On my whistle stop tour of The States my first stop was L.A. Originally intending to hang around in the airport for a few hours on my way from Central America to Hong Kong, I changed my flights and had two weeks to see as much as I could.
The States is definitely set up for tourists and is mega expensive but I'm so glad I went. I couch surfed to keep my costs down and get the insider tips on what and where to go. Here's what I did with my three days in L.A, bear in mind I'm a slow person! If you have less time you could easily cram more in.

Day 1: Santa Monica and Venice Beach.
I was overlapping with a couple of couch surfers who had hired a car and were spending their last day on the beach so they kindly took me along. One thing to note, L.A is a bitch to get around! The public transport is pretty good (I got the bus back to Hollywood painlessly) but you have to factor this in to your timings.
Venice beach is a very bohemian hang out, full of beautiful people and a truck load if weirdos too it's an interesting place to spend a few hours. I walked from Santa Monica pier down to Venice and then got a bus back. Shopping, coffee shops, skaters and hippies, it's pretty cool. In my 6month old backpacker attire, I felt pretty out of place!
I never made it but The Getty Museum would be a good additional activity to add to this day as its pretty close (for L.A!)

Day 2: Celebrity Homes Hollywood Tour and Griffiths Observatory.
You can buy tickets for Celebrity Homes tours everywhere, haggle with them, they'll probably go as low as half price. I had an amazing time on this trip. Quintessentially American and touristy we drove past dozens of Hollywood homes and famous watering holes. Our driver had fun stories and tales to tell such as where he last saw Jennifer Aniston eating lunch and 'there's the palm tree Lindsay Lohan smashed into when she got her DUI.' Brilliant! The pictures below show the house 'The Osbournes' was filmed in and the balcony behind which MJ passed away!

Also on the tour we saw the Kardashian's shop Dash, along with other celebrity shops and stores, such as Kat Von Dee's tattoo shop, and I asked to be dropped at the walk of fame to compare my feet with Will Smiths. Along this strip is also where you'll find touts giving out free tickets for shows. I was looking for Jay Leno but instead bagged free tickets to see The Late Late Show for the next day where Keanu Reeves was a guest!

After a long day celeb spotting I met up with some more couchsurfing acquaintances and we went to the Griffiths Observatory. It's free to enter and you get fabulous views of the city at night. A great place to reflect and be thankful!

Day 3: Warner Brother's Studio Tour.
I umm'd and aah'd over Warner Brother's or Universal for my third day. By all accounts Universal is a big old theme park and a lot more expensive whereas Warner Brother's is more for the film fans, giving you back stage access to the film and TV sets you remember from childhood. On my tour I learnt how the same sets are used over and over and saw loads if stuff I remembered from TV and screen, such as the shop where Gizmo was bought in The Gremlins, the emergency fire escape where Spider-Man's 'upside down kiss' took place, and loads of stuff from 'Friends' like the park Phoebe runs in (my friends say I run exactly like her so this was exciting) and the alley way where Monica and Rachel argue over who should date Jean Claude Van Dam. We saw TV shows being filmed and I stood in Central Perk! There were also great tales and stories about glamorous past movie stars and their demands and little things kept me chuckling like seeing Ellen's parking space! For the boys there's a warehouse full of cars from Batman to Gran Torino.

Other things I did in L.A included walking up and down Hollywood Boulevard, eating lots of amazing food and eavesdropping to ridiculous conversations in the foots of the Hollywood hills. "I mean I know I'm nearly 30 but I could definitely play a 12 year old." A budding actress speaking to her soon to be agent.

Costa Rica is a beautiful and diverse country. Heaps of wildlife, tons to keep adrenalin junkies happy and endless beach on each coast you can easily see why tourism has boomed here.
Travelling down the west coast from Nicaragua I found myself monkeying through the forest canopy one day and relaxing on a beach a few days later.

