We wandered around the desert metropolis of Dubai and played in what could be the world’s best water park; we saw the ancient ruins of Petra, spent a night in the desert, rode camels, shared a sheesha with a rescue team, floated in the Dead Sea, dove in the Red, all in Jordan; we ate Turkish delight, saw the peaks of Cappodocia, descended into the world’s largest underground city, saw the eternal flames of Mount Olimpos, played backgammon, cruised the Mediterranean, surveyed the calcium-white ridges of Pamukkale, and explored Ephesus in Turkey; we hopped from island to island, partied on Ios, soaked up the sun, rented and crashed a scooter on Santorini, and saw the Parthenon in Greece; we saw indestructible bunkers, a Dodge Caravan with Alberta licence plates, a Yahoo! fast food chain, a hideous pyramid dedicated to the former communist leader with a nightclub called ‘The Mummy’, and the castles of Albania; we wandered the streets of the old town of Kotor, swam in the pristine waters around Sveti Stefan, in the newest country in the world, Montenegro; walked around the walls of Dubrovnik; rented a boat and did our own island hopping around Korcula, saw two of the most gorgeous water features on the face of this planet‚ Krka and Plitvice, and ate awful airport food in Croatia; saw The Lion King, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Hyde Park, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Tower of London, Brick Lane, rode the London Underground and The London Eye and got rained on, in London; I drank Guinness from the source and went on a pub crawl of the the smallest bar, the largest bar, the oldest bar, the bar with the highest number of beers available, and the bar with the most floors (it was getting dubious at this point) with Chelsea and Eoin, saw the cliffs of Moher, absorbed the history of Derry, walked on the Giant’s Causeway, and took in the Fringe Festival with Debbie in Edinburgh‚ all in Ireland and the UK (Scotland).

Allison and I were reunited and spent a week in the island paradise of Mauritius; rented a car and traversed South Africa and Swaziland, camped in Kruger park, saw the Big 5‚ elephants, lions, buffaloes, black rhinos, and leopards, counted herds of zebra and watched hippos play in the water, dove in Sodwana and surfed in Coffee Bay, saw real surfing in Jeffrey’s Bay, jumped from the world’s highest bungy at Bloukrans Bridge (216m), sampled the wines of Stellenbosch, peered over Cape Town from Table Mountain, saw the Penguins of Simonstown and the South-Western most tip of Africa‚ the Cape of Good Hope; we took an overland tour through Namibia, climbed the famous Dune 45 and saw the dried-up desert lake of Soussusvlei, ripped down another dune on a sandboard, ate delicious zebra and gemsbok steaks, went on a human zoo tour of the Himba tribe, did a game drive through Etosha National Park and waited by a waterhole at night to see lions spring into action; we crossed into Botswana and took a Mokoro through the Okavango Delta, got dangerously close to elephants, and cruised around Chobe National Park by boat; in Zimbabwe we saw one side of the spectacular Victoria falls, become multi-billionaires, and swam down the Zambezi River through class 5 rapids on riverboards; we transited across Zambia, by mini-bus, cockroach-infested bus, and transport truck, and waited for a boat that never arrived; in Tanzania we stayed a night in Dar Es Salaam, snorkelled off the white beaches of Zanzibar, went on a spice tour, and walked around the base of Mount Kilimanjaro; arriving in Uganda, we assembled a group in Kampala, spent the night in Murchison Falls camping under the stars and tempted death at the mouth of the waterfall, took two days to travel 170km, saw chimpanzees swinging through the trees, climbed the daunting Mount Sabinyo and stood in three countries at the same time, and tracked endangered mountain gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park; in Kenya we saw a lake full of pink flamingos, got burned by geysers, drank with the locals, and watched TV as Barack Obama became the first black president of the United States.

We landed at the world’s best airport, ate delicious Brazilian BBQ, went electronics shopping, visited some of our favourite places, I proposed to Allison, and she said yes‚ in Hong Kong; we ate the world’s freshest sushi from the Tsukiji Fish Market, slept in a capsule hotel, wandered through the Japanese temples of Kyoto and Nara, contemplated beside rock gardens, relaxed in onsens, drank sake, learned about the tragedy of Hiroshima, went to a sumo tournament, saw Mount Fuji, stuck out like sore thumbs in the fashion-savvy district of Shinjuku, and missed our flight out of Tokyo, Japan; we travelled with family around Australia, saw the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, enjoyed Wicked in Melbourne, drove the Great Ocean Road, played with kangaroos and koalas and went spelunking on Kangaroo Island, almost ran out of gas on our way to Ayers Rock (Uluru) in the middle of the desert, went diving around the Great Barrier Reef, ate delicious food throughout the Atherton Tablelands, spent Christmas sailing around the Whitsundays and eating gourmet Italian food, played keep-away in our blue suits on Whitehaven beach, saw a Leopard Shark, was disappointed by platypi in Broken River, spent New Year’s in 1770, drove a Toyota Landcruiser around the sandy Fraser Island, and left a bag behind in Australia; slept around in Mr. Bean, sampled delicious coffees, awed by the beauty of Wanaka and the Rob Roy Track, awed again by the beauty of Milford Sound, and generally awed by all of the South Island, went on a wine tour by bike of the Renwick region and visited 10 wineries, ate delicious green-shelled mussels, climbed Mount Doom (aka Mount Ngauruhoe), jumped out of a plane in Taupo, rode around on a Segway, went to Thermal Wonderland to see colourful hot springs and boiling mud, drove a jetski in Paihia, and became friends with Rob & Sally who let us crash at their place in Auckland, New Zealand.

