Events

Held over three days in February, the festival attracts around 40,000 revellers and culminates in a parade of 30,000 colourful dancers. With spectacular devil costumes and water fights aplenty, it's a party not to be missed.

With direct flights from London to Rio, you can leave Heathrow at 10pm be checking into your Copacabana hotel by 7am the next morning. February is the height of summer in Brazil so expect temperatures in the mid-thirties.

Tickets to Rio Carnival are available through Journey Latin America. To make your travel arrangements email tours@journeylatinamerica.co.uk

Featuring some of Havana's finest musicians, this will be the first time they have toured with a full band, offering a unique opportunity to experience this already amazing live act as never before.

Currently showing at the Wellcome Trust is a unique and moving exhibition of over 100 Mexican votives, small paintings that depict the moment of personal humility when an individual asks a saint for help and is delivered from disaster or death. 'Infinitas Gracias' features artwork drawn from five collections held by museums in and around Mexico City and two sanctuaries located in mining communities in the Bajío region and the distant mountain town of Real de Catorce. Together with images, news reports, photographs, devotional artefacts, film and interviews, the exhibition illustrates the depth of the votive tradition in Mexico.

To the Maya, this is said to have represented a fertility rite to ensure a good harvest for all. The snake represents Kukulkán, the Maya's god of fertility and the deity to which the pyramid is dedicated. A true marvel of Mayan astronomy and engineering.

The celebrations are principally focused in the town of Puebla, but it is also celebrated throughout the United States. The actual date holds little significance these days, but the holiday has now become a celebration, particularly in the US, of Mexican heritage and pride, much as St. Patrick's Day is used to celebrate those of Irish ancestry. The celebrations in Puebla are still well worth seeing, despite the event becoming more of an American festival with celebrations taking place in more than 150 locations throughout the country.

To visit Puebla during the celebrations, email tours@journeylatinamerica.co.uk

Saturday 23 June 2012, 7:30pm. Tickets from £15. Visit the Southbank Centre website for more information.

The celebrations traditionally lasted nine days before the festival was suppressed by the Spanish invaders. Having undergone a resurgence, it is now once again a keystone of the Peruvian holiday calendar, and an insight into the living culture of the Andes as well as its Inca heritage.

To take part in the celebrations, email tours@journeylatinamerica.co.uk

Featuring rare artefacts used by Scott's team during the Terra Nova expedition in 1910-13 as well as scientific specimens, the exhibition also features a life-sized representation of Scott's hut that survives in Antarctica.