"Billy" wrote in message news:Wildbilly-

Was your trip a vacation or did you have business to take care of? If
the former, have you discussed it in any of the groups? I have a bad
case of wanderlust, and I'm always curious about what's around the next
bend, or over the next rise.

It was a holiday Billy and just a magic one. No, I haven't discussed it on
other lists (other than an extremely brief mention). It wasn't my choice of
destination so I had limited expectations but it turned out far better than
I ever could have anticipated. I can recommend a trip there, especially
Peru where the food was exceptional (all of it even the grub one eats just
because you need a belly filler), the people were all delightful and the
scenery and landscapes were always interesting or stunning or breathtaking.
Macchu Pichu has to be seen to appreciate it as no pic can really do it
justice but it's too crowded for my liking. Chile and Bolivia were places
we'd love to see more of, and the same for Brazil although we liked the bits
we saw (Iguassu is stunning as is BA). Would go back to every place except
Rio which has very grubby beaches in comparison to those of Aus and has
somewhat limited appeal for a couple of bumkins like us as we're not 'into'
shopping or shows or grubby beaches. As a spinner and sometime weaver, I
enjoyed that aspect of the western parts of it but would really have liked
to have access to a translator who knew something about the subject as the
only time I got to talk to a real spinner, I had doubts about what she was
supposedly doing and the explanation for why she was doing it - what I was
told sounded like a complete load of old rubbish. We were as sick as dogs
from the altitude from the time we got to Cusco and stayed that way till we
left La Paz but other than that, I was as fit as a Mallee Bull. Himself
wouldn't lsiten to my advice and not eat lettuce in road side places and got
a gut bug which took him 2 weeks to get over. I was not sympathetic. The
trip home was a bitch - 36 hours from hotel door to home. It's a long way
to SA from here. It took a couple of weeks to get over waking in the middle
of the night and wanting to bounce out of bed. I'd recommend it. Next time
we will go to the Galapagos and down into Patagonia.