Alex and Ella

Well.....a whole week of not packing and unpacking packs...of being able to buy food and eat what you want and generally just chill - heaven! It was so nice and relaxing we're not going to write too much...too much effort for this chilled out place. Its lovely and sunny (80 degrees even at night) and for the first time it feels like we are on holiday! :-) Alex finally turned her man radar on after a little push from Thierry and I. I suggested that we all went out for dinner but funnily enough I was ill and couldn't go....Thierry you owe me! ;-) I did what I had been thinking about doing for ages and tried scuba diving - Tim, Sarah and Jen you are right its amazing. I loved every minute of it. I ... read more

So first impressions of Australia! The people are great. Its soo nice to be back in a place where you can speak your own language and people care about customer service. After yet another argument with Lan Chile whilst boarding the flight from Santiago to Sydney (its too annoying & frustrating to repeat...I'm still going through therapy ha ha!) it was fab to arrive in Sydney where the Qantas staff were so helpful, we even got some of our other flights changed for free :-) First impression of Perth where that we had arrived in an old peoples retirement village - bungalows as far as the eye could see. I was a little concerned abut this and eventually decided to ask Phil (Alex's step uncle who had kindly collected us from the airport) why there were ... read more

Buenos Aires is a lovely city with tree lined streets and old buildings -at a glance you could be in New York, Paris or London but the best thing is everything costs a fraction of the price. We stayed at the Gran Hotel Oriental in the Congreso area - sounds a bit like the Mandarin Oriental, but at only 5 pounds a night each including breakfast, the name is where the similarity ends! The hotel was a bit strange but fine, as long as you don´t want a hot shower in the evening and you don´t mind walls that have been filled in with cement! Initially we thought our bathroom didn´t even have a shower (or a bath) but upon closer inspection it turned out the shower and the taps were just fixed on the wall ... read more

The next couple of days were interesting to say the least. We had a two day bone-shaker ride off road accross the Altiplano, staying in the most basic of basic hostals. Towards the end of the first day all had been going well until the sand started to give way under the truck almost tipping over before getting stuck. We all had to get out as quickly as possible and I found myself stood in shorts and a vest top in the freezing cold. The jeep that was guiding us soon came back when we didn´t arrive at the hostal and I managed to blag Matt´s football shirt and the first lift back to the hostal, along with Caroline and Alex. The pictures do not really do the hostal justice - there was no heating (it ... read more

So we arrive in La Paz a sprawlling city in the middle of a huge crater backed by some amazing mountains. Most of us were too tired to venture out after our night in Copacabana so we had a "quiet one" in the bar opposite. Alex is still ill so we've been taking things slow, which is not that easy at altitude. We took a collectivo to the otherside of town yesterday. Basically its a mini bus where someone leans out of the open door shouting all the locations its going to. If its going near somewhere you want to go you hop on with the many locals and pay 1 Bolivano (about 7p) we went about 7 miles for this money - amazing! Bolivia is split between the very wealthy and the very poor. Near ... read more