Here a boobie, there a boobie....

Everywhere a boobie boobie......

No I have not turned into a dirty sex fiend, but I have just returned from the Galapagos Islands where the famous boobie birds abound! No doubt you can imagine the puns flowing freely throughout the trip, but before we get to the Galapagos Islands here are a few other updates for you.

Tim and I spent around 2 weeks in Cusco and the surrounding areas in southern Peru. Tim learnt heaps of Spanish in his classes while I had a lot of fun volunteering at an after school drop-in centre for kids. We managed to visit a whole bunch of Inca sites as well as the huge churches that the Spanish built on a whole bunch of other Inca sites.
We also sampled the local delicacies - whole guinea pig complete with skin, face and whiskers, as well as ceviche, which is raw fish marinated in lemon juice. The guinea pig was a bit chewy while the raw fish experiment led Tim to spend the night leaving runny offerings to the toilet gods.

After Cusco we went to Arequipa, another large city in southern Peru. From there we did a 3 day mountain biking tour of the Colca Canyon, the second deepest canyon in the world. It was a great couple of days with spectacular canyon scenery, several spottings of massive condors, and the sorest bums/forearms/hands to date. Lucky for that support vehicle that just picked us up whenever we didn't want to ride anymore!

Following this came a few days of travelling to get to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, ooohh, how exciting!! Galapagos has been one of the biggest highlights of the trip so far and we had a blast. We spent 8 days cruising around on our luxury liner, visiting islands, lying on tropical beaches and snorkeling. The wildlife is amazing and all the animals are completely fearless, meaning you can get very close to them. So in between turtles, iguanas, giant tortoises, sharks, blue footed boobies, red footed boobies, albatrosses, frigate birds and sea lions we had a fabulous time - it was worth every my-credit-card-is-now-maxed-out cent!

Then it was back to the big smoke with a few days in Quito (the capital of Ecuador) and surrounding areas. Tim's time in South America is now done and, in an unexpected and budget blowing turn of events, I made a last minute decision to head to England with him for a few weeks. We are now in London visiting friends and relatives and enjoying civilisation before Tim heads home and I go back to South America for the last few months of my adventures. See you all soon!

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