Just thought we would share those with you all. After all, there are good things about the UK and not travelling! 1/ Friends and family No comment. That´s all of you guys.. 2/ Cheese and dairy products Cheese is a dry tasteless affair in the countries we visited. Yogurts are not kept in fridges, seating on shelves in the sun, so not so tempting. We eat so much dairy products normally.. Nothing here. Really craving for a fresh ball of Mozarella and a Longley Farm yogurt! 3/ Proper Music You can get decent Andean music as reported in our post about [View Full Entry]

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Odd to be back in Lima for the night after the craziness and heat of the jungle, but great to be picked up at the airport by our lovely hotel and returned there about 10 hours later to fly to Cusco - hectic! Enjoyed getting photocopies of le Monde and the Herald Tribune at the airport - literally the only English language papers we have been able to find in S America - we are really missing the news and papers! M also enjoyed palming off her counterfeit Peruvian note at the airport coffee chain: you have to check your change [View Full Entry]

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The Selva is the Spanish for what we call in english the Jungle. One for the rock fans... After one day in Lima, we boarded Star Peru flight to Iquitos, gateway to the Northern Peruvian selva. Iquitos is the largest city in the world that cannot be reached by road - only by plane and boat. I (Laurent here) slightly regretted not making it by boat but clearly, the 8 days and many changes that it would have required would not have been possible with our heavy schedule. (Yes, still have deadlines to meet - in this case it was to [View Full Entry]

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10 hours bus journey to Piura in coastal Northern Peru, via Macara/La Tina border crossing. Eventful so not too painful. We met 2 Irish guys - probably about 50 - clearly a couple but had cooked up some story about how they were going to meet their wives in Buenos Aires - odd! They provided us with beer and biscuits after the bus broke down (loud bang, puncture, resulting chaos for a couple of hours whilst the driver and conductor argued about how best to change a tyre) and it became clear we would be arriving in Piura very late with [View Full Entry]

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Trip to Cuenca on surprisingly comfortable bus, despite playing 2 Sylvester Stallone (in Spanish, claro…) films at volume high enough to create distortion. Scnenery of balana plantations and some very basic rural living conditions, many shacks with pigs tethered outside. Bit alarmed by 2 ft gully at side of road when going through cloud forest, but we made it to Cuenca 4 hours later. Cuenca is Ecuador foremost Spanish colonial town and the centre was pretty with lots of buildings and the usual plaza with faded charm. Bit like Quito old town but calmer. Next day another 5 hour [View Full Entry]

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3 hour flight to San Cristóbal Island, via Guayaquil. We bundled into a minibus with just 5 others - lucky to have lovely group including an Irish couple, Dutch guy and a Canadian couple. Next day sporty couple Sven and Sabine joined us (Sabine spent her free time playing underwater rugby at 3m depth - impressive!). Later on we were joined by an Israeli and Californian guy; all in all 8 days of good chats and socializing and once again, we are not finding the travelers here young at all as expected, but often quite a bit older than us. Nearly [View Full Entry]

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So, basically, after spending days sorting out payment for our Galapagos cruise, it is Friday 10am and we have until Sunday morning before the flight to Galapagos. By then, we can't wait to leave Quito and see some more Ecuador but where to? Obvious answer: Saturday is market day in Otavalo. And it happens to be the largest artisanal market of South America! So, here we are getting on a taxi from our hotel with just a day backpack to the bus station to catch a bus there. Only, the taxi driver after asking us where we are off too, instead [View Full Entry]

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Well, after Brazil, here we are in Ecuador and its capital, San Francisco de Quito. We arrived on Monday and very much saw Quito as a pit stop where to arrange our trip to the Galapagos from - a few days affair. We should have known better! Not that there is nothing to see in Quito, don't get me wrong. In fact, it is very much a tale of two cities: on the one hand, Quito old town which is absolutely packed with pretty squares, gorgeous churches and impressive buildings, on the other hand, Quito new town which is the active [View Full Entry]

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M: Our last evening in Parati took a surprise turn when we stumbled across some incredible Capoeira players on our way to get dinner. Capoeira is one of my favourite ever things - so graceful, beautiful, respectful and bloody impressive physically. I have long harboured dreams of getting my arse in gear to learn, but having seen their phenomenal strength and acrobatics that evening: shattered dreams. Last morning in Parati was somewhat marred by plans to cycle in the jungle prior to evening bus to Sao Paulo going down the drain. Decided to be "organised" and visit the bus station to [View Full Entry]

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Here we are in Paradise! Travelled from Rio to Paraty,300km down the coast, aiming to sleep a little since our excitable hostel-mates kept us up screeching at Facebook outside our door till very late! However, sleeping was impossible knowing that at any moment we might have to adopt the brace position, despite v comfortable luxury coach. Arrival in Paraty was marked by despair at our rubbish Brazilian-Portuguese again, since they don't make the same sh, Zh sounds here which we had mastered, making our first communication at the Tourist Office and Hotel feel a bit back-to-basics and blank [View Full Entry]

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