Over the past few days we called at the Denver factory of Earthroamer and picked up the our new (to us) motorhome. Since OX11 we have been communicating with the guys there to purchase one of the used vehicles they have for sale.

Dear reader (if there are any) - I feel like I must apologize for the current crop of journal entries. Since leaving South Carolina we have been traveling towards a destination rather than traveling for the sake of seeing and exploring. It is difficult to make interesting comments about such travels. For in reality the journey is primarily about how many miles one can travel in a day before becoming tired. I hope you find the interlude at OX11 of more interest, but I fear that the remainder of the journey back to WA will be more traveling to a destination.

Yesterday we left the Expo site around 8:00am. The exhibition area and campground were not quite deserted but only a few vehicles and people remained giving a bit of a forlorn look, particularly when compared to the bustle of the last few days. We arrived in Phoenix late morning to visit with our son and his girlfriend. The visit was capped off with a delightful dinner at a local brewery/restaraunt.

So what is OX11?

We spent last night, and a very little time this morning, in Phoenix visiting with our son. It was nice to catchup as we have not seen him in some time. We will drop by again on our return journey next week. If the schedules work our we will get a chance to visit with his loverly lady Lizzie.

We undertook a little more sightseeing this morning before leaving the canyon and making our way south to Flagstaff, and there after along 89A through Oak Creek Canyon, Sedona, and Jerome. This is definitely a scenic route transitioning from a narrow winding canyon into spectacular red rock mountains.

Before starting the days travel we drove along the rim road of the Canyon de Chelly, stopping at a number of the numerous overlooks. The Canyon de Chelly is only 500-600 feet deep, but spectacular, with many impressive sandstone structures. From some of the overlooks we had glimpses of Anastasi ruins built into the canyon wall. The floor of the canyon showed signs of recent agriculture, and habitation as well as a vehicle track that we understood is used for guided jeep tours.

Our route this morning took us through the town of Ouray and on through Red Mountain and Molas Divide passes to Silverton and Durango. We knew from previous visits that this was a spectacular drive and we were not disappointed. Though we were a bit surprised, at our selves, when we realized (and observed) that Red mountain was still winter white (not red) because of the snow.

Boy did we get our weather predictions wrong for this trip. Another cold night with a light dusting of fresh snow this morning. However the sun was out and the sky blue. Really a pretty morning. We took advantage of the pleasant campground and lazed around until late morning before getting underway.

It was cold last night!! To our surprise the temp this morning was 33°F. What happened to spring?

We parked on the banks of the Ohio River in downtown Louisville this morning, strolled along the bank and made use of the weak wifi at a restaurant to update the journal and check emails. There had been a recent flood. Mud caked the walkways and boat docks, and there were work crews out cleaning away debris. The delight of the morning was a large beaver swimming along side the bank. Nina chased it for about 1/2 a mile trying to get some photos. We have never seen a beaver up close before and were surprised by its size.

The bare forests and Rhodies continued this morning as we traversed the Smokey Mountains. Exiting the tranquil forests and mountains into the excessively and garishly developed towns of Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge (which among other things is the home of Dolly Parton, and boasts her Dollywood theme park) and Servierville was a bit of a jolt.

After a late start we spent some time exploring the area around Asheville. Included in these explorations was a drive to the town of Chimney Rock, a quaint little one street town at the foot of a spectacular granite tower called, you guessed it Chimney Rock. Unfortunately we could not tour the top of the rock as the elevator is being replaced and will be out of action for a year, and the track was closed until mid April.

Fortune smiled on us this morning - we got 4 new Bridgestone tires at Discount Tire. It took only 1/2 an hour and once on the highway the vibration has gone -- Yippey!!

We were at Campingworld a little after 8:30 to have new front shocks fitted. I had organized this from home a few weeks ago in the hope of facilitating a fast turn around. It was not to be so. We were not finished until early afternoon, during the process had discovered that one of our tires was about to disintegrate, and the rear brakes both pads and rotors need to be replaced. Back on the highway we further discovered that while the shocks were improved there was still a substantial vibration. We will need to replace all 4 tires soon.

We arrived (by plane) in Columbia, SC last night. The mission: to collect our Tiger motor home.

We drove into Southern Oregon from our camp in a rest stop on the I-5 while it was still dark. The day dawned slowly, through some early fog into a spectacularly sunny North West day; a relatively rare event - it was as if fate was welcoming us home. The weather continued fine all the way to our home south of Seattle. We had spectacular views of the various mountains (Hood, St Helens, and Rainier).

Today was a long day of driving and we allowed ourselves no time for sightseeing. Our minds are now on getting home. Some of the desert mountain scenery through Nevada was alluring and reminded us a little of the mountains of SW Bolivia with dry valleys and the colors of the rock indicating thermal activity on the upper reaches of the mountains. We will come back and visit a little longer on some future trip.

It seemed to take forever to get past the Phoenix metropolitan area and then we were into the deserts of western Arizona and eventually Nevada.