We crossed to ocean to Chile, ate delicious Italiano hotdogs, rode the elevators of Valparaiso and avoided the packed beaches of Vina Del Mar, flew to Easter Island, dipped ourselves in mud to join in the local festivities, saw the impressive Rano Kau Crater, rented a jeep to go talk with the Moai, and lounged on the gorgeous Anakena beach; touching down in Lima, Peru, we delved deep into the Amazon rainforest, fished for and caught piranhas for lunch, got robbed in the rainforest, got robbed on the bus, rode a dune buggy and sandboarded outside the desert oasis town of Huacachina, flew over the Nazca Lines, hiked down and up the Colca Canyon, wandered around the former Inca capital of Cusco, hiked the Inca Trail to the incredible ancient city of Machu Picchu, and took a boat to the man-made floating islands on Lake Titikaka; we took a bus into Bolivia and hiked around the gorgeous Isla Del Sol—birthplace of the sun, drank great coffee in the world’s highest capital, went down into a working mine in Potosi, rode horses across the wild-west landscape of Tupiza, took a high-altitude jeep tour across the corner of the country to the Salar to Uyuni, and hopped on a train at 3:00am to the border; we gorged on meat and wine in Argentina, sampled the wines of Cafayate on foot, sampled the wines of Mendoza by bike—thanks to Mr. Hugo, took in the magic of Buenos Aires and the allure of tango, rode in luxury—by bus—complete with champagne after dinner, and wandered around what could be the most impressive set of waterfalls on Earth—Iguazu Falls; in Brazil we took in the other side of Iguazu Falls (they were that good), rode down a natural waterslide outside Paraty, stayed on the island paradise of Ilha Grande, got mugged in Rio, went to a futbol game, partied with Brazilians, posed with Jesus, took in every view we could find, and departed from one of the world’s worst airports.

Back in North America, we went diving off West Palm Beach, drove around in a yellow jeep, did kettlebell and yoga, broke a board in half with a powerful ninja kick, ate amazing food, went to the Kennedy Space Centre, and Jonathan finally got a haircut in Orlando, Florida, USA.

So, are you ready to follow your dreams?

What’s next? Is this the end of the blog? Well, we still have a couple posts coming up. We’re going to compile some lists (best hostels, best sites, etc) and Allison is putting together a final budget wrap-up post. We’re both re-integrating, and Allison is studying for her bar exam, so please be patient—the posts are on their way.

In the meantime, please enjoy what we think are some of the best photos from our trip.

And yes, one of the first things I did was have a Starbucks coffee. I know, I’ve sold out to our North American culture… our delicious, coffee-driven culture, but if there is one thing I’ve learned having been around the world, there are a lot of great things about North America and, in many ways, we are very lucky to live here.

Allison and I had Florida all planned out. We would relax, kick back by the pool, and not do a thing. My brother, Martin, and sister-in-law, Debbie, had other plans in mind because, after all, we were in Orlando.

My brother and I went diving, and despite the fact that I was rather sick that day, I’m still glad I went. Allison and I hit the beach with Martin’s open-top yellow jeep then took in a boat cruise of the dishiest homes around Winter Park—a highly recommended tour if you’re in the area. We ate some of the best food on our trip, thanks to Debbie’s amazing cooking, and she invited us along to an exhausting kettlebell class, followed by yoga (where I must argue that downward facing dog is not a rest pose) and Tae Kwon Do, where I broke a board in two with my powerfully awesome basic kick; Debbie followed it up by smashing two thick cement slabs with her fist, while simultaneously dealing damage to my newly-inflated ego.

To top off our world tour, we headed to space. We spent a day at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), NASA’s headquarters. We saw the actual launch sites for the shuttles (two of which were prepped for the mission to repair the Hubble), the massive Saturn V rocket that put man on the moon, and the International Space Station Centre with actual pieces of the space station being assembled. The only thing that didn’t quite make sense was a flight simulator that had us travel back in time to a poorly researched ancient Egypt. I’m not quite sure how that was related to anything.

And so our time in Florida came to a close, we said good-bye to the family, and headed to the airport. And though we criss-crossed the globe, travelled over oceans, and made numerous international connections without losing a single bag, Southwest Air managed to lose Allison’s when we flew between Orlando and Fort Lauderdale—a 45 minute flight. After hours of investigation, they informed us the bag was sent to Mississippi and we would have to collect it the following day… in Fort Lauderdale. Unfortunately by that time we were going to be in Toronto, and sending the bag to Canada would be at our expense through FedEx, so we asked them to return it to Orlando where by brother could collect it. Southwest continued to plead that it wasn’t their fault and even managed to pull off the masterful reverse-guilt technique and made it appear that it was somehow our fault for having lost the bag. In one way we are quite unlucky to live in North America—we have North American airlines to deal with.

