To say that we were worried about Colombia would have been an understatement.......Well that was true for the first 6 months or so anyway. Then we started to hear really good reports from lots of other fellow travellers, all of a sudden we were really looking forward to this leg of the trip. We weren't disappointed either, Colombia is one of the most beautiful South American countries that we have travelled through, period! Although it was another whistlestop visit, most of the time taken up travelling on buses.....(NOTHING NEW THERE THEN!) We felt really quite safe....Oh, apart from the total [View Full Entry]

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After finishing the Inca Trail it was time to get a move on, the original plan was to go to Nazca to see the Nazca lines, however, all of the buses were full on the day we needed to travel, also the weather was very unsettled and we were worried about arriving there and being holed up for days waiting for a clear day so that we could take the flight. We decided to not bother with Nazca and instead bussed our way straight out of Peru into Ecuador. This turned out to be a mammoth journey, we spent a total [View Full Entry]

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After a day in Cuzco, it was time to check in and have the pre trail briefing............Don´t think so! We went to the travel agent at the pre-arranged time only to find the office shut!! The only shut office on the street had to be ours, it wasn´t feeling too good! We had no idea where to get the bus the next morning, the tour agents didn´t have a clue whether we were still going etc. etc. We arrived at the office.......Open at last!....... at 7 the next morning, off we went at half past. We arrived at KM82, the designated [View Full Entry]

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.............................................And we were so glad we did, the country is breathtakingly beautiful, we visited Copacabana ( Of Barry Manilow fame, well not really!! ) really pretty place in parts, quite unusual in others, one unusual custom occurs twice daily outside of the cathedral, the priest blesses the local cars and drivers with holy water, the cars all get dressed up in their Sunday best with flowers and beads, as do their owners, ( I suppose it beats paying for a car wash! ) After a day we travelled to La Paz, the world´s highest city, amazing location in a natural [View Full Entry]

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Another mammoth 24 hour journey brought us to Peru, the border crossing was pretty cool, in an old North American gas guzzling tank! Peru is an amazing country, one we´ve both been really looking forward to, some strange customs we had to quickly get used to, beggars use buses to give you their story then give everyone a handful of sweets and collect money afterwards, on the same bus journey, we wondered why it took the local women an hour to get dressed in about 5 layers of clothing before they got on the bus, we soon found out why, the [View Full Entry]

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We arrived after an uneventful flight, fresh as daisies ( same couldn´t be said for our pitters and feet though!...HMMMM, nice thought that one!! ), no to tell the truth we were knackered! Anyway, we met a lovely couple ( Vicky & Sig ) in our last hostel in Auckland who we found out were on the same flight as us, so we decided to travel together, it was really great having travel partners and it made it a fair bit easier as 4 people without a clue has got to be better than 2!! Santiago was a humungous city, some [View Full Entry]

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We (Mark, myself & Gertie) got the ferry to the North Island, we arrived in Wellington & looked around there & then headed out to the east coast. We visited a place called The Pinnacles which were huge rock formations that resembled pipes from an organ. The walk to The Pinnacles took 3 hours & thanks to some very heavy rain the previous night, it was extremely muddy. On one part of the walk there was a massive area of mud which Joey decided to take running at full pelt (instead of taking time to look at the land & decide [View Full Entry]

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Eventually here, after a few restful weeks in Perth it was back to lugging the backpacks everywhere.....BUGGER! The overnight flights were pretty tiring, we left Perth at midnight, arrived in Christchurch at 6 PM the next day, within a few days we'd bought ourselves a car and were off on our travels.........Well, that's how it should have been, as soon as we bought the car, it wouldn't start, we bought a battery after getting advice from a garage then broke down the next night when we turned the car lights on, cutting a long story short the alternator was shafted, a [View Full Entry]

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Just a day trip, but a really great one, the sharks, turtles and rays were really awesome in the walk through aquarium, we also got to stroke rays in the ray enclosure, all told we had a brilliant day. [View Full Entry]

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We'd been looking forward to this place for a long time, luckily the Perth weather was kind to us and the day was sunny and warm. We hired a tandem and had a really great day riding around the island, tandems are excellent fun, we'd recommend one to anyone looking for something a bit different, just keep an eye on your rear passenger else you could end up pretty knackered by the end of the day! Luckily for me, no such problems with Jo! We were expecting the ocean to be as cold here as it has been everywhere else so [View Full Entry]

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