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 [View Full Entry]

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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 - [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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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!!!!! [View Full Entry]

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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, [View Full Entry]

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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, [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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