We have now arrived in Auckland after 4 days in LA. Whilst in LA we took a tour of Hollywood and also went to Santa Monica where route 66 finishes. We were also in LA for Obama's inauguration which meant we had to watch the TV while we were eating breakfast. We have lost the 23rd of January due to travelling overnight from LA and then crossing the international dateline. The first thing that struck us about NZ is how clean it seems the air and the road side ve...

Well our escape from the earthquake was remarkable as we had only passed through the epicentre hours before. Some french tourists, whom we had met at a coffee plantation enroute, were not so lucky and had to be airlifted out. After a couple of days at Arenal volcano, near La Fortuna, and not having seen the top because of cloud, we moved on to the cloud forest at Monte Verde. This involved a half hour minibus drive, a half hour boat ride and finally a one and a ...

Well we arrived in Costa Rica on Monday the 5th having spent most of Johns birthday travelling from the Galapagos via Guayaquil to Quito and met up with our rep William from andes connexion. It was good to see him again. We stayed at the same hotel in Quito overnight and had an early start as we had to fly to Lima and get a connecting flight to San Jose. After a night in San Jose, another early start . A group of 16 of us travelled to Tortuguera Beach through som...

After a week of sailing around the Galapagos we are struggling to find our land legs. We have seen many strange sights with blue footed boobies, red footed boobies, Christmas marine iguanas, dolphins and much much more. It has definitely been worthwhile. We have even seen an albatross and of course the smallest penguins.

Having spent a couple of days in the mindo cloud forrest we have moved via middle earth and Quito to Cuenca staying in Lasso for two nights and Riobamba for one. We heard the rumblings of a volcano that has been dormant for 10years and has only just started again this last week or so. Our car was covered with a dusting of ash on the morning we left Riobamba. We had an exciting train ride on the roof of a train that took us through spectacular scenery to the Devil...