M and Ms Blog on RealTravel

Galapagos Islands journal: 8 days of sailing round the Galapagos

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 10:10:43 GMT

Arrival

We knew this was going to be a good trip before we even got on the boat.

Waiting at the jetty near the airport at Baltra we were treated to the sight of huge pelicans diving into the water and big sea lions lumbered past us (after posing for a few photos) to huffily reclaim the benches in case we dared to sit down ourselves. We'd barely been on the boat 5 minutes when the crew's shouts alerted us to about 4 Galapagos sharks swimming around the boat looking for food. We weren't even in the national park zone yet, we hadn't even lifted the anchor.

Spondylus

Banos journal: Time for a Banos

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 10:03:47 GMT

With a few days to explore Ecuador before we move onto the next part of our trip North America, we decided to visit Banos, apparently the next busiest tourist destination in Ecuador after the Galapagos islands!!

Banos is about 3 hours (actually about 4) from Quito on a bus and is situated high up in the hills at the bottom of several active volcanoes. Its called Banos because the town has several natural spas and waterfalls. Its also famous for outdoor pursuits and partying, sounds like we wouldn't like it!!

We arrived at around 3ish and spent the rest of the day wandering around ...

Galapagos Islands journal: rocky but fun

Tue, 30 May 2006 15:03:17 GMT

Coca journal: The rainforest

Sun, 21 May 2006 14:34:00 GMT

Well me and Mel not being good at doing things by half decided that we wanted to go to the jungle for a few days while in Ecuador and promptly booked supposedly the best lodge in south America, Sacha (have a look at www.sachalodge.com for all you nosy parkers) We had only been in Quito for half a day but were already on our way out the following morning.

Sacha Lodge is in the Amazon Rain forest and to reach it you have to fly from Quito to Coca on the edge of the Jungle, go 2 hours down the Napo river (one of the Amazons main tributaries) on a motor boat, hike for 30mins and then get ...

Machu Picchu journal: Ruins and ruined on the Inca trail

Tue, 16 May 2006 16:00:42 GMT

Cusco and the Inca Trail

Since this entry is has a lot of explaining to do me and Mel are going to share writing this one....

After a couple of days of acclimatising in Cusco (a lovely city by the way), we started off in the footsteps of the Incas. We travelled from Cusco to Ollantaytambo with a guide via the large Inca Ruins of the Sacred Valley and Ollantaytambo where we got a feel for who the Incas were, their beliefs and an idea of how and why they built these big stone cities with rows and rows of terraces.

Day 1

After this gentle introduction we stayed the night ...

Huacachina journal: Relaxing in the Dunes and flying over the Nazca lines

Tue, 16 May 2006 15:38:29 GMT

We decided to head to Huacachina on a bit of a whim. We fancied doing something in Peru after splitting up with our group and had seen Huacachina, an oasis in the middle of the desert, mentioned on a few blogs - we also thought we may be able to visit the Nazca Lines from here so decided to take off from Lima for a couple of nights to check it out.

A four hour bus ride later and there we were. Decided to treat ourselves to staying at a decent hotel with a pool as this trip was meant to be a bit of a chilling out session so checked ourselves in at The Massone. The hotel is right on the ...

Huacachina journal: Nice place to spend a couple of days, good pool

Tue, 16 May 2006 15:31:06 GMT

Lake Titicaca journal: Lake Titicaca - Staying with local folk

Wed, 03 May 2006 15:10:30 GMT

So off we went on a 6ish hour trip from the Dizzy heights of La Paz the equally high Puno on the shore of Lake Titicaca.

The coach journey went for once as expected and even the craziness of going through the border control from Bolivia to Peru passed without much incident. The only slightly odd part of the journey was having to get off the coach and onto a row boat so we could be transported across a river while our bus got onto a equally wobbly boat so it to could join us on the other side.

So we made it to Puno and made arrangements for the next day, a tour of the highest, ...

La Paz journal: Crazy La Paz

Mon, 01 May 2006 16:29:48 GMT

I think Mike left off in Uyuni waiting for the 1.22am train to Oruro.

Two things struck me about the time of the train. Firstly - what on earth are we going to do in this place until that time. Secondly - hmm that's a very exact time, maybe for the first time ever we may leave on time!Wrong!

Getting the train was totally mad. First in transpired that we had to leave our rucksacks in a big pile on one end of the platform in the hope that they would be loaded onto the train and somehow appear at the other side. As a Spanish traveller said - It doesn't look good, it doesn't smell ...