We landed in Toronto at 11:45pm on May 9th. And just like that, we were back in Canada—fifteen minutes away from the day we left one year ago.

We squeezed into two separate dorm rooms, the only two remaining beds, at the friendly O de Casa in downtown (a very loose term considering the size of the city) Sao Paulo. There we ran into a girl from Sweden who claimed to have run out of money, so she was just hanging around the hostel until her flight home. Later that night she decided to head out to the bar.

Begin rant.

Ok, we’ve been on the road for a while so we’ve seen our share of weird-os. If you are reading this and you are a backpacker, listen up—er, read up. First, just because you are in a foreign country, you do not suddenly have permission to do weird things in public. We’ve seen a backpacker in the middle of a packed internet cafe decide to do yoga on the floor (complete with some thrusting move involving a chair). Would you do this at home? No. Second, why do you insist on dressing like you belong to the circus—that is, if you are even wearing a shirt. Hey, trustafarian—growing nasty dreadlocks are not mandatory. Third, don’t wear around your Che Guevara t-shirt and spout off to everyone you meet how you are against “the system” and you can’t stand the capitalist world—only to turn around and pull out your SLR camera, log on to Facebook, and hop on a plane to criss-cross the globe. I don’t want to get on any ideologic platform here, but hey, those aren’t products of socialism, clown-pants. Fourth, if you are going to travel, don’t sleep in to 4pm everyday and head out to the bar each night only to complain you don’t have money to see anything. If you want to do that, live in your parents’ basement with your Che poster and go to your local pub. The number of backpackers we ran into that just sat around and saw nothing truly amazed me. You could ask them what they’ve seen and they wouldn’t even remember the bars they’ve been to. Yes, nightlife is a part of travelling, but don’t let it stop you from seeing the real wonders of the world.

And yes, there are some awesome backpackers out there—we were lucky to meet a bunch—but, we’re just harder to spot, because we’ve had showers in the last month.

End rant.

We didn’t really give Sao Paulo a fair shake. It really isn’t a tourist city, so if you do plan on going you’ll need to stick around for a while, get to know the local hotspots, and get in touch with the vibe in the city. Just stay away from the centre on weekends. I’m surprised I still have two kidneys.

From Sao Paulo we headed to the very chill town of Paraty—pronounced Pear-a-chee. (Yeah, just give up on Portuguese now. Unlike Spanish, you can’t simply sound words out, so I spent the whole two weeks pretty much butchering their language. Sorry.) A beautiful stop, but the real highlight is a natural waterslide about 10 km out of town. In the evening, we hit the town with a small group of Brazilians from our hostel. One of the guys made a futile attempt to teach me to Samba. It was a lot easier to teach him North American style dancing: grab a drink, stand at the side of the dance floor, look around, and if you’re feeling crazy (once you’ve finished your beverage) you can do some simple moves like the double-uppercut (both arms close to your chest in the upper-cut position, each arm alternating in vertical movement, optionally in sync with the music).

After a wicked hang-over—caipirinhas have a lot of sugar in them—we moved on to the island paradise of Ilha Grande (pronounced Eel-ha Gran-jeh). If you ever travel along the idyllic Costa Verde (Kos-Ta Ver-jeh), I’d highly recommend a few nights at the luxurious, yet inexpensive, Pusada D’Pillel (no idea how to pronounce this). We ate by far the best breakfasts of our trip at this guesthouse, all included with the room. There are plenty of hikes on the island and we chose to do the most popular one to Dois Rios, a pristine and near-empty beach framed by two rivers draining into the ocean—and it’s also the site of a formal penal colony. Beautiful. The whole scene came with a beach dog that would hunt crabs by digging down into the sand, launching the crabs into the air with his snout, and biting them in half. What can I say, the dog had talent.

And finally, there was, of course, Rio de Janiero (He-o de Janiero). We stayed in our last hostel in Recreio, a beachy suburb, where we caught up with a girl we met in Uganda and took in some surfing. And because it was our last hostel of the trip, of course things went off the wire. That night a miniature monsoon rolled in and the power went out. By candlelight, the backpackers gathered and we tried to figure out what we would do about dinner. The only phone number posted in the hostel was for a pizza place that everyone there claimed was ‘absolutely awful’. A friendly Swede recommended we order some delicious Bob’s Burgers. Great, what’s the number? Oh, you don’t have it. Ok, I guess we’ll go back to pizza. “But the pizza is awful! You really shouldn’t order it. You really should order Bob’s.” How? “I don’t know. But don’t order pizza. Order Bob’s.” We can’t. “Well, just don’t order pizza.” Logic was lost on this particular backpacker. After ordering pizza we then tried to arrange a game of Mafia, but differences between North American and European rules almost resulted in a fight over who had the superior rule set. The next morning, after getting home from our surf, I hung up my board shorts to dry. When it came time to pack up, they were missing. After a 15 minute hunt, I found them thrown over a chair on the ground floor. Soaking wet. And sticky. I’m going to miss hostels.

