Take one old and, as it turns out, less than reliable Volkwagen Combi. Paint it purple, and make it convertible. Fill it with a motley and changeable crew of South American musos, European backpackers and one dog. Hit the Panamericana, and drive north. That, baby, is where the sun is. Before [...]

The rain sounded different to Cusco rain. Fatter, wetter somehow, the decadent splatter of water on leaf. The drugs had me pinned between an exhausted indifference to whatever may have been crawling through the holes in walls and window screens, and a lurid imagining of too-many-legged tarantulas seeking escape from [...]