We agreed that our next stop would be over the border in Italy. We woke early to howling winds and wondered whether we should travel. Taking it nice and steady we made it to the border with Italy in pounding rain and 14 degrees (it’s been high 20’s all along). Granted that nowhere looks good in the rain, but San Remo looked awful and things did not improve at the campsite. Having come from beautiful deserted French campsites, we were stacked in here cheek by jowl and paying twice the price. The swimming pool wasn’t open (awaiting official authorisation) and no discount could be negotiated on the E15 we had paid for the kids for the privilege. All 3 of our guidebooks rate this site highly, but I fear not for long as most of our ... read more

An aside on the experience of travel on the children… Thomas has quite taken to French mannerisms – his gallic shrug is a sight to behold and will doubtless get us in to trouble soon – see picture. He has also decided the Oui and Non are his stock answers to all parental requests for help… Miles, of course, retains his aloofness and prefers to keep his counsel on all things foreign… Both are sleeping well in their bunk beds in “the Major”, loving the swimming pools at every campsite we stay on, learning to play ping pong – watching the locals play Boules (and bawling when they cant play along themselves) and generally wrestling the days through… Unfortunately the mountainous roads are inducing our travel sickness tendencies, even Mummy is succumbing to it, thanks to ... read more

Away in The Major Five years and five weeks ago we wandered wide eyed into the Heathrow arrivals hall in the manner of Hugh Grant in “Love Actually”, direct from Lima and our year out in South America to be met by Simon’s Dad, Dave. Bitten by the travel bug we had promised ourselves over numerous wine and steak dinners in the Southern Cone that life on the road was so good that we would aim for a “mini sabbatical” every 5 years or so to while away the ever increasing years until our retirements… A week later in April 2006 and we were back at our jobs, doing much the same things as we had done before we left…even we couldn’t predict that within 12 months of stepping off the plane we would leave London, ... read more

And so it was time to move on from the city of Salta to Tilcara a small adobe village set in the Quebrada Humahuaca valley in Northern Argentina. As our Balut Bus (AP$16) made its way up the valley the journey became more and more spectacular, multicoloured mountains on either side with layers of colours from terracotta to copper green to cream and adobe villages clinging to dusty hillsides punctuated with stands of Cardon cacti. Arriving at sunset in Tilcara (2500m) we soon realized that shorts, flip flops and strappy tops were not the way to go - it was freezing cold and we had all but forgotten how cold it can get at altitude at night. Luckily for me Simon had been shopping in Salta that morning and his bag of new shirts was sitting ... read more

Paraguay - our tenth and last new country of our trip to South America. Landlocked by Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina and to coin our phrase "very bloody hot" (41 degrees today). Cant go on too much about Paraguay as we were only there for a short time and as you can see from the photos we saw most of it from a super fast bus! Brazil and Paraguay share an enormous Hydroelectric Power Plant called Itaipu. Its said to be the biggest in the world, bigger than the one they are building in the 3 gorges in China. They run slick tours of the complex by coach and give you all sorts of mind boggling statistics whilst glossing over the resulting environmental damage. None the less the statistics are impressive, the dam alone provides 90% of ... read more