Well we arrived home safe although as luck would have it only 8 minutes within the curfew time of Adelaide airport after being delayed at Sydney airport, on the plane, due to an engine check problem.

After 10 weeks away I can't believe that it is all over. After all the planning it seems like only yesterday we were about to leave wondering what our travels had in store for us.

Highlights of the trip:

The obvious was the Galapagos Islands. I don't think I will ever forget the 'look at my feet' and the experience of a lifetime of swimming with sea lions. A massive thank you to Rob from Semilla Verde, it is an experience we will never forget.

Getting a Police Report in Ecuador. Yep an interesting highlight but one that we also will never forget. Trying to tell a Police Officer what happened in our very broken spanish, and being sure that they were taking the piss out of us but not really being sure for what was hilarious. All in all a great souvenir.

The Inca Trail - now anyone who knows me well knows I am not a person who loves walking for the sake of it. The Inca Trail nearly converted me. The views were incredible and the other people on our tour made it for us. Actually pretty much all of Peru. Loved the land, the people and the animals. Many laughs even with all the illnesses and would go back in a second.

Iguazu Falls. Wow is pretty much the only way to explain it. The Falls themselves are just awe inspiring and I fell in love with the Qarti's.

The chicken and vegetable soup in Peru. Peruvian's truely know how to cook soup. I think I could happily live on it and I miss it already.

The wine in Bolivia. Of all the places in the world Bolivia was not the one where we thought we would find wine of such a great quality. We never had a bad or even an average glass of wine the entire time. Hopefully one day they will import it into Australia. I know they will have two customers lining up to buy it.

The Pantanal. We were expecting the Amazon to be amazing and were so surprised to find that we in fact loved the Pantanal more. Although I think we both love being outdoors and Phil truely loves a tent, so that combined with seeing so much more wildlife made for an experience we simply weren't expecting. In a great way.

The amazing people we met along the way. We have made some friends for life and now have many more places on our lists - with the reason of course being only to catch up :)

Yep to be soppy the true highlight of the trip for me was being able to share it with Phil and to realise that we are clearly quite odd, considering the more time we spent together the more we enjoyed each other's company. Not that we have ever had that problem but more surprising was we never really had an argument, in 10 weeks! Well not one where we were upsest at each other, rather the circumstances and it took us to Brazil to even have one like that. I couldn't imagine doing this trip with anyone else and makes me realise what I love so much about him.
Anyway enough of that.

Lowlights of the trip:

The obvious is getting robbed not once but twice. Although in both occasions we were never threatened to our face so it could have been so much worse considering the stories we were told about other travellers. We were both more annoyed with the fact we got complacent.

Rio De Janeiro - Now I prefix this with we didn't hate Rio at all but I think it was just the amount of time we had there, the cost of everything combined with us not understanding Portugese and the surprising lack of locals towards tourists. Now I know we can be the same here but unfortunately most of the people we came across were blatantly rude, unless you were buying from them that is. Note I said most not all as we did come across some very lovely locals too.

Missing out on Lake Titicaca due to the protests. The floating islands were definitely on our list and it was disappointing not to see them, however the fact that people lost their lives only a few days before really hit home to how unstable life really is and the risks we just didn't need to take.

The fact we couldn't find dark chocolate. As South America is the largest producer of cacao in the world you would think it would be easy to find. Disappointingly we think they must export 99% of what they produce.

Can't believe it is all over but an experience of a lifetime.

On an end note we recommend travelinsurancedirect.com.au. Paid out on our entire claim, easy to deal with and will definitely use again.