A quickie

We only had to wait eight hours for our flight to Kathmandu, Amanda blamed me only about nine times for not telling her about the airline's poor record, we had a great in-flight meal, the wing did not fall off and we got to our very nice $8 hotel at 4am. All's good.

Kathmandu is a real gringo breakfast heaven - banana pancakes, muesli, curd and fruit to die for and PROPER coffee. But it is also beautiful, with great local food, very friendly people (if slightly desperate to sell their wares), amazingly interesting little alleyways, impressive Durbar (palace) complex and even more intriguing ones in the outlying villages.

Can't for love nor rupees upload any photographs in the internet cafe, so it will have to wait until we're back in India.

Tomorrow we head to Tibet in a Jeep with a two Spaniards and a couple of Israelis. We're slightly concerned about altitude sickness - we're at 1,300m in Kathmandu, but rise within a couple of days to close to 6,000m. Remain hopeful that our experience in the Andes counts for something.

The trip to Lhasa (Tibetan capital) takes five days, and the Chinese are massively uptight about visas and the like (coming from Nepal), but we've managed to arrange a separate 'permit' which will allow us to leave the tour group and go off independently - but only for 21 days. On the way back we'll try to stop off at Everest base camp.

It's been raining non-stop for more than two days - and we're both wet down to our undies, grumpy and hungry. So it's over and out for a while.

Cookies and cool karma

We're again wallowing in our own sweat after 10 days in the sweet coolness of the Himalayan foothills. Tomorrow we set off for Nepal - in the footsteps of countless intrepid travellers of yore - by plane. With Royal Nepal Airlines. (Lonely Planet entry: The notoriously unreliable, cancellation-prone Royal Nepal Airlines has a chronic lack of aircraft. It is worth flying with any airline other than RNA. I haven't told Amanda that bit yet.)

And then and then...
To Mcleod Ganj, seat of the Tibetan government in exile and home to the 14th Dalai Lama, the restless and the disenchanted flock in desperation from the West in search of enlightenment and wisdom. Despite the disquieting whiff of spiritual tourism in town, the Dalai Lama's complex, temples and monastery, as well as the Buddhist monks themselves, exude a reassuring serenity and a genuine sense of goodness.

And we too, without looking for it, have a moment of cosmic coincidence when, only due to our search for my lost bandanna, we meet Stephen over a choc-chip cookie in the cafe of the Hotel Om. He took a year out to get away from it all, and 17 years later is still journeying. We talk for hours about randomness, ego and the mind, and his two-week stints in a cave. The next day we spend two hours playing with his version of Tarot cards, and leave feeling happy.

From there we catch a bus to chilled Chamba, a town of many Hindu temples, no tourists and welcoming locals. Despite our initial (oh how mistrustful we are) reluctance, we take chai (sweet tea) in the house of Amirjeet Singh, civil engineer, and his wife Anju, English teacher. We meet the children, look at all the photo albums, take family snaps and promise to send them the prints.

We leave Himachal Pradesh and descend back to the plains for Amritsar, where the Sikh Golden Temple bowls us over. We join 30,000 pilgrims in a free meal provided in the dining hall of the temple and are humbled by the incredible friendliness of everyone there. We lose count of the kids who want to show off their English (and laugh at the boy who mistakes Ricky Ponting for a South African cricketer).

Mary joins us from Chandigarh for the weekend, and together we go to the spectacle that is the daily closing of the Wagha border between India and Pakistan. A sea of people on both sides sing and dance the virtues of their country while the tall guards try to out-strut, out-prance and out-bellow each other. As the sun sets, so do the flags, the last patriotic chants echo across the divide and the gate closes. (Apparently, until recently the crowds then used to storm the gate to hurl insults at each other, but for good reason that practice is now prevented by the burly, moustachioed guards.)

So far so belly good
The food in India is truly fantastic (not good news for me lovehandles) and - may this country's many gods keep it so - neither of us has had any tummy problems so far. Even the goat dressed up as mutton is yummy, although everything is obviously mostly vegetarian. And nimbu-soda (fresh lime with soda water) is probably the most refreshing drink known to the hot and bothered.

An architectural tour

Un peu francais
Before India was partioned after Independence in 1947, the capital of the Punjab was Lahore. With Lahore now in Pakistan, a new first city was needed and in the spirit of a newly freed and modern country, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru asked a firm of American architects to design a brand new city.

