Best trip ever!

The gang, overlooking Lake Titicaca
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

I'm back - I have been for a while - and I have to say, here indeed is a contender for the best trip I have ever been on.

It really was so much better than I had anticipated. The stop-over in Miami was long enough to go and explore South Beach; La Paz was extraordinarily beautiful when viewed from El Alto; the ruins were fine and not too many that I suffered from ruin-fatigue; the hiking was marvellous and strangely refreshing; the food was delightful, and I had some of the best seafood ever in Lima; Cusco was picturesque and belonged to the locals far more than I had thought; and Machu Picchu... well, what can one say? It lives up to the hype and then some, and the climb up Wayna Picchu was simply outstanding.

So the question really is, where to next?

Packing

rises
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

I've now started packing for the trip. I want to take as much camera equipment as I can manage, but since I know I'll have to carry it I also don't want to take anything more than two lenses and a tripod. I need the latter because I might be able to get to Machu Pichu early in the morning to do a long exposure, and also it is cheap and light and doesn't count for much. However, the question is which lenses to take? I should really take the standard lens because it has the widest field of view - again very useful for Machu Pichu. I should also take one of my telephoto lenses, probably the physically smaller Nikon one, because then I can do proper people shots with the blurred background. The real question then is this: do I take the macro lens and try and find space for it in my luggage? This is a very hard subject to settle, because my camera bag only has room for two lenses, not three, and I don't want to risk getting any of my lenses damaged. What to do, what to do...

Just over a week...

insidered
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

In a little more than a week I'll be jetting off again, this time to South America. I'm travelling with Explore to see if they're any good, and I'll be visiting Bolivia and Peru. I got worried a few months back that the Peruvian government was going to make it harder for people to get to Machu Picchu so I thought I'd best get my boots on and skip town quickly before my chance was gone. No worries really, though.
This will be the first time that I'll have travelled south of the equator, though I'll be taking my time getting there - including a silly stop-over in Miami, it's a twenty-three hour trip.