A New Year’s Eve, or Año Viejo, spent in Ecuador provides a fascinating insight into local culture and folklore. During the build up to the day itself, you will see effigies for sale in the streets, made from wood, paper, cloth and firecrackers. These effigies, also known as año viejos will usually represent international political figures that are hated, locally despised politicians, or icons from popular music or culture, from the old year. These figures are dressed up in the family’s clothing and with masks of the personalities they seek to depict. They are then burned on New Year’s Eve to banish the bad and welcome in the new.

In Quito, Amazonas Avenue is the place to head early in the evening to check out the stalls and the open-air entertainment. Themed effigy displays line the road along with live music and street food. You may see effigies being burned here and you will certainly see fireworks. Plaza Foch in Mariscal is supposed to have an especially big display of dummies to burn this year. Outside of Quito, the coastal town of Salinas is a popular Ecuadorian New Year’s Eve haunt.

Similar to Halloween in the United States, New Year’s Eve is a day when children and adults alike dress up in costumes, wigs and masks. Throughout the country, a popular pursuit is for men to dress up as women – the widows of the año viejo – and beg for money. Also, outside of the main cities, especially on roads to the smaller countryside towns, you may come across children holding string across the roads. They are trying to stop the traffic with the aim of relieving you of your small change. In the countryside, many people light fires in the street, upon which they burn the effigies. This happens in Quito too, but more frequently in the suburbs.

Midnight itself tends to be a family affair, with a meal spent at home with relatives. A local tradition is to eat twelve grapes (uvas) at the stroke of midnight, which is supposed to bring luck throughout the year. The streets become ablaze with little fires as each family burns its own effigy. After dinner, younger people head off to clubs or parties to see in the New Year in style.

Peru will be exposed to high levels of solar radiation this summer, according to a new report by the Peruvians Against Cancer League (LPLC).

Citing data from the National Meteorology Service, the LPLC said that Peru’s solar radiation levels would reach 14 (on a 1-15 scale), due to deterioration of the ozone layer.

Dr Alcides Pinedo Cárdenas, an oncologist, said high levels of ultraviolet radiation have generated high incidences of skin cancer in recent years.

He explained that cases of skin cancer usually occur in people over 40, but that they were becoming more common at earlier ages due to frequent exposure to solar radiation.

According to Andina, there are between 3,000 and 5,000 cases of skin cancer diagnosed in Peru every year – the fourth highest type of cancer in the country, after stomach, lung and breast cancer.

The highest radiation rates are found in Lima, Piura and Arequipa, the report said.

Dr. Pinedo stressed that even people who were only exposed to ultraviolet radiation for short periods of time were still at risk, and urged everyone to take precautions and use sunscreen with SPF of 30, or higher.

A New Year. New possibilities. New commitments. New resolutions. Celebrations and customs may vary around the world, but in most places, New Year’s Eve (NYE) is one of the biggest party days of the year. For many, simply spending the night with close friends and family is the best way to celebrate. While it’s certainly a great way to ring in the New Year, there are many people who like to turn it up a notch.

The are many great places to watch the clock strike midnight in Central and America, but if there is one place that does give any traveller and adventure seeker a starting point for celebrating this holiday in a unique and raucous way, it has to be Rio de Janeiro.

Rio is known as one of the party capitals of the world, so you know what you’re getting into if celebrating the New Year in Brazil. Like Sydney, you’ll find yourself in the middle of summer in Rio, so beach parties, bikinis, and swim suits could be the norm for the night, depending on your preferred party location. If you’re going to Rio for NYE, you’re going to dance and party with some of the best in the business – Brazilians. These people know how to spend a night out, so attending the city’s second biggest annual party (after Carnaval) will have you boogying the night away on the beach.

Like many things in Rio de Janeiro, it begins and ends on Copacabana beach. Party central is located up and down this famous beach, with all different genres of music and plenty of activities to keep you up and dancing all night long. This year’s New Year’s celebration will feature the usual massive fireworks display in addition to different stages set up along Copacabana beach, each featuring different music.

Rio is definitely a fantastic, rowdy, fun, and unique city to ring in 2012. One of the best NYE parties you’ll find anywhere.

BBC-owned travel guide publisher Lonely Planet has hailed Peru, and especially its northern coastal regions, as one of the best places to surf in the world.

