Belated goodbye to South America

Our lives are moving and changing so fast that we've somewhat fallen behind with the blog. We're planning on continuing with it as we transition to life back in England. Needless to say, we have left South America and take with us a million pictures, amazing memories and a slightly swollen toe left over from the "fish incident" in the Amazon :)

During our South American adventures we covered:

3 countries, spent

101 hours on

14 long-distance buses,

1 boat,

1 bicycle,

2 rafts,

a 4 day jeep trip,

and numerous crammed colectivos.

We hiked up the ruins of Machu Picchu, boated in the Amazon basin, swam in fish-infested waterfall pools, biked along the world's highest navigable lake, crawled down working mines, drank delicious wine straight from the vineyards, hiked through cactus-studded canyons, were left slack jawed by the drama of a tango show and watched the sun rise over the surreal landscape of the world's largest salt flat.

Its hard to sum up feelings about our time in South America. While it quenched our thirst for adventure and created a much-needed pause between our lives on each side of the Atlantic, it was also a really great mental break where we could let our minds wander and reflect on the life we're leaving behind in New York. As always with travel in developing countries, it was also a challenge to the comfort of our situation and the assumptions and expectations we carry with us about our future.

While on our travels we read a quote, I believe by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, about South America. I've been unable to find it since so I'll do my best to remember it as it sums up our feelings well:

"When one spends long enough traveling in South America, he will learn that anything is possible, anything at all."