We departed Toronto early in the morning and flew to Lima, with a lengthy stop in Miami in between. The drive to our hotel gave us a brief tour of several neighbourhoods in Lima.

Peru, a Spanish colony on the west coast of South America, declared its independence from Spain on July 28, 1821. The third-largest country on the continent, and 20th in the world, it is home to roughly 29 million people.

From Lima, we flew to Cusco, where we took an orientation walking tour of the mountain city to acclimatise to the altitude.

Cusco is the modern capital of the Cusco Region and Province, and was the ancient capital of the Incan Empire. Pronounced "Qosqo" in the Quechua language, the city was built in the shape of a crouching puma, with the fortress of Sacsayhuaman as its head.

Our first activity of the tour took us white water rafting on the Urubamba River.

The Urubamba River is a partially navigable headwater of the Amazon. It rises south east of Cusco and traverses through the Sacred Valley before joining the Apurimac River to form the Ucayali River.

Our second activity took us horseback riding in the hills outside Cusco, visiting several Incan sites like Sacsayhuaman. The ride to our rural hacienda experienced major delays, as we witnessed first-hand South American political activism.

A national strike is a common form of political protest in Peru. The populace attempt to shut down much of the country's infrastructure, including transportation, in order to gain the president's attention toward their cause. On this day, the strike was aimed at expressing the citizens' displeasure at the government's policies regarding the country's natural gas resources.