Closure

Well, it's over now, and we're back in the UK.
We survived all our adventures - and each other. We've travelled by bus, train, plane, car, bicycle, moped and horse; lived for a month in a 3 man tent; seen snow capped mountains, rainbow clad fjords, salt deserts, raging waterfalls and more volcano's than I can count.
We've all got our favourite places and memories: Ned and I loved Japan, with it's bullet trains and Pokemon centre, and I won't forget riding down the Death Road in Bolivia; while Annie was smitten by Cambodia and camping in front of Mount Cook, and Kim's already planing on moving to New Zealand when he's old enough so he can ride the luge as often as he likes.
Encouraging the boys to keep diaries was like pulling teeth, but I think they've learned so much on the trip, just by seeing and touching things. Ned could tell you all about tectonic plates now and Kim was correcting me on my Spanglish just by listening to the locals. I like to think they've got a better understanding now of the variety of the world, it's customs, cultures, language and landscape - and with a bit of luck, they might even remember some of it. But the trip wasn't about them, we just ran away because we could and the boys had to come with us. But I certainly don't think it did them any harm.
And six months was about the right length for this trip. By the end the boys were getting desperate to play with their friends again, and I felt like I needed to do something constructive (though it didn't necessarily need to be in England).
So here we are. We've been back 4 weeks, work is trickling in again and we've now moved to a rented flat in Lewes.
Here starts the next adventure...

Round #12

After four days in Montevideo, and on the eve of our return trip to Buenos Aires and London, we discovered why the city is so quiet. Not only is it Easter weekend and bank holiday here but just up the road on the outskirts of the city is a huge gaucho rodeo festival. We could have rounded off our trip at one of Uruguay's biggest cultural events if only we'd known - doh!

Que?

Annie had a migraine today, but tried to convince us it was dengue fever.
I think she's just malingering and looking for an excuse not to get on the flight home.
Actually, come to think of it, I'm feeling a bit peaky too...

It could be London...

...except for the palm trees. And the blue sky. And the traffic free roads. And..

Montevideo

If Buenos Aires is a mix of Barcelona and Paris, Montevideo feels more like a cross between Havana and Berlin. Lovely old classical buildings in various states of faded glory sit cheek by jowl with blocky seventies architecture, which isn't always as ugly as it sounds - and I'm very fond of Havana and Berlin, so it's a favourable comparison. In fact, it's easy to imagine how beautiful this city once was. It's just that, like me, it's let itself go a bit. On the plus side it has wide, tree lined avenues, little traffic, lots of culture, drinkable tap water and free museums - the last two being things that can't be said for the rest of South America. It's a much smaller, slower and (I suspect) poorer capital city than BA, but that makes it somewhat more interesting, and certainly a more relaxing place to spend our last few days.

We came here not only to collect one last geeky stamp in our passports, but to sit on one of the many beaches that stretch along Uruguay up to the border with Brazil. We'd have liked to go further up the coast to the better resorts, but time is against us - so we'll have to make do with the beaches surrounding Montevideo itself. The sea here washes up a strange green algae at low tide, which is probably harmless but doesn't look very appealing, but the beaches are wide, clean and of the softest white sand. Perfect for lazing in the sun while the boys dig escape tunnels.

Can you guess what it is yet?

Elvis hiding in the clouds, or is it Bruce Forsythe?

Jumping the sun

Annie shows the boys how it's done!

Colonia de Sacramento

Alternately controlled by the Spanish and Portuguese, Colonia del Sacramento is an ancient port town originally founded by Jesuit monks so they could smuggle goods across to Buenos Aires. Now it's a beautifully preserved haven for BA day-trippers and snap-happy tourists alike. Rough cobbled narrow lanes open out to wide green squares lined with pastel coloured buildings, terracotta roofs and hand painted ceramic street signs. Classic 1930's cars are dotted about, to add to the times-gone-by aesthetic. One was used as a planter and had a tree growing out of it's roof, while this one above was parked outside a restaurant, and at night a table for two is set inside it.
We sat on the pier and watched an incredibly colourful sunset and knew we'd done the right thing coming to Uruguay.

Buenos Aires

If you'd blindfolded us and dropped us in Buenos Aires, we'd be hard pushed to guess we were in South America - it's a busy, bustling modern European city transplanted to another continent. Long pedestrianised shopping precincts, with every luxury brand conceivable, McDonalds and Aroma coffee shops on every corner, traffic jams above and an efficient metro system below, classy European architecture covered in huge glossy billboards for Gucci or Nike, and immaculately dressed fair skinned inhabitants - BA had been described to us as 'the Paris of South America' and it's easy to see why. It's a city we could imagine living in (though the closer we come to the end of our trip, the more we can imagine living everywhere).
Time is running out so we couldn't explore BA as extensively as I would've liked, but we enjoyed mooching around La Boca - the colourful port area once occupied by penniless artists but now seemingly dominated by tourist restaurants and tatt shops, and watched tango buskers dancing in the streets.
Another day I stumbled across an exhibition by Steve McCurry, one of my favourite photographers, and we managed to spook the boys by letting them explore the Recoletto cemetary alone - a citadel of imposing one-upmanship mausoleums in the affluent north of the city. We also managed to catch up with Pablo and Cherry, our companions back in Bolivia, and spent a lazy afternoon on the rooftop terrace of their apartment block (if you're staying here a week or more it's cheaper to rent a serviced apartment).
But, with less than a week left before our flight home, and feeling in need of some R&R, we decided to hop across to Uruguay (it's only an hour on the ferry) and seek out a beach. And with sleet and snow forecast for Easter weekend, we need to make the most of the sun while we can!

