Hi all, Just to let you all know that WE have arrived safely in Holland now, at mum and dad's new house. I got in last week, and Bin got in after a second weekend of Sunshine in London (hottest day this year in London yesterday). Also, to let you know that our good friends at Travelblog..... didn't have any backups from the last 3 months, when the system went down..... (you may have noticed). Small request if you have time: Apparently there are a few ways to recover some of the lost blog entries. Some description below. Depending on your [View Full Entry]

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I think most of all we've been looking forward to some warm weather, and going from news reports, Madrid had been through a heat wave already, and other parts of Mediteranean Europe have been fighting bush fires for some time, but that was not the heat we were hoping for. Luckily for us the whole week we were there we had warm and sunny weather, so that was all just honkey-dory! Tick 1! Place of residence was one of the High Tech Hotels, Calle Arenal, 200m from Plaza Sol, so right in the heart of the old town, and barely a [View Full Entry]

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[url='/Videos/4389.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/4389.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'] Goose moment ! So there you go, after 7 months and 7 date we had a flight confirmed to Madrid.... finally leaving South America! It's been a great trip so far, but also looking forward now to some time with family and friends, and hopefully some warm weather again! As you may have seen, the past few weeks... ehm make that months, have not been all that warm. The flight from Mendoza to santiago wasn't overkill, just a precaution to make sure we'd get that flight to Madrid. As we'd been skiing in fresh snow, the pass back [View Full Entry]

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what more could a vegetarian girl ask for on her summer holiday through South America, than a final hurrah in Mendoza? open air terraces, grand pedestrian plazas, vineyards .... or, lots of meat, of every conceivable variety, and snow yes, snow. after our 30 hours or so with our friends from Turbus, we indeed found ourselves in wine country. sweet wine country. ok, so we arrived around 10pm, had to sort out accomodation and were met by a queue and lack of taxis that would rival xmas time in Sydney, but, nonetheless, we sorted out some accomodation, checked in and wandered [View Full Entry]

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One of the things with extended travel is, well, things don't always work out the way you planned them. Well, sometimes you don't even plan them. Ergo, go with the flow, or, better even, get the hell outta there! So, from San Pedro de Atacama, the plan was to hop across the border to Salta, enjoy the vistas of the mountains there for a few days, and then head down to Mendoza, Santiago after that, and hop on the big bird to Madrid in the end! But it's winter, and apparently all mountain passes across the Andes between Chile and Argentina [View Full Entry]

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Sometimes with travelling it's just getting from A to B, and if there are about 2,000kms between A and B, it's best to plan some (interesting) stops in between to break up the journey! Great tip from yours truely. San Pedro de Atacama was one of those stops, interesting, but maybe also something we've already done before. Little desert town: tick. Salt flats: tick. Valley of the moon: tick. Getting up at an insanely early hour to see geysers at high altitude in the freezing cold: big tick! All of that at Chilean prices: tick. But we did it anyway (except [View Full Entry]

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Well, after lord knows how many months, we've managed to make it into Chile again, this time in the very far north! (having left from the very far south! This time, possibly via the messiest of all border crossings, but that seems to be the norm here. As per peruvian usual, early bus departure, and leaving over 30 minutes late. made it to Tacna in time, but as per peruvian usual again, there are plenty of vultures, sorry, cab drivers yelling at us before we've left the bus! Border crossings per taxi are the norm here, 5 paying customers per very [View Full Entry]

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The Colca Canyon ! One of those awaited trips, that should have it's climax with watching the mighty condors soar over our heads, couldn't wait! Trip is one of which there are 15 to a dozen here in Arequipa, all leaving in 21 seater tourist busses, all overnighting in Chivay, all dining in tourist restaurants there, all buses having there own problems to get over the 4200m pass.... The road in was nice and scenic, even just for the fact the first 2 hours were the one we missed in our "night" bus adventure coming from Cuzco. Seeing the shy vicuñas [View Full Entry]

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It's always wonderful to rush out in the morning, early morning, to find out your bus is delayed..... "only 10 minutes more, 10 minutes!". Free coca cola (lovely first drink after breakfast) to appease the waiting clientele, and after 3 hours we were finally hearded outside of the Cuzco bus terminal, but no bus yet.... Didn't think we'd be dealing with longer delays than the 2 GOL flights we had in Brazil, but alas, it happened. Unfortunately that also meant that our planned day bus turned into a half night bus as well, so missing some of the scenery, and not [View Full Entry]

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Inti Raymi is one of those special events that the Inca´s and the pre-Inca cultures celebrated in abundance. Inti Raymi is the festival of the Sun. the Winter Solstice. the shortest day of the year. The Inca´s took the time (and a lot of time that was) to study the natural environment and gain an understanding of the yearly calendar, the days, the years, the seasons and thereby developed a means to sustain themselves in those high altitudes for many centuries, before the Spaniards arrived that is. the Inca's worked with Pacha Mama (Mother Earth) in accordance with her rythmns and [View Full Entry]

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