We ended up renting an apartment in Rio. Not only did we get our own bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen, but we paid less money than staying in a hostel, and it was safe; well, safer than a hostel—over the past few months, hostels throughout Rio, and in Copacabana in particular, have been targeted by mask-wearing, gun-toting thieves. And even though we didn’t get tied up and systematically looted like some travellers, we did get mugged at 7pm, just across the street from the grocery store where we were headed. Fortunately, we had planned on getting robbed (which says something about Rio in itself) and he only managed to get away with the equivalent of $15 CAD. We avoided losing yet another camera because our point-and-shoot was stored safely in Allison’s cleavage. Thank God for cleavage.

And so, a little on edge, we ticked off the tourist destinations throughout Rio. We went to a Futbol game—which was just insane; we took the cablecar up Sugarloaf to take in views of the geographically gifted city; we posed in front of the giant Christ statue (Christo Redentor); and we headed up into the Valparaiso-like Santa Teresa—which wasn’t so nice, except for the deserted and often-missed Parque das Ruinas which provided us with more sweeping views of the city for free; and we lay on the famous Copacabana beach and ate BBQed cheese. We even went to a fantastic random house party at our apartment owner’s home (who is a very attractive 23 year old girl from Columbia) where I probably consumed a year’s worth of delicious meat. Rio, despite its many problems, is a beautiful, world-class city.

A beautiful, world-class city—with an Africa-class airport.

Rio just wouldn’t let us leave. We stood for an hour and a half waiting for an airport bus, which is supposed to come every half hour, that never came. We then hopped in a taxi, hit traffic, and spent the next hour and a quarter getting to know the driver; then when we got to the airport, the only ATMs were clustered at the furthest possible point from where the cab stopped; then all the international ATMs were broken, so we had to pay in US cash; then, checking in at the last possible acceptable time, we raced through security only to be informed that the flight crew was caught in traffic and the flight would be delayed by an hour; then we realized none of restaurants behind security took credit card, and there were no ATMs or money exchanges; then we saw the Wi-Fi stickers on the wall and tried to get on the internet, only to learn it was a sham (likely put up on the wall to fool the IOC for their 2016 Olympic bid)—there was no wi-fi; then we got on the plane and they announced there was a mechanical issue so we would be delayed further.

But, at some point, the plane did take off and we finally did leave. I think this was a sign that it was time to go home.

Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand

We spent two nights in a hotel and three nights at Jon’s friend’s place, this is why the per person per day rate is really high. You can stay in hostels in HK, we just had bad bad luck with bedbugs a few years ago and didn’t want to risk it. The shipping stuff category refers to sending an 8kg box full of our tent and curios.

While the average we spent on accommodation was $26 pppd, if you take out the four nights we spent on busses we actually spent $33 pppd. Japan was one of the most expensive countries on our trip, but it was so worth it!

We only stayed in hostels 3 nights in New Zealand – the $25 pppd takes this into account. Our transport row includes the van rental (our bed for 3 weeks), any campsite or parking fees, and gas (a total of $314 to get around the whole country). Food was actually pretty cheap and pretty good in NZ!

South America

South American countries are listed in order of least to most expensive.

Bolivia now officially wins the award as cheapest country we visited on our trip! $30 pppd. That’s amazing. I only divided the Salar de Uyuni tour by 4 days in order to give a better idea of how much this trip costs per day. If I divide it by the 16 days we were there total, it averages out to $9 pppd. Accordingly I also only divided the accommodation row by the 13 nights we actually stayed in hostels.

I am really surprised that Argentina was our second cheapest country in South America, at $45 pppd it is an excellent value.

We spent a week in Santiago and the coast and a week in Easter Island, a world class touristy island with high prices. A killer in Chile is the reciprocity fee, levied to Canadians, Americans, Australians and Albanias but only if you fly into Santiago. It was $132 pp for Canadians. Yikes. If it wasn’t for the fee, Chile would have cost $44 pppd and slid in under Argentina. You can avoid the fee by coming into Chile overland. Sadly, Argentina has legislated a reciprocity fee as well so it is going to be expensive to get in there too.

Brazil was expensive. Full on western prices. However, Rio was a beautiful city and the beaches to the south are awesome. Sadly, in Brazil you need to include a robbery column.

It is incredible to think a country as inexpensive as Peru (food & accommodation) was the most expensive country that we visited in South America. This is because of the tours and the high amounts charged for tourist attractions. Even just our flights to the jungle cost $490, this averages out to $9 pppd. We spent 8 days in Peru on tours: the Inca Trail, and the Amazon. They were great, but they were expensive.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is our spending for our trip! Don’t worry, we’ll answer the big question soon!

As Jon’s one sentence post clearly conveys, some of the highlights in Argentina were indeed the food and the wine. In fact the most notable experiences in our first 9 days in the country were related to food and drink. One of the first things I think about when I heard the word “Argentina” is steak. It is seriously amazing. We think it is because the cows are happy and they are grass fed. Happy cows make tasty meat.

After a long and arduous train and bus journey from Bolivia, we arrived in a town called Jujuy in north-west Argentina. We had wanted to get to Salta that day but since it was about 10pm when we arrived in Jujuy we decided to stay. We were worried that our late arrival time would preclude us from getting a good meal but we quickly learnt that Argentineans eat late. It’s no problem to show up at a restaurant at 10:30 at night; in fact, about a week after Jujuy we were eating a tasty meal in Buenos Aires and we finished our meal at 11:30… and people were still arriving. And it isn’t just young people who eat late, full families with grandparents and kids show up to restaurants at this time. Needless to stay that first night in Jujuy we ate delicious steak.

