In the footsteps of Darwin... well... sort of...

At 5.40pm on Thursday, 20 minutes before the travel agent closed for the night, we booked an 8 day cruise through the Galapagos Islands which was to start first thing the next morning.  We’d like to think that, with respect to the fact that neither of us have worked since March, we chose an appropriately budgeted tour.  Actually, and probably surprising to most of you that know us well, we failed.  1 week on a luxury Galapagos yacht, thank you very much.  Enter La Pinta, a luxury yacht run by Metropolitan Tours.  What can we say, but what a week!! we were wined, dined and entertained to the max.  

Baby Frigate Bird

Hockin' it in Heeo

We’ve spent a week so far in Rio de Janeiro (pronounced Heeo by the locals) and have both really enjoyed our time here.  The helpful tourist information desk at the intercity bus terminal put us in touch with Maria, who manages apartments in Copacabana Beach - so for about the same price (or even a little less) than a double room at a hostel we have been enjoying a spacious 1 bedroom apartment about one block back from Copacabana beach. 

Hola from South America

About a week ago now we flew into Buenos Aires to begin a 3 month trip around South America.  Our approach has been very laissez faire, with a false sense of confidence having survived ~4 months in Africa, we figured we would make it up as we went along and enjoy the freedom of a fully flexible itinerary.  To date, this approach has treated us fairly well - although does lead to spirited discussion about what to do and where to go next and, perhaps inevitable for independent travel, requires a lot of time spent planning while we are in each location.

To be continued...

Pyramids in the background

So here we are, sitting in Cairo airport waiting for our flight back to London.  We’ll have about 2 and a half days in London before heading back to NZ, where we have a little under 2 weeks before we head to Buenos Aires.  

It’s a little surreal to end the trip, after 4 months and over 17,900km through Africa, it is hard to believe that this chapter of our lives has ended.  We said goodbye to a number of friends and our great tour guides Andi and Grant.  Hopefully we will get to catch up with a lot of our friends when we make it back to the UK next year in Feb/Mar.  

Temples in the sun and sailing on the nile

Abu Simbel

Arriving in Egypt feels like arriving in any other developed country in the world.  The roads are busy, the infrastructure is positively modern in comparison to the places we have been, everyone wants to offer you a ride in their 'taxi', and they have McDonalds!!

Sudan - it's getting hot in here!!

Bush camping outside the Meroe Pyramids

From the start what struck us about Sudan was how flat the country was.  Coming from the rolling hills and mountains of Ethiopia it was odd to once again find ourselves in a country where the landscape was almost entirely flat in every direction.  Sudan also felt considerably more affluent, especially in its capital Khartoum, and orderly - the villages at the side of the road, although still constructed from mud, were separated by fences and the village layout felt much more organised than many of the other countries we have visited so far.

Ethiopia - 100% Unique

Lalibela priest

Ethiopia has been nothing like what we thought.  All of our preconceptions about Ethiopia and the images we are shown through the media have only served to confuse what the country is actually like.  In addition to Ethiopia been completely unlike our media-influenced expectations, the country is quite unlike anywhere we have ever travelled and anywhere else in Africa!