The pacific is much colder on the other side! We again tried our hand at surfing, this time in Pichilemu, a beautiful quiet town on the coast of Chile. This time we were in full steamers and booties.... its very cold on this side of the pacific. I´m told that its the usual get up, even in summer! I thought my hands were actually quite warm until I tried taking off my wetsuit at the end of the lesson. It was rather comical and the instructer ended up having to ...

On your bike.... I´m sure Mendoza is a lovely place, but unfortunately our time there was tainted by some bad experiences (which I won´t go into). We did have a lovely day cycling around the wine region at Maipu tasting a few wines. Our favourite winery was Tempus Alba which had a fantastic back terrace for wine tasting and food in the sunshine. Unfortunately they don´t export to Australia but I´m not too concerned since they did tell me this was because the...

Chile makes the world cup! We had a fantastic day in Viña del Mar and we could´ve spent more time here relaxing on the beach (though it was too cold for swimming!). Viña had a great atmosphere, with lots of Chileans out and about with their families in the sunshine. In the evening the town went nuts (and so did we) cheering, "Viva Chile". They qualified for the world cup and in doing so, started the biggest street party the town has probably ever s...

Strange things happen at the equator.... Quito gets its name from the Quitu people who were in residence in the area long before the Incas (so we're talking a long time ago). The name literally means middle of the earth. They knew well back then that the earth was round and that they were in the middle of it! They used each solstice (in March and September) to plant or harvest their crops and they knew that they had 12 hours of sunlight and 12 hours of darkness ...

Conversations with sea lions..... Many years ago I sat in a highschool science classroom, my head full of giant tortoises, finches and Darwin. Ever since then I have wanted to visit the Galapagos Islands. They have certainly lived up to my expectations. The journey began on San Cristobal Island. Our guide (Danny) took us down to the sea front for a walk to the interpretation centre and within minutes there were cries of delight and wonderment. Lazing on the doo...