For the record I am petrified of heights, to the point where I once blacked out on the side of a mountain. Serious. However, in the spirit of facing your fears and all that and zip lining being one of the 'things' that all he other travellers had done I decided to give it a go. With two new friends I felt safety in the group and the day started well.
We went with Extremo Canopy Tours in Monteverde who offer all kinds of tours, the big draw being the mile long 'Superman' over Costa Rica's fabulous rainforest canopy. It started easy enough, with each zip line gearig you up for the next. However as each line got longer I started to freak out. The free fall Tarzan swing bought me to years and by the time we reached the 'Superman' line I had taken to closing my eyes and praying for it to end. I vaguely remember opening my eyes for a split second, seeing the sheer drop below and quickly closing them again. Saying all this I had a great day. I faced some fears, saw some beautiful scenery, learnt I NEVER want to do a bungee jump and now never need to put myself through the ordeal ever again. Yaaaay!

After seeing almost all Monteverde had to offer we headed to Montezuma, a beautifully quiet beach town on the west coast. We'd heard it was a bit of a party town but were pleasantly surprised by its laid back feel. The three of us managed to bag ourselves a beach side villa with cable TV and kitchen for a surprisingly small amount and we were set for 3 days. We had the beach to ourselves to get on in the day and sat around beach fires drinking rum by night. We also saw an AWESOME lightning storm from the waters edge one night and trekked up to a beautiful secluded waterfall to full one of our days. Fabulous.

Ecuador's claim to fame (and it's name) is its position on the equator. This famous spot is where Charles-Marie de La Condamine measured the equatorial line in 1736 that gave rise to the metric system. Pretty cool. There's a monument that you can have a photo taken with but the real draw is that the monument was actually put in the wrong place and if you walk a few meters down a dirt road you'll find the REAL Mitad del Mundo. A fantastic open air museum that shows the true equator. They tell you a bit of history of indigenous people and their beliefs based on astronomy and the position of the earth. Then it's time for the science! Balance an egg on a nail head and get a certificate, watch water turn different ways down the plug hole on either side of the line and all other quirky and fun treats to entertain and boggle your mind. It's super fun and another bucket list check off, I've stood on the equator people! And I have a stamp in my passport to prove it! Check that!

Otavalo market is a shoppers dream. I would definitely recommend organizing your trip to fly out of Quito so that you can hit the markets for all your souvenirs before flying home. I don't have a problem, honest.
Some travellers don't rate it as it does have almost everything most other markets in South America have just over and over again. Personally I don't see what their problem is? Yeah so it's the same old crap?...over and over again?! Ace!
No I joke, in my opinion Otavalo had lots of souvenirs I didn't see else where as well as local items like traditional dress and jewellry. It also gives you the option to find the best of what it is you're looking for within your price range. It doesn't beat the cheap steals of Bolivia but it did have more western styled items that you might be able to use at home, such as blanket and bag designs. I left with a queen sized hand woven bed spread, a table runner, two hand painted wooden spoons, a dream catcher made from cow intestines and rare bird feathers, some paintings and some jewellry. It was fantastic. And let's be honest everyone loves mincing around a market?! It's what holidays are made for right? All the boys say YEEEAAAAHHHHH!!

If you get up early enough the nearby animal market is an absolute must! Ask around for days it's on. We got up around 6am and headed out to find a field full of every farmyard animal you could think of, pigs, cows, llamas, ducklings and sacks of puppies. Literally SACKS of puppies. Sacks of pretty much anything really, woman walking round with handfuls of live chickens and all animals large and small. The basic rundown is each seller stands with their wares and waits for someone to approach them with a price. It's just as much a hang around and chat situation as it is a selling one. If you're big on animal cruelty you probably won't enjoy it but if you can embrace the madness of another culture it's brilliant and well worth the early morning.

SURVIVAL TIP
Haggle hard, get a price in mind and stick to it, if you walk away they'll either call you back or you'll have the afternoon to decide whether to go back and pay the price they're asking AND DON'T BUY A PUPPY!