Its 1,000km coastline receives consistent Pacific swell, and away from the grey sea fog that shrouds the south coast for most of the year, Peru’s north coast bathes in near-endless desert sun.

Combine surf and sunshine with sparse beaches, stylish places to stay and heavenly seafood, and you have all the makings of a relaxed beach holiday, whether that involves catching any waves or not, Lonely Planet said in a recent article.

And if you manage to tear yourself away from the beach lounger, there is plenty of ancient archaeology to immerse yourself in, according to the article, which also provides a roundup of the top spots to visit on Peru’s north coast.

Huanchaco

Peru is probably the first place that people ever surfed. Stroll the beach at Huanchaco, 560km north of Lima, and you will see the one-man boats still used by fishermen, called little reed “horses” or caballitos de totora. When the day’s catch is done, fishermen surf home astride their caballitos, just as depicted in 3,000-year-old pottery vessels found nearby. Today, for a few soles, they will gladly take a passenger out for a spot of fishing or surfing – and then you can try the local catch in one of the tiny seafood restaurants that line the beachfront.

Las Pocitas

The rowdy surf-and-party hangout of Mancora, 1,200km north of Lima, is no great hideaway, but the beaches that stretch to the south of it offer beach-holiday perfection. At Las Pocitas, strolling distance from Mancora, stay at the ultra-hip Hotel DCO, which feels like stepping into a style magazine; or try the laid back Casa de Playa, which has a fine seafood restaurant for your daily ceviche. You will be offered cocktails under palm trees and sunset horse rides on the beach, while there are rock pools to explore and surfing or kitesurfing lessons on offer for the kids.

Vichayito, Los Organos and Punta Veleros

Six to 10km further south of Las Pocitas stretch the fishing settlements of Vichayito, Los Organos and Punta Veleros, laid out between sandy beaches and dry hills. Quieter than Las Pocitas, they are great destinations for families, as most accommodations have gorgeous pools for kids who are not yet ocean swimmers. For some visitors, the surf breaks at Punta Veleros are the attraction, or there are plenty of other water sports on offer, including wind surfing, kite surfing, snorkelling and diving. Off the water there is horse riding, plus walking and bird watching at nearby El Encanto mountain, or you can find pure relaxation at Spa Origenes . Soleil Bungalows is a top place to stay here.

Punta Sal

Just north of Mancora is Punta Sal, with an often-calm sea and inviting beach favoured by families. Base yourself at the upmarket Punta Sal Club Hotel and range north to visit Caleta de la Cruz de Pizarro, where Francisco Pizarro and his conquistadores landed in 1535. The deep waters off Punta Sal are also known for game fishing; try your hand at landing a marlin, tuna, wahoo or dorado.

Cabo Blanco

Hemingway fished here, and the giant black marlin that were caught at Cabo Blanco in the 1950s are said to have inspired the book The Old Man and the Sea. A few deep-sea boats still operate here, catching black and striped marlin, mahi mahi and tuna, but it is mostly a commercial fleet now. From November to January, Cabo Blanco spawns a perfect pipeline wave – for experienced surfers only.

Chicama

This is the home of the longest wave in the world – up to one mile long and known for its speed, cleanness and all round exhilaration. Chicama is about 80km north of Huanchaco, set in incredibly arid desert landscape. Hire a board (and stay) at Chicama Surf Hotel and Spa. Non-surfers could happily hang out poolside here too. If you get bored, there are plenty of nearby ancient ruins to explore.

Chan Chan, Huacas del Sol y de la Luna, Sipan and El Brujo

The north coast of Peru is intensely rich in pre-Colombian archaeology – much of it easily reached from the colonial north coast town of Trujillo. The Chimu ruin Chan Chan was the largest pre-Colombian city in South America, while the Huaca del Sol and Huaca de la Luna (Temples of the Sun and the Moon) are from the earlier Moche culture. The recently excavated tomb at Sipan contained copious amounts of Moche gold treasure, and a new museum at the site known as El Brujo makes this valuable ruin doubly worth visiting. Multi-lingual guides will explain what all these fascinating places meant. Visit before they dissolve further in more violent El Niño downpours.

In the desert of southern Peru, giant etchings of spiders, whales, people and trapezoids stretching across 450sqkm have adorned the landscape for 2000 years.

