SarahandJames

So as it turned out, we didn't try any of the things Colombia is famous for but we did have a very relaxing and enjoyable end to our trip. 12 December (day 49) - to Bogota Having eyed up the pancakes at the Magic Bean ever since we got to Quito, today was the first time we got to sample them. It was worth the wait. We grabbed a taxi to the airport and got a nasty shock when we discovered we had to pay $40 each to leave the country. The worst thing is we will have to pay it again when we leave to come back to England. We were both really tired today and are looking forward to lying on a beach. We ate lunch on the flight and after meeting our first ... read more

In a bored moment on the very dull plane journey to Quito we decided to be true to our professions and come up with some statistics for our trip so far so here is what we worked out: Number of days so far 37 Number of beds slept in 23 Number of photos taken 1,982 Number of photos kept 819 Amount over budget £500 Number of modes of transport 14 Number of journeys and distance travelled in each form of transport: 1. Plane (excluding flight from UK) 9 journeys (13,732km) 2. Hire car 3 journeys (6,023km) 3. Minibus 7 journeys (520km) 4. Bus 8 journeys (380km) 5. Other people's cars 3 journeys (270km) 6. Taxi ... read more

13 November (day 20) continued - El Bolson We liked our first glimpse of the lake district - large mountains dropping down into beautiful clear lakes. On arrival in El Bolson we followed the trusty Lonely Planet's two best sounding accommodation options only to find that they were both shut. Our third choice was fully booked. On our loops around the town (even the smallest towns have grid systems with mainly one way roads so we have got accustomed to driving round in circles), we had spotted the shabby looking Amancay Hotel so decided to investigate. It had a room, albeit with a slight smokey smell and a few bare wires coming out of the wall. The Lonely Planet didn't do that much better on its restaurant write-ups. We chose Las Brasas, allegedly the best place ... read more

We intended to send episode number 2 of our blog about a week ago but for reasons that you will discover in episode 3 which will follow very shortly, we have been in the middle of nowhere with no internet or mobile reception for the last few days. 2 November (day 9) - Peninsula Valdes The 5.15am start wasn't too bad, especially as they didn't serve breakfast on the plane (they had forgotten to load it on) so we managed to sleep the whole way. James is actually a closet plane spotter as he loves telling me what kind of plane we are on, how many engines it has etc - this one was apparently a very old McDonnell Douglas 80, all I cared about was that it got us to Trelew. We smuggled some food ... read more