Unfortunately, the main architect on the job was killed in a plane crash some time into the project started and the firm decided to pull out. After a bit of argy-bargy, Frenchman Le Corbusier, he of nun's hat fame (and some fabulously curvy furniture), got the task of completing the task. Next year, Chandigarh will celebrate its 50th anniversary, and the locals are very proud of the capital that is so unlike any other Indian city.

And different it is too. Vast green spaces, broken up by angular, concrete cells that form the hub of commercial life to form Sectors (30-odd of them). Think London's South Bank cum nasty British council estate from the 1960s, and it gives an idea of the design ambivalence it evokes. Each Sector also has a residential area attached to it, and it's in Le Corbusier's houses that the beauty of the "urban planning scheme" comes into its own. We love it, and drool over the sharp angles, curvy corners and no few reminders of the nun's hat. And in the house of Mary, where we're staying, the furniture is still the original from the 1950s.

We're both permanently glowing in the sweaty heat, but Mary can't get over how cool it is compared with a couple of weeks earlier and compares it to British weather...

Amanda, that blond film star with whom I tag along, gets stopped everywhere by beautifully dressed ladies, keen for a photograph. (In return, I get to snap them in their fantastically stylish clothes - and giggle at how boorish we look next to them.)

And a very British affair
In the vein of true Brits (not counting myself) we retire to a hill station for some respite from the heat, but also to gawp at Shimla, the Empire's summer seat of government. It's a massive schlep up the mountain, and yet they created this strangely Alpine, with a spattering of Disneyland, monument to the grandeur of the Raj. Pics will follow shortly (as soon as I find an internet cafe with an accessible USB portal. The computer I'm working on at the moment, for example, has a PC mouse somehow squeezed into the DVD drive.)

Shimla is spread over 12km on a ridge to which life (and an army of monkeys) clings in a much more sedate pace than we've seen so far. Cars are forbidden on the main (and very long) drag, the Mall, and a local tells us that the average Shimla-ite walks about 6km a day. We welcome the exercise after a week and a half of non-stop rickshaws and auto-rickshaws.

In the Viceregal Lodge, the Scottish castle-like summer pile of the Vice-Roy (the Empire's main man in India) that is now a Centre for Advanced Study, we go on an interesting tour of the very impressive Burmese teak-panelled main hall, the old banquet hall and the vice-roy's morning room. In another sumptuously decorated room our tour fizzles out when we realise, after a 30-min wait, that our guide had done a runner, presumably because it was lunch time.

I get my own share of funny stares, on account of the rather hefty pole of a sun umbrella I've acquired to protect us from the unwelcome attention of the cheeky monkeys.

Now we look forward to leaving the European architectural legacies behind, and are heading for Dharamsala (seat in exile of the Dalai Lama) and Chambra, the town of many temples. Although the 10-hour bus-without-loo journey will verily test our inner strength.

Chronicle of a ticket unsold

Elated, we thrust our fists in the air. Never before have two women felt such a sense of achievement, so strong, so resourceful in the face of adversity, so singular in victory.

We have managed to buy two train tickets.

In Delhi. In the heat. Despite the counter-efforts of 2 autorickshaw drivers. Despite the aggression of a woman-hater doubling as a travel agent doubling as Tourist Information. In defiance of two adamant railway officials. In spite of a sanctimoniously insulted man with a pen.

We stood as one, went against the grain and conquered the thronging, chanting masses of humanity that tried to convince us that the International Tourist Bureau does not exist/has been burnt down/has moved/only sells tickets two hours in advance/is in fact across the road and is called Tourist Information Gov. approved/is run by my brother. (... "thronging", "chanting" and "masses" might be slight exaggerations.)

It goes something like this (and is a gentle reminder that one ignores the ancient wisdom "Always read thy Guide Book in Full before embarking on Journey" at one’s peril.):

One sunny, sweaty day in Delhi, the capital of India (pop. 1.2 billion), Amanda and Esther decide to buy a train ticket to visit Mary Singh in Chandigarh, Punjab. A four-hour journey costing 107 rupees (about GBP1.20) – non-AC.