Next stop, Salta. We spent the first day in Salta running around trying to figure out how to take out more than $100 CAD at a time. Some friends we met on the salt flat tour in Bolivia had recommended we stay at Inti Huasi hostel for it’s delicious BBQ. For the “hefty” price of 30 pesos (about $10) you get virtually unlimited salads, meat and red wine. They put this on every Wednesday and Saturday night. The BBQ was really amazing, and we were starving by the time it started… of course, this wasn’t until 10:30.

So, after enjoying the food in Salta we were of to Cafayate, Torrontes capital of Argentina. Torrontes is a white wine produced in Argentina. It is amazing. If you don’t like sweet white wines, this is the wine for you. Cafayate is a small town and it is easy to walk from bodega to bodega doing (mostly free) wine tastings. We stopped for lunch at “Casa Empanada” and ordered their special. Twelve empanadas plus wine for 28 pesos (again around $10). We assumed it would be a glass of wine, or maybe, if lucky, a half litre, but instead she brought out a bottle! We teetered to one more tasting that afternoon and then back to the amazing Rusty-K hostel for a siesta. For dinner we bought two thick steaks (for $1.50) and had our own bbq!

After enjoying the Torrontes in Cafayate we were off to Mendoza. Mendoza is the wine capital of Argentina. The highlight here was certainly Mr. Hugo’s bike and wine tour. For about $10 you rent a bike for the day and visit a circuit of bodegas. The region produces mostly Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon so this was our red wine day. When you arrive back at Mr. Hugo’s place he fills you up with red wine for a couple of hours until the last bus of the day comes and whisks you back to town. I highly recommend wine and bike tours. They are great!

So, while we did spend most of our time in central and north-west Argentina eating and drinking away the hours, we spent our remaining days getting to know Buenos Aires, we took a serious luxury bus, and we went to the most spectacular natural wonder I have ever seen (and we spent the rest of the hours eating and drinking because, of course, we were still in Argentina).

We arrived in Buenos Aires after an overnight bus from Mendoza. Buenos Aires is a great city. It is full of neat neighbourhoods, tango, and good food. Both Jon and I think we could live in Buenos Aires. We spent 5 nights there and got a chance to visit trendy Palermo, ritzy Recolta (home of Evita’s grave and funky modern art museums), San Telmo, Centro, and Boca (my personal highlight, where we sat in a cafe and watched a breathtaking tango show for hours). It is hard to summarize 5 great days in a paragraph but I think you may just need to visit for yourself!

Our last overnight bus ride in Argentina was the one where we spoiled ourselves. We took luxury class. Luxury class means you get lay-flat seats, your own pod, hot meals, wine with dinner and a champagne or whiskey nightcap. When we arrived in Puerto Iguazu 17 hours later I wasn’t ready to get off the bus, a new experience for me.

Iguazu Falls, our last stop in Argentina, was amazing. They are simply breathtaking, for me they easily beat Victoria Falls and I haven’t yet seen Niagara Falls so I’ll have to wait to pass judgement on that one. We spent a day at the falls walking along all the trails, getting several different views, including one very misty view point right above devil’s throat, going swimming in the river and taking a jet boat right underneath the falls! They are simply spectacular. The next day we crossed over into Brazil and saw the big picture from the Brazil side. It was simply amazing to realize just how massive the falls are.

Argentina:

Brazil:

As I’m sure you have gathered, our time in Argentina was wonderful and I can’t wait to go back and spend more time in BA, and go to Patagonia.

After crossing into Bolivia we arrived in Copacabana (not the Copacabana of Barry Manilow fame, that is coming a few weeks) and were surprised to discover we had to pay an ‘entry tax’ to even get into the city. This was irritating since we were mostly there to head out to Isla de Sol. This is [J] an island. An island of the sun. We went there to see where the sun was born, but Allison was too tired to make it, so we gave up and decided to not see where the sun was born and had a beer instead. Sure, a beer isn’t so bad, but how often do you get to see where the sun was born? Only this one time, and we didn’t make it. And I’m sure not going back there—I don’t want to pay the 20 cent Copacabana entry fee again. [A] In my defence, we had probably already walked 20 kms that day and were still a few kms away from the hostel when we decided to turn around. The rock where the sun was born was probably another 2kms away, adding at least 4 more kms to our already long day… and the sun was going down. [J] I should probably also say sorry just in case the guy that collects money for using the town path is reading this. We kind of told him to beat it when he asked for money. In our defence, he wasn’t wearing a badge. If he had an official badge, preferably made of a precious metal, ok, I would have settled for semi-precious, like zinc, I totally would have given him $1. Some of you may think this makes us sound bad, but really, if a police officer came up to you and he didn’t have a badge, would you give him a dollar?