La Paz journal: Lovely hotel, traditional style, free internet etc, fab food and service

Mon, 01 May 2006 16:28:14 GMT

Uyuni journal: Nice location, food made me ill

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 16:07:41 GMT

Uyuni journal: Nice staff poor plumbing

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 16:06:15 GMT

Uyuni journal: mission impossible - getting from Salta to Sucre and Potosi in Bolivia via public transport

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:43:58 GMT

Now where to start on this.......We were as Mel pointed out last in the lovely Argentine city of Salta but needed to get to Bolivia so we could do the Salt Plains and be in La Paz for the start of our two week organised tour on the 29th. Easy we thought get a flight to Sucre and a bus from there up to Potosi (Potosi interestingly enough is the highest city in the world at 4100 metres above sea level and had been described by another blogger as the Blackpool of Bolivia!)

Wrong, Salta doesn't have much in the way of useful flights out of the country and the only way we were going to get ...

Salta journal: Great food, great music, good fun

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 15:27:31 GMT

Iguacu National Park journal: Iguazu Falls - day 1 (Brazil)

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:56:35 GMT

Day of Travel disaters - Arriving in Puerto Iguazu

Today we were on the move again and off to Iguazu which roughly translates into "Big Water" to see you guessed it, the Waterfalls. Because we had an early flight we thought the easist method of getting to the airport would be a taxi, or so we thought....

The taxi arrived at at the allocated time and we arrived at the airport 1 hour before our flight, perfect. What we forgot to do was check the ticket to see which airport we were flying from and were told as we were checking in that we needed to be at the other side of town at the ...

Salta journal: Fantastic small hotel, with rooms set around beautiful courtyards. Very friendly staff!

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:45:21 GMT

Iguazu Falls journal: Flying through the trees

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 17:47:46 GMT

We had a free day in Iguazu so thought it would be good to explore the forest. The forest is actually more like a jungle although thinking about it me and Mike couldn´t decide what differentiated a forest from a jungle - does anyone know? The forest is absolutely massive, viewing it from the plane it looked bigger than a county in England.

Anyway, we had an 8am pick up for the trip and in the confusion of such an early start we forgot the camera which was absoutely gutting because we did such amazings things. Anyway Mike has sketched out some approximations of what we got up to to give ...

Iguazu Falls journal: Iguazu Falls -day 2 (Argentina)

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 17:19:55 GMT

More Water falls.....

Day 2 in Iguazu and Mel woke me up nice and early to go to the Falls on the Argentinian side. We headed to the bus station to get the bus hoping that the days travel would prove to be easier than yesterday. We arrived at around 9ish and paid our 30 pesos each to access the park.

The Park on the Argentinian side is made up of several parts that can be done in any order they are the Upper tail, Lower trail, San Martin Island and Devils Throat.These are all linked by a little train service that goes between the main stops.

The Upper trail - This basically ...

Iguazu Falls journal: Very small but good hot showers and swimming pool. Too empty to be fun.

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 17:10:29 GMT

Iguazu Falls journal: Nice cheap tasty pizzas and friendly service

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 13:59:53 GMT

Buenos Aires journal: Nice relaxed atomsphere

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 05:30:12 GMT

Buenos Aires journal: We´re here!

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 05:28:53 GMT

Buenos Aires (according to Mel)

After a long flight we touched down in Buenos Aires yesterday morning. Our rucksacks turned up too - so we were off to a great start!

Decided to make a brave start and spurned the easy to negotiate taxis and tourist buses into town in favour of good old public transport. After wandering around in the heat with heavy rucksacks we could see no sign of any bus stops and realised that we were going to have to attempt to speak to someone in Spanish (scary stuff). Much to my surprise the man we asked actually understood me - amazing - and more amazingly we ...

South America journal: Mike and Mel's American adventure

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 05:28:53 GMT

wooooo, so the day is finally coming. Me and Mel off to the far flung corners of the world in search of adventure. We fly to Buenos Airies on the 12/04/06 and out of Vancouver on the 12/07/06 (ish) anything could happen between and probably will. We will hopefully be meeting up with few familiar faces along the way and even making a new friend or two as well. Its going to be soooo good, first stop BA then onto one of the biggest waterfalls in the world for Easter.

So in the words of a very wise mammal: So long and thanks for all the fish..........

Mike