A quick visit to Be'ersehva turned into a week after my 3rd cousins decided to take over our itinerary. They're all our age and have spent a year in Australia after they finished in the army so Dani, the comedian of the 3, decided that Gav's name was now Mel Gibson and everything was "bloody" this and "bloody" that. He's a site manager at Masada, a historical UNESCO site and gave us the VIP tour plus a dip in the weird and wonderful Dead Sea. ...

It was time to leave South America and head back towards Europe in preparation for meeting my Mum in a few weeks. We hummed and haared about where to go…we were desperate for some beach time. We were staying with our good friends Jo and Cameron who are huge fans of Brazil so Brazil it was. Palm-fringed beaches and caiparinhas, here we come.Until we saw that most of it was entering the wet season. b*****! So our second choice was Jordan and Israel. Tel Aviv...

The reason for heading to the south of Israel was to cross the border into Jordan. We were off to see Petra and Wadi Rum. If you've ever crossed the Mexican-US border, you'll know what i was expecting. But it was like a ghost town and very civilized and we strolled across no man's land like it was the main street of Bunbury on a Sunday afternoon. We took a 2 hour minibus ride with lots of locals, to the town that services Petra and settled into our hostel nice...