In many years time, when we look back on this trip, and maybe some of the people we have met are only vague recollections, and some of the places we have seen blur into one, the Galapagos islands and the experiences we had there will still be clear. We booked out tickets while we were in Guayaquil, Ecuador. This saved us around $500 each. The trip was still $1500 dollars per person, with all of the flights, for only five days on a boat. But it was worth it. ...

The only place we saw in Peru was Cusco as we were meeting friends in Ecuador, Lucy , who flew over for a two week holiday, and Mel and Dan, who are travelling for over a year. It was so great to see friends. We spent nearly two weeks in Montinita, a little surfing spot in the south which has turned into a party town full of Europeans and Americans - not ideal for seeing the 'real' Ecuador, but a great place to be with friends. Both Mel and I turned thirty i...

From La Paz in Bolivia we flew direct to Cusco, Peru: another city 4000 meters high. Cusco was the centre of the Inca empire but after the Spanish conquistadors first came to the area in 1526, the capital was changed to Lima. The Inca empire existed from the 11th century to the 16th, and stretched the length of the Andes and beyond: a strip of land in western South America from what is now northern Ecuador down to northern Chile and Argentina. Cusco is the mos...

La Paz, which means 'the peace', is the capital of Bolivia and is 3600 meters high. On our first day there we both had nauseas headaches and needed to drink lots of coca tea (made from the leaves of the plant used to make cocaine). You see lots of people chewing the leaves in thick wads stuffed in their cheeks. It contains no cocaine and is a well known cure for altitude sickness. Its effects are not dissimilar to the caffeine boost of a nice cuppa (which we ar...

Jill: "Why has that cow only got one long teet?" Salta has been our favourite place so far. It's in the north-west of Argentina. The landscape looks like a Western movie: cacti, dust and huge red mountains. Salta is a region, but we started our stay here from the town Salta. There's a bright pink church in the town square which has a very ornate front. If you walk down the side of the church it looks just like a warehouse: a plain square building i...