I can't believe we made it. What a journey. 5 days of travelling, 2 cancelled flights, lost baggage, zero sleep. But we're home, safe, sound and happy. Our flight from Caracas was cancelled and we spent a long, boring day in the airport waiting for an evening flight that went via Lima to Santiago. At 5am in Santiago we discovered they had lost our backpacks and of course we had left Venezuela in the searing heat wearing shorts to arrive amidst the beautiful snow capped mountains of Santiago, Chile. Nice. Luckily we had our fleeces and our little Vi made travel [View Full Entry]

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40 hours, 3 buses, 3 taxis, 2 minivans, a hitched ride with a volunteer red cross vehicle, countless searches from security guards and we finally crossed from Colombia to Venezuela and arrived at our first Venezuelan destination "Ciudad Bolivar". Not the prettiest, safest or most interesting of towns but a necessary stop for our trip to Canaima National Park to see "Salto Angel" (Angel Falls) the world´s tallest waterfalls. I have been wanting to see these for years so it was pretty exciting... We jumped on a 3 day tour to the National Park and were surprised to find ourselves on [View Full Entry]

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Again, a bit of a lapse in time between entries. Once again due partly to the fact that the bloody parasites came back with a vengenace and wiped me out for a few days and also cos we have been running around up and through Colombia seeing as much as we can in just 2 weeks. I have absolutely loved Colombia! It is so fantastic. Actually I think Bogota and Medellin are Plastic Fantastic! Colombia is not only famous for itś drug cartels, guerillas and coffee. Itś the plastic surgery capital of South America and Stacey and I were quite amazed [View Full Entry]

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Ecuador, where the Northern and Southern hemisphere´s meet at the Earth´s centre, the Equator. Quito, the Capital, is actually made up of two words "Qui" meaning "centre" and "To" meaning "land" - therefore Centre of the Land or World. How cool is that? Obviously we went to visit the Equator if for no other reason than to check the theories about water in the loo flushing in different directions on the opposite sides of the world. We jumped on the metro bus for the 1.5 hour journey to La Mitad Del Mundo, (the Middle of the World). A big monument marks [View Full Entry]

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After saying a sad farewell to the "Guantanamera" Stace and I checked into a cute little hostel on Isla Santa Cruz. This is the most populated of the islands and has plenty of little shops, restaurants and tourists. We went straight out to book a dive trip for the following day. My stomach had been dodgy since the second day on the boat but fortunately I didn´t miss any of the activities, managing to do all the land and sea excursions without incident (sometimes only just!). Again I was lucky I wasn´t feeling too bad on the day of our dive. [View Full Entry]

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Where to start? It´s been a while between entries for a few reasons: 1) We were in the Galapagos Islands on a cruise boat for 8 days so (blissfully) no internet there and well 2) For the other week we have been just cruising the islands, diving, snorkelling and along the way I have managed to spend a lot of time in the bano/loo with a dodgy stomach bug. So, there´s a bit to recount, therefore prepare yourselves for some really long, long-winded reading in your sneaky lunch hour.... Let me just start with AMAZING, AMAZING and AMAZING! The Galapagos Islands [View Full Entry]

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After a busy 2 days in Quito shopping around for great last minute deal (which we got) for our cruise boat in the Galapagos we decided to head out of the city for a couple of days to chill in the countryside. We headed to the "Secret Garden" hostel that rests at the foot of Cotopaxi, a snow-capped active volcano in the Ecuadorian Andes. The 2.5 hour trip there was interesting. Our promised "taxi" was actually a ute and since there were 9 of us, and only space for 4 in the cab, 5 of us were in the tray. Squashed [View Full Entry]

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We´re sitting in one of the best hostels we have stayed in our whole visit waiting to go to the airport and jump on a plane to Ecuador. Stace and I have decided to hot foot it out of Peru and spend more time in Ecuador and Colombia. Everyone is telling us Colombia is the best and we have seen all that we wanted to see in Peru and it´s time to move on. The Peruvian people are very different from the Bolvians. For one, the guys do not leave you alone here and it is getting a bit ridiculous. We [View Full Entry]

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From Cusco we jumped on our 16 hour super cama (first class) bus ride to Nazca. Like two little kids we were over excited about: a) Free headsets (like we don´t have our own) b) Blanket & pillow (agin like we don´t have our own cooler ones courtesy of my Ibi) c) Free hot dinner (even though we paid about $160AUS for the ticket) d) Free movie (with stereo sound that included special background static all the way through) e) Extreme reclining leather seats (they were actually very pimp) It was pretty cool though going on a bus ride together with [View Full Entry]

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I´m a few days later than I thought I would be cos we got a bit caught up in various activities and places after leaving Cusco. But here´s part 2 of the Inca... On our third day of the Inca Trail we awoke to our routine wake up call - our wonderful porters greeting us and handing us a cup of hot coca de mate (coca leaf tea - it helps with the altitude). I ask you, who wakes up in the middle of the misty Peruvian mountains to a friendly face with a hot cup o tea poking through your [View Full Entry]

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