We then took the bus to La Paz. This sounds French, but I can assure you that there is very little French spoken in La Paz. Instead, they speak Spanish. [A] We both loved La Paz, it has a really great vibe. But, the highlight for us was probably the food. My favourite foods came from the fruit ladies, these women have huge fruit stands and make you any kind of juice (blended with water or milk) you can imagine, for the whopping price of $0.60, or fruit salad complete with freshly cut fruit, cereals, yogurt and honey, for the whopping price of $1.00. The highlight for Jon was [J] drinking coffee. Alexander, the name of said coffee shop, is my best friend. Allison was my best friend until she lost our camera at the pub. At least it wasn’t lost to sand like the first two times. [A] Luckily, my wonderful and very understanding boyfriend tracked it down at the pub the next morning, so we are still in business.

[J] We then took the bus to a rainy town known as Sucre (that’s Sugar for those who don’t speak French). Because it was raining and there was no power, we decided to hang out in the local market. It smelled like rotting meat. This was a swell morning. We decided that looking at a mine and getting black lung would be cooler, so we left Sugar and went to a town that sounds like a manufacturer of kitchen accessories, Potosi. We signed up for a mine tour and got to blow up some $2 dynamite. Going into the mine itself was also cool and I would recommend it if you are interested in seeing where minerals come from. Alternatively you can go outside at night (make sure there is no bright moon) and look at some rocks. You’ll get a similar experience.

We then took the bus to Tupiza, the Western backdrop for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, where $20 secures five hours of horseback riding along canyons and cacti. [A] This was quite an exciting day because I hadn’t been on a horse since 1995 (or some similar long ago date) and thought I was scared of riding horses. Turns out, I’m not. I’m not going to turn around and become and equestrian any time soon but next time we are somewhere to go on a beautiful horseback ride I will totally partake!

The last four days we did a Salt Flat Tour. This is the quintessential Bolivian experience. Basically, it is a four day tour taking you to incredibly cool sites in the volcanic region in the south part of the country. We saw bubbling mud pools that put those in New Zealand to shame, soda lakes that put those in Kenya to shame, a hot spring that put those in Aguas Caliente to shame, and the crowning jewel of the tour – the salt flat – that puts all the previous elements of the tour to shame. Needless to say it was (almost) excellent.

The “un-excellent” part of the tour was our jeep. We went in a convoy and the other jeep had two fun couples in it. Our jeep was occupied by us (a fun couple), a 20-year old German girl, her mother, and this random weird old Swiss guy who sort of knew the 20-year old who had the most irritating Spanish accent we have ever heard. Advice for those booking a tour: pick your group before hand. We we lucky that we got to hang out with the other group at all the stops and at meals, if it weren’t for them our experience would have been much less awesome!

[J] We are now in Argentina where they show great movies on the buses, like Twilight. But it’s in Spanish. And what’s with sparkling vampires? That’s a huge step backwards in cool vampire powers.

There are two main types of ATMs in Argentina, BANELCO and LINK. Every single bank that we went into was affiliated with one of the two systems. These machines claim to be affiliated with CIRRUS and PLUS and all the local systems. However, when we used them we found the following:

• LINK machines
• PLUS cards work on these machines, but they max out at $320 pesos. This REALLY sucks when you pay $3 – $5 (2.7% – 4.5%) per transaction.
• CIRRUS cards don’t work at all. They tell you that you have a balance of $0.00, even when you know you don’t.
• BANELCO machines
• PLUS cards don’t work on these machines, When you do a balance inquiry you can see your money, but it tells you that $0.00 is available to withdraw (even if you actually have no money on hold).
• CIRRUS cards don’t work on these machines. When you do a balance inquiry it shows a balance of $0.00, but then shows your balance in pesos as available to withdraw (though, since it thinks your balance is $0, it won’t let you withdraw any of your balance).

Since we have one of each card, we were able to access money in small bits but the thought of paying $3 per transaction sent us searching for a solution.

How can you take out $2500 pesos in Argentina? It turns out that Citibank also has their own ATMs (though they are only on the CIRRUS network) in addition to BANELCO ATMs. Though you need a CIRRUS card to use them, you can get your money (and a whole bunch of it) in one transaction. After figuring this out we went and checked at several other banks. None of them had their own ATMs so it seems this solution is limited to Citi and the CIRRUS network. But, at least it is a good way to get your money if you are travelling with cards for both networks (and for only 0.3%)!

The craziest and most annoying part of it all is that we talked to many, many people who had travelled to Argentina before us, even Canadians, and no one mentioned any issues (perhaps assuming withdrawals of $320 pesos is status quo in South America). While I understand people from other countries may not have encountered the same problems (except Americans, because we just met two who had experienced the same thing), shame on you other Canadian travellers. If we had warning, it would have been so much easier to deal with. We both hope that this post will help visitors to Argentina in the future – so good luck, other than the banking system, it is great!

What Allison failed to mention about the Amazon Basin is that everything there wants to either kill you or make you want to itch, a lot. Want to go for a relaxing swim to counter the oppressing daytime heat? Watch out for piranhas. Leisurely stroll through the jungle? Beware of the tree that shoots fire ants when you brush up against it. Relaxing in a hammock? Just be careful of the wasps the size of birds. And don’t think you’re safe in pants, the mosquitos can sting you through them. Yeah, the Amazon is just a barrel of fun—and I won’t even detail how much this experience will cost you. Oh, by the way, you will probably get robbed when you’re taking your stroll through the jungle.

