver to drive you up to the hill but, being us, we decided to walk. The tourist information office was helpful in giving us instructions, although Julie had found instructions online too which suggested that the best way to cross the highway below the hill was through an underpass. So we duly trotted along to the underpass, which is by a gravel pit, only to find that the gravel works was guarded by at least four aggressive dogs. Backing off we decided to cross the road at road-level instead, which actually wasn't too bad. Coming back was much easier and far more direct!

We ended our Tbilisi stay with a trip to the public baths, which was if nothing else an experience. Tbilisi has a hot spring running off the hills into the river and they have a number of bathhouses where you can soak in mineral-rich water. Julie had researched online and thought she'd found one where you didn't have to book but there were hot pools to soak in; only we turned up and it was expensive, reservation-only.

Instead we went to one of the other public bath options, where the women's baths were only showers. But it was cheap and we soaked for a while under steaming hot water smelling slightly of eggs. We tried to get a massage or a back scrub but, through the medium of miming mainly as our Russian is not great (well, mine's non-existent, Julie knows a little) and the attendants' English was worse, we ascertained that this wasn't going to happen. We also had to borrow some flip-flops after a lady had a go at us for being bare-footed.

We came out and discovered that Andrew had had a far different experience on the men's side, with a pool and a massage. Typical.

Overall Tbilisi was great - it's still not too touristy, and British tourists especially are few and far between. It's easy to get around (the metro is cheap and reliable) and seems pretty safe. Definitely a good spot for a city break, or, as for us, the starting point to a tour around Georgia.

Georgia (the country, not the US state)

Back when I was still in Rio my friend Julie emailed and said "we're thinking of going to Armenia and Georgia in the spring, do you fancy coming?"

At that point the Paralympics hadn't even begun, I hadn't done my South American odyssey and wasn't thinking much beyond the next few weeks. But by Christmas, two months home, I was already getting itchy feet (and not much work!) and willingly signed up for three weeks around Georgia.

"Why Georgia?" asks everyone, quickly followed by, "and which one, anyway?"

The answer to the second is that we're in the former Soviet state, a country which borders Turkey, embraces the EU (there are EU flags everywhere, although Georgia is not a member state), and which has been consistently invaded and occupied by Russia throughout its history.

The answer to the first is broadly, "why not!" When Julie and Andrew were on their two-year trip around the world we met up for a fortnight in Uzbekistan and had a wonderful time and the thought of another journey to a country in that broad region appealed. Obviously Georgia is culturally, politically and historically quite different to Uzbekistan but it also sits on the ancient Silk Road and there are commonalities. It's also supposed to be stunningly beautiful and everyone who's been there raves about the people and their friendliness.

Also, they make wine and the local speciality is a sort of bread pastry filled with melted cheese. Was there even a question?

Flying to Georgia is a bit of a mission with few airlines taking you there from the UK and all at unsociable hours. My flight left Stansted just after lunch and after a four-hour layover in Istanbul got me to Tbilisi at 3.30am. Apparently there are few rules in Georgia about when flights can land, so many international flights get in at stupid o'clock in order to cut costs.

Apart from that, though, it's a pretty easy country to visit for a Brit with no tourist visa required, lots of goodwill towards the UK and very low costs.

We began our journey in the capital Tbilisi ... more soon!

Lots of highs, few lows: a trip round-up

I've been back in the UK for six weeks now - six weeks which have flown by just as fast as the six weeks I spent travelling and the weeks in Rio. Every time I've seen a friend for the first time since returning they've asked me what the best bit was, usually prefacing with "how was the Olympics?" At that point I've usually gone "oh yeah, the Olympics, I did that too". The travelling part of the trip, being more recent and immediate, had somehow taken priority over Rio in my head.

I blogged about both the Olympics and Paralympics earlier and the memories are still strong. The ones I've been dragging out when people ask tend to be:

• the lovely chat I had with single sculls champion Mahé Drysdale before racing started, because it genuinely was just a nice conversation with a nice guy;
• watching the GB women's eight win silver, because over the years I've known a number of the women who have been fighting for that medal for so long; 
• being in the athletics mixed zone on the night of the men's 100m final and squishing into the front of the agency pen to grab Usain Bolt's quotes (that man is TALL - my arm was aching from holding my phone up to record);
• the many, many incredible stories from the Paralympics, but maybe most that of Australian para-canoeist Curtis McGrath. We sat in the shade in the boat park and he told me, with perfect clarity, about the moment on 23 August 2012 when he'd lost his legs in an IED explosion in Afghanistan. It was only moments later, being stretchered to the helicopter, that he told his mates they'd see him at the Paralympics. Some of them were in Rio to watch him win gold four years later. It was hard to listen and ask questions without getting emotional.

