Travellin J

Okay, We are on our own again after 46 days on tour and I will confess that writing these blogs has become hard work but the end of this journey is around the corner so will put up with it and do my best, here is our final few days in Rio Our hostel has a weird setup with the showers and toilet being at the back of the property and is barricaded off during the night which makes getting there somewhat difficult. Although we had booked mixed rooms Jay & I are split and the air-conditioning in my room doesn’t work and it is rather hot and humid and there is not sleep for me tonight. In the morning we done the bathers and head out to Copacabana to do as the locals do ... read more

La Paz - Rio Well we are off and at around 10 in the morning ready to start out journey towards the salt flats. We make our way out of La Paz and look back one last time at the bowl that the city is nestled in. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to look around properly and get a good feel for the city but we have a tour to make. We spend the whole day travelling and Willie and Raul have done a marvellous job driving us to Uyuni for our nights’ accommodation. The road is in appalling condition and we lose the sealed road about 2 hours into our drive and from there it is bumpy and in some areas non-existent. We eventually arrive into Uyuni around 8pm and head straight to a ... read more

Lima: We arrived into Lima a couple of days early and once in our hostel in MiraFlores we wondered out for some lunch and a quick look around to get our bearings. We can’t miss our hostel, it is situated right on a main round about intersection and on street level it is so noisy with the sounds of traffic but it is a bustling part of town. Day 2 in Lima for us was locating a post office and sending back some paintings we purchased in Quito so we wouldn’t have to carry them around or worry about them on tour. So after getting everything done to the prescribed requirements we were finally able to post our items home and then headed down the road to try and find the Gold Museum. The Gold ... read more

Well we finally made it to Ecuador after spending a good part of the day in limbo after missing that darned flight from Bogota. All said and done, we arrived at a good time and got to see the night lights of Quito to make for a stunning landing, right in the middle of the city. The hostel we stayed at, Revolution Backpackers, is in the old area and our Aussie host, Matt, has maps and everything on hand to give an overview and safety brief of the area from the top of the building and look below to the happenings of a Saturday night in Quito. As we are here for Sunday only before catching a midnight but to Bahia and then Canoa we cram what we can into our day. Headed out to look ... read more

Here we are in the city that I probably have the most concern about my personal security that we have yet to visit. We have about 6 days in Bogota to start with for the sole purpose of getting our Brazilian Visa for one of the final parts of our journey. So we arrive late Sunday night (as there are no flights that arrive during the day from Mexico) and go about collecting our luggage and passing through security etc before being allowed to escape. We join the queue to pre-pay and catch our taxi and we finally make it to our hostel. Our hostel is nice enough and has a small kitchen and several common areas to chill out and an awesome theatre room we a great selection of movies to watch. Too tired to ... read more

Right, well it’s time I got off my backside and caught up with some blogs. After Cancun we headed to Mexico City. With an afternoon flight we get into Mexico City at night and the airport is massive. Whilst waiting for our luggage I called our hosts at the hostel to arrange our free airport pick-up and where to be collected. We are told that they will only drive past once and to keep an eye out for a gold station wagon yeah cool no worries, until we get out into the dark and you can’t distinguish colour of any vehicle and then we see why they only do one drive by and cannot wait. There are police on the pavement in regular intervals and should an innocent dare stop and get out of the driver’s ... read more

We have landed in sunny Cancun for a week of R&R before we tackle South America and the final months left of our journey. After going through immigration and then pressing the magic button to see if you are to have a customs check or not we headed to the land of all inclusive food and alcohol we share 7 days with loud, obnoxious, self absorbed Americans. Our first morning we were taken to one of the sister properties for breakfast but as well all know there is no such thing as a free meal. Once fed we were taken on a fast talking, this is the way of future travelling buy x amount of points and you can redeem them anywhere in the world at one of the sister resorts, blah, blah, blah.... we ... read more

Well we’ve made it. Its 5.20am on a Sunday morning, there is no public transport running, haven’t slept for 24hrs and taxi’s are as scarce as hens teeth. When we finally get a taxi we arrive into our hostel via the seedy morning streets of Downtown Vancouver and I could be mistaken that I am back in Amsterdam. We are staying on the outskirts of Gastown. One of the oldest areas of Downtown Vancouver and being on the edge of Gastown means we are on the edge of the seedy side as well. Two blocks to our right we are told not to go down that street at all day or night. Anyway, the hostel is pretty good and after a power sleep we are up and ready for food and to attack the sights of ... read more

We are finally heading into the mountains and cannot wait. We’ve spent 2 days in Calgary and the city is rather sprawled out and although it is the 3rd biggest city in Canada there doesn’t seem to be a lot of people around. The hostel is on the outskirts of the CBD and just around the corner from the car rental place, an added bonus. The people of Calgary seem to be an eclectic lot with varying appearances. We met a really helpful guy in a camping store that got us sort of ready for our Incan Trail and advising us of some waterproof, wet weather gear to buy. The 3 hour drive to Banff our first stop on our 9 days in the Rockies was breathtaking to say the very least. As we approached the ... read more

Toronto to me was just another city, we are only here for 1 night and 1 full day but it didn’t really grab me as anything other than a big city with lots of concrete on varying layers. After we had checked in we caught the train to Union Station, grabbed one of the best hot-dogs I’ve ever had for a snack and ate it on the park by the river/lake. Given today is a public holiday here and there was an air show over this lake and whilst we were on the bus coming into Toronto we were lucky enough to catch some of it and as we get to our piece of grass the last fly over goes past and that’s it for another year. This area by the lake is rather cool and ... read more