After our volcanic island extravaganza and full-immersion into Nicaraguan farming life on the island of Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua, we were keen to go back to the mainland to enjoy some colonial towns and their beautiful and evocative architecture. Although we absolutely fell in love with the previous country that we had visited; Costa...
Pura Vida (Part 2)! Exploring Central Costa Rica
After our dramatic entrance into San Jose on a tiny 12 seater plane from Caribbean Tortuguero, we found ourselves in a big city that everyone had tried to tell us that we’d hate. The reality was that it wasn’t too bad, at least for a few days. Here is our account of exploring Central...
The Top 5 things to do in Panama City
We weren’t quite sure what to expect from Panama City as it was to be our first capital city in Central America, and indeed it was quite unlike any city we have seen to date. We could immediately feel the American influence from the colossal malls, imported products and series of fast food restaurants...
Our road tour of Northern Colombia
SANTA MARTA After visiting the delightful walled city of Cartagena de Indias, we rented a car and drove to Santa Marta, about 3 hours east along the coast, to begin our road tour of Northern Colombia. The city is a major seaside destination for Colombians, and has been quite heavily developed with many tall...
A taste of the Caribbean – Cartagena de Indias
When the time came to take on our 8th and last county in South America, we decided to miss the hustle and bustle of Colombia’s big cities of Bogota, Medellin and Cali and head for Cartagena de Indias for a taste of the Caribbean coast. SOME HISTORY Cartagena was officially founded in 1533 and...
What to do in Quito for 2 days
We visited Quito, the capital of Ecuador briefly after our glorious time in the Galápagos Islands. It’s a huge city perched on a plateau in the Andes and, at 2,850m above sea level, it’s the second highest city in the world after La Paz in Bolivia. It’s also surrounded by volcanoes, but as we...
Welcome to the jungle! The Peruvian Amazon.
Most of our readers will already know that we love Peru, and that’s partly because the country has a wealth of differing territory to explore. We have enjoyed cosmopolitan cities and colonial gems, coastal deserts and the Andean highlands. In order to complete the picture, we had to be brave, channel our inner Indiana...
Ceviche! A guide to some of Lima’s best ceviche spots.
Lima can be a chaotic and daunting city for travellers, but we would encourage any food lover to make a visit. Peru frequently tops international lists for its culinary delights, and with good reason. At the start of our journey we wrote a post on Peruvian food, but during our second visit to Lima,...
A quick visit to Uruguay
It is so easy to make a quick visit to Uruguay from Buenos Aires on the Buquebus catamaran. We didn’t know a lot about this small nation before we visited (the second smallest in South America) but it appears that it has an excellent track record on a variety of important issues. Uruguay is...
Eating in and around Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital of the meat lovers’ paradise that is Argentina, so it is only right that the food scene in and around the city is dominated by carnivorous delicacies. It is unsurprising that we both left Argentina a belt size (or two!) larger. Here are our best tips for eating in...