Galapagos Lima to Guayaquil There’s not much we can say about the Galapagos that would do it justice, but we’ll try. We took a bus from Lima to the border between Peru and Equador, and met a guy who was going to get us across the border. He was arranged by our travel lady. We met him with only one small problem, he didn’t speak any English! However we made our way to the checkpoint, got our passports stamped and walked across the border! There’s a small village called Huaquillas which is half in Peru, and half in Equador. We walked [View Full Entry]

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Into the Jungle - Part 2: Back at the lodge Day 5 (Day 1 back in the lodge) It was a little disappointing to be back at the lodge, however Nilton assured us that there were many things we could still do based from the lodge and so we agreed to wait till dark and go into the jungle around the lodge again. We took a nap for a few hours since we were up so early to get back to the lodge. Then went out for lunch which was rice and fish (again!). After lunch a group showed up at [View Full Entry]

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Into the Jungle - Part 1: Camping in the jungle So after Cusco Penny and travelled by bus back to Lima where we shared the bus with a Russian fellow named Alexei, we talked for a few hours about various things, travel, people, places etc before he went to write in his journal and Pen and I tried to figure out what we were going to do. We were thinking of taking a bus to Puerto Maldonado, then taking a cargo ship by river to Iquitos where we could take another cargo ship down to Manaus in Brazil thus getting into [View Full Entry]

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Machu Pichu We awoke in darkness, and some were far more awake than others. I’ve never been a morning person, but waking at 4am to start hiking in the dark for an hour or two is pushing the limits of my civility (unless it’s a race, and therefore competitive!). Poor Penny has to deal with whatever fragile mask of humanity I can put on until my mind catches up with my body and manages to wake up around 8 or 9ish. As it was we hiked with about 30 or 40 other tourists for around an hour to the Sun Gate, [View Full Entry]

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Inca Trail Wow, what can we say? We had the most amazing hike. It had everything, mountains, altitude, ruins, and a bit of jungle…as well as lot’s of interesting people. Our first morning we were all picked up in a bus, and taken to the start of the trail…I really wasn’t functioning so well as it was about 5:30am when we were collected. We arrived at the trail, and got a group photo just before starting. The trail starts where the train starts, so many people here are going to see Machu Piccu, however we were hiking for 4 days and [View Full Entry]

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Hola! Which as I’m sure most of you know is hello in Spanish. Sorry it has taken so long to update our trip to South America. We've been non stop since we got here, but finally after many trials and tribulations we're in Peru. We spent a very quick week in Vancouver which seemed to pass in no time. Then before we knew it it was time to head to the airport. I met up with Peter a fellow Dereck and I met in Beijing in 2006 as Petey was here in Vancouver at the same time, and as it turned [View Full Entry]

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Toronto to Vancouver So after many months of waiting, finally Penny’s permanent residency visa showed up. That meant that we could now head to Vancouver. We said goodbye to my parents, and jumped in Beast for the highway to catch up with some college friends of mine in Northern Ontario on the way out of Ontario. We stopped in to visit Julie, and her husband Dave and kids. It was great to catch up, and to make things even better Julie supplied us with a big bag of home made cookies…they were awesome! Then we went to Christine and Steve’s friends [View Full Entry]

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Nova Scotia - Text So the ferry ride was relatively uneventful we arrived in Nova Scotia and drove north for 3 hours towards Cape Breton Island. The drive was beautiful a place called Wacocomagh, which was very close to The Cabot Trail. We managed to get a campsite on the top of the highest point in the campsite, and we got a seniors discount…we’re not complaining, and we also got a heads up that we might be able to see bald eagles. The view was very pretty it showed the valley below with a mix of trees, the lake, and the [View Full Entry]

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Well we got off the ferry and we were in Newfoundland. We’d heard from so many people that it was beautiful, and we have to admit we were looking forward to be surrounded by that amusing Newfie accent. So with great anticipation we proceeded to get lost driving through the town center of Port aux Basque looking for the tourist information. After giving up and deciding to head north…surprise it was on the way out of town, with no signage (none that we saw). Bloody newfies ;o) So we went in got all the info we needed, including confirmation that we [View Full Entry]

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The ferry ride from St Barbe, Newfoundland to Blanc Sablon, Labrador took almost 2 hours. Whilst on the ferry ride Scott met a surgeon who travels around the country filling in for other doctors on leave. He told us the day before he met someone who had done the same ferry crossing and saw 60 whales, we were so excited thinking we might see a few whales. It was not to happen, I saw just a glimpse of the back of a Minke whale but that was it. When we reached the other side, the excitement of driving down dirt roads [View Full Entry]

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