I start South America in Quito, Equador
The yellow line is the equator about 5 miles north of Quito

I'm heading up a volcano with these three

Almost 5000 meters here

Down at the beach at Mantaneque

Nice sleeping area

The blue church

Later on in the interior at a remote village
I do some scrambling with Becky

Some good views from the top

A volcano and Lake Quilatoa in the same area Yes, it is inactive

On to Banos A waterfall..

and in the clouds a real nice volcano

Did a solo ridge trek in Vilcabamba

This was a nice day

Don't step to the right

I now go to the clay pyramids in Peru

These are about 5000 yrs old

North Central Peru puts me at some little visited ruins

These are by Tingo
The locals call them the Maccro ruins I think

They were round stone homes on the side of a mountain

and Kulap

Even more remote at Leymebamba, a site called Guahuana _spelling

After 4 hours of back-country, I hope this is a trail, hiking, I arrive here

They were very hard to see at first

I saw little to no evidence of people visiting the site
Safe to say not many hikers get out this way

I cross back-over the Andes
traveling in the back of a potato truck on it's way to market

The journey took over 16 hours and had about 6 other peruviens going somewhere

Into the Huaraz area with excellent trekking
Heading to the snow in the background led me past this cross
in the middle of nowhere, covered with pinwheels
Could only get the photo on the shade-side

At the glacier lagoon Churup

Another day had me at Yungay
A 1972 mudslide buried the village killing all 18,000 inhabitance
Only the church steeple (center of photo) was left sticking out of the mud

Got a lift back to lagoon Llanganuco
from the presidents of Peru's northern universities

I jumped off the micro and started heading back up the valley
4 hours of hiking (mapless and clueless of course) got me to these stone structures

Going south takes me by Oasis Huacachina
stayed for a couple of days in Ica to check it out

It was surrounded with sand dunes like these

Missed the earthquake in Areiquipe by 2 months
Hit the church by my room pretty hard

Mr. G. Eiffel also built the worlds longest iron bridge in the 1880's
It is 420 meters long and still handles car traffic

Got down in the Coca Canyon

At the bottom I found this

and this, pretty nice for off the beaten path

The day of the hike out, had some condor action

This sight stilled my thoughts
had a good 30 minutes of show from them

Off to Cusco and Manchu Pichu

On the way to Aguas Calientes I see some salt making lagoons

And some hillside ruins

I'd climb a mountain for a llama

Got to see this in the process of getting my llama

Some site shots

Around the backside you can see an Inca draw-bridge

Heading up the hillside on these steps

And from the top you see this

At the other and opposite end (bottom back side) you have the luna temple

I'm now crossing to Bolivia This place IS South America
The witchs market in La Paz

Into the country around Sucre for some day-scrambling fun

The dark lines on the left side of the white face are dinosar tracks
Didn't want to pay $5 to go past the gate to see them
Instead I walked along the top and looked down

The town of Oruro

And then to Potosi, the world's highest city

Spain became wealthy from this mountain
The most prolific mine worldwide
for over 300 years

Over 25 lagoons were built since the 1500's to help process the silver

Stone water channels

Stone walls are used to protect the trees from these guys

You can see it a little clearer here

Took a day trip to swim in this volcano
The Inca had his people remove the wall of the cone to make this
It still bubbles and is very hot

Next I make a stop in Uyuni and the train graveyard

Some of these are classics

There must be around 100 old trains of different styles and dates here
Nobody does anything with them

Then I go south to Tupiza
Land of Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid

I liked the texture of these rocks

Look how thick these rocks are

Here is a better view

This is the Puerto de Diablo - door of the devil

The locals call this the valley of male members

I just walked all day not really knowing
where I was or was going to be

Came across this large rock
Look at the large electric poles for scale

And then I put that into perspective

The little black dots are train and car tunnels

I really enjoyed the Tupiza area
It reminds me of the U.S. southwest area

Hey, I'm out of here and into Chile

Pretty desolate area at the crossing

First stop is San Pedro de Atacama and Valle de la Luna

Not sure what this was
It's about 3 miles north of the village with no roads, no signs,
nothing but it and me

Winding down the trip after almost a year
I head to the coast to relax

Take in some still water to see the flamingos

Hung out with the sea lions and birds

In Arica I took in the Eiffel church, Iglesia San Marcos

The Eiffel customs house, Aduana

And saw Jesus getting held-up

After all of this I started catching long-haul busses
back to Quito and then flew/bussed into Quipos, Costa Rica
for some long over-due time on another fine beach
What can I say,
loved it and it was was a year well spent
Enjoy