Lesson One
Easy. We get Govinder, our loveable-rogue rickshaw driver, to collect us from our breakfast spot. (Lesson one: recognizing a rogue doesn’t mean he won’t act roguishly).

“Please take us to New Delhi train station, Govinder, we want to buy a train ticket.”

“No problem, but first I take you to tourist information.”

Because we had read some bits of Lonely Planet’s “Scams and annoyances”, we say: “No thank you, Govinder, we would like to go the station.”

“But tourist information will give you all the information for free and you can buy ticket too. You just look”

Because we have read another bit in Lonely Planet which says the only official tourist information is Connaught Place at 88 Janpath – and don’t believe anybody making any claim to the contrary (burnt down/moved/changed name etc), we ask: “Is that the tourist information at 88 Janpath?”

“Yes, that one.”

“Oh ok, maybe we should go there.”

We stop in front of small shop with a sign saying tourist information and Gov approved. (To Govinder: “This is 88 Janpath?” “Yes” To man in shop: “This is 88 Janpath?” “Yes.”)

We look at each other. This is Connaught Place but it can’t be 88 Janpath. “Govinder, take us to the station.” “OK”

Lesson Two
We get to the station, and the first floor (where LP states the International Tourist Bureau is), is in the process of being demolished. Dejected, Amanda goes to man in an official-looking office: “Where is the International Tourist Bureau?”

“It’s been demolished. You must go to Connaught Place – Block N – to the Indian Tourist and Transport Development Corporation.” He’s so believable, we believe him. (Lesson two: believable people should not always be believed.)

Sheepishly, we say to Govinder: “We must go back to Connaught Place.” So we go back to Connaught Place, Block N. We stop in front of shop saying Official Tourist Information, Gov approved. “Are you the Indian Tourist and Transport Development Corporation?” “Yes.” “But where is the sign saying so?” Offended, man who clearly doesn’t like women says: “Don’t you trust me? Do you think that all Indians do not tell you the truth?”

So we enter into conversation about good Indians, bad George Bush and other such topics as befit a quest to buy two train tickets to Chandigarh.

I get bored and wander off, leaving Amanda being extolled the virtues of taking a taxi to Chandigarh for a few zillion rupees. Two seconds later I find an official-looking building with an elephant-sized sign stating: Indian Tourist and Transport Development Corporation. Ah, I sigh with relief. “I would like to buy two train tickets to Chandigarh, please.”

“No, you cannot buy tickets here. One day, yes, you will be able to do so, but at the moment we do not offer that service. You must go to the first floor of the New Delhi train station. To the International Tourist Bureau. There you can buy a train ticket to Chandigarh.”

“But I’ve just come from there. The first floor is being demolished. The man said we should come here.” “No, that man is a tout. The first floor of the back of the station is being demolished. You must go to the main entrance of the station, as if you’re walking onto platform one, then go up the stairs on the right to the first floor.”

I return to Amanda, still having a chat with man who clearly hates women and feel that we are prejudiced against Indians who give false information. “I have found the ITTDC.” Politely we say goodbye and profusely thank man who doesn’t like women for his help. He doesn’t get the irony.

Govinder doesn’t blink when we say: “Back to New Delhi Station. To the MAIN entrance, not the back. You know, on Chelmsford Rd.” “No problem.”

Lesson Three
At the station (main entrance) an official-looking man with a pen tells us the International Tourist Bureau is on the other side of the road, grabs me by the arm and starts marching me in the opposite direction of where we know we should be going. He looks so official, I feel I should believe him (Lesson 3: Just because man looks official doesn’t mean he is official), but mutter under my breath something like “Does nobody tell the truth in this effing country”.

Indignantly, man with pen and very good hearing shouts: “I am Indian, how can you effing my country? I am official, I tell you the truth, the International Tourist Bureau is on the other side of the road, not at the station.” For the next 5 minutes I apologise for effing his country, explaining that I’m a little frustrated.

Amanda grabs me by the arm and marches me off, while man with pen and a small crowd, who have now gathered on hearing the raised voices and abject apologies, all agree that the International Tourist Bureau is on the other side of the street from the train station.

And the final lesson
Resolutely, Amanda steers me towards platform one and up the stairs on the right, following the elephant-sized signs to the air-conditioned, tranquil International Tourist Bureau. (Lesson 4: Albeit not always obvious, always look for the elephant-sized signs.)