The Lagoa at dawn

But those are just a handful of the many moments I'll remember from those two and a half months in the Cidade Maravilhosa, shared with a great bunch of colleagues and friends.

When it comes to best experiences from the travelling, the Salkantay and Machu Picchu probably top the list. I had such high expectations from the trek and they were met almost entirely, which is saying quite a lot. Iguacu Falls is also up there as one of the best bits of the trip. The sheer power of all that water was just astounding - and I got to go to Argentina for the day!

But I also loved Ilha Grande and wished I'd stayed there longer; I was very pleasantly surprised by Lima, which everyone had said wasn't that great a place; I chilled out with the locals by Lake Titicaca; I was awed by condors in Colca Canyon; and saw pelicans in a place that looked like the moon in Paracas. I stuffed my face with steak in Brazil and with livelier fare in Peru, and drank somewhat more than my fair share of capirinhas and pisco sours as well as plenty of ice-cold beer.

With my Lake Titicaca homestay host Calixto

Along the way I encountered all sorts of interesting people, from the wonderful locals who were my guides and hosts, to other travellers. Young couples taking career breaks, older solo travellers looking for something new, backpackers from all over the world stretching their money as far as it can go. And of course in Rio a whole host of fantastic cariocas who were so generous with their welcome to their city. 

In many ways it's odd looking back at the journey. At the beginning of the year I was tired, trying to give as much time as I could to work and to rowing and not quite succeeding on either level. I felt like I'd been operating at maximum capacity for far too long. And I really wanted to work in Rio, having spent the best part of four years looking back wistfully to the London Olympics. When the offer came through I was on a long weekend break in New York, seeing my brother and sister-in-law and enjoying a brief few days of travel - it seemed appropriate that I spent much of that weekend buoyed up with anticipation over Rio too.

It was difficult in some ways leaving my job. I worked with an awesome team and the job itself was interesting, varied and challenging. But I'd been there a while and the changing shape of the world of business media was getting me down. Taking the leap into Rio, travelling and then the challenge of trying to go freelance was absolutely the right thing to do. Writing this now, despite the fact I haven't really put much effort into getting work yet, I feel refreshed and excited about next year. Planning is overrated - I'm going to see what happens and seize any opportunities that come. It seemed to work this year, after all.

Thanks for following my travels with me. Until next time!

Welcome to Miami

You know that Will Smith song, Welcome to Miami? Well, I had it running through my head on loop the entire time I was there, despite the fact I'm not a big fan of the song.

Turns out, though, that Miami itself is pretty cool.

I ended up flying home through Miami because I couldn't find any reasonably-priced direct flights from Lima. All the cheaper ones involved a change somewhere, mostly in the US. So then I thought, how about a stopover in the US on the way home? Further investigation revealed that US budget airline JetBlue has Fort Lauderdale as its hub, and flies between there and Lima; and Norwegian Airlines has incredibly cheap flights between the US and UK. So I spent the money I saved by not flying direct in Miami, which was a much more pleasurable way of spending it!

Vizcaya

I had essentially two days and one night there, and tried to go for a mixture of things to see and do. First up, after an American breakfast of pancakes and bacon in a diner, was the Vizcaya Museum, a beautiful mansion built in the early 20th century by a very rich American called James Deering. Annoyingly they didn't allow pictures inside the house and it was a bit drizzly so my pictures outside in the gardens weren't amazing either, but it was well worth the visit. The place was stunning, each room themed with art and furniture sourced to fit the theme. It was a bit OTT but I really liked it.

After Vizcaya I headed to Little Havana, which was weird. Not Little Havana in and of itself, but because I'd just spent a month in a Spanish-speaking country. Now here I was in an Anglophone country and all the signs were in Spanish, and people were speaking Spanish on the street. The sense of slight displacement, exacerbated by an overnight flight the night before, was very odd.

Domino Park in Little Havana

Dinner was in yet another bit of Miami, the up-and-coming area of Brickell where there's lots of new development and some funky restaurants. I'd also just been paid by Rio 2016 had a Happy Hour cocktail with dinner and then went back to the hotel for a nightcap in the roof bar before crashing.

Day two dawned hot and sunny with no sign of the previous day's drizzle. Conscious that within 24 hours I'd be shivering in British November I donned shorts and a vest top and spent the day dodging the sun.

Wynwood Walls

Across the course of my trip I'd discovered that I really like street art. So when I read about the Wynwood Walls I added it to my list of Things To Do in Miami. Wynwood was a deprived area of the city and indeed still has a slight air of deprivation to it, but it is sprucing itself up largely thanks to street art. In the centre, there's a complex called the Wynwood Walls where street artists are invited to come and add their work to the walls. All around, other artists have decorated houses, shops and even the street furniture with vibrant colour. It was stunning.

