We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas from Chile! We hope everyone enjoys lots of great food and laughter with the people they love! We will be spending our day at the pool:) which is always a bit strange when you are from Canada. We miss everyone and send big hugs for the holidays! xo
We have arrived safe and sound at our condo on the coast in Renaca. The building is great it has an indoor and outdoor pool and gym that all look over the ocean it's a pretty great view! The apartment is close to a grocery store which has been so great as we have been able to cook some great meals that we have been missing. We are happy to have our own space for a couple weeks. They say that the fire works on new years are supposed to be the best in South America and we will be able to see them from our apartment! It's good we have time to sit and relax in the sun and finish planning the rest of our journey. We hope everyone is gearing up for a nice well deserved break over the holidays! Can't believe Christmas is a week away. We miss u guys and will talk soon!
Well we survived our 16hr bus ride! It was a bonus they played snow white and the huntsman as well as rock of ages both in English! That helped kill a few hours and the rest of the time we were able to sleep. It's crazy we have another 6hr bus ride to Vina Del Mar where we have rented a condo for Christmas and new years and we will only be half way down the country! The city we are in right now is the second oldest in Chile. It's been great that they have some big supermarkets where we have been able to stock up on some of our familiar brands of toiletries and stuff! They have a place called Lider that is essentially Walmart but 3 times the size of anyone we have at home, it was insane. We even got our laundry done at the jumbo supermarket! Tonight we are going to go see the hobbit, Glenn is super excited there is a movie theatre right around the corner:) The weather has been great so we are looking forward to spending Christmas day in our bathing suits at the pool! Hope everyone is ready for Christmas! talk soon! xxx
Pics: the lookout at the cross built for the new millennium.
Well we were spoiled on our 12 hr bus ride we bought the cama seats and were able to sleep the whole 12 hrs! The seats recline twice as much as an airplane, you have a foot rest and they give you a pillow and blanket! So tonight we have a 16 hr bus down to la serena and we booked the fancy seats again so cross our fingers we can sleep! The last couple days we have been in the desert the landscape here in San Pedro has been very unique. We did 2 tours the first one we went to the salt lake lagoons one of the ones we swam in has 60% more salt then in the ocean! You couldn't sink if you wanted to you were so buoyant you could float above the water! One of the flats had 3" of water above the salt it was very strange to walk on. The other tour was to the moon valley it is called that because it is the closest resemblance to the surface of the moon. We went to the 3 Maria's and through salt caves before watching the sun set which was very nice. We are here in San Pedro till 4:45pm when we will catch our next bus! Hope all is well! Chow for now:)
Well we are officially in our 9th country on our Latin American tour! We were quite happy that our $30 dollar flights we booked were actually legit! Only thing was someone stole our Canada flag name tags off our back packs, who does that? we thought Glenn's may have just fallen off but when mine was gone to... it was too big of a coincident, so there is some Peruvians pretending to be Canadians:) Once we arrived in Tacna we took a taxi to the bus terminal where we caught a colectivo which is a sedan packed with 6 people that we took over the border. Good thing we read ahead of time that the driver takes your passport cause it does seem quite sketchy when he asks for it and disappeared for half an hour! But we made it to Arica, yesterday we wandered around town and walked up to point El morro which had great views of the city. Today we are going to go to the beach and get some sun and tonight we take a 12hr bus ride to San Pedro de Atacama ouch! We paid a little extra and got the cama seats which almost lie down so hopefully we can sleep:) All in all we are good it's weird here we are on the ocean but the landscape is desert! San Pedro is supposed to be the driest desert in the world so should be interesting! That's all for now!
We never really thought altitude sickness would affect us so much but when you hike up stair after stair and can't get enough air, I get it why people buy those oxygen tanks. You could walk the same hill at home and feel nothing! Yesterday we took the train from cusco to aguas caliente and spent the night at a bed and breakfast so we could get an early bus and try to miss some of the crowds. We caught a bus at 7am and had a tour guide take us around the ruins, cause to be honest if you don't have a story behind it they all start to kinda look the same:) We lucked out and had a beautiful sunny morning and were able to get some great pictures! It has very cool views! Definitely something to see in your life time we can now check it off our bucket list! We head back to cusco for 2 more nights and then fly Cusco to Arequipa and then to Tacna where we will take a taxi over the border into Arica Chile, so tuesday will be a busy travel day! Can't believe Christmas is around the corner! Hope everyone is well and has atleast started there shopping:)
So we have safely made it to 3326m to the city of cusco, with no even question for an onward ticket which we were told was such a big deal! All my hard work of forging up one not even necessary! We are staying at a lovely little bed and breakfast in the San blas area which is a very cute area in walking distance to most things. Its been great getting winded walking up the hill because of the altitude:) There seems to be lots of places to visit in cusco alone but there is tons of tourists here so no lack of someone asking you to buy something.We are here today and tomorrow then saturday we take the Peru rail train to aguas calientes where we will stay over night so we can get the first bus at 5:30am to machu picchu! Looking forward to machu picchu can't wait to get some amazing pictures!
