After Saying farewell to Mark in Auckland, Faye and I had a few days to kill before our onwards flight, one of which was my 28th birthday, so we journeyed north of Auckland to the Bay of Islands as we’d heard they were beautiful and hopefully a little bit warmer that what we’d been experiencing. The Bay of Islands consists of 144 islands and numerous coves, with usually calm beautiful blue clear water surrounding them, sadly due to the weather the sea wasn’t up to its usual standard… still the coastal scenery sure made up for it. We decided to go for a dolphin discoveries cruise as the weather had improved and we were actually beginning to see some sunshine. The cruise consisted of a tour of the islands, with all the interesting parts pointed out ... read more

After hightailing it across the S. American continent, city hopping to Santiago, we flew out to New Zealand, sadly completing the first leg of our grand tour. Although sad to leave, we’re taking with us some incredible photos and even better memories which will undoubtedly stay with us forever; better yet we’ve already vowed to return, taking in some of the amazing things we’d heard about on the way but had no time to do. South America we will be back!!!! So, after landing in Auckland we had a few hours to kill, getting better acquainted with the airport and reminding ourselves that we don’t greet people with a ‘hola!’ anymore; it’s back to our native tongue. Thankfully due to our flight being delayed in Santiago we didn’t have so long to wait for our good ... read more

After the Salar trip we really didn’t give ourselves any time to relax at all, the prices in Chile and especially in San Pedro de Atacama were terrible. We booked a bus to Salta in northern Argentina as soon as we arrived at the grand cost of $46 each, it also left in the morning, arriving in the evening so we wouldn’t save any money on accommodation. You’ve got to pay what you’ve got to pay I suppose, we were just glad we weren’t staying very long. We spent a couple of days in Salta enjoying the city, which was actually quite beautiful and trying some Argentinean steaks that we’d heard so much about. We also managed to find a cinema that had some showings in English with Spanish subtitles of the latest Pirates of the ... read more

The bus ride to La Paz from Copacabana is quite an experience. Half way through the journey everyone has to leave the bus to get a boat across a narrow straight of Lake Titicaca while the bus gets on its own boat. The buses boat however isn’t very stable at all and more than once we watched as it tipped all over the place threatening to shed its load and all our stuff with it! Once on the other side however we jumped back on and carried on our merry way. The approach to La Paz is equally as unforgettable; the bus rises over a lip of a canyon revealing an incredible view of the city sprawled all over the floor and rising up the sides, with the snow capped peak of Illimani dominating the background. ... read more

After completing the Inca Trail we deserved some serious R&R, so we decided not to do anything too strenuous and stayed an extra couple of days in Cusco before moving onwards to Arequipa, a city further south and closer to the coast. Arequipa has been dubbed ‘the white city’ because many of it’s colonial buildings have been built using a light coloured volcanic rock, and sits in a valley with the huge volcano El Misti towering behind it. We would be using the city as base to explore the Colca Canyon which comes a close second for the title of ‘deepest canyon in the world’ to its neighbour Cotahuasi Canyon which is a whole 163m deeper. We explored the city for a couple of days before starting the trek and also visited the Museo Santuarios Andinos, ... read more