Bum Bum fireworks

Butterfly hunter

Give way to snakes

Iguazu Falls

After a 23 hour bus journey across the breadth of Argentina (not as hard as you'd think: luxurious wide leather seats, movies, free wine and food) Iguazu had been built up to be a highlight of our last few days away: 270 huge waterfalls cascading across the border between Argentina and Brazil. Wider than Niagra and more spectacular than Victoria, these falls had been billed as a 'must see'.  
Unfortunately the weather had other ideas. Who knew we'd have sub-tropical thunderstorms in sub-tropical rain-forest? I guess the clue's in the title. 
Being stoic Brits, and with the forecast for storms all week, we decided that we'd go to the falls anyway and hope that the rain stopped by the afternoon as it had the day before. 
It didn't.
Despite the drama and power of the falls, and a thrillingly wet speedboat ride underneath them, it was my lowpoint of the trip - just from disappointment at schlepping about in a continuous grey downpour and not being able to appreciate the day properly.

But, luckily for us, the weather made an unexpected change the following day - so we went back and did it all again, this time complete with sunshine, wildlife - and happy, contented smiles.

Latest questions:

Why is England called England?
Why do they make cars with engines that can go faster than the speed limit?
Why does blood pump around the body?
Why do ladies wear hats in church, but men have to take them off.
Why do mice like cheese so much?
Do flies have hearing? 

Turn over your papers.... now.

Feeding the llama's

"I'm chillin' in Chile...

...big up for me family" - or so the song goes.

After crossing the border and a day or two by the beach in northern Chile, we hightailed it inland to San Pedro de Atacama, a tiny oasis town in the middle of the world's driest desert. We planned to stay here a day or two, only to find that the next bus out wasn't for four days - but we've got a pool and there's great food, so what's the rush? The town is made up of single-story red mud adobe buildings, nestled in a dry, flat valley ringed by Andean volcanoes. You can walk to the desert in 10 mins and being such an arid area it has the most amazingly clear starlit nights.

Against our natural rythms, we got up before dawn today to take a tour out to watch wild flamingoes at sunrise. The picture above doesn't do justice to how close we got to these amazing birds (did you know that the female pelican lays two eggs: one containing the pelican chick and a second 'dummy' egg to feed it with?). Even though he was shivering with cold, Kim pronounced the sight as 'magnificent'.  
Although it's not a cheap place, I can't help feeling that the beauty and tranquility of San Pedro, combined with it's dramatic setting, will make it one of our favourite stops in South America yet.

(Though I seem to be saying that about everywhere lately).

Arequipa

The pretty city of Arequipa, the 2nd largest in Peru, sits in the shadow of still active volcano El Misti and is known as the White City because of all the pale volcanic sillar rock that's used in the beautiful colonial churches, convents and mansions that surround the central plaza. There are supposed to be up to 15 tremors a day, but we've not been aware of feeling any yet. We've not really done much, bar exploring a few of the cultural landmarks - including the massive convent of Santa Catalina, which was a mysterious 500 year old Dominican citadel within the city until it was forced open to the public in the 1970's. The most curious sight there, apart from the maze of streets, stairways, rooms and courtyards themselves, was an exhibit on penance - including barbed-wire underwear. Ouch.

We've done an about-turn now, and are heading south again on the last leg of our trip. The plan is to cross the top of Chile and Argentina, and end up on a beach in Uruguay for a few days R&R before flying back to reality from Buenos Aires. Not that we want to return to reality...

Question of the day...

Why do non-confomists all look the same?

Poor man's Galapagos

Paracas is a small coastal fishing village surrounded by arid desert, about 4 hours south of Lima - though judging by the amount of hotel plots and plush waterfront holiday homes being built it won't be small or quiet for long. We came here just to visit the Islas Ballestas, known as the 'poor man's Gallapagos' because of the abundance of wildlife that live there, but having treated ourselves to a comparatively posh hotel with pool, decided to stay a few days and enjoy it. 
The islands are only small, but packed with colonies of cormorants, pelicans, vultures, humboldt penguins and sea-lions (it's the wrong time of year to see dolphins and flamingos too, but that's just being greedy). One area was packed so full of sea-lions and their pups that it looked as if the beach itself was moving, accompanied by a sound like the roar of a football stadium.    
Back in town Kim and Ned got to feed wild pelicans as they scavenged among the tourists on the beach (the pelicans, not Kim and Ned), and Annie and I finally had 'proper' wedding rings made - and for those of you who scoffed at our £1.50 stone rings from CenterParcs, I'll have you know these are a whopping £10 worth of solid silver. Each.
 - Extravagant I know, but she's worth every penny!

Sunshine hit me

Hoorah for sunshine! We've dropped nearly 4km in altitude from the chill of the Altiplano to the coastal desert of Peru, where mountainous sand dunes run down to the sea and the sun cooks us at a steady 28 degrees.
We stopped briefly in Nazca to check out the huge pre-Inca drawings in the desert. No-one's quite sure what they were for, but theories range from ceremonial art to irrigation channels to runways for alien spacecraft. Being drawn in the flat desert plain, they can only really be viewed properly from above, which makes you wonder how these giant figures (a tree, a bird, a lizard, a human etc) were drawn in the first place. Being the cheapskates that we are, we opted not to take a flight over the desert, instead catching a bus to the middle of no-where to climb a lonely lookout tower for a glimpse of the lines. Standing in the midday sun, with flat desert as far as the eye could see in all directions, waiting for a bus to come past (and hoping it would actually stop) was almost as bizarre an experience as the lines themselves.