Arriving in Quito, we were struck by the sheer size of Ecuador's capital. It would have been daunting except that we were staying in the best hostel ever. The Secret Garden is a hostel often recommended by fellow travellers one meets along the way and it didn't disappoint. The staff uniform carries the slogan 'life …
Baños is one of the adrenaline capitals of South America and, as our first stop in Ecuador, we had high hopes for it. As Baños is situated in a valley surrounded by lush green mountains, there are many waterfalls in the area and a popular activity is to hire bikes and cycle the 'waterfall trail', …
Bolivia and Peru had given us a pretty tough few weeks. A tight schedule, lots of sight sight seeing, and, of course, Machu Picchu, had pushed us to our absolute limits both physically and emotionally (Lauren still wakes up screaming). Our bones ached and we yearned for somewhere to chill out for a few days, …
Our next stop, after the briefest of visits to Lima, was Huacachina, a small oasis town in the middle of the Peruvian desert near the border of Ecuador. The town, being surrounded by huge sand dunes, is famous for desert related sports such as sand boarding and dune buggying. It's a popular feature on the …
After an exhausting time spent in Cusco, we made our way to Arequipa for a few days of relaxation. Arequipa is situated in a picturesque setting, framed by three volcanos. Due to its being located in a seismically precarious area (the last big earthquake occurred in 2001 and caused significant damage), the city consists of …
Cusco didn't exactly give us the warmest of welcomes. We arrived in the midst of a tropical storm with rain lashing down our taxi windows and rivers running down the streets. However, even through the blur of the storm we could see this was going to be a beautiful city. We got glimpses of old …
An update! First of all apologies for the lack of activity on the blog for the past few weeks.. it's been a whirlwind of activity and it's been tough getting a consistent few days of wifi to update you properly (getting the excuses out of the way nice and early!). Anyway, we're currently writing from …
Sucre Our first stop in Bolivia (after the briefest of visits to Uyuni) was Sucre, Bolivia's capital city. This city goes against everything we've come to expect of a South American capital city. Towering sky scrapers were replaced with small white, terracotta roofed houses, wide freeways were replaced with narrow cobbled streets and bustling …
Death Road This was a big one. We'd read pretty much everything there is to read about the route, researched agencies and listened enviously as fellow backpackers had retold their encounters with Bolivias infamous Death Road. It's fair to say it was top of our list for Bolivia. We couldn't wait. Before we get cracking …
Continue reading Bolivia Part 2: Death Road & La Senda Verde
For the benefit of those who haven't read the previous post we'll give you a quick update on our situation. We are in the Atacama Desert and Lauren has had been taken down by a really nasty sickness bug that had plagued our hostel. This resulted in us spending an extra night in the desert …
Going Global 