We flew home via Tokyo and faced our most hideous time difference challenge yet. For the day that Caleb was with me, we spent the time eating and sleeping (I know it's not like us). A helpful Japanese man quickly realised we were hopeless when he saw me struggling to write my name in Katakana (I should really have brushed up) outside a restaurant and then later informed Caleb that he was not eating his Tonkatsu properly and that he wasn't supposed to put the sauce directly onto the rice, but have the sauce on the pork and eat the rice separately - he then insisted that the waitress bring a new rice for Caleb. Shino later informed me that this is the difference between Tonkatsu and Katsudon. I then began to live off the custard-filled ... read more

A flying visit around Motherwell, Glasgow (including accidentally to the exhibition centre) and Arrochar saw us meet Mum and David and catch up with my Aunts, Uncles and cousins and family friends Mary and Charlie. However, we were thinking that the extortionate 15 pounds a day charge by Avis for GPS on our trip may have been worthwhile as my Mum got us somewhat lost on several occasions insisting that things had changed!! We detoured to the Argyll National Park on the way to Arrochar - taking in Loch Ard (accidental detour), Loch Achray and Loch Katrine. In the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park we spotted a couple of red squirrels at a hide (which are apparently much more rare than the grey variety). Caleb and I continued up through Glen Coe (being a MacDonald, we didn't ... read more

Joined by Louisa, we ventured on the Eurostar to our first location in search of great chocolate and waffles - Brussels! Waffles and chocolates were sampled as we visited all of the tourist sites in the city. We spotted the Grand Place, sought out the Cathedral and a war memorial tower, Louisa missed her chance to photograph some kid imitating the Mannequin Pis and we walked quickly through the gardens where an unusual band was playing. Day 2 we decided to visit Antwerp. We were impressed by its central railway station and Cathedral of our Lady. We also sampled some unusual chocolates from Dominique's Persoone's the Chocolate Line (including fried onion and sundried tomato). Our time in Belgium took a turn for the worst - I found that having food poisoning (suspected culprit from a burger ... read more

We had a couple of days to chill out in Quito. We´d heard it was pretty unsafe but we took the usual precautions and didn´t have any problems. Thought it was a much nicer city than Lima, which was so smoggy you could barely make out the buildings on the other side of the street. On Friday morning we were flown to Baltra airport in the Galapagos Islands, and then bussed down to the sea and told to board an inflatable zodiac thing (while the other passengers got on board a ferry!) which took us out to our boat. We´d booked though GAP Adventures because it seemed easier at the time, but the boat we were supposed to be on, the GAP Adventurer V, had unexpectedly required maintenance and so GAP moved us onto the Anahi, ... read more

The day after we managed to hit 4 different countries in 1 day on our way to Peru, we boarded another aeroplane and arrived in the hot humid Puerto Maldonado. We were staying at Sandoval Lake Lodge which is a little off the beaten track - so we got picked up from the airport, picked out some gumboots, bussed to the river, went on a motorised boat down the river for half an hour and then had to put on the gumboots for the 3km of walking along a muddy trail to reach the lake. Saw a sloth, some massive blue butterflies, ants that stick into your hand (that the locals used instead of stitches) and macaws on the way. When we arrived at the Lake we boarded a canoe and were paddled across to the ... read more