Post-script
Entry in Lonely Planet (p106,) read a few hours after the elation of ticket success has worn off: "Train stations also attract rapacious tricksters who feed off the tourist traffic. At the New Delhi train stations, touts may try to stop you from booking tickets at the upstairs (1st floor)International Tourist Bureau and divert you to one of the (overpriced and often unreliable) travel agencies over the road. Make the assumption that the office is never closed outside of normal office hours, isn't being renovated and hasn't shifted."

New Zealand skiing

The view from the Treble Cone ski field of Wanaka


Queenstown's lake Wakapitu from our motel room (Lomond Lodge - great place to stay)


Amanda Maier Couper


Do not know what the blow-up doll mouth is all about


Clearly not a skiing pic - Mr Fleagle Huddard, lord and master of Bronte Beach, Sydney, who guarded us while housesitting for Sal and Ros in July. He broke our hearts.

Suitably pisted

Skiing in Queenstown - ain't the Alps (not much snow, short runs), but the mountain staff are super-friendly and helpful(ie not French). We allowed this pic to be taken on 2 August as consolation for the fact that we haven't been single for 9 years.

Way to go

Our plans for the next six months are now firmed up (or at least we have plane tickets to get us around a bit). If anyone fancies joining us, we're not half bad travel companions.

30 July - 10 August: Queenstown, New Zealand, skiing
11 - 15 Aug: Melbourne, Stef and Jol's wedding + seeing couple we met in Galapagos
16 - 22 Aug: Driving Melbourne - Sydney, inspecting snow resorts
28 Aug: Syd - Delhi. Three months northern India, Nepal + Tibet (lots of hiking)
5 Dec: Delhi - Dubai for 3 days, staying with Judith's brother + family
8 Dec: Dubai - Johannesburg, 2 days with my brother + fiance
10 Dec - 7 Feb: Hermanus with parents, Cape Town, maybe Namibia
8 Feb: London

Oz pics

Saltie (bad guy)


Freshie (good guy) - behind the girl


Monkey Mia dolphins


Funny

We crossed it


Moving house


Out of Africa - giraffe in Dubbo Zoo


Free camping


Seasick = death


Amanda Redgrave Couper on the River Orde

Road: 7,500km. Train: 24 hrs. Flight: 1 movie

Sunset at Uluru (Ayers Rock)

We're back in Sydney (chilly) after a 7,500km road trip in our camper van from Perth to Darwin (with a few side trips), a ride in the Ghan train from Darwin to Alice Springs and a flight back here.

The camera has swallowed all the pics on our 500mb memory card (before we could do a CD back-up) and the gods of Olympus are trying to retrieve them. We gulp and wait for good news.

Also, like all quality (?) publications, we've decided it's time to give our blog a new look.

The West Coast was magnificent: snorkelling a few meters from our camping spot on a deserted beach near Denham, seeing the dolphins being fed (in the nicest, conservation-minded way) at Monkey Mia, swimming with a whale shark on the Ningaloo reef (despite being so sea sick that I was throwing up under water next to this largest of sea animals), fooling around with a hobycat in the tropical-island waters of Broome, BBQing on fires for which we collected our own wood in free-range campsites. I should probably catch my breath and start a new sentence.

Renting (for only A$160) a kayak and camping equipment, including cooking utensils, waterproof plastic pots for clothes etc and a swag (a thick, canvas uber-bag with a thin mattress into which you slide your sleeping bag, allowing for some amazing star spotting but rather sleepless nights due to Australian night bush noises - is it a croc or a dingo. Boy, are we pathetic.)

Fantastic trip, though, just the two of us, 53km in three days down the River Orde from Lake Argyle near the border with the Northern Territory to Kununnara. Setting up camp, scouting for fire wood stomping around in sandals and shutting down the part of the brain that contemplates the presence of Aussie snakes, incidentally the same cerebral function that allows for swimming (nudie) in the river with freshwater crocodiles (freshies).


Correction
After my previous rant about BBQing in Oz, matters improved. Obviously the further north (ie furthest away from Pansyland) the more they welcome barbecuers.

