Our last day in Bogota was by far the most exciting. We spent the morning just cruising La Candelaria district, visiting the military museum, drinking great coffee and then waited until the afternoon when the street parade was due to start. Thinking it was just going to be a few dancers we were blown away by the parade. It was fantastic, a couple of hours of colourful floats and elaborately dressed performers and dancers. It was very unexpected, particularly as there seemed to be little advance information about the parade. There were many people watching, but even then we were able to get a front-row spot to watch the parade. Lots of military and police around during the parade, many more than usual, which was actually quite comforting to know that someone was watching our backs ... read more

We arrived in Bogota safe and sound last night. The airport routine was surprisingly straightforward and they even fast-tracked us as we had a child with us. We took a taxi to our accommodation in La Candelaria, Anandamayi Hostel. We were greeted by Margarita who speaks fluent English - a relief as Fee´s spanish was fast asleep somewhere in the back of her mind. The hostel is beautiful, white washed walls, internal courtyard gardens and loads of colonial character. The garden is full of beautiful flowers and we even spotted a hummingbird this morning. Breakfast at a local cafe where we soon learned that we needed to order cafe tinto, otherwise what we got was a very very weak white coffee. Margarita sat down with us after breakfast to give us some ideas on sightseeing in ... read more

Hi everyone. Here we are in a comfy hotel room in Toronto, where we spent the night. Our flight out of Toronto last night did depart, albeit 3 hours late, then 3 hours into the flight we were told we were returning to Toronto due to a mechanical problem. So, back to Toronto airport where there was total chaos due to a bad storm grounding something like 140 flights. There was mayhem at the baggage carousels and we finally arrived at the Crown Plaza at 3am this morning. So, back to the airport after lunch today to try again. Let's hope we get to Bogota tonight...... read more

It's Sunday night and I'm sitting here feeling pretty nervous. Having said a few final sad farewells to friends today it's finally hit home just how long we'll be away for. A year of our ordinary lives goes so quickly, but I've no doubt that this year will for us be long and very, very exciting. Tomorrow we say goodbye to our families for a whole year and start our adventure. We'll drive down to Heathrow to stay the night before a very early start at the airport on Tuesday. We're packed, well almost, probably taking far too much stuff we can live without in reality, into our shiny new backpacks. The preparation for the trip has been hard work - all we have to do now is go and have a fantastic time ... which ... read more

It's less than 7 weeks before we head off now. We're making good progress with the planning. We've now booked our first few flights - into Bogota, Colombia first. We're having several weeks there following some reassuring feedback from fellow bloggers. We have a rough route mapped out, but I'm sure this will change with some more research. Colombia sounds wonderful - friendly, un-gringofied and a great place to get a feel for the real South America. Our plans have changed somewhat over the weeks and we now have scaled down our Central American, Mexico, Cuba trip to just 3 countries in Central America, so that the rest of our time over the next year can be spent in South America. That way we feel we'll be able to see it 'properly', at a chilled pace, ... read more