A busy 16 days since our last update. We had a week or so in Chile, starting in San Pedro de Atacama just over the border from the Bolivian Salt flats. Bizarre little town in the middle of the desert. Highlights included an evening of Astronomy and star gazing - we saw the rings of saturn and the craters on the moon through some very impressive telescopes! We also went a day trip to the 'Valley of the Moon' - a beautiful moonscape like landscape with wonderful rock formations, a large crater and a perfect place to watch the sunset light [View Full Entry]

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We have spent the past few days in a jeep passing through the dramatic scenery of south western Bolivia. Highlights have included the salt flats of Uyuni, colourful lagunas, geysers, weird rock formations and wild desert and mountain landscapes. The whole journey was so spectacular we have posted some additional photos (not that they are as amazing as the real thing!). The salt flats were completely unreal- very unique! Our experiences included a night in a hotel constructed entirely of salt and a 4.30am trip to plunge into hot springs in sub-zero temperatures. Along the way we extended our [View Full Entry]

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We have had a fun filled few days. We loved Sucre - beautiful white colonial city with lovely main plaza - especially because the sun shone the whole time we were there! We organised a 3 day hiking trip into the Cordillera de los Frailes, a beautiful mountain area. On arrival at the office for our departure, the guide suggested it might rain and would we rather do a 2 day walking / bus tour? Being committed exercise enthusiasts we stuck to the 3 day hiking plans and were rewarded with wonderful sunshine for the entire 3 days. Our guide was [View Full Entry]

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The last 10 days in Bolivia have flown by, but as usual we have managed to cram plenty in. Due to a road block we took a circuitous route to Copacabana (on the Bolivian shore of Lake Titicaca) from Puno (Peru) via La Paz - 11 hours on a bus instead of 4! Still, the effort was well worth it as Copacabana was fantastic. We arrived to beautiful sunshine and happened upon a festival of some sort, with cars adorned with flowers and bands playing! Darryl even found a bar showing English football so he was very pleased! We found 2 [View Full Entry]

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After the upset caused by the guinea pig photo Darryl is only eating rice and fish from now on. We have been very busy seeing some amazing sights, the highlight was our 4 day trek along the Inca trail to the holy lost city of Machu Picchu. We survived every sort of weather that the Andes could throw at us whilst walking and camping with 14 other mad men and women. The whole experience was fantastic though. After our extensive hiking in previous weeks the trek and altitude was not too bad for us despite the weather. We chewed coca leaves [View Full Entry]

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We have had a pretty hectic week since our last blog, time is flying by! After Otavalo Market in Ecuador we returned to Quito where we caught a flight via Guayaquil to Lima, Peru. We were picked up by transport from our hostel and we noticed bars along the windows around the boot and the fact the driver promptly covered our rucksacs with a rug. On enquiry he explained that the windows have been smashed in twice during the last month with muggers grabbing rucksacs but he assured us it was fine as he showed us his ´protection´- a meter long [View Full Entry]

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Hi everyone. Thanks for all your messages, they are so much fun to receive, sorry we cant reply individually but keep sending! On our return from Galapagos we explored the city of Quito in more depth. It is a great place with an old town (pretty) and a new town (lively). We visited the equator at La Mitad del Mundo where Pen balanced an egg on a nail (less gravity at the equator because the world is squashed - yeah honest) also you weigh a pound less at the equator! We climbed Ruhu Pinchincha volcano (4680m) at the top of the [View Full Entry]

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We flew into Quito, Ecuador last week and encountered some rough weather which was a shock to the system and was a sentimental reminder of England! Despite a weather induced brief flight delay to the Galapagos we had the most amazing week in the Galapagos in glorious sunshine. It is a truly unique place and almost impossible to describe our fantastic experiences there. In terms of wildlife we saw so many beautiful, unusual and unique animals it was spectacular. The animals let you come to within inches of them (no touching allowed obviously, but they were so close you could). We [View Full Entry]

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Adventures since our last blog... We took a very fast boat from Punta Gorda (Belize) to Livingston in Guatemala (via Puerto Barrios) and stayed in a funky hotel with hammocks. Livingston is only accessible by boat and has people from many different cultural backgrounds. Mayans, Garifunans, Chinese, Mexicans, Indians and of course Gringos.... We had an amazing curry cooked by a crazy Mexican lady who had lived in India! The next day we caught a boat up the Rio Dulce (Sweet River) via hot springs, caves, flower lagoon and bird island (cormorants and storks - or egrets) and we saw a [View Full Entry]

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We haven't updated the blog for a few days because we have been loafing about on beaches in sunny Belize. Penny has spent some time diving in and around the Southern Barrier Reef along Belize coastline. She had a great time and spent some of her first dive and all of her second dive surrounded by playful dolphins. She also saw big turtles, lobster, stingray etc. etc. meanwhile Darryl got in some serious hammock action on the beach. The trip to Hopkins Beach Belize from Guatemala was pretty straightforward. Four buses driven by the usual collection of lunatics but we arrived [View Full Entry]

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