Bumblebee Tuna

From Florida we arrived in San Francisco just in time for halloween! San Francisco - love love love it! We stayed in a hotel near Union Square and Chinatown, it was a great location for getting around and there was a halloween party in the bar. One day we cycled through Haight Ashbury, by everyone queuing outside the clinics to get their medicinal marijuana to the Golden Gate Park, twice the size of Central Park. Haight Ashbury is in a world of it's own, some folk still think they're in the sixties. Then we cycled over the Golden Gate Bridge. Everyone hates people cycling over, there were lots of people doing it but there was plenty of space, I don't know why they don't make a cycle lane if it's such a problem. On the way ... read more

Bienvenidos a Colombia! Current status: Hungover, going through Fort Knox airport security, sleepy, dry. Last week we flew from Lima to Bogota. It's actually quite gutting thinking about how much we've missed in Peru and are going to miss in Colombia because of our fear of getting on another bus. Once again, thanks Bolivia, thanks a lot! South America's specialty is putting its capitals on top of big mountains and Bogotá is no exception, set at 2600m. After numerous conversations about FARC, kidnappings, cartels, crime, how much the country has changed, how dangerous it actually still is, we could not help but feel slightly apprehensive when first stepping out the airport. We stayed in La Candelaria which is the historic artsy part and the first thing you notice is the number of police and security guards ... read more

Hola amigos! We celebrated David's 28th in Cusco, Peru and Machu Picchu was at the forefront of our minds. Cusco is a very pretty city, full of Spanish colonial churches, with many ruins of Incan settlements surrounding it and a Christ overlooking the city from one of the mountains. We sampled Peruvian food like alpaca but drew the line at guinea pig - that would just be too disrespectful to Roger and Mumm-Ra! From Cusco we boarded the train to the awful town of Aguas Calientes where we took some time out in the thermal baths and spent the night in order to get an early start on Machu Picchu. Most people take the bus up to Machu Picchu but of course as we have our bus ban in force this meant a 4am start for ... read more

It was only a 3 hour bus journey from La Paz to Copacabana. David and I were in the front seats behind the driver so we had full view of his erratic driving in the middle of both lanes overtaking everyone and usually missing oncoming traffic whilst overtaking by just a few feet. It was also unsettling to see him putting an empty beer can aside. We kind of saw this crash coming before it happened. We just had Lake Titicaca coming into view and it looked really pretty, we were driving downhill and there was a sharp bend coming up. Of course the driver didn't feel the need to slow or move to the correct side of the road even with a truck oncoming. At top speed we hit the corner of the truck then ... read more

The Pantanal is a massive wetland located pretty much in the middle of South America, mostly in the west of Brazil. It floods on a seasonal basis and is now in the dry season which meant we didn't get to see it in all it's glory but it is the best time for spotting jaguars and it meant we didn't have to wade through chest height water with swarms of mosquitos. This time the flights were cheaper than buses so we flew from Rio via Sao Paulo to Campo Grande, one of the gateways to the Pantanal. Unfortunately David's bag did not arrive with us. Bit of a pain really, but if there's anywhere you can get by with just the clothes on your back it's the jungle! The tour company we went with arranged to ... read more