Damien and Suzi
We are travelling back from Canada to Australia via the scenic route - USA, Mexico, South America, Tahiti and New Zealand. This Travel Blog will help keep you up to date with our travels, including photos of where we have been. When we get back to Australia, this will be transferred to our regular web site - http://www.keddie.net but this blog is easier to maintain while we are on the move. Damien and Suzi
until we arrive back in Australia
Here is a map showing the countries we are visiting on this trip.
Visited Countries Map
Below is a map of the US states we visited on trips while we were posted to Canada. If only we could generate a map of the Canadian provinces we visited!
Visited US States Map
Travel Blog Posts
September 22nd 2007
We arrived late in the evening to the island of Papeete, Tahiti. Living in Montreal had been an advantage for us, as Tahiti is in French Polynesia, hence the official language is French. This location is our relaxation and splurge. We had booked three nights at the intercontinental hotel Tahiti, two of those in the garden room and one in the overwater bungalow. Due to a mistake by the hotel we ended up with two nights in the overwater bungalow - bonus. The hotel was absolute luxury! We woke early the following morning and relaxed out on the balcony looking at our view of the bar pool and the Pacific Ocean. What a wonderful way to start our day. After brekkie, we caught "Le Truck" (an open air bus, which looks more like a truck) into ... read more
September 21st 2007
Our second foray into Chile was to Santiago and then Easter Island. Santiago involved catching up on a lot of admin, seeing some of the older buildings around town and enjoying their great wine and food. We also spent a day skiing at a nearby ski field, La Parva. Then it was onto one of the most isolated inhabited places on earth - Easter Island. We landed on this remote island in the evening, so were unable to see much upon arrival. We did notice a small crowd gathered at the gates to welcome visitors and family and friends to the island, which we thought was a nice touch. Our first day on the island greeted us with average weather! We woke to an overcast and rainy morning, but the weather didn't stop us from venturing ... read more
Brazil 02-04 Sep 07
Published: September 8th 2007South America » Brazil » Rio de Janeiro » Rio de Janeiro
September 8th 2007
We entered Brazil on 02 Sep 07 via land border crossing from Puerto Iguazu in Argentina. As the border is so close we figured we would fly out of Foz do Iguacu which is located on the Brazilian side. Passport and visa all in order, we were stamped in with minimal problems. We arrived into Rio late in the afternoon and headed straight to our hotel located just out of the Centro area, in the barrio (suburb) of Flamengo just near the beach. Rio is quite a lively multicultural city and famous for Carnaval. As we only had two days in Rio we wanted to make good use of our time. The first day we spent touring the city by foot and taking in the sights of the old buildings. We caught the bondhino (tram) to ... read more
September 6th 2007
Beautiful Argentina! We arrived into Buenos Aires on Friday 24 Aug 07. As the taxi drove us to our hostel we quickly noticed the vibrant city of Buenos Aires. The hostel we stayed in was conveniently located along Avenida de Mayo which is a long street joining the Congresso and beautiful Plaza de Mayo. Along this street are old buildings and cafes with so much character and European style. We were also close to the famous shopping area of Florida St, and took advantage of the offerings! Whilst in BA we toured the city on foot, as it is such a walkable city. We did many walking tours taking in the lovely buildings and museums. Argentinians are well known for their consumption of meat and we must say that the parrillas (steakhouses) offered very tasty meals. ... read more
Chile Pt 1 : 21-24 Aug 07
Published: September 2nd 2007South America » Chile » Antofagasta Region » San Pedro de Atacama
September 2nd 2007
After completing our Bolivia trip we felt we deserved a well earned rest and a hot shower. We arrived into San Pedro de Atacama, a small town on the border of Bolivia and Chile. We spent two relaxing days in San Pedro, enjoying the Chilean wine and wonderful food. Bolivia was great, but we were over just eating soup and rice! On our first night we savoured a wonderful steak! Whilst in San Pedro, we had the time to partake in a tour of the Moon Valley, known locally as Valle de la Luna. The surface of the valley is supposedly similar to the moon, hence the reason for the name. We also toured the Death Valley, which is an area with large mountains of sand and rock, quite a harsh and extraodinary landscape. The Moon ... read more
August 23rd 2007
Our first stop in Bolivia, was La Paz, the political capital of Bolivia. We only spent 1 day in La Paz, enjoying all the tourist attractions and of course taking advantage of the cheap shopping! Our reason for stopping in La Paz was to organise our transport to Uyuni. We took the tourist night bus from La Paz to Uyuni, quite a modern and comfortable form of transport, however we experienced what we thought were the worst roads in South America! We spent 3 hours of a 10 hour journey, driving on a gravel road full of rocks, so we bumped our way to the town of Uyuni, arriving early in the morning. Uyuni is a small town located in the middle of nowhere with the only attraction being the Salar de Uyuni or Salt Plains. ... read more
August 17th 2007
We began our travels of Peru in the capital city of Lima, quite a modern bustling city of 7.8 million people. The night of our arrival we met our tour leader, Patricia, who was our chaperone whilst travelling in Peru. Our first stop was Pisco, the place of the famous Pisco grape brandy, used to make the cocktail Pisco Sour. To get there we caught a local bus which drove us for approximately 4.5 hrs hugging the coastline of Southern Lima. We arrived in early evening to the quaint little town of Pisco. The place is pretty small so it didn´t take us too long to look around the city and soak up the atmosphere. Patricia bought the necessary ingredients to make a Pisco sour, so we got to taste the local drink in the city ... read more
August 16th 2007
You have probably heard the terrible news about the large earthquake near Pisco, south of Lima in Peru. Although we were there about two weeks ago, we were far away when the quake struck and are both fine. We hope the city can recover quickly and not too many people are killed or injured.... read more
July 29th 2007
After arriving in Ecuador, we were picked up by our host Diego. We stayed at a hostel which is a family run accomodation. The family were lovely and we were fortunate to be the only visitors in the lodgings, so we had the house to ourselves. During our stay, Diego drove us to the Old City of Quito, which has many historical buildings and is quite beautiful - so many churches. The following day we flew to the Galapagos Islands which is approximately 1000km west of Ecuador and consists of 13 major islands. We spent 4 days cruising around on a boat. To be continued... ... read more
July 22nd 2007
We arrived into Cancun late in the afternoon. The immigration processing went smoothly, we then picked up our hire car and we were on our way along Hwy 180 to Chichen Itza. We arrived at our hotel and quickly checked in and walked over to the ruins, as a light show is conducted at night. The show was great but unfortunately our Spanish is not so good so we didn't understand a word of the commentary! The following morning we walked back to tour the ruins. Chichen Itza is quite an imposing place with the large pyramid, El Castillo, the ball court and various other buildings. It was amazing to see such impressive buildings remain almost intact after over one thousand years. The intelligence of these people to design buildings that incorporate the Mayan calendar and ... read more
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