Joe's 30th

The final tour map

Very sad to say goodbye to SA, she has been good to us. Looking forward to planning the next trip! Adios. . .

Buenos Aires, back where it all began

Twenty seventh (and final) stop - Buenos Aires. This time we got to visit La Boca. . . .a supposedly rough neighbourhood decorated in bright colours. Good, although a tad touristy.

Colonia Del Sacramento

Twenty sixth stop - Colonia Del Sacramento in Uruguay. Had a few days to spare so thought we would tick off another country! What a sleepy place. . . .until our mean machine roared through the streets!

Puerto Iguazu

Twenty fifth stop - Puerto Iguazu, home to the impressive Iguazu Falls and thousands of butterflies. Managed a quick flit over to the Brazillian side to see the view from there. There was so much water flowing that they had to shut off some of the viewing platforms.

Salta

Twenty fourth stop - Salta, back in Argentina once more! We did a bit of shopping and not alot else. . . .Joe made sure to have a good steak after a virtually vegetarian diet in Bolivia!

Uyuni & Salt flats

Twenty third stop - Uyuni, starting point of our 4 day trip in a 4x4 to the vast salt flats (Salar de Uyuni), Isla de Pescada, the high altitude coloured lakes, geysers and thermal pools. Was a tad chilly with a record -9 degrees on our last morning. . . .brrrr!

Bollivian Bellies

Still rubbish at keeping this thing up to date. Since the last entry Kristian has had a dose of Salmonella and Giardia (I was happy with just a doce of Giardia). She managed to struggle though our five day Machu Pichu trek the day after her diagnosis. Having not been sick myself I managed to come down with a belly bug the day before our 65km ride down the ´world´s most dangerous road´. We are heading down to Uyuni tonight and will be exploring the worlds highest salt platau over the next few days. Bellies in tact for now.

La Paz to Coroico, The Worlds Most Dangerous Road

Twenty second stop - Coroico, via the ´Worlds Most Dangerous Road´. . . .big drops, waterfalls over the road and on the whole a bit of a bone shaker!! No one died on our day.... Excellent! Coroico was a bit scenic as well. . . .

La Paz

Twenty first stop - La Paz, hustling and bustling at 3636 metres above sea level, La Paz is the highest capital city in the world. . . . .except it is not the official capital of Bolivia. Bloody guide books. . . . we saw the truck below on the way into La Paz..... only damage was the front axle had sheared off!!!

Copacabana

Twentieth stop - Copacabana, the best seller for Barry Manilow. Also on Lake Titicaca, Copacabana is the jumping off point to visit the Isla del Sol. We trekked for 2 days and had a look around. . . .

Puno

Nineteenth stop - Puno, on lake Titicaca. Titicaca in this area is home to the Uros floating islands made out of reeds harvested from the lake. The chino restaurant (chinese) wasn´t bad either!

Cusco. . . .again!

Eighteenth stop - Cusco, again! After the trekking we stopped for a bit in Cusco again. A great city and well worth the extra few days for a bit of relaxing, some paragliding over the sacred valley and some site seeing. Good company also delayed our departure. That's me on the blue parachute in this picture - Kristian

Salkantay Trek

Seventeenth stop - Salkantay Trek, not really a stop as we travelled aprox. 95km in 4 days. Tough going but well worth the effort for seeing the destination of Machu Pichu.

Cusco

Sixteenth stop - Cusco, capital of the Inca Empire in it´s hey day and apparently the navel of the world. . . .

Colca Canyon, Cabanaconde

Fifthteenth stop - Cabanaconde in the Colca Canyon. Colca is the second deepest canyon in the world, second only by about 150 metres to it´s neighbour Cotahuasi. . . .

Peru Landing

Ok maybe we are pretty rubbish at keeping this blog up to date. We will get there eventually. We have been travelling north through Chile through the Atacama desert. This morning we crossed the border in the Peru, where we should have walked onto a bus heading north. Unfortunately there is a strike, which means we are stuck for now..... but it also gives us time to try and update the blog......

Arequipa

Fourteenth stop - Arequipa, only stayed one night and only saw Volcano Misti from the bus station. . . .

Arica

Thirteenth stop - Arica, Chile´s border town with Peru. . . .also sponsored by coca cola. . .

San Pedro de Atacama

Twelth stop - San Pedro, the driest place on Earth (apparently). Lunar lanscapes, high lakes, volcanoes everywhere and a few geysers to wander between. Some of the photos almost capture the landscape....

Pan American Highway

Up through the Atacama desert the bus broke down..... it wasn't the last thing to break down on us!!!!

La Serena / Elqui Valley

Tenth stop - La Serena, which involved a day trip to the Elqui Valley, home to the national Picso grape and also some of the largest observatories on Earth.

Mendoza

Ninth Stop - Mendoza, back into Argentina´s wine production capital. The place was at capacity over Easter (interesting times finding accommodation). Mendoza is a place of great vineyards (toured on bikes) and quite a few muggings...

Over the Andes

The road from Santiago to Mendoza travels over the Andes reaching 4200m. We had to do the trip twice.....

Santiago

Eighth stop - Santiago, through the arch, beyond the tree, is Santiago. In the distance is the snow caped Andes.... Well apparently that is what we could see if there wasn´t so much smog!!

Pucon

Seventh stop - Pucon, this was our first stop in Chile. This was a little town with a massive active volcano (that we climbed) and a chile river that we paddled down.

San Martin de los Andes

Sixth stop - San Martin de los Andes, we visited this tiny lake town to do some more treking, but unfortunatly missed the bus (literally) the tourist season had closed. Nice place anyway for laundry and quick paddle and stupid jumping shots.....

Bariloche

Fifth stop - Bariloche, the chocolate capital of the lake district in Argentina. There were a few good walks and bike rides....

El Chalten

Fourth stop - El Chalten, a few hundred km´s north of El Calafate.

El Calafate

Third stop - El Chalten, nice little village with loads of dogs and some pretty big glaciers near by.... see photos....

Peninsular Valdes

Second Stop - Penisula Valdes, located about 1600km south of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

First stop - BA, the shot is the oblisque on the main avenue. Good ´European´ city...

Vietnam Update

Hi all, i have just put some (well maybe quite a few) photos up of the Minsk trip in Vietnam. The links are on the right of the page.

Kira

For a few photos of our new family member, look at the photos of Kira Thornton to your right.

Minsk Touring Map