Maple Madness!

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We are now in Canada, country of a million maple leaves. They are everywhere - backpacks, cars, streets, postcards etc. You name it, it has a maple on it!

Upon leaving Port Angeles in the States to drive up to Vancouver, Canada, we had a slight mishap. We decided to check the oil before setting off, and decided to top it up a little. I started to pour the "oil" in and then exclaimed "Cool! It's bright green!" before realising that instead of oil, we had filled up with anti-freeze - whoooops! This has got to be one of our dizziest car mistakes yet! Luckily it all ended well with an oil change in the local garage - phew! Luna lives!

Spent a few days in Vancouver doing errands like getting our visa for China sorted out, and went to Stanley park one day and hired bikes. It is a HUGE park, about the same size as downtown Vancouver! The city itself is really nice, with a beautiful water-front mountain-backed locaton.

From Vancouver we drove East and spent a night in a train carriage which had been converted into a hostel - cool! They even had pet llamas, just like being back in South America!

The next day we drove through Glacier National Park, then on to Banff National Park, where we stayed in a "rustic" hostel for 3 nights. Rustic meaning its in the middle of no-where with no running water, no showers, no electricity and no phones. A Chinese couple staying there were freaking out when they found that they couldn't microwave something, and they had to use water from a huge tank - gave us hope that China won't be as bad as everyone makes out!

We spent a few days hiking and being scared to read about bear sightings in the area (eeek!) and then spent yesterday slowly driving north to Jasper National Park, stopping at numerous waterfalls and lakes on the way. Today it is raining, so we are just having a lazy sleep-in and then e-mail day! Next we are off the Edmonton so stay with some friends we met in Ecuador, so that should be fun. They have promised to take us out for the night drinking with their rugby mates - could be messy!

Bye for now amigos,

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