Ok, so you move on from the Amazon, getting robbed a second time in the process, and end up in the beautiful Oasis town of Huacachina. Life’s grand—well, minus the fact you just lost all your expensive gear—so you decide to go sandboarding. Well, that’s what we did. On the last, particularly steep run, Al’s hat was lost to the desert. In my attempt to recover it, I flipped, cart-wheeled down the side of the dune, and sprained my left ankle—Al’s hat remaining in the desert. Ok, so now I can’t walk. And then Al gets really sick. Fantastic.

But hey, at least there are the cama buses, an “overnight treat” as Allison describes it. I don’t know about you, but no matter how far the seat reclines, when the bus temperature is near freezing and the journey consists of hours of curved roads, “overnight treat” may be a bit of hyperbole.

But at least there is the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu, right? Sure, those are superb, as long as you don’t book a night in Aguas Calientes at the end of your tour. Having paid for this ‘upgrade’ in advance, we arrived to find that nothing had been booked for us. After hours of arguments over the phone with various operators, each claiming that he or she is not the one responsible, we finally secured a spot in a hotel—one of the operators even claimed that we somehow left the Inca Trail a day early and we were supposed to be camping. To make matters worse, we were given train tickets with incorrect names. Our guide insisted Peru Rail never checks the names, so we would have no problem boarding. Sure enough, when we arrived at the station the next day, we were pulled aside by security. Our tickets had been flagged and Peru Rail demanded to see our passports. When we complied, they took the tickets away and informed us we would need to buy new tickets. Having left our bank cards in Cusco, for safety reasons, we were trapped—we didn’t have enough cash to buy new, relatively expensive tickets. After more frantic phone calls, resulting only in all the operators blaming each other for the mix-up, and an unlikely loan from a Peruvian waitress, we were able to get tickets for the last train of the day. To avoid the above, first, do not bother staying overnight in Aguas Calientes (the hot springs are more like tepid springs), and second, do not book tours through Incamerica in Lima or KB Tours in Cusco.

But don’t worry, throughout all of the above, you have delicious Peruvian food to carry you through. Meat with sides of rice and potatoes; or, meat with sides of noodles and potatoes; or, a soup filled with rice, with some potatoes and noodles as your main. Sometimes you’ll get delicious rice mixed… with noodles. You better learn to love carbohydrates before coming to Peru.

Well, congratulations, you made it through Peru. When you get home, just don’t check your bank statement. Because of the express taxi kidnappings (where a driver will kidnap you, haul you to an ATM, and force you to withdraw your limit), withdrawal limits top out at roughly the equivalent of $250 CAD. At $3 to $5 per withdrawal, not including the fees some ATMs secretly leverage on your transaction (warning: do not use ATM Globalnet), we ended up paying over $50 CAD in bank fees over our 26 days.

But, there is a great bakery in Puno—Ricos Pan. Unfortunately the coffee isn’t great, but the cake is delicious.

I admit, this post is a little tongue in cheek. Any country you visit will have its ups and downs, Peru’s downs just seem to be more memorable, and perhaps more numerous, than most. But don’t worry, Peru is worth the hassle… just let me confirm that after the insurance claim goes through.

When we arrived in Peru we immediately booked our Inca Trail trip through a travel agent in Lima. Despite the low season, the first available date on the trail was March 7, about 2.5 weeks away. Accordingly, we had some extra time in Peru so we decided to visit the Amazon Basin. We flew in and out of Iquitos, a thriving jungle metropolis only reachable by boat (4 days) or by plane, and stayed for three nights at Emerald Forest Camp, just down river from the start of the Amazon. Arriving at the lodge was quite the experience; we were privately boated into the camp and arrived after dark. Since the lodge has no electricity, kerosene lamps lighted the way from the dock to our bungalow. It was beautiful. In our three days at the lodge we went on jungle walks, ate larvae, went fishing for (and catching) piranhas, went on boat rides to spot wildlife and played with some not very shy monkeys. We also ate. Every meal was huge, a large salad followed by soup, a main course and dessert. Each breakfast featured a fresh juice squeezed from jungle fruit, including Camu Camu, the newest wonderfruit. On our way out of the jungle we stopped in a small town for an hour or two before going to the airport and we happened to be there for their carnaval festivities. In this town they celebrate carnaval by dancing around a large post covered in hats and painting eachother red. After chasing a few kids around I became the target of all the kids’ waterguns and paint filled bottles and had to board the airplane looking a little pink!

Following the Amazon Basin we went to Huacachina. This town is firmly implanted on the backpackers’ scene and rightly so. It is a beautiful oasis town in the middle of some very large sand dunes. While there we rode a boat around the oasis, and we took dune buggy sandboarding tour that really outdid the significantly more expensive sandboarding in Namibia; the tour was like a hybrid of a sandboarding tour and a dune bashing tour. It was so much fun. I also loved Huacachina because I got to play on the sand dunes – my favourite natural formation!

Next up was the Nazca Lines. We did the 35 minute flight over the lines and this is an experience that is not to be missed as the lines can only be seen from above. They are quite amazing when you realize that the stones were placed there by a pre-Inca civilization. They include a very detailed monkey, a spider, a tree, a hummingbird, (strangely) an astronaut, and many more. Though the lines were much smaller than I expected the plane ride was a lot of fun and spotting the formations before the pilot pointed them out was a rush.

