On the road: April 2006

Here we are in Sydney - this clean and ordered (control-freaky) modern city full of affluent and bronzed power-walkers. Amanda is diligently looking for a job while I loll about. It's a fantastic autumn and we've been on the beach swimming virtually every day.

But it's hard to generate any real enthusiasm for this place that, weather apart, is so much like home. (But we are thankful that our supply of Marmite has been replenished - thanks to visiting friends. God, how we've suffered. We ran out in Santiago de Cuba two days before Christmas, gritted our teeth and pretended we didn't care in Argentina and Chile, suffered withdrawal in Bolivia, and shamelessly forgot about it in Peru while composing eulogies to the black gold in Ecuador. Gamely we opened our tastebuds to Aussie Marmite, Vegemite and Promite but were forced to retreat in horror.)

The story so far
We did not want to leave South America. Having lurched from one highlight to the next amazing experience to yet another fantastic moment the prospect of Australia seems unreal, and strangely unnecessary. Why not rather go back to Torres del Paine National Park in Chile and do the 4-day "W" hike we promised ourselves? Or the Cordillera Blanca in Peru - should we not somehow have made time for it? Venezuela, Guyana? And why did we not see more of Ecuador? Not to mention Brazil. Life's too short.

And we can't agree on Number One Highlight. Coups puts her money behind the Galapagos, Darwin's source of inspiration and our source of, among many other sensory experiences, warmth and sunshine after a cold and rainy week in Quito. We frolicked in the luke-warm water, snorkelled with turtles, sea lions and the occasional shark and gawped at the 100-year-old tortoises, blue and red-footed boobies, great frigate birds. How many times did we nearly step on an iguana while photographing his wife? Or fended off cheeky mockingbirds dive-bombing our water bottles?

While the Galapagos were a close second, my top choice is still the 4-day 4WD trip from San Pedro in Chile's Atacama desert to the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia - starting with the 2-day wait at the Bolivian border for the snow-logged mountain pass to open. The memory of us and our four travel companions cuddling up against the freezing cold in 4 beds at 5,000m next to the Most Disgusting Toilet in South America (the fetch-a-bucket-of-freezing-water-and-flush-it-yourself type), suffering from altitude sickness while gritting our teeth against the horrible Bolivian pop music of Romero, our grumpy guide. The greenness of Laguna Verde, the redness of Lago Colorado, the awe-inspiring reflections of the white expanse of salt that is the Salar de Uyuni. The quietness of this remote corner of Bolivia will stay with me forever.

Third choice for both of us was probably the Inca Trail (spectacular scenery; dog trying to shag pig; running in the rain at 5am to get to the Sun Gate first only to see, erm, a bank of fog; the delight of finding a little lady with a bowler hat up a mountain selling a Snickers bar for US$2, and, of course, the jaw-dropping Machu Picchu itself )

To complete our top four, we plump for the Perito Moreno glacier in southern Argentina, the likes of which we've never seen before. Even on a dank, rainy day we stood for hours listening to the eery crackling of the ice, startled and delighted by the occasional roar of the birth of a new iceberg. (And giggle at the two Alaskans who spent hundreds of dollars to get to Calafate to see the glaciers, only to leave without laying an eye on them, grumbling about the expense of getting there and, in any case, there are glaciers in Alaska too.)

And the bicycle trip down the World's Most Dangerous Road near La Paz, the Potosi mine where13-year-old boys hope to strike it rich (but hardly ever do), the Iguazu Falls on the Argentinian/Brazilian border, the harsh beauty of the End of the World (Tierra del Fuego) and the terrible bus trip to get there, our 10km/hr adventure with CrapCar in Northern Argentinia, all vie for a place in our heart, while we marvel at having spent most of our 3 months in South America's summer in fleeces, hats and gloves in the high Andes.

So we'll be back - giving ourselves more time, maybe spending a month or two in La Paz or Quito to perfect our Spanish, daring to tackle the enormous planet that is Brazil. Or whatever - as long as we return.

These photographs will probably do a better job at explaining our eight days in the Galapagos, 3,000km off the coast of Ecuador on board the 14-person Golondrina, a former British shipping boat.

Eight days of early risings, nightly crossings from island to island, daily snorkeling and constant, intimate contact with sea lions, iguanas, turtles, the three boobies and naughty mockingbirds. (And no seasickness). In weird, mostly dry, sometimes surprisingly green volcanic landscapes.

Blue-footed booby and egg