ElliotandKaitlin

Well, after typing a lot the computer lost power and i lost my blog entry, meaning i will keep it short and sweet. I arrived in guayaquil the next day at about 1pm and spent the afternoon doing the parks, churches, malecon and market. The hostel i was in had a range of vegie foods, so i treated myself to a $4 quinoa burger and salad. There were heaps of nice shopping areas, walking areas and juice bars. The next day i walked el malecon along the river and headed to las penas where i hiked 444 stairs to a lighthouse and church on a hill. After this i checked out an interesting art museum (free) and took a taxi to parque historical, which was park zoo, part colonial reconstructed town and part botanical gardens. I ... read more

Once we arrived back in La Paz, we had a few hours to kill before check in. We took the morning early by hitting up a cafe or 2 and checking out the Coca leaf musuem. After we settled into the hostel and had a shower we headed back to check out a few more sights in La Paz. The next day we woke up early and headed to a local hostel where we head breakfast and prepped for a day of biking death road. We were geared up with full clothes, helmet, gloves, elbow and knee pads. They then drove us to the start of the road. About 1 hour was down hill on paved road. Scary, fast, fun and freezing. We decended quite a bit of altitude and it started to warm up. We ... read more

We arrived in La Paz around 10pm after our bus ride from Copa. We jumped in a taxi to our hostel, which surprisingly was very nice! Hot showers, double bed, wifi, tv and great buffet breakfast! The next day we spent around La Paz, doing a bit of shopping, exploring plazas, churches and parks. Elliot's love for saltenas grew and he also discovered a magical thing called a pizza cone. The next day we hiked to a view point over La Paz and spent the day exploring some museums such as the musical instrument museum, the gold museum and a costume/history museum. That night we had booked our bus trip to Uyuni which left at 7pm and supposedly took 12 hours. After a late lunch of chicken, chips and fried bananas, we headed to the bus ... read more

Alright, another long pause between updates, lots of bussing and business... The day after we arrived back from the Inca Trail we had an early bus to catch at 7am in order to get to Puno on Lake Titicaca. After a rather dull ´tour´from Cusco to Puno, stopping 4-5 places with some information we arrived in Puno at 5pm and went to our hostel. After dropping off bags and arranging our next bus we explored the city a bit, had street food for dinner and went to bed. The next day in Puno we went on a day boat tour to the Uros or floating islands and Taquile Island, the floating islands were fairly interesting, although now extremely commercial. The inhabitants of the islands showed you how the floating islands were made of the reed Tortuga, ... read more

Hello again to all, once again a lot of time between entries as we had no internet once we left Cusco. To catch up- Elliot felt a bit better the next day (just in time for New Year´s Eve), but still a bit shakey, so we took it pretty easy, we explored the city of Cusco, San Blas, the markets, and went to a few interesting museums. The day went by pretty fast and we went to a cultural show with music, and dancing from the Andes, Incas etc... very interesting. We went to have a few drinks before new year´s over looking the plaza and tried a maracuya sour (yum!). We were also both chatted up by a very drunk local man who bought us beer (very odd)... but after decided we hadn´t been drugged ... read more

We have successfully arrived in South America. Starting with 2 days in Lima and then a quick flight to Cusco. We arrived in Lima at 10:45pm and finally made it to our hostel (the crazy streets of Lima kept us awake on the drive to the hostel, i doubt road rules are enforced! -Blue House at about 1 am. After a quick chat with the friendly manager we got some much needed sleep. The next day we didn´t have solid plans and decided to wing it walking around the Miraflores, Barranca area. We hiked all the way up to the edge of Lima where there is a lit cross which symbolizes the war between Peru and Chile and a redeemer statue. Then we hiked back down the hill and had lunch at the fisherman´s wharf - ... read more

As you may have noticied we have been extremely busy over the last week and a bit... thanks to great company, food and catching up with family, friends, alcohol etc... After leaving the hotel in San Luis Obispo on the morning of the 15th we drove the coastal route (highway 1) all the way to Carmel Valley (where Elliot's Aunt and Uncle live). We had a great drive, making coffee stops of course and saw elephant seals, some local art, Big Sur, Carmel by the Sea and... read more

After staying a the night in Escondido, California with kaity's aunt - who just happens to have 100 avocado trees next to their property- so cool, we headed off early to meet elliot's cousin Brent and his wife Danielle. We had a great morning and afternoon with them in San Diego - had breakfast at cafe 222, drove around downtown sd, seaport and up through surrounding areas of sd! We also got to see their wedding pics, which were awesome! At 3 pm we jumped in the rental and headed toward San Luis Obispo - our first stop on our drive to San francisco, it took us over 7 hours to finally make it to the motel... Elliot discovered a new found addiction to drip coffee and so after 4 coffee stops, horrendous LA traffic, and ... read more

So we caught the plane and landed in LA on the 12th (the 13th for most of you) at 11:40am. We cleared customs no problems and caught a shuttle to the car rental place not far from LAX. We had booked a compact but were upgraded free to a sedan or mini van of our choice. We chose a chevrolet HHR, grabbed the garmin and headed for Santa Monica! After 20 minutes in the parking building we finally found a park, grabbed our gear then shot across the road to the HI hostel where we had a free night booked. The weather was poor, rain and a cool breeze, but that didnt keep us away from exploring the 3rd street promenade. Here we found a new obsession, cheap filter coffee, 8 flavours to choose from and ... read more