Finally! We're on a beach! Man had we waited a long time for this. Tyrona, a national park on Colombia's north coast is where the Colombian's go for holidays. A slice of the Caribbean it's seen heavy development, especially in the sleepy village of Taganga on the outskirts of the park.

After a few days adjusting to the heat and munching fresh seafood we headed to the park. We decided to head to the only campsite with kitchen facilities and took some pasta and supplies with us to keep the costs down. We found a place recommended in the bible (Lonely Planet of course!) and Gemma convinced me not to get a mini bus and to walk 4km with 5 liters of water in my rucksack. I almost killed her. Once we'd done that we realised why the mini buses couldn't go any further and took a 30 minute hike up and over huge boulders to get to the beach itself. You can take a horse but with the steep ups and downs I reckon that'd be pretty traumatic too! It was tough but the scenery was great.
Once we'd settled into our hammock and had rum and pasta in our bellies we were planning tomorrows beach action.

Tyrona really is paradise. We stayed in a campsite just back from the beach (£3.50 a hammock) but for a little more (around £8) you can have a beach front hammock on Cabo San Juan. We stayed at Finca don Pedro which had kitchen facilities as well as a restaurant and a great communal atmosphere. A 10 minute walk to the nearest beach and another 30 minute jungle trek to pristine waters suitable for swimming, it was stunning. Logs washed up on the beaches and it was possible to find a secluded stretch of sand somewhere along the way. There are lots of treks to keep you busy within Tyrona as well as wildlife spotting trips but we stayed true to ourselves and spent lazy days on the beach sipping cerveza's.

Cali, the town most backpackers will get to when crossing in from Ecuador gets its name from the Spanish 'caliente' meaning 'hot'. My travel buddy and I were mega excited for scorching heat and a little trip to the zoo. After a stressful border crossing at Ipiales, we wanted something to cheer us up. For anyone interested we'd arranged a full day of travel to get us to the border town before dark. Horror stories of robbings on these borders are rife, especially the Colombian guerrilla ones.. (Now I realise these are all ridiculous as Colombian people are some of the friendliest I've met). We arrived on time at about 5pm and as 6pm drew closer we were nearing the front of the que after about 5 pusher-inners had jumped ahead. "Heeeey, that's how they do it in South America", we mused. A que was forming at another window but we held our ground as the light faded.

There was one woman to go before us when the window closed and the guard fucked off. Brilliant. As she pushed her way to the front of the second que I grabbed Gemma's arm, smiled at the lady and said "We're with you!"
The lady in the second que stuck her arm out and blocked us so the three of us waited patiently.

The guard on duty had a particularly tight uniform bursting at the buttons and Gemma and I were giggling at his resemblance to a member of the YMCA when a gentleman piped up from behind "You think it's funny you can push in because you're westerners?"
Erm I don't think so Mister! In broken Spanish I argued that "Actually we've waited a really long time and loads of people pushed infront of us and were pushing with this non westerner so eeeeeerm no??!!" When Gemma added the brilliant line of "Noone wants to be out after dark!"

Everyone looked a little scared and confused, the guard grabbed our passports, stamped then quickly and told us to go. We ran across the border, were ushered into an unmarked car by a policeman and shit ourselves the whole way to our dirty hotel where we got takeaway pizza and watched horror films before our early morning bus to Cali. The zoo was necessary!

Cali zoo has tons of animals, lots of big scary ones like bears and lions and weird cute ones like meerkats and anteaters along with a ton of animals that I have no idea about. It was cool! They also had nice statues for photo ops, and this amazing 'make monkey facial expressions' mirror board. We spent a good half an hour pushing kids out of the way here.

We weren't sure if these turtle shells were for kids, but seen as they had small ones and then one that was less small we have it a go. Brilliant!

SURVIVAL TIP
Take a packed lunch to the zoo, the food's crap and overpriced.

