World Tour 2006 2007

We crossed the border into Brazil, ready for part two of our Iguazu experience. Leaving the falls for later, we spent the afternoon in a local bird-park. With Hannah keeping us company, we peeked at parrots, photographed flamingos and touched a toucan! This park included in its collection, the Cassowary and the Hummingbird, two of our favourites. Our campsite was very much to David's liking; floodlit football pitch, table tennis, pool, table football and even a version of shove ha'penny in addition to the bar and free internet. We mostly spent our evenings bumming about here with Ollie and Hannah. Ollie and David set about trying to arrange a seven-a-side match against a Brazilian group for the following evening. We spent a day checking out the town. Louise bought new shoes, and David, new football boots ... read more

The mounting expectations for how cheap this country was to be, were leading the tour group into a shopping frenzy. Knowing that La Paz was the place to shop, but that we only had two full days in this chaotic city, put the pressure on. The landscape leading up to La Paz was barren, to say the very least. Browns and beiges were in vogue here, and the monochrome settlements blended seamlessly into the cactus-strewn wastelands all around. The roads had also noticeably deteriorated: Windy, bumpy and scary all the way. Louise had organised a bus scrabble tournament to help the new guys settle in, and the punters were excited about the semi-finals. However, she encountered an unnecessary altercation with one angry budget boy, who didn´t want to swap seats in order to free up the ... read more

The Budget cattle were prodded onto a bus once more and whisked away to the sacred valley of the Incas. We started with the Urubamba vallley where we blocked out our guide Julio´s drone, to take photos of the amazing panorama of Cusco, once the foremost city of the Incas. Built in the shape of a puma, this charming city, 3326m above sea-level, was colonised by the Spanish, who mistook ´Cusco´(meaning´navel of the earth´in local Quechan) to mean ´little dog´(in Spanish). We then sidled through a long dark cave before heading back to the bus. Next stop was the llama farm and weaving centre where we had the opportunity to get up close and personal with a range of llamas and alpacas. Well, as close as they would let us anyway! Traditional weaving techniques were on ... read more

We arrived in Quito with eight days to spare before the beginning of a mammoth, ten-week long tour of South America, taking in five countries and an endless list of attractions. We decided that we should have a chilled out time before its out of our hands again, so we checked into ´The Secret Garden´, one of the finest residences of the trip so far. This five-level, sprawling maze served amazing food every day, on a rooftop terrace with incredible city views. Here, Louise took some Spanish lessons, David learned a little Spanish guitar. We made friends and generally relaxed. A day out to Otavalo to take in its famous market was an interesting break from our relaxation routine. This market was a great taster for South American goodies to come: David bought a cowboy hat ... read more

French Polynesia is a set of archipelagos in the South Pacific; a dependent country controlled from Paris. France's power over this remote nation provided the basis for extensive nuclear testing over the last few decades of the twentieth century. This has now at last ceased, under extreme international pressure. The most famous islands here are Tahiti and Bora Bora. After an uneventful evening in an uninspiring motel in Pape'ete, French Polynesia's (and Tahiti's) capital, we set about planning the least expensive itinerary possible. Only by increasing our daily budget to one hundred pounds a day would we stand a fighting chance! We booked flight tickets to nearby Huahine in the Leeward islands, and grabbed a beach bungalow. The Lonely Planet wasn't kidding when it said 'isolated location', and we soon realised the impracticality and expense of ... read more