After a week in Cuzco it was time to make a decision, and with no word from our travel guru's in Bolivia we decided to head over to Nazca and then down to Arequipa (the white city), before begining our mamouth jorney back to Santiago. The bus to Nazca was reasonably comfortable except that we were thrown from side to side as the bus snaked its way (sometimes off road) through the Ande's. We arrived in Nazca at 5.30am where we were bundled into a taxi and taken to the airport. The flight was in a small five seater plane, and [View Full Entry]

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We decided to break up our bus ride from Puno to Cusco and opted for a tour bus that stoped at sights of interest along the way. The English speaking tour guide was pretty good but did insist on interupting us every 5 minutes to point out random things like cement factories and passing trains! Although some of the stops were dull, 10 minutes being pushed around a museum for instance, we did apreciate the opportunity to get off the bus and stretch our legs. One of the more interesting places was a sight of Inca ruins at Raqchi where we [View Full Entry]

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After a great time in Chile except for one incident with a vanishing bag, we headed to Peru. We had booked a bus ticket from Tacna, which is just inside the Peruvian border to Puno, a small port on the edge of lake Titicaca. First we had to get to Tacna via a 'colectivo', which is a big old american car which would have looked at home being driven by Huggy Bear on the set of Starsky & Hutch. The Colectivo waits until it has enough people and then sets off accross the border. We were lucky to avoid the waiting [View Full Entry]

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They say that you can’t travel around South American and not have something stolen and the're right! On an overnight bus from San Pedro Atacama to Arica we had one of our bags stolen in a split second laps of concentration. We had a backpack (with Rich’s new camera in it!) on the shelf above our heads only because there wasn’t enough room by our legs. We had stopped at Calama to pick up other passengers and I got off the bus to get a drink, leaving Rich sat on the bus. A couple of guys got on the bus and [View Full Entry]

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South America, continent number four and the final destination before we fly home next month. We arrived in Santiago with a new found enthusiasm which had been missing since Asia. During our months spent in 'home from home' Australia and New Zealand we found that we had lost some of that feeling of adventure, but our time in Easter Island started to awakend those lost feelings and upon landing in Santiago our enthusiasm had reached new hights. It's all about making these last few weeks really memorable and going home on a high. After a good nights rest, our first priority [View Full Entry]

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As Rich and I stood up on the edge of the extinct volcanoe, Rano Kau, and took in the 360 degree view of the island it finally dawned on us how isolated this 117 sq km land mass was from the rest of the world. Nothing but the sparkling blue Pacific Ocean stretching out as far as the eye could see. Its closest populated nieghbour is the tiny island of Pitcairn, 1900km to the West and its a massive 3700km East to the South American coast!! Back in February 2004 when we sat in the travel agents planning our round the [View Full Entry]

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We left New Zealand and headed for Tahiti with all the anticipation and excitement you could imagine. Even the anouncement on the plane before landing that it was raining did little to dampen our spirits (excuse the pun), and as soon as we got off the plane we felt that tropical temperature we had been longing for. We jumped into a taxi and arrived at our 'BUDGET´ accomodation (US$90), where we spent one night before heading off to Moorea on the ferry the next morning. On arrival we decided to hire a car for a few hours so we could check [View Full Entry]

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After picking up our new wheels it was time to set out on our 5 hour drive over to the Able Tasman National Park. After speaking to others about this area of the country, we were looking forward to some back to nature, peace and quiet. What met us on our arrival at Marahau was something beyond our imagination, a sleepy coastal village in the middle of the most beautiful 'nowhere' that we have ever seen. The handful of perminant residents were really friendly and laid back and when we asked what time the local pub opened our reply came with [View Full Entry]

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After eight weeks of work in Auckland it was time to say goodbye to our city appartment, home comforts and new friends. The packs were dusted off and re-cramed with our junk and we hit the road again in a new rental car to see what the rest of our temporary home had to offer. Before heading south we took a brief detour to explore some more of the Northland and take full advantage of the fantastic winter weather they were experiencing north of Auckland. First stop Waitagi on the east coast where Rich and I were determined to get our [View Full Entry]

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Rockhampton is in the heart of Australian cow country. The lonelyplanet has it down as Australia's steak capitol and with that we didn't think there where any further reasons needed to add this town to our list of stopovers. From whichever direction you enter the town you are greated by a grand concrete cow, modelled on one of the many famous breeds from around the area. These are generally on roundabouts or in other prominent positions that are easily viewed by people passing through the town. Now, whoever designed these cows either had a serious issue about being anatomically correct or [View Full Entry]

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