Sign In
Travel Blog Posts
The honeymoon period is over!
Published: August 29th 2008South America » Brazil » São Paulo » São Paulo
August 27th 2008
So here we are back home.... We can't believe it's all over, we had mixed emotions about coming home, but we were looking forward to seeing friends and family so much that we had to bring it to an end..... oh, and we'd run out of money too! So on the 2nd August we landed in Sao Paulo over 24 hours after leaving Puerto Colombia in Venezuela. We were met at the aiport by Marina and Luis who had been on our boat in the Whitsundays in Oz, and we were lucky enough to stay with Marina and her husband Udu for the next 3 nights. While they went to work, we dozed, and then later the 5 of us went for a stroll down the expensive Avenida Paulista. We then went to our first Brazilian ... read more
Angel Falls by the wayside....
Published: August 10th 2008South America » Brazil » Rio de Janeiro » Rio de Janeiro » Ipanema
July 21st 2008
We had a brilliant time in Venezuela despite having heard various horror stories from other travellers (most of whom didn't actually go....) and we're so glad we went. It was more developed than the previous 4 countries, very green and we met some lovely people. We had an absolutely brilliant trip to Los Llanos, an area of flat savannah the size of Italy. Our first day included a visit to a much celebrated small stone church which was built by hand, a nice walk between 2 lakes and a fun hour of white water rafting in a very fast river - as our guide Luis kept saying to us "welcome to the rainy season!" We stayed at a lovely family run posada (guesthouse) the first night in Barinitas and had a gorgeous meal, a big joint ... read more
July 15th 2008
Our next stop after lovely Cuzco was Arequipa, another nice city and the base for trip to the Colca Canyon, which is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. So the next day we were back on a bus, this time with a tour guide, on our way to the small town of Chivay which would be our base for the night. After our bus had knocked down someone’s low hanging electricity cable, we made our way to the local hot springs for a soak. We’d been advised not to take any valuables so could only watch everyone else drinking cocktails in the water as we didn’t have any money! The 2 of us then went out for alpaca steaks and decided to give the traditional dancing show a miss. It was an early start the ... read more
June 10th 2008
Cusco is a gorgeous city with narrow cobbled streets, a stunning main square, endless parades and festivals, great food etc etc.... But of course the main thing is Machu Picchu so after speaking to a few agencies we settled on the 5 day/4 night Salkantay trek - apparently harder than the 4 day/3night Inca trail. So last Monday we were picked up at 5am and driven 2 hours to Mollepata at 2800m, the start of our trek. We were with a great group of people - Magnus from Norway, John, Holly and Chris from the US, Abraham from Mexico, Astrid and Tim from Germany, Helene from France, Alexa from Switzerland and Nir from Israel and of course our local guide, Percy, and we had so much fun together. After Ruth had bought some sticks and the ... read more
May 17th 2008
At midnight on the 9th May we took a bus from Salta to La Quiaca in Argentina, the border town with Bolivia. After waiting for half an hour for the Bolivian border to open (it´s an hour behind Argentina) we passed into Bolivia and could see an instant difference between the 2 countries, although both were absolutely freezing at 8am and about 3400m! The women give it away as so many wear the tradional many layered skirt, tights, sandals, shawl or blanket round their shoulders and of course the bowler hat! We had decided to make Tupiza our first stop and after 2 and a half hours on a jam packed bus travelling on bumpy, dusty roads we arrived. The town centre is very small but it´s lovely, hardly any traffic, market stall after market stall ... read more
May 9th 2008
El Solar del Convento in Salta is fantastic! Bubbly on arrival and a massive 220g steak each - we´ve had a fab evening! Sell your house and come to Argentina NOW!!!!!... read more
We´re crying for you coz you´re not in Argentina!
Published: May 8th 2008South America » Argentina » Salta » Salta
April 8th 2008
We´re now in South America and loving it! We flew from Auckland to Santiago on the 2nd April but arrived in Chile before we´d left New Zealand which wrecked our body clocks for a couple of days and it immediately became apparent that not knowing any Spanish could be a problem. We´d learnt a few phrases from a CD and book Jose had bought us but the first question threw us and we were only asked if we wanted rice! It also became clear very quickly that the transport costs given in our guide book had doubled.... Santiago is a big, busy, modern city but not that pretty. It was also covered in a thick layer of smog when we were there which was a real shame as it meant the Andes that loom over the ... read more
Seals, sulphur, skydives and Sheldons!
Published: April 1st 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Auckland » Ponsonby
April 1st 2008
Flying into Christchurch was amazing in itself with fabulous views of the Southern Alps beneath us. This was going to be good. We only had 1 night in Christchurch when we first arrived as the next day we were bound for Methven in the Canterbury Plains where we stayed in a great YHA and woke up at 5am the next morning to go up in a hot air balloon! This was a wedding gift from Roger and Diane, and was absolutely brilliant! Thank to David's lucky round face (well, that's what he was told in India!) we had the perfect weather, a clear day with not a cloud in sight. It was absolutely breathtaking floating silently above a patchwork of fields with the Southern Alps and the snow covered top of Mount Cook in the distance. ... read more
March 16th 2008
Helloooooo to one and all! Sorry this is sooo late, we've been too busy having fun! We're currently in Nelson in the northern part of NZ's South Island but need to think back to Queensland to bring you up todate! So we left Airlie Beach after having had a great few days and then spent a wet 2 days paying ping pong in Mission Beach before getting the bus to Cairns. Here we stayed with friends Ray and Madeleine and their 2 boys Zachary and baby Owen. We had a fun 3 days/nights with them all and it was great to see them again after 2 years. As Cairns is the main base for exploring the Great Barrier Reef, and on Ray's recommendation, we booked ourselves on a boat to a diving platform in the outer ... read more
Aussie Aussie Aussie - Oi Oi Oi
Published: January 27th 2008Oceania » Australia » Queensland » Airlie Beach
January 27th 2008
We travelled first class over night on the train to Singapore where our friend Jose was there to meet us. We had 4 great days staying with him and Vicky and we ate loads! As a wedding present they took us for a buffet dinner at the luxurious Shangri-La Hotel - all you can eat seafood including lobster and crayfish, sushi, western, Chinese and Indian dishes, a chocolate fountain and umpteen yummy desserts. Amazingly we still managed to have room for a few drinks with Vicky and her workmates afterwards in Clarke Quay. The 2 of us had loads of fun at Singapore zoo the next day, our favourite being the very tuneful and active gibbons. That night we met up with an old colleague, Tessa Halstead, for incredibly tasty and incredibly messy black pepper and ... read more
Tot: 0.137s; Tpl: 0.007s; cc: 22; qc: 65; dbt: 0.0528s; 1; s:apollo w:www (50.28.60.10); sld: 1; ; mem: 6.6mb
© 2013 TravelBlog.org & Bloggers