Colca Canyon was incredibly beautiful, this was a great surprise as most of Peru isn’t. The desert surrounding the coast is simply several hundred kilometres of ugly brown low mountains (except for the sand dunes near Huacachina) and we were ready for some natural beauty. We spent a couple of nights in Cabanaconde (at 3287m) and did a day hike into and out of the canyon (down to 2180m). This hike was really very hard. The downhill was tough on the joints and the uphill was so incredibly hard cardiovascularily – I hope that gaining 1100m in just under two hours would be tough for anyone! But the amazing vistas offered from the hike, as well as the refreshing pools at the bottom made this an incredibly rewarding day.

Colca Canyon was really just training for the 4-day, 3-night Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. We have heard that for many people Machu Picchu is the defining moment of their trip to Peru, and often even their trip to South America. We can attest that this Inca site is simply the most incredible. Its misty mountain location just screams of mystery, and this is fitting since no one really knows exactly what was its purpose. Machu Picchu was made even more rewarding by the fact we toiled for four days up and down mountains, at altitude, to get there.

The Inca Trail was an experience that I will never forget. The path threads up and down through mountain passes and valleys the highest and lowest respectively at 4200m and 2600m. Every several kilometres along the walk are breathtaking yet abandoned Inca sites visited by only about 200 people per day. As an employment initiative, you are only allowed to do the Inca Trail in a guided tour group and this group includes porters and cooks. The great part about this is that in arriving at your camp the porters have set up your tents and the eating tent, they also cook for you. Basically, other than walking, and rolling out your mat and sleeping bag you really have no work to do. The food on the Inca Trail is plentiful, it includes 3 huge meals a day plus tea with popcorn and a bagged snack. If you take a cheaper tour, as we did, you are required to carry your own pack (minus the tent) but this just makes the four days all the more rewarding. The sense of accomplishment you feel as you spot Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate on the fourth morning of the trek is a feeling that can’t easily be beat. The fact that you spend the rest of the day in this wonderful site makes a great end of the trek.

Our last couple of days in Peru were spent getting to and in Puno. We took a tourist bus to Puno, that stopped at four sites along the way and included an awesome buffet lunch. At one of the sites we got to play with llamas and alpacas! On our last day in Peru we saw the entirely unique floating islands. Los Huros (the islands) are man-made with totora reeds and float on totora reed root systems. Though the tour was about 2 hours too long, it was great to see something we haven’t seen anything like before!

All in all, Peru was full of highlights – some of the most amazing sights that we have seen in our 307 days on the road!

Big Heads: This is the reason that most visitors go to Easter Island. These archeological attractions are famous worldwide.

Body Paint: We were lucky enough to be there during the annual two-week Tapati Festival, and we got painted from head to toe and paraded around the town!

Beautiful Beach: Though not blessed with many beaches, Easter Island has one of the best beaches that I have ever seen!

It’s great! And did you know that the reason it is called Easter Island is because it was “discovered” on Easter Sunday? In the local language it is called Rapa Nui.

Getting off the plane 3700 km west of South America on this tiny bit of land on the eastern edge of the South Pacific was quite surreal, I just could not quite believe I was there! Despite being the busiest time of the busy season it was very easy to find a place to stay as all the hostel owners with space come to the airport, and within an hour of landing we had set off by foot to explore the town.

We were lucky enough to arrive on the mid-point of the Tapati Festival and this meant free lunch! The Tapati Festival is an annual 2 week festival celebrating island culture. On the first, the middle and the final day of the festival they do a huge fish cookup and invite everyone to partake for free! After eating our free fish with our fingers from a large leaf we walked a few hundred meters and visited the first of many moais (big heads) and ahu (alters), these ones are just outside of town!

We were able to see the main sights in Easter Island in one and a half days. The easiest way to take in the sights is by rental jeep and we saw almost every important archeological sight in our 8-hour rental period. The main highlight was Rano Raraku, the birthplace of the moai. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of incomplete moai scattered around this extinct volcano. It is an amazing stop. Another highlight was Ahu Tongariki and its 15 restored moai, this sight simply demands to be photographed! The day also included several sights that haven’t been restored; most of the moai were toppled several hundred years ago by fighting between the eastern and western tribes of the island and subsequent storms and tsunamis didn’t help! We spent a second half day walking up from town to the extinct volcano Rano Kau and Orongo Ceremonial Village, the only sight on the island with an entry fee. It has petroglyphs, restored old houses and views of Rano Kau’s breathtaking crater.

So, since the sights only took up a quarter of our time there you must be asking what we did with the rest of our time in Easter Island? Jon went diving. We went surfing. We rented bicycles for a day and took a hard 19km (x2) bike ride to the most beautiful beach ever. We sat around and relaxed and read our books. And we got painted. The final Thursday of the Tapati Festival is the “big day” where everyone strips down to their birthday suits, dons a loin cloth (well, except me, I donned my bathing suit), hops in a vat of mud, gets decoration painted all over themselves, and parades around the town for several hours. This was one of the most random things I have done and it was so much fun – it was much better to be part of the parade then simply spectating!

All in all our six days in Easter Island were incredible. If you ever get the chance to go I highly recommend taking it.