Preserved by the hot sun and a dry climate, the Nasca Lines have been embedded with mystery ever since the Nasca civilization collapsed, around 600 AD. The ancient Nascas scratched their drawings into the sand by digging away at the dark stones that covered the surface. The manmade wonder that resulted was a collection of shapes and pictures only discernible from great heights. The question of why has lingered over these images for centuries.

The discovery that the Lines formed distinct, recognizable images only came when the advent of commercial aviation allowed people to fly over the massive etchings. Since then, archaeologists, historians, geophysicists and travellers have wondered what these lines mean and why the Nasca people took so much time, energy and care to engrave them into the earth. Were the lines created for irrigation? For roads? As part of an astrological calendar? As landing strips for extra-terrestrials?

It wasn’t until recently that scientists began to understand the origins of these lines drawn in the sand. A team led by archaeologist Christina Conlee of Texas State University excavated a body which had no head. The body had been buried honourably inside a tomb in a seated position, leading Conlee and her colleagues to believe that this person died in a ritual human sacrifice. As they lived in an extremely dry region, the Nasca people were in a constant struggle for water, so their prayers and rituals almost always revolved around the need for water, historians believe.

Buried along with the body was a painted ceramic funerary pot. This and other pieces of excavated pottery revealed a connection between the headless body and the Nasca Lines. Images painted on the pots, like that of a killer whale, strongly resemble their large-scale counterpart sketched into the land. These findings support previous conjectures by scientists that the Nasca performed ceremonies in the lines and geoglyphs – ceremonies they hoped would result in water for their society.

As more and more is uncovered about the ancient civilization that once lived on this arid coastal plain, the Nasca Lines will continue to be a source of intrigue for academics and ordinary people. Travellers to Peru can only hope that preservation efforts can make this archaeological treasure last for generations to come.

Today, the Nasca Lines are a World Heritage Site attracting curious tourists and academics from around the world. But the etchings may be under threat. Nasca’s incredible lines and geoglyphs have been placed on the World Monument Fund’s 2012 Watch list.

According to Popular Archaeology, among the culprits are unregulated private flights, looting, nearby mining and waste disposal, climate change and the lack of proper infrastructure for tourism. Environmentalists worry that these factors could leave the Nasca Lines vulnerable to severe weather events such as flooding.

As a result, the Ministry of Culture is working on a master plan to regulate tourism and industrial activity in the area. Included in that plan will likely be tactics for responding to flooding caused by El Niño and La Niña climate patterns.

Several tour operators offer trips to Nasca, and a few bill themselves as eco-tourism businesses. Outfitters Eco Service Tours and Sacred Earth Travel offer three-day tours to view the geoglyphs both from above and up-close on the ground.

Preserving the Nasca Lines should be in the Peruvian government’s best interest. The alluring history of these cryptic lines could have the potential to rival Machu Picchu as a tourist destination.

The Huffington Post has announced that Machu Picchu is the winner of its ‘Number One Place to See Before You Die’ poll. The contest was the brainchild of Huffington Post travel staff, who perused the latest edition of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, and chose the world’s top 16 can’t-miss sites. They then asked their readers to vote on sites including the Galapagos Islands, the Sahara Desert, and Moscow’s Red Square. The final round pitted Machu Picchu against Egypt’s Great Pyramids, with Machu Picchu chosen the “unanimous” winner.

With the iPad 2 available for less than £400 and full of apps for all occasions, Android needs a hero tablet, and it needs one now. After a few false starts, in the netbook/tablet hybrid Asus Eee Pad Transformer, it’s finally found one.

With a 10.1in screen and a healthy bezel around the edge, the slate part is slightly longer and narrower but exactly the same depth as the original iPad. It’s well built, too: the retro brown colour may look as if it’s been modelled on a 1970s Casio calculator, but the metal chassis is designed to last. The only weak part is around the back, which is covered with a textured plastic that we imagine will be the first part to show signs of wear.

The tablet transformed

It would be almost foolish to buy the Transformer without the keyboard, though: that’s what makes it unique. Attach the two together and it’s as comfortable to type on as any netbook with the added advantage of instant start-up and well over a day’s worth of battery life.

The Transformer actually has two power cells, one in the slate and one in the keyboard, and Asus claims a total of 16 hours usage when they’re combined. We got more than 13 hours of heavy use out of it before plugging it in.

The Transformer’s screen matches that of the iPad 2 on colour reproduction but beats it on brightness and resolution. However, Honeycomb, the tablet-specific flavour of Android, is still in its early stages of development and is a little quirkier than iOS. It’s easy to overload a home page with widgets than can cause the Transformer to stutter once in a while.