Bearing in mind the number of crazy people in the Outback who want to dispose of folk of British descent (Coups, not me) we reluctantly decided to overnight where others do (which unfortunately means caravan parks). That is, until we discovered that fantastic Aussie institution, the free camping spot. Rudimentary - the upmarket ones come with smelly long drop - but normally in quite a nice spot, near a river etc and always next to the road - they allow people to break their journey in this country of huge distances. And you're allowed to make a fire. So a typical driving day would see us stopping a few kilometres before the free stop to collect wood, then getting to the free site, picking your spot and making fire right next to the van. I was in heaven.

We stayed in official caravan parks when we had to top up the power for our fridge battery and laptop. (Yes, we travelled with a laptop, as ladies do. Or rather, birds who forgot their i-pod speakers and inexplicably lost the i-trip frequency settings.) And when we needed a shower, of course (every 3 to 4 days).

Simpson's Gap - a day trip out of Alice Springs

The local wildlife
Apart from close-up encounters with whale sharks and dolphins, and the omnipresent kangaroos/wallabies, we had a number of interesting sightings of the indigenous fauna.

On the beach in the unforgettable Cape Range National Park (Exmouth and the Ningaloo Reef), we spent a sleepless night due to the incessant rustling that was the invasion of the little fucker mouse (a new species, discovered by me that night).

The first fucker we caught, or rather s/he caught him/herself in the rubbish bag and couldn't get out. I made the fatal mistake of setting him (I'm sure it was a him) free, because he returned with his family and a few neighbours. After turning on the light at 3am for the 20th time, I spotted 4 of the said species scuttling for safety. A plague following some heavy rain, said the ranger. So the next night we wedged in our ear plugs and slept like babies.

Leaving Cape Range behind (the most amazing snorkelling at Turquoise Bay - coral, turtles, enormous sea snails, rays), our next overnight spot was in the Karijini National Park, 400km further inland and with fantastic gorges. But with a little snag: one little fucker forgot to leave the bus 400km back. He stayed with us for a further two nights (we wore our ear plugs again) and then disappeared - we still wonder what happened to him.

Then there are, of course, crocodiles (north of Broome, really). As with all things Australian, they've acquired diminutives. Salties for saltwater crocs and freshies for the other lot. The salties eat people, the freshies don't. The authorities tell you they track the salties, but nature being what it is, they can't legislate for the odd one slipping through. Fortunately, we experienced no slippage.

The Olgas - rock formations not too far from Ayers Rock

Plain sailing
The end of the road was Darwin (hot and humid - winter is a non-existent concept), and we were very sad to leave our mobile home. We'd grown used to living in such a small space - and in fact did not eat in a restaurant once, we were so into cooking and bbqing at home. Only once did we buy a glass of wine in a bar - although how much we had around the open fire is another matter.

After changing vans on day 2, we had no further mechanical problems, not even a flat tyre. But on entering the Northern Territory we got 4 chips within half an hour in the windscreen from stones flicked up by road trains (53m long mega-trucks), but at A$190 it didn't break the bank and we were very glad we didn't spend nearly $700 on top-up insurance.

The Ghan train from Darwin was interesting and fun - we regretted not being able to afford a sleeper couch but didn't complain about sitting upright for 24 hrs.

Alice Springs is disappointingly big, modern and efficient but it has a good vibe, great Aboriginal art galleries and fantastically clean air. We did a 45 kilometre cycle ride, slept a lot (with ear plugs - it was a backkpackers) and then went on a 3-day backpackers tour of Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) and Kings Canyon. Despite there being 22 people on the tour, we laughed a lot, slept under the stars in our swags (very very cold) and made huge camp fires. And it was without a doubt the cheapest way of seeing what we saw.

Round circle
So here we are in Sydney after our 7-week adventure. It's cold, but we're by the sea (staying in the kind Sal and Ros's house and waiting to look after their dog Mr Fleagal once he returns from his holidays.) While we're chaperoning Mr F we're doing a sailing course (24ft-er) that will allow us to hire a boat of up to 12m in quiet waters (Greece). Two weeks of skiing in New Zealand at the end of the month, wedding in Melbourne in mid-August. And then it's off to India, Nepal and Tibet, but more about our plans in a later blog.

Lesbians of Arabia

On the road, mate

New image: the Couldn't Stand the Hair in my Face no More-look and the I Got lotsa Body-look.

