From the southern tip of Colombia we flew via Bogota the length of Colombia to Santa Marta on the north coast. Parque Nacionale Natural (PNN) Tayrona was our ultimate destination. Colombia is unusual for this part of the world in that it's dominant mode of transport is by plane rather than bus. The flights are well priced so Em and I had no quibble with traversing the country in an afternoon rather than two days by bus. At this point in our travels we hadn't d...

Note: I've had an opportunity to punch out a few of these blogs and now we have some okay satellite internet so I'll upload a few in quick succession. Photos will come later. In our 2008 trip of South America we missed out on seeing the Amazon jungle and so we decided that we'd make the effort this time around. That said, our expectations were tempered somewhat given how difficult we assumed it would be to get a fulfilling taste of the Amazon given its scale. ...

After our hectic and thrilling time in California for my little brother's wedding, Em and I were looking forward to a few quiet days in Bogota, Colombia's sprawling capital city. When we landed in Bogota we quickly realised we were back in the developing world, and yet Bogota gave us the tangible feeling that it's a city striding forward. It's hard to describe what about Bogota gave us this sense, but it seems as though the city and its citizens are actively s...

Our final stop before heading to San Francicso was a beach destination on the Yucatan Peninsula about one hour from Cancun. In my mind Cancun condures images of a crass type of tourism, so our expectations of Tulum were tempered somewhat. Setting the shadow of Cancun aside, we had heard great things of Tulum's beaches so we decided to see them for ourselves. Our first night in Tulum wasn't great, we arrived late and walked to the nearest hostel. The room we we...

As I mentioned at the end of the last blog, Em and I met up with a great trio of travellers who were keen for an adventure in Belize. And So began the second part of our Belize trip. Em, as is her way, had researched extensively what experiences proved most rewarding for travellers when in Belize. Amazing stories were told of a 3 day sailing trip that headed south down the Belizian coast. Unfortunately, as we are travelling in low season the recommended sailin...