We've done so much since we left Auckland.... first we went to Whakatani in Mercury Bay (so named because James Cook's crew saw Mercury pass closest to the Earth when they arrived...or something like that). We didn't actually spend much time here but on the way we went for a walk down to an amazing beach called Cathedral Cove with sky blue waters that were suprisingly quite warm. We headed down to Rotorua which is a geothermally active area - urgh, its so smelly!...

We first arrived into Auckland on 30th January and went to stay in an gigantic hostal in central Auckland - it had 10 floors, crazy! Auckland is just like a big city, I almost felt like I could be in London except it was hot! We didn't do very much to start with - we just went for a walk or two and did some shopping as it was Auckland day and there were many street performers and other things going on. We also did a city tour which is how we met the Chief of the ...

After La Serena we went to another popular each resort called Viña del Mar. It wasn't particularly great but that was partly to do with the huge number of people there. I spent a couple of hours in the truck with one of the drivers trying to help him find a place to park but there just wasn't anywhere... I know those roads like the back of my hand now, argh! I didn't get to see anything else but Nat managed to see the sunset on the beach...wish I hadn't gone i...

Since San Pedro our itinery has been very relaxed...in that it didn't really exist and even the ones we made have changed. We first went to a town called Calama but only so we could go to the supermarket and stock up. I also visited a nearby copper mine...my goodness! The mine was gigantic, as were the trucks. They shifted something like 2 million tonnes of rock a day with only 10% being copper. We then drove off and pulled up somewhere along the Pan American Hig...

We visited the salt flats in Uyuni...WOW! Just wait until we get the pictures on here! Since it was the rainy season (not that there was much rain except at night) the flats had a few inches of waer on them so it perfectly reflected the sky so you couldnçt tell where the land ended and the sky began. Ah, it was definately one of the highlights of the trip, if not the highlight so far. We had 2 jeeps between 9 of us and the other jeep kept breaking down which g...