Police Museum:

The Museo Historico Policia (not to be confused with the Military museum where you'll find tanks and other manly things) is a humorous museum that fills a nice afternoon. It houses a strange collection of police related odds and ends such as Pablo Escobar's gold encrusted Harley (and a roof tile with his blood on, although this was closed when I went), a range of military uniforms, weapons and a whole room on the drug situation in Colombia. Anyone trying to smuggle drugs can learn how NOT to and there was even a plaque to a canine hero who had sniffed out the largest drug raid ever recorded in Colombia. They gave him a medal!

Our guide was what made it though, he was absolutely hilarious, keeping watch as we tried on hats from around the world and posing with our pen for photos. He even took us up on the roof for views of the city and told us a story about the images on Colombian money. We got a free poster when we left too!

For a night out in Bogota head to Carne del Res outside of the city. Most hostels will put on a party bus of some sorts to take you there. It's expensive but the food is amazing! We got a steak and bottle of rum and then after everyone's finished eating you jump up on the table and dance away. It gets pretty crazy but the restaurant vibe will see you heading to an after party at around 2am.

Finally I have to show you some of the street art scattered around the city. The Old Town has some really beautiful buildings and street performers hang from trees in the small squares each evening. Grab a beer from the corner shop and go and hear a story being told or see a tightrope walker, this is what I loved about Bogota.

SURVIVAL TIP
Don't be scared! Your guidebook might deter you from the old quarter but it really is beautiful. There are police everywhere so you feel safe and if you keep your wits about you, like in any large city, you should be fine.

Arte del Mundo in Banos, Ecuador is a fantastic arts and literacy project for young kids. I arranged to stay with them for a month before leaving the UK and didn't regret a second of it.
The organization offers after school activities for young people in the town, along with cinema nights in their (newly renovated) theatre and English classes. The town of Banos has no cinema, theatre or public library and it was a pleasure seeing the joy in the locals faces when they were able to access a fun, creative learning space.
As a volunteer I 'worked' weekdays from around 2pm-6pm. Some nights we hosted movie nights selling popcorn or teaching English to local adults. We'd all have a meeting at 2pm and discuss the days activities, get on with our allocated cleaning duties and have the kids burst through the doors at 3.30pm after school. We'd read for an hour, a range of books for different abilities which greatly improved my Spanish!
After reading time we would do an activity centred around each days theme, be it science, team building or sports. It was challenging catering to different ages in another language and never quite knowing how many kids would turn up but we had a great team of volunteers and it was so rewarding.
Before leaving the UK I'd researched so many volunteer options, all of which were stupidly expensive and weren't really related to the type of work I want to do when I return. With Arte del Mundo all I paid for was my accomodation which aside from fundraising is their bread and butter. For a small fee I got a large room with space to unpack (!), free use of kitchen and washing machine, a TV room with unlimited DVDs and a lovely room mate. It was fantastic to slow down and be in one place for a while, getting to know fellow travelers from all over the world and some who'd stayed behind and set up something amazing. I made great friends and formed fantastic bonds with the children and Banos is a beautiful setting to sit back and relax for a while. (Check out my next post on how to spend a month in Banos!)
Rural outreach projects took us out in to the countryside to read and play with children whose only books are the bible and an encyclopedia, and coming home to games night and a bowl of popcorn can't be beat! In truth it really wasn't like working at all and I feel extremely lucky to have taken part in the project.

Please check them out if you're interested: www.artedelmundoecuador.com

Cusco is a must on all travelers tour of South America. The jump off point for tours to Macchu Piccu and the Sacred Valley as well as a beautifully restored town and well known party city.

The Plaza de Armas is the meeting point of the city, surrounded on all sides by beautiful colonial architecture and boutique shops. A ticket to see all of Cusco's historic monuments can be quite pricey but just walking round the city you can tick the big ones off your list and pay separate entry fees for the few you may choose to see inside. The Cathedral of Santa Domingo is the big must see and the Church of the Jesuits in the main square is equally impressive.

