Our 2 week group tour of Costa Rica gave us lots of wildlife spotting opportunities in the various national parks we visited including monkeys, sloths, iguanas and frogs. We visited the Sloth Sanctuary where the baby sloths were adorable! We spent Christmas and New Year in Costa Rica at the beach and enjoyed walks along the beaches watching the sunset and celebrating the holidays with champagne around the swimming pool or whilst relaxing in a hammock. Whilst here we had our most adrenaline producing (and at times terrifying for Andrew) experience of the trip in the form of extreme zip lining. (Why couldnt we stick to watching frogs?!) A total of 12 different zip lines across huge expanse of cloud forest, some as long as 1km at terrific speed, trying desperately not to brake too soon ... read more

Whilst on Lake Titicaca we visited the Uros Islands, which are floating reed islands anchored to the bottom of the lake, on which communities live, go to school, trade etc. Although the compacted reeds are 2 metres thick its still a strange floating sensation when you are on them. After some shopping opportunities our group made their way to another island - Amantani. Here we stayed the night with a local family in their house. At the dock we were met by our ´mama´in her traditional dress and taken for lunch to her home. It was basic but we were lucky as she had a solar panel (so we had light in our room) and we had a bathroom (without running water) attached to the house. Others in the group didnt fare so well. (And at ... read more

We stayed at Baños staying in a hotel at the foot of an active volcano on the edge of the amazon jungle, let´s hope it doesnt erupt (it´s more likely that Andrew´s temper will erupt than the volcano). The town is set in a beautiful valley but the town is not much to look at. What was nice though was an 18km cycle ride along La Ruta de Las Cascadas (route of the waterfalls) set amidst the mountains. We have also enjoyed our first zip line across a canyon, a real adrenaline rush. On the way to Baños we visited La Mitad del Mundo, which is quite literally the equator and you can cross between the northern and southern hemisphere with one step! It was really interesting to do the experiments with water and balancing an ... read more