Spending a few days on the Chilean coast winding down after a fun-filled couple of months that took us from icebergs to jungle. We´re at La Serena and the entry in the guide book reads ¨blessed with a long golden shoreline¨, but that same guide book fails to mention the sea mist that blankets the coast for most of the day. Luckily, just 15 minutes east, every day has blue sky and sunshine so we rented a car with the steering wheel on the ¨wrong¨side and went to have a look. Numerous vineyards, all dedicated to producing grapes for Pisco Sour [View Full Entry]

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BREATHLESS Since we last wrote we have flown from Cuzco to Arequipa, spent a night there, flown from Arequipa to Tacna, spent about 5 minutes there and caught a taxi to Arica in northern Chile. $40 US for a 50 km taxi ride and the driver handled all the cross border paperwork for us. Arica is a coastal town and fishing its main industry. Birds love fish, and there were thousands of pelicans and cormorants chasing the fish and the fishing boats. We spent a couple of days wandering the black sand beaches, hiring some bicycles one day to have [View Full Entry]

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The Power of Television A couple of years ago we watched a series on TV called ¨Around the World In 80 Treasures¨. It was one mans list of thought provoking sights to see. His choice in South America was a series of salt pans near Urubamba, Peru. It sounded really interesting so we hired a taxi for the day to go have a look. Two streams start as springs in the side of a mountain. One is cool and fresh, the feminime one. Lots of things have been given a gender. No idea why. The other, the masculine one, is [View Full Entry]

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I´m sittng here in our B&B basement accomodation in Cusco, Peru trying to get my brain into gear after a jam packed week of amazing sights, history (ancient), uncomfortable bus and train trips, walks and markets - somehow I think that I´m going to have to let the photos do the talking! Canyon Country We left Arequipa joining a 3 day Colca Canyon trip. Colca Canyon is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the US. The steep sides range in depth from 1000-3000m at an altitude of 5000m to 2500m or so above sea level. It is pretty dry [View Full Entry]

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The White City We´re living it up in Arequipa. The hotel room is spacious with comfy bed and a hot shower and its only $30 per night, including breakfast. That should help get the budget back on track. But the budget was forgotten at ¨Crepisimo¨the crepe restaurant where we just had dinner YUM !!! Arequipa is over 400 years old with many beautiful old buildings. So far, we´ve been into 2 churches and a convent, which is very risky behaviour considering the city has been wrecked several times over the centuries by earthquakes and its shadowed by a huge volcano. [View Full Entry]

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Theres a reason these places are called Rainforests More an experience than a photographic subject, the rain and the animals having little respect for us tourists. Leaf-cutter ants chew off pieces of the leaves of trees and carry them, single file, to their underground nest, where the leaves stored in warm humid conditions will develop a fungus growth. This fungus is food for the ants. Stepping over a procession of leaf-cutter ants while walking through the Amazon rainforest in the pouring rain is one of those priceless experiences that so typifies this part of the world. [View Full Entry]

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From One Extreme to Another I´m writing this update by candlelight in a fabulous cabin with extensive views of misty mountains, at Santa Lucia Cloudforest Reserve. We have just spent the last 2 days in noisy bustling Quito (capital of Ecuador) and I can´t quite believe that after a 1 1/2 hours bus trip that wound its way through the mountains, a very bumpy 4WD trip (30 mins) and then a 1 1/2 hour hike that climbed 400m in 2km that I´m sitting here and all I can hear is the rain on the roof and the crickets happily chirping [View Full Entry]

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Tierra del Fuego We´re in Ushuaia, a town that markets itself as ¨The End of the World¨and a look at a world globe confirms that it is indeed a lot further south than just about everything else. The south western corner of South America, in both Chile and Argentina is generally known as Patagonia and that word has always conjured up thoughts os snow capped mountains, huge glaciers and beautiful lakes and the reality hasn´t disappointed. Anyone we subject to the inevitable slide show at the end of our trip will see that we have taken photos of almost nothing else. [View Full Entry]

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ICE, SNOW, WIND AND COLD My lasting impression of this region will be how ice, snow, wind and the cold have, and continue to, mould the landscape. Glaciers such as Perito Moreno, just outside of El Calafate, continue to carve away what will one day be a high wide canyon. Bob assures me that this glacier is very impressive unfortunately I picked up a 24 hour bug so spent the day feeling sorry for myself back at the hotel. Photos of this massive glacier will have to wait as Bob only took photos with his camera which are too big [View Full Entry]

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Beautiful scenery = Exhaustion Ola! Buenos Dias Just back in ¨civilization¨ in Puerto Natales after spending an amazing 5 days hiking the ¨W¨ track in Torres del Paine National Park. Some say ¨Paine¨ is a local Indian word meaning blue, others say Paine was an early Welsh settler. We say its the feeling in our legs after the first day of hiking. Whatever it means its an incredible place. Pouring rain, brilliant sunshine and wind so strong just standing up is a challenge. Sometimes all on the same day, sometimes all at the same time !!! Lots of uphill and then [View Full Entry]

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