But it’s the multitasking sidebar which really stands out. Call it up by pressing an on-screen button and up to five recent apps can be restarted instantly in their last state. Switching between them is just as fast as, if not faster than multitasking on a netbook. Unlike iOS, you can’t control which apps are held in the background, but that’s the trade off for the speed at which they’re recalled.

It’s this, as much as the keyboard, that makes the Transformer a true workhorse with all the convenience of a tablet.

Megatron or Optimus Prime?

There are a few reasons the Transformer won’t supplant the iPad 2 just yet. The biggest weakness is video. The Tegra 2 processor can cope with HD playback, but only a few codecs are supported in the default player (meaning that currently it simply won’t play a lot of video file types), and we couldn’t find a third party media app which didn’t crash. The rear facing camera, meanwhile, is capable of shooting 720p but the video quality is terrible, even though the stills quality is relatively good.

However, set that against Flash support and add in the extra software that Asus bundles for free, and what you’re left with is something better than an ‘iPad beater’. The keyboard does more than give an improved text entry option – it really does transform this from a tablet into a netbook. With all popular memory cards supported, you can use it to create and move documents, not just in the cloud but from one device to another, and the bonus of being able to type properly while surfing the web is not to be underplayed.

You’ve finally got a choice: a valid alternative to Apple’s ubiquitous tablet that won’t leave you feeling like you’ve settled for second best.

Researchers discovered a personal computer using Wi-Fi that is placed near male reproductive organs reduced sperm quality and the chances of men experiencing fatherhood.

Scientists found sperm placed under a laptop that used wireless technology suffered more damage than specimens kept at the same temperature but away from a Wi-Fi signal.

The bench side tests undertaken by the American and Argentinean team showed sperm were less able to swim and had irreversible changes in the genetic code.

Experts suggested the findings, published in this month’s Fertility and Sterility journal, were caused by the electromagnetic radiation emitted by wireless communication that damages semen.

The team also cautioned that the results were carried out in an artificial setting and said men should not overly worry just yet.

The study, from a team from the Nascentis Centre for Reproductive Medicine in Cordoba, Argentina and the Eastern Virginia Medical School, a quarter of the sperm placed next to a laptop for just a few hours were killed .

Evidence of DNA damage was also found.

In comparison, sperm that was stored at the same temperature but away from a laptop showed a smaller drop in mobility and a significant reduction in DNA damage.

Meanwhile, semen placed under the computer without the Wi-Fi connected did not experience significant levels of sperm damage.

“Our data suggest that the use of a laptop computer wirelessly connected to the internet and positioned near the male reproductive organs may decrease human sperm quality,” said Dr Conrado Avendano, who led the study.

“At present we do not know whether this effect is induced by all laptop computers connected by Wi-Fi to the internet or what use conditions heighten this effect.”

The findings differ from previous studies because fears over links between infertility and laptops have focused on heat emitted by the devices.

In the latest study, researchers took sperm specimens from 29 healthy men, aged 26 to 45.

Each donor sample was separated out into two pots and either placed under a laptop using wireless technology or away from the computer.

Scientists then used the laptop to download information from the internet for four hours.

They found that 25 per cent of the sperm under the laptop had stopped moving and nine per cent showed DNA damage.

By comparison, just 14 per cent of samples kept away from the Wi-Fi stopped moving while just three per cent suffered DNA damage.

Dr Avendano stressed the results did not necessarily mean the same would occur in a real-life setting, adding that men should not unduly worry.

But he recommended more research be undertaken. Nonetheless the findings will fuel concerns raised by a few other research teams.

Some have found that radiation from mobile phones creates feeble sperm in a laboratory setting.

Last year urologists also described how a man’s sitting with a laptop balanced on his knees can increase the temperature of his genital areas to levels that can damage sperm.

A misinformed press release issued on 11 November 2011 has circulated false information in regards to new rules and regulations restricting the number of visitors to the Galápagos Islands. According to the press release, tour operators would be limited to five day cruises with four landings per fortnight, drastically reducing the number of visitors to the archipelago. The Ministry of Tourism in Ecuador has confirmed however that this information is indeed false.

The actual rules and regulations are aimed at tour operators working in the Galápagos Islands, and focus on redistributing the 150,000 annual visitors to the archipelago, rather than reducing them.

