LATAM airlines provided us with a stroke of luck on our transit day up to Rio de Janeiro. In the space of ten minutes we went from fearing that we had potentially missed the flight due to long delays of passengers in the check-in line, to being informed that they had changed our flight, free of charge, to go direct into Rio rather than our initial itinerary which involved a stopover in Sao Paolo and a change of airports. All up, it saved us a lot of hassle and he...

We touched down in Puerto Iguazu airport in what seemed like a blink of an eye compared to our initial mammoth transit across the Pacific Ocean. An airport shuttle dropped us at the doorstep of our American-style hotel which had a lovely pool area for us to lay low in our off day and work on our tans (not that Emily needed it too badly, she simply flashes a smile towards the sun & her skin turns black in colour). Puerto Iguazu had a very warm, but wet, tropic...

The day had finally arrived! After much anticipation and change of heart, Monday the 2nd of January was upon us and Emily & I embarked on our adventure of South America to kick off the new year in a memorable way. Stepping aboard our LATAM operated Qantas flight we were only a mere hop, skip and a jump away from the Latino continent. However, when I say mere, I actually mean a twenty-nine hour door-to-door transit with lengthy stopovers in Auckland, Santiago ...

Los Angeles, the home stretch! After extending the stay an extra night in San Diego we eventually arrived in the city of celebrities on Saturday evening to spend the final 4 days of our trip. As our initials plans had been altered a tad to allow for Halloween in San Diego and our initial accommodation being cancelled as a consequence, we soon found ourselves in the dilemma of being in one of the biggest, most populated cities in the world with nowhere to stay. Al...

San Diego, which of course in German means a whales v ... never mind. After three large days & nights in Las Vegas we were all very happy to be chilling out for a week back in southern California, and even more excited at the chance of catching up with Spencer, Chelsea, Vanessa and Susie who we had met over our university careers through their exchange semesters at Macquarie. To date on this trip, we have experienced hostels, apartments, hotel rooms, B&B'...