Gaz and Leah picked us up from the airport and we all went down to Mayaro to hide out down there for a few days. Harry and Monica put us up in their pool room which was lovely of them. It was so wonderful to be able to take Jen to Mayaro and show her just how different Trinidad is to Tobago (she even sampled doubles!). It was a really nice stop to be able to spend a couple of days doing nothing but with no concerns about connecting flights or looking out for ou...

Took the flight back to Guillaquil and sat next to an interesting individual who had turned from Navy Seal to professional poker player to field biologist conserving frogs (and was currently returning from a trip as an armed body guard!). From Guillaquil headed straight up the coast to find some quiet chill out time. Found it in Las Tunas, although trying to get hold of a decent board to rent was difficult. We spent most of our time in hammocks in our hostel, o...

Even now we cannot sometimes believe just how lucky we were to go to the Galapagos Islands. It just so happened that we were booked in just one week after the 8.8 Chilean earthquake and the vast majority of long-haul tourists had been advised to cancel for fear of further tsunamis. The savagery of this event afforded us a wonderfully quiet group of islands, with just 4 of us aboard our 16 berth motor yacht 'Cruz del Sur', along with our somewhat superfluous 8 s...

Note from Ed.: It is now 2012, we have been home 2 years and have finally got around to finishing off our tale (Frodo Baggins stylee)! Jen and I are sorry for the gap. The one vision that sticks in my head as we ventured north into Ecuador is how rough I felt. Hayfever-style sniffles picked up from the Pisco dust bowl escalated into a torrent of roughness. I did not enter Ecuador in a good or helpful place. Poor Jen had to suffer my near-death experience for s...

Peru We got out of Bolivia as quickly as we could and so headed north in to the dusty Peruivian desert. First stop on the itinery was Arequipa, the white city.We spent 4 days wondering the beautiful (white) streets of Arequipa.After much searching we finally found the ultimate cuisine: kebabs and cake.Within 48 hours we had consumed 7 kebabs and half a bakery between us.We ate a lot of cake. We decided against all the "must do" tours and spent our tim...