By 1 February 2012, all tour operators in the archipelago will be expected to implement new 14-night itineraries into their travel programs, which they can divide into a maximum of four segments. It is expected that most operators will cut the 14-night schedule into two seven-night trips, or two five-night and one four-night trips.

Over the 14-night itinerary, boats will not be allowed to visit the same site in the archipelago twice, offering all boats equal access to the different sites. The exception to this will be the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island.

The new rules will also aim to reduce the volume of visitors to the current 15 most popular visited sites by promoting trips to previously neglected areas. Tour operators will also be required to incorporate a stop at the airport on San Cristobal Island into their itineraries, taking pressure off of the airport on Baltra Island.

Other regulations will include improving the zoning of activities, reassessing the size of boats allowed near certain locations, and improving the quality of trails at several sites. It is hoped that the changes will also help reduce the amount of fuel consumption, and the overall amount of pollution emitted by water vessels around the islands.

David Horwell, a tour operator with Select Latin America in the Galápagos Islands, says the changes aren’t all bad for tour operators, “selling the Galápagos will become more difficult and complicated, but in some ways this is good for us as it means that those agents with expert knowledge should in theory be able to offer a better service.”

The new regulations encourage “conscious tourism”, a concept developed by Ecuador that asks visitors to experience the country without detriment to its nature and people, by placing emphasis on the positive aspects of the relationship between host and tourist.

Mr Horwell added, “The new itineraries will certainly reduce impact of the cruise boats on popular visitor sites, however the park and local authorities also need to enforce rules about the construction of hotels which seem to be growing exponentially.”

Heirs to an ancient culture, the owners of an administrative and legal status recognized by the Constitution of the Republic of Panama, managers of a vast self-governing territory of immense beauty and wielding sufficient political power not to only allowed them to easily choose their own Senators to Congress, but to even occupy the Presidency of that legislative body, the Kuna Indians are an exception to the rule of indigenous cultures of the Americas.

Such advantages have eased the path towards the conservation and protection of their culture while undoubtedly facilitating a vast commercial network with the surrounding world, a network where women play the primary role.

Although each Kuna village has its Sahila, a leader who each night invites the married men of the community to the ‘Village House’ to discuss the problems of the day; it is women who actually exercise power not only over money, molas (traditional textile art produced by overlapping layers of fabric stitched to form exquisite indigenous designs) and coconuts, their principal commercial products; but also over the men themselves, who when they get married, must move into the house of their mothers-in-law and serve as apprentices to their fathers-in-law for a period of several years.

Kuna mothers are revered as are the girls, in a fashion that most probably has no precedent or comparison in Central America. Kept closer to the home and raised with more discipline than men, the girls of the Kuna reach puberty without a name to provide them individuality. It is only upon reaching puberty that they are formally introduced as women, in a carefully scripted ceremony held before the entire village as each girl is given a name, their hair cut and their lips and cheeks painted.

Towards the mid 19th century, the Kuna Indians abandoned the depths of the jungles of Panama and moved to the Archipelago of San Blas in the Caribbean, where they now inhabit 50 of its 365 islands and oversee an attractive destination of cultural tourism.

Travel to the area is by boat and on foot. Villages are usually built on sites near the mouth of the river, where each day women travel upriver using cayucos, a form of handmade canoe cut from the trunk of a tree, to bring the daily supply of fresh water to their homes.

Gathering water, unloading the cayucos, preparing meals, making molas, fashioning garments, washing clothes and cleaning the house?. these are all tasks reserved only for women.

Men are usually assigned jobs on the mainland, but also gather coconuts that are later sold by women to Colombian importers. They also fish for lobster so that women may sell them to Panamanian restaurants and perform other tasks such as weaving baskets, carving wooden utensils and preparing their own clothes and that of their sons.

Various tour operators of Panama offer varied options to visit the Kuna villages. These are tours that combine this unique cultural experience with fantastic natural landscapes and exotic tropical beauty. Visitors are recommended to bring along some additional money. As we have discussed, the Kunas are excellent merchants. To enter their lands a small contribution must be paid: the Kuna tax. To photograph them there is another fee. However, don’t consider this a burden on tourists. According to their culture, each Kuna Indian who earns money must also pay a tax to the village. The reasoning is simple: while one Kuna Indian does business, others are working in the jungles for the rest of the community.