Arica – First stop Chile

Chile was somewhat of an unknown to us. Not knowing many people who have ventured to this part of the world, coupled with the fact that it is often overshadowed by its neighbouring nations (except for the obvious region of Patagonia) meant that we were both intrigued and also slightly sceptical about what to except….

Huacachina – Desert Oasis & Sand Skiing

Huacachina is a desert oasis on the west coast of Peru and raved about by backpackers, so we were intrigued to see what the hype was all about. We got a bus to the city of Ica and then hopped in a taxi which surprisingly arrived in Huacachina just 10 minutes later. It is not…

Lima

Peru’s capital city – Lima – was initially our first planned stop in this large south American country but due to the length of time we would need to spend on a bus we opted for a break in the northern beach town of Mancora. However, if we had known that the Peruvian buses were…

Mancora

6am in Mancora makes the place seem like a ghost town. The only people visible were a small number of tuk tuk drivers waiting to whisk us and our fellow travellers arriving on the overnight bus away to nearby hostels and hotels. After some debating we jumped in the back of one and were driven…

Guayaquil & our Peruvian entrance

How to get from Qutio to Peru was the biggest challenge we had faced so far on our journey. We had to be in Chile for our flight to Brazil (for the carnival) by January 27th and it was already January 11th. Flights between the two countries are remarkable expensive – the cheapest we found…

Lake Quilotoa

It had been a while since we saw 6am, but surprisingly we were back into the swing of things very quickly. Up, dressed, fed and watered in perfect timing as we arrived downstairs ready for the day we were greeted by our tour guide; Omar. Approximately 15 tourists were aboard the minibus we were ushered…

Baños – The town, not the toilet

Firstly getting to Banos is pretty easy, a popular touristic location there are plenty of buses. In Ecuador buses are very cheap, although the standard is very basic so don’t expect too much. Somewhere between 3 and 4 hours we arrived in Banos and headed to Plantas y Blancas hostel. It was one of the…

Next stop Ecuador…Quito!

Ecuador was under enormous pressure to be incredible, as it took us 3 days and a combination of what felt like endless and useless buses, dodgy hotel rooms and a lack of nutritional food – lunching on Oreos for three days straight is not fun. When we finally arrived at the border we were thrilled…

Colombia’s Last Stand

After three weeks in Colombia it was time for us to make our way to Ecuador and begin our journey south. Standing in our way was a number of long bus journeys, we were not looking forward to the prospect of doing these back to back so we opted for two small stops along the…

Cenotes, Rain and Ruins – Tulum

We arrived in Tulum – a relatively small town a few hours down the coast from Cancun – after what we can safely describe as ‘the best bus journey of our travelling lifes’. The ADO bus we caught for a small fee from Cancun was absolute luxury, compared to what we expected and were both…

Why you should visit Isla Mujeres

Translated this is the island of the woman. We hadn’t heard much about the island itself, but being backpackers we start to get itchy feet after too long in a single location. Thus we said goodbye to Cancun and embarked on a treacherous journey across seas to Isla Mujeres. We are being highly dramatic.getting to…