Sarah9961

After taking a flight from Hong Kong to Manilla we were very pleasantly surprised with the friendly characters of the people we met and the extent of English and Spanish spoken (numbers from 1 -100 are said in Spanish or English) and there are 700 Spanish words in the local language along with 700 English words so we could pick up bits from conversations we were hearing, that along with the worlds 3rd largest shopping center and I thought I was dreaming when I saw a Topshop next to a Lush handmade cosmetics! The prices were the same as home so just did plenty of window shopping there was an Olympic sized ice ring and some of the kids were amazing! In the evening I was treated to a fashion show courtesy of Sunsilk shampoo makers ... read more

New Zealand - a huge version of Devon and Cornwall with a few mountains and glaciers thrown in for good measure...... Started in Auckland where our hire van wasn't waiting for us at the airport as expected, all was resolved in a matter of a few hours though and we were on our way! First we had a little look in Auckland although most confusing, driving, talking English to strangers and suffering a bad case of jet-lag, we decided to head north a bit so went up to this place called Walkworth and stayed at a cute campsite with pink sheep! Met some very very friendly NZ'ers who gave me fish and shared their beer with us till we went to sleep! They were working on a new carpark at “Goat Island” and recommended us to ... read more

After Arequipe we took the bus down to Puno along the way seeing some stomach churning sights, dead sheep recently slaughtered on the pavement and tons of sheep and llama skin on the road, but me right off my empanada!! Puno is the town on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca - the largest high altitude lake in the world! We took a 1 day trip of the lake on the Peruvian side as it borders Bolivia and visited Uros Floating islands they are made from reed roots for the “foundations” normally 30cms deep then layers of reeds are placed on the top every few days and then they build houses on top out of reeds! Its incredible people atcually live like this and they eat the reeds aswell!! when the rain falls in the wet ... read more

After a few more days relaxing and taking in Medellins nightlife and eating lots of Arepas (for those who no not of arepas they are a cross between bread and a crumpet and very hard - served with everything in Colombia and usually come with a fried egg or grated smelly cheese) it was time for a move so we took the bull by the horns and vamoosed on a night bus to Cartagena ….the first stop on the Caribbean coast!! My word this was heat!!! 50 + C and hard to do anything!!! There was a nearby mud volcano so we took the obligatory tour to go to that, you get in with another 20 tourists have a massage by a Caribbean man get very muddy then climb up the ladder and wander down to ... read more

We spent another few days in Banos taking in the countryside and friendly people, there was a independence festival in Quito (capital of Ecuador) starting on December 1st so we took the bus there, Quito was pretty expensive by South American standards, and not the nicest city we've ever been to it was meant to be dangerous after 10 in the evening and was a busy thriving town and rather disappointingly the festivities weren't properly kicking off for a few days! After 2 days (and visiting the important museums and churches) we decided we'd had enough and headed back to Banos whee we started Spanish school 4 hrs of lessons a day (and about the same in homework!) and living with our teacher Elizabeth. We were very lucky in that Banos was also celebrating 50 years ... read more