After the sunny climates of the Galapagos Islands, mainland Ecuador came as a real surprise, especially when we stepped out of the airport in shorts and flip flops to rain and a cool 9 degrees! Still, being British it take more than a little rain to dampen our spirits! Our first stop in Quito, the capital of Ecuador was to be the Secret Garden Hostel, which had been recommended to us by one of the girls we did the cruise with. On arrival it seemed nice with a beautiful terrace overlooking Quitos Old Town, though perhaps a little quiet. Daz (one [View Full Entry]

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Today sees us move into our new home for the next 8 days. The vessel that will carry us around the Galapagos Islands (Abbreviated to GI here on in) It's called The Floreana and living aboard this vessel will see us bobbing up and down like we work the streets in Bangkok! Well not exactly like that I hope! I would like to apologise if either the title or that last sentence offended you......but I cant be arsed. Island numero uno (thats number one to the non spanish speakers) is Santa Cruz, the main tourist port. Our fisrt excursion sees us [View Full Entry]

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From the minute you arrive into the Galapagos Islands you cant help but be impressed. For those of you not familiar, these small islands are the setting for Charles Darwins 'Origin of Species'. Every creature that inhabits these islands has over a period of years had to evolve and adapt in order to survive. On arrival into the island of Santa Cruz (some 12'000 of the 30'000 population of Galapagos live here) we straight away head to the south of the island to Puerto Ayora. Which is our base for the next week or so. Without sounding too cliched, on arrival [View Full Entry]

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First stop in Ecuador is the 2nd largest city (behind Quito) of Guayaquil. (though most of the inhabitants think Guayaquil should be the capital) After setlling in we head down to the Malecon 2000, which is basically the seafront in Guayaquil. Actually its more of a huge river than leading out to the sea, but im happy in the fact that I have just wasted a few seconds of your life by stringing this sentance out. Actually as it´s costing me money to write this I guess the joke is very much on me....bugger. So anyhoo the Malecon is basically a [View Full Entry]

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Ok guys so this is the first blog since arriving back into South America. It was cool to see everybody for three weeks, just wish it could have been in different circumstances. To tell you the truth was a mixture of hideousness (if thats a word?!) and waiting, not good combinations. Just too much time thinking etc. Also arriving back into where the trip all started kind of brought some weird emotions with it. So you can imagine how pleased I was when I left Lima and travelled north to Huanchaco to meet Chris. Especially as it is a beautiful drive. [View Full Entry]

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This is the last blog before I returned home to England for three weeks. This isn´t the most exciting of my blogs guys for obvious reasons. We spent four days in Beunos Aires in which we walked alot around the city. We checked out Avenida 9 de Julio, which cuts through the city kind of like a large river. At its widest it spans about 15 lanes of traffic, a great place to play a game of bulldog. Chris and I also went to a footy match between River Plate and Racing at Rivers stadium. A very different affair to the [View Full Entry]

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Colonia Del Sacramento is as the name suggests an old colonial style town, in the West of Uruguay. Once used as a smuggling port thanks to its proximaty to Buenos Aires, it is now a beautiful quaint little town, full of fancy fish restaurants, spanish style villas and cobbled streets. The hostel we settle in is very picturesque, the views from the windows are attractive and the people very friendly. In fact we kind of figured before arriving that this would be the quietest of all the places we'd visit in Uruguay, how wrong we were! On the first night we [View Full Entry]

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Montevideo is a pretty cool city as the capitals we have seen so far go. Not too big, not too small...just right. (especially for you Goldilocks and the 3 Bears lovers). We head to our hostel which as it turns out is pretty cool, a large pool table and even larger bottles of beer, which is just as well really as the hostel, much like the rest of the city is pretty quiet! We spend the first night getting a few beers in and playing some pool. Its all going pretty well until Brad slopes off as he's knackered! Still I [View Full Entry]

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I guess some of you may have been wondering where i've been the last few weeks and why my blogs suddenly stopped, well it was nothing to do with getting kidnapped, turns out Justin Timberlake felt threatened when he saw me and so bought my silence in a vain attempt to stop me from reaching my public.....good luck trying to silence me!! Getting serious for just a moment, as a lot of you are probably aware, I have actually been home for the last three weeks due to the death of my father. It's been a pretty tough time and I [View Full Entry]

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Well well well, our time out here in South America just keeps going from crazy to crazier and our week in Florianopolis was no exception...but I suppose id better start at the beginning! But before I do that, just on a personal note. Two of my very close friends have just anounced their engagement (thanks for waiting guys, Mum 2, you can stop crying now), getting serious for a minute though, congratulations! I know how happy you both make each other. Trig and Kaz are two of the most genuinely kind and lovely people you could ever wish to meet and [View Full Entry]

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