Art at the Perez

To continue the art theme the next stop was the Perez Art Gallery. Compared to the cost of museums in South America the entry fee was a bit eye-watering for a relatively sparse gallery, but that said, I liked pretty much all the art in there. Sometimes modern art can be pretentious - I can never quite understand how a canvas of just one colour gets to be in a museum - but most of the Perez collection was nice to look at and thought-provoking. I especially liked a sort of video/audio installation where the artist had collected audio files of people speaking endangered languages.

After such a surfeit of art it was on to a bus - Miami has a great public transport system, which includes a free monorail - to go to Miami Beach. I'm not a massive beach person and felt I got my year's fill in Rio, but it was nice to see the beach and have lunch wave and people-watching.

Ocean Drive art deco

As well as a large golden beach Miami Beach is also where you go to see art deco buildings. I walked down Ocean Drive, a whole street of beautiful former hotels and apartment blocks which are now mainly restaurants. On a sunny Friday they were packed with people eating vast American portions and drinking the largest cocktails I've ever seen in my life. I was kind of tempted actually, but I'd planned dinner at a Miami Beach institution, Joe's Stone Crabs.

There's a weird little backstory to why I went for this. I have the full collection of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, a mixture of modern paperbacks and the 1960s hardbacks collected by my dad and his brothers when they were teenagers. I love them - they're totally of their time and there is a huge amount of misogyny and racism in several, but the stories are fast-paced and exciting. Anyway, in Goldfinger Bond goes to Miami and eats stone crabs (and pink champagne) at 'Bill's on the Beach' and thinks it's one of the best meals of his life. Bill's was apparently inspired by Joe's and I like crab anyway, so the thought of stone crabs appealed. And they were good; crab claws packed with meat followed by a slice of key lime pie. A quintessential Florida meal to finish off my day, walked off along the marina before I caught the bus back to downtown and a taxi to the airport. And that was my trip, done.

Miami Beach

Peru round-up

It's almost a month since I got back to the UK and I somehow haven't got around to finishing the last couple of posts I planned for this blog.

First up, a Peru round-up!

Why go to Peru?

Go to Peru if you want fascinating history, awe-inspiring ruined cities, stunning landscape and interesting food.

My top three Peruvian experiences:

•  The Salkantay Trek and Machu Picchu - I can't really split up the trek from Machu Picchu, as, to echo our tour company's slogan, the journey was as important as the final destination. The group was so great and the whole experience truly memorable, culminating in that 6am view of the early light over Machu Picchu. 
• My Capachica Peninsula homestay. It was a very chilled out two days, but it was lovely to meet people in their own environment, eat proper local food, and sit for an hour gazing over Lake Titicaca. 
• Colca Canyon - for a combination of reasons why I'm picking the Salkantay and Capachica Pensinsula! Colca combined the scenery and sense of achievement of the former with some of the isolation of the latter. 

You know you're in Peru when ...

•  A lady is standing on the street dressed in traditional costume either clutching a lamb or towing an alpaca and asking for you to take her photo (I never actually did).
• You're standing at a crossing waiting to get to the other side of the road and three taxis drive past beeping at you, just in case you might actually be wanting a taxi instead of simply crossing the road.
• There's a random parade going on to celebrate a religious festival, the fact it's Sunday, or the local university!

What to pack when going to Peru

Layers. Lots of layers. And suncream. On the coast it's hot and dusty but at altitude it can be chilly. Except when the sun's out, when it's hot again and you're liable to burn in no time at all.

Annoyances and things to look out for

As a solo female traveller I felt safe in Peru at all times, although a few people seemed astonished I was on my own (given that I met a few other women in a similar position this was odd, but there you go). Single rooms were reasonably-priced and I was well-looked after eating alone too.

It wasn't all perfect though! A few things:

Peruvian traffic is truly awful. The big comfortable tourist buses are a good, cheap way of getting around but your driver will take bends on mountain roads fast and wide. Best to buckle up and trust they know what they're doing. Taxis in towns are cheap and seem fairly reliable, save for the driver I got in Arequipa who drove in circles and almost failed to find my hostel.

There was a S./ 400 limit on ATM withdrawals at most ATMs for much of my stay, which was a pain. When I needed to withdraw a large amount of US dollars to pay for the Salkantay trek I had to go to a bank and get it over the counter. I stuck to bank ATMs as in Brazil, although I'm not sure if the skimming issue is the same in Peru as Brazil. 

Prices of things are definitely elevated in tourist towns - food, drink and entry to attractions. Foreigners are charged substantially more to visit attractions than locals (which I get, but I wish the same applied in the UK!)

What I've missed most about Peru

The vibrancy and colour of the place, especially the bright clothes worn by the locals away from the bigger towns; and the fantastic fresh fruit.