All around the city you can see memories of the Incas. The huge stones used to build the old city walls still stand and in them you can find images of pumas and toads. Some are a little harder to see then others so tagging on to the back end of a your can help you pick them out.

Cusco's central market is a great place for a spot of lunch, a typical almuerzo will set you back a dollar or two and you can always be sure of a surprise treat you weren't expecting. And if you're not hungry, you'll soon work up an appetite with all the souvenir shopping.

The Inca Museum was a great spot with loads of artifacts on show from pots to gold and maps of cities and stars. It's a good place to get in the mood for Macchu Piccu.

To tell you about Cusco's nightlife might be telling a little too much, the best way is always to search out the hotspots for yourself. Most of the clubs are clustered up and around the square and many stay open into the early hours of the morning. My hostel recommendation for Cusco is Kokopelli, they have three other hostels in Peru and are a great place to start the party as well as a cool place to chill if you don't want a wild one.

Macchu Piccu was at the top of my bucket list and was the thing I was most excited to see in South America.
Most people do a 4 day Inca Trail (booked 6 months in advance) and others take a tour from Cusco a few days before, either a similar 3-4 day hike or for those who don't want the hard journey up the Inca train and then coach to the top.
I had booked a 2-day Inca hike along the original Inca Trail before leaving the UK (I don't find hiking particularly pleasurable) and was so pleased I did.
I woke up early on the day of my hike and was put on the Inca train where I went about a third of the way up and was hurled off on the side of the tracks. There I met my guide and we started up hill. The rest of my group had cancelled due to sickness so I got a private tour which was excellent. I practised my Spanish and learnt as much about the Inca's as I could.
The scenery along the way was spectacular, waterfalls, valley views and smaller Incan and pre-Incan settlements kept us entertained and were beautiful spots to take the necessary breaks. We chatted about how different we thought the world might be today if things had turned out differently for the Incas. Known for their warrior mentality the Incas had a great respect for 'Pacha Mama', the earth goddess. They only took from her what they needed and gave back when they did. They were also great thinkers, who built civilisations with complex water systems and mapped the stars. When they first met the Spanish they gave them gold as a welcoming gift, bad idea.

My favourite thing about the hike was walking through the Sun Gate and seeing the great Macchu Piccu nestled amongst the hills. We sat for about an hour looking at it, after regaining my breath which took some time!. My guide told me how no matter how many times he sees that view it is always like he is discovering it for the first time. It was magical.

After walking down to the town we had dinner and a good nights rest ready to see the site in all it's glory the next day. We got up early to see the sunrise, taking the bus up to the site (I got a stamp in my passport!) and then we waited for the sun to appear through the sun gate that we had walked through the day before. Their are too many amazing facts to share about Macchu Piccu, it truly is mind boggling. The stones within each temple fit together like a jigsaw, each block unique, and yet you cannot fit a blade between each rock. In one place, just to show their craftsmanship and skill the Incas built a curving wall between two natural stones with no purpose other than beauty and showmanship.

Complex stone hinges meant the city was secure, and a water system meant crops and inhabitants were hydrated. Scattered everywhere were signs of their belief systems, water fountains in the shape of frogs and an underground vault which opened up to the mouth of an eagle, believed to be where the dead were prepared for burial and then reborn.

Then I learnt about the Sacred Valley, a series of Incan settlements that lie around Cusco, and of which Macchu Piccu is a part of. The Incan king foresaw that the end of the world was near (which coincidently was foreseen to take place around the time the Spanish invaded, spooky). Believing that you travel to the afterlife via the Milky Way, the king began to build his own Milky Way on earth in order to control his destiny and pass through to the next life when his end came. Each town within the sacred valley lies directly below a constellation and from an aerial view the cities are built in the shape of each constellation. It literally is the Milky Way on earth. Pretty impressive huh?!