Eva and Les

Puerto Ayora, Galapagos Day 1 We had to get up at 4:45am in Quito in order to get to our flight to Galapagos Islands, which is about 1300km east of Quito and is part of Ecuador. Quito was quite cold (around 10 degrees C), despite it being pretty well on the equator, its height of nearly 3000m and cloudy/rainy conditions when we were there, made it quite cold. We had to fly via Guayaquil, an hour’s flight south, where we had to stay in the plane for an hour while they tested the cold cycle on the aircon. Not fun, even if it WAS April Fool’s Day! About an hour later, we landed at Baltra, which is a small island just to the north of the island of Santa Cruz. Our hotel was on the south side of Santa Cruz, some 42km away. We could not find anyone who spoke English, and I was happy to use Spanish to find out that we had to pile into free busses that took us to where there were flat-topped boats waiting to take us over the short stretch of water to then get a bus or taxi...

WOW! It really is very hard to know what to write. I must admit, I was expecting it to be a bit of a walk, some difficult bits, not much to see but ruins with Macchu Picchu as the big prize at the end that I wasn ´t really interested in. Well, I was wrong on most of that! The walk is amazing, especially as we were lucky to have fine weather all the way. There are outstanding views of mountains, rivers, forests, birds, more flowers than you can shake a western australian at, and different sorts of ruins along the way. Our walk was made so much better by our guide, Alvaro, who knew all the official stuff, but added his own interpretations to things, that often sounded more plausible than people like Hiram Bingham who exposed Macchu Picchu (MP) to the outside. I must admit I built up a probably unfair picture of Hiram Bingham as an arrogant thief. More research needed. Not much of the walk was all that hard (as you said Chris) but the last 400...

I've fallen so far behind in updating notes, so its fortunate I have my diary to refer to to help my slackness. We took our diamox tabs in the morning but when we arrived at 3600m of Cusco , we felt quite out of breath but only slight dizziness soon after getting off the plane. We were met by representatives of Condor Travel (the agents for Adventure World who we book with) and time and again throughout our stay they were really excellent, reliable, informative, friendly and more than head-and-shoulders above any other similar organisation we have been involved with. Go Condor! Anyhow, I was not really sure what to expect with Cusco , I thought it was a small place in the mountains, but it has 300,000+ people and many of the houses have terracotta roofs and brick or mud-brick walls and it has a Tuscan feel to the look. There are a number of squares with trees and open spaces and in the city area, lots of touts and people selling stuff. The first day we decided to not do muc...

Ain´t it a bitch when you press "Publish" and you lose your hour´s worth of typing? Oh well, we go straight to the second edition folks! I really was not sure what to expect about Igazu Falls, I mean I knew there were falls there, and that you could see them from Argentina and also from Brazil, but beyond that I was not sure.We arrived at the airport and were very pleased to see Dani, our guide from Adventure World, waiting with our names. We are realising that tour companies in Australia just sub-contract to people or companies over here - not necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn´t make it cheaper or give more money to the locals.Anyhow, Dani was great as she shepherded us through the Arg. and Brazillian borders and the National Park entrance. Its really a big place (supposedly 300,000 people, but that may be a translation error) and goes back over 70 years on the Brazil side. It was so good not having to queue up and find out what to do.I really wanted ...

I´ve added some photos below for W-Trek, Perito Moreno and Fitz Roy, so scroll down if you haven´t seen them yet. Buenos Aires is an interesting city. It took us a few days to warm up to it and to orient ourselves and feel just a little bit at home. We started to look around on a Sunday, which gave us a very different view. The streets are dirty with papers and dog poo, and because it was Sunday, not too much was open. When it came to Monday, and the rest of our time, the city took on much more character as there were shops open, people walking about and, well, character. We walked or caught taxis everywhere as they were easy to get and quite cheap - usually about $AUS5 a trip. On Sunday we went to the San Telmo markets which stretch over several blocks and consist of jewelry, knick-knacks, paintings, clothes and much more, as well as buskers playing music or dancing tango. It was somewhat remeniscent of Mont Matre in Paris, but MUCH bigger and...