Since the last installment, we have travelled through Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. God we've done a lot! I guess after relaxing for 2 weeks on Lago de Atitlan, we needed to do fit a little craziness into the itinerary. In Belize we visited Placencia and Punta Gorda. Placencia was OK and it had a nice white sand beach, but it was cloudy and it rained for the two days we were there. Our hostel had rats too. And, I got cayenne pepper on "a sensitive area".... I blame Placencia. Punta Gorda was pretty sweet. It is a really chill place filled with Garifuna dudes (they are decendents of black slaves, speak creole english and many of them are rasta). One night, Aden and I (Morgan was tired or some lame thing) went out to ... read more

Greetings from San Miguel de Allende! We’ve spent the last two weeks here with Mom. We picked her up from the airport in Mexico City at 6:00 am on Christmas Day and then hopped on the first bus to San Miguel. We had a nice little Christmas during the five hour bus ride, exchanging gifts and such - truly a Christmas to remember! Before we left San Miguel we did a few things in Mexico City that weren’t covered by the last blog. We got sick for one thing… That was after flying too close to the sun with the street tacos. Also, we went to this neighbourhood in the South of the city, called Xochimilco, where people farm in a manner reminiscent of Aztecs agriculture in pre-Hispanic Mexico City. Mexico City is built in the ... read more

Our last blog... sigh. At least we covered a lot of ground since the last one. We spent some time in Mendoza, Argentina, then moved on to Horcón, Valparaiso, and Santiago in Chile. I know you’re probably thinking, “Wow! With that many destinations, this is sure going to be an action-packed blog!” Well, cool your heels missy. I’m afraid that our time was mainly spent doing such fun but uninteresting things as: eating copious amounts of the insanely cheap Argentinean blue cheese ($1.50 for 300 g), eating copious amounts of cheap and fresh cherries ($1 per kilo), eating ice cream… well a lot of eating, really. Well, we did drink, too, since the wine is very cheap and good (we drank some good Malbecs). Of course, we have an excuse: the heat. It has been prohibitively ... read more

I guess we've been neglecting our blog responsibilities, so now we have two cities to write about: Potosi, Bolivia and Salta, Argentina. First, Potosi: It was one of our favourite cities in Bolivia. Also, it is the highest city in the world at 4090 m ASL, so in your face all you sea level-dwellers. We enjoyed Potosi for two reasons: 1) Its physical beauty. It has some of the finest colonial buildings that we have seen. For instance, our hostel -- Hostal Carlos V -- was in a great colonial building. (Never mind that the hardwood floors were covered by newspaper, and one time when I was having a shower, green algae began seeping out of the shower head. But then again, maybe the algae is related to the building's "history"...) 2) The historical context. Potosi ... read more

Before I start, one thing deserves mention. Bolivia is so cheap that it is stupid. One Boliviano costs about 13 cents CAD, and you can buy a decent falafel (yes, such a think exists in La Paz!) for 10 Bs. But maybe that isn’t the best example... 620 ml of beer at a bar also costs 10 Bs. Hmmmm. So anyhow, we left Puno several days ago for Copacabana. It is a three hours to the Bolivian border, and we rode in a combi. Now, to your average person a combi is like a little, cramped bus that stops every kilometer to load more passengers onto the roof, etc. But to me, 6 foot 2 with 4 foot long legs, a combi is like a vice squeezing out my organs. My knees hurt for days. There ... read more