Pics: view from our room, streets we hike up
Well we are back on land after our adventure in the Galapagos islands! I do have to say snorkeling with sea lions was definitely a highlight. We had a good group of 15 people ranging from 21 to 71, from Calgary, Toronto, England, Scotland and Switzerland. The first night on the boat was quite rough but after that you got pretty used to it I guess you got your sea legs as they would say. We did lots of snorkeling and were able to see sharks, rays, sea turtles, sea lions and water iguanas which were very unique we had never seen anything like that. We saw the blue footed boobies and lots of mating sea turtles which was very funny to watch. You have to feel for the females who get mounted in the water by one turtle that stays on her for an hour and there are three waiting in the side lines for there turn we got some really funny videos. On the last night we went to an island covered in sea lions and you could get up super close that you could have touched them. There were tons of babies that were so cute and would chase u it was such an amazing experience we had never been so close to them before. All in all it was pretty awesome, the crew on the boat was good and even the food was good and I did not have high hopes for that:) We have one more day here in Quito and Wednesday we fly to Cusco Peru to see machu pichu! Hope everyone is well too bad about those stamps maybe next year!
Well it's official we have been gone 2 and a half months and we are finished travelling Central America and have arrived in South America. Yesterday we flew from Panama City to Quito in Ecuador, we were a little leerie about the airline we were flying with since no one seemed to have heard of it but it was real and got us here safe and sound! We are taking it easy today since we both are not feeling 100% which I'm pretty sure is from the altitude. Tomorrow night we meet up with our g adventures group that we will be doing the cruise with for 6 days. It's hard to believe that the things we were looking forward to the most on this trip were the Galapagos islands, Machu Pichu and Brazil and we have not even done them yet! But we have done some amazing things and been to some really awesome places already. I don't plan on having computer access on our boat though I have been surprised before so I look forward to posting when we finish next week! Adios Amigos! That's all for now:)
Well Tuesday we went to Albrook mall it was huge, they had a cheaper end with stores I didn't really know and the other end was more expensive which actually just means it's what we pay at home. I think we will be in shock when we come home and have to pay more then 2 dollars for a beer at a pub and more then $5.99 for a dress. We went and saw Skyfall the new James bond movie it was really good if you can believe it, it cost under 10 dollars for our 2 tickets and popcorn! A senior can only just see a movie for that in Calgary. Today we went to the Amador causeway which is a really nice boardwalk that goes into a little island u can walk and look through stores and there is also a bunch of restaurants. It had a great view of the city. You definitely have to get up early and do things in the morning because in the afternoon we have had some pretty crazy rain storms. We are going to enjoy our last few days here before we are officially done Central America and we are moving on to South America monday. Hope everyone has a great weekend! xo
Pics: view from our balcony at night, casco Viejo our neighborhood and the ocean causeway.
So we have made it to the big city enjoyed our time in the mountains. Yesterday we took a 7hr bus ride from Boquete to Panama City. It wasn't too bad though because we got on one of the fancy double decker buses that have reclining seats so we could just sleep. It is definitly weird being on the top though cause the bus definitely had moments u felt it was going to tip over! We have joined with another girl from Austria that we met in Boquete which has been great here in the city she is a good negotiator and speaks more Spanish then we do:) Today we went to the famous Panama canal we lucked out going early we were able to see a couple big ships go through. They had a museum at the miraflor locks that start the canal from the Pacific ocean. It was really nice and had any information you ever wanted to know about the canal. After we took another taxi to Alcon hill which is a lookout with great views of the different areas of the city. We are staying in an older part of the city called Casco Viejo it has been declared a world heritage site so they are doing lots of restoration work. It's a pretty hard city to navigate due to the lack of street signs it's on a grid system so we just have to make sure we don't venture to far one way or the other into the ghetto:) we have been told if u do the locals will even tell you to turn around, so never a dull moment:) tomorrow we are going to go to the biggest mall in Central America we may even catch the new James bond Glenn is having a bit of movie popcorn withdrawal:) that's all for now hope everyone is staying warm!
