From Amazon Rainforest, Peru
Everything is constructed from sticks and vines. One wall of your cabin looks out onto the jungle. You sleep under a mosquito net in the candlelight. I'm well protected, but it's about as close as I'll get to camping in the jungle.

It's also a proper scientific research centre, people climb trees to take samples and observe scarlet macaws. You might find one comes and steals your toast at breakfast. The macaws that is, not the people.

From Amazon Rainforest, Peru
As dawn broke, the trees began to fill with squawking, screeching parrots and macaws. Expectations grew, but for a long time no birds would commit to the clay. They don’t every day. You never know until the first bird makes a break for it. I was lucky.

All hell broke loose as the trees disgorged thousands of noisy, colourful visitors and for an hour the cliff was ablaze with a mass of flapping, rainbow-hued birds. It was utterly spellbinding.

From Sacred Valley, Peru
As the Urubamba carries us along, I'm lulled into a false sense of security. Then we round a bend and the mayhem starts. Rocks and foaming waters come into view. Are we really going through that? We bump a couple and then the river drops away under us.

I scream like a kid as the front of the raft seems to plunge almost vertically downwards and we hit the water, unleashing a torrent of spray. Everyone is hollering and laughing, utterly drenched.

From Sacred Valley, Peru
There are lots of ‘weaving demonstrations’ at the front of shops in Peru's Sacred Valley. Then there's the women’s co-operative - the real deal - set up in the 1970s to provide a space for women to continue their ancient craft, under the watchful eye of the most senior weaver, Nilda.

I spent the most fascinating hour or so watching them at work, slowly teasing the wool from rough bundles of coloured fluff to increasingly thin, fine thread.

From the Inca Trail, Peru
Dawn broke in the deep river valleys of the Andes, light illuminating the contours of the hills and glinting off the river. Underneath my feet was an Inca terrace, only recently uncovered after centuries buried in undergrowth and a lantern burned faintly further down the hillside, left by the archaeologists.

It was like standing in the pages of a classic explorers’ story. I stood in the peaceful early morning and committed the moment to memory.

From the Inca Trail, Peru
The Inca Trail is the most challenging experience some will have. Mining your reserves of strength as you hike up hundreds of uneven stone steps to the Dead Woman's Pass is intensely rewarding.

But there's plenty of effort going on 'behind the scenes' too. Watching porters run up steep steps with such heavy loads made me so humble and grateful. And the meals, prepared in the mountains three times a day, could rival many of Cusco's restaurants.

From Machu Picchu, Peru
We've all seen the photos, heard stories of how beautiful it is. I almost expected to be disappointed. I wasn’t. We tend to forget how much our brains pack in around an image, partly sounds and smells, but also knowledge.

Having walked all day to get here, I knew how remote the place is and how impressive a feat of exertion and engineering it is. Machu Picchu was far more stunning in person than even the best photo could ever capture.

From Machu Picchu, Peru
15 years after my first visit, I was back at Machu Picchu. In 2004, it was beautifully quiet. In 2019, I expected packed crowds. Guess which year this photo was taken in?

November 2019, not another soul at Machu Picchu. Priceless. Tired from walking for eight hours from the valley depths to the Puerta del Sol, we were so grateful to be the last guests on a beautiful afternoon. It has to be the perfect time of day to look down on Machu Picchu.