We're two Sheilas on the move and we're loving it. Our house is small but has a very efficient fridge, well-stocked food cupboard, sink and tap and two gas hobs for anything from Moroccan chicken to pancakes, which Coups observes me making from our most comfortable double bed, which during the day becomes lounge and dining room in one. And TWO lights - one in the kitchen, one in the Other Room.

Yes, we in our camper van have joined a bevvy of octogenarians with 21st century caravans who move up the west coast of Australia in autumn/winter in search of a bit of warmth. We wonder at the Aussie retirees who've been travelling around the country for three year and love the three ladies from the UK who are doing the route together - each in her own camper van. At a certain age, one needs certain luxuries, n'est pas?

We pick up our camper van from Perth on a Wednesday, spend all of Thursday on a garage ramp waiting for broken speedometer/gear box to be fixed and get fed up, upon which Coups manages the impossible ("We never do this kind of thing, madam") by convincing the rental company to bring us a different van.

So the real trip starts by doing negative kilometrage - we go south while our real destination is Darwin, 4,200km north of Perth. But we have a lovely time - apart from freezing our bits off at night in our un-insulated van - tasting wine, cheese and chocolate in the Margaret River region and watching a road rally in Nannup. And the fun reaches sky-high proportions when we scale a 61m tree (old fire look-out) in a eucalyptus forest.

Up where we belong: having a grand ol' time on the West Coast.

Up a 61m tree

What is wrong with these people?
Australians can lay absolutely no claim to the barbecue champions title. They don't barbecue.
They might call it that, but turning on a gas hob and chucking some snags/battered steaks on a heated metal plate should never be equated to the skillful art of starting, nursing and preparing a fire (And then burning all edibles to a cinder, admittedly in my case, but that's not the point).

The locals have not made a barbie fire for such a long time that the lady in the camp site had not the slightest inkling what I was talking about when I asked whether she sold wood. (Come to think of it, she was bloody stupid.) Virtually nowhere am I allowed to make a fire, and trying to buy a BBQ grid has proved nigh impossible.

Have they become too used to the good, fast, immediate-gratification life, are they more American than they care to admit or, perchance, are they simply lazy? They probably don't barbecue for the same reasons that they need a Drive Thru Liquor Shop, a Drive Thru Coffee Shack, even Drive-Thru Finance.

Yours sincerely, Militantly Disgusted from Tunbridge Wells

Cautious driving
We have not yet had any unfortunate encounters with a kangaroo on the road - apart from having to stop for the one that was trying to make up its mind in the middle of the number one freeway (What was it again - left or right?). They're supposed to be on the move and crossing roads at dawn (at which time we're never on the road) and dusk (when we're often on the road because we didn't get up at dawn). But grissly remains on the verges abound.

The further we drive, the warmer it becomes - we even managed to fit in a bit of sailing in Kilbarri today. Or drifting, really, because we didn't believe the hire man when he said there was no wind. We didn't take kindly to canoeist shouting that we should have hired a kayak instead as he rowed leisurely past us.

But now we have to go. Our campsite has a Bring a Tinnie (beer, I think) and Have a Sizzly Sausage While We Sing Around the Campfire (they actually mean the gas BBQ - 'struth) moment. God help us.

The Pinnacles near Cervantes at dusk

So long South America - we'll be back

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.

Up close and personal in the Galapagos

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

Land iguana

Sea iguana

Great blue heron in Puerto Ayoro's harbour

Swallow-tailed gull

On Bartolome island

Pelican - Amanda's favourite

Red-footed boobies in the mood

Sea lions snoozing in the late afternoon sun

Floreana island

Frigate bird wooing the ladies

This fella is more than 100 years old - Charles Darwin Research Station

Amanda Couper - professional snorkeler

Galapagos penguins

Sea iguana claw

Ducks, obviously

Sally Lightfoot crab

Mockingbird drinking iguana pee (naughty birds who get any water they can lay their beaks on. Tourists with water bottles are frequently attacked)

Golden rays - Turtle Cove, Santa Cruz island

Nazca booby on Espanola island

Flamingo doing impression of dog

Cactuses (I hate 'cacti') on Santa Fe island

And some pics taken with a disposable underwater camera while snorkeling:

Puffer fish

Me

Sealions - they sometimes came scarily close but were never aggressive

Sea turtle - it was awesome swimming with this guy