The light was beautiful this morning and for a while we got back into tourist mode and took some photographs of the desert, and mountains bathed in the light of the rising sun. Later in the morning as we descended onto the low lands approaching Phoenix we passed through a really impressive gorge.

We continued due west for much of the day to Albuquerque and then south to pickup highway 60.

All I can say is - Oklahoma and Texas sure know what it means to be flat.

Today in some ways typified our entire journey, first make a plan and then do something completely different.

More signs of fall today and at the campground tonight there were lots of leaves, though the trees are not yet looking bare.

We had been planning this visit for months. There are a number of things on our Tiger motor home that need fixing or freshening up after our journey, so this visit was to discuss with the Tiger folks what could be done.

You know that when the title of a days entry is about the weather that the day was devoid of noteworthy things to talk about.

We left Orlando heading north today. Along the way we stopped for a brief visit to the coastal town of St Augustine. This was a bit of a surprise, or maybe it is our poor understanding of American history. Founded by the Spanish over 50 years before the pilgrims landed in the Mayflower, its original purpose was as a base from which the Spanish could attack a French settlement a little farther north. There is an old fort, some remnants of a colonial town which has been turned into a sort of mini theme park, and some older colonial churches. In all, a nice little town. For us it simply served to underscore the profound influence the Spanish had on the new world, here is yet another place in the Americas that was being visited by the Spanish as early as 1513. Simply amazing.

I am cheating and combining three days into one entry.

We went back to Harry Potter world for a few hours this morning. Nina wanted to visit some of the other exhibits and I spent my time riding the various roller coasters.

We spent the day at Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure. This is the park that houses Harry Potter World which was our major motivation for visiting the parks in the first place.

It was an easy drive into Orlando. Initially it was a little foggy as we drove along more flat highway through oak and pine forests and then through beautiful horse farms.

Today was a pleasant drive through coastal scenery. More spectacular long bridges over water ways, miles of pine forests and some long stretches of road right next to the water. It really is a pretty, and affluent, part of the world.

The day started with a drive along the coast into the city of Biloxi, Mississippi. The coast was quite beautiful, long stretches of white sand beaches that were easily accessible as there were no buildings between the road and the beach. We later discovered that this 27 miles section of beach is entirely man-made. All that lovely sand was originally trucked in - only in America!!

This morning we visited the factory that makes Tabasco pepper sauce at Avery Island Louisiana. Founded in the 1860's by a member of the McIlHenny family, the company is still a family owned business. There is only one factory in the world and this is it. It produces 700,000 bottles of sauce per day (4 days a week). The sauce is made from capsicum peppers that are grown on the island and also in Central and South America and the sauce is shipped to over 100 different countries. The McIlHenny's sure seem to have a head for business and an understanding of the law of supply and demand. The first 2 oz bottles made in 1864 sold for $1 each !!. We did not think much of the pepper sauce flavored ice cream but did like their new sweet and sour sauce.

The country today was still flat but now the highway is a corridor in the forest. We spent much of the day on I-10 so that traffic was much heavier than yesterday.

Boy is Texas flat. We traveled along the gulf coast today and much of the way the land was flat flat flat with no trees. We could see from one horizon to the other. From time to time the road got close enough to the coast for us to see the waters of the gulf. Nice beach side communities and some nice parks. Also some impressive bridges.

We headed East today towards Orlando, FL. What a change/shock it is to be back traveling on US roads. It's almost boring. Good roads, 4 lanes, no crazy drivers and shops everywhere. Also camping grounds that have water, electricity, dump and propane can be bought at almost every stop.

We spent the day on chores, mostly getting a service for the vehicle.

This morning we broke one of our long standing driving rules for Latin America - don't drive at night. We were up and on the road, in the rain and dark, at 5:15 am in the hope of making the border that day and to get through Tampico before the days traffic got into full swing. Our timing was good, as we crossed the impressive bridge on the southern edge of Tampico as the sky was just beginning to lighten.

It rained heavily over night adding to the rain that this area has already experienced. We traveled coastal highway 180 this morning to the Vera Cruz bypass. For some of its length this road runs along a narrow sliver of land between the gulf on one side and lakes and wetlands on the other. Signs of recent flooding were everywhere with debris on the road surface, in places water from the lakes still lapping over the road and many houses still partly under water. Initially we were not sure that the road was open so we kept track of a number of Vera Crus bound buses and when they did not take the turnoff that bypassed the suspect section of road we knew we were ok.

We had a long drive today, along highway 200 on good 4 lane road to La Ventosa, and then on highway 185 a generally bad pot-holed road with lots of topes, to Acayucan and finally to Catmaco through a heavy rain storm.

This morning, on the road west (CA-2) towards the Mexican border, we got some great views of the volcanoes for which Guatemala is famous. The sky was clear and the mountains mostly free of mist.

Our plan today was to visit the town of Jocotenango which is next to Antigua. We had been given the names of a family there by some friends in Washington. We thought this would be an easy excursion to fill in a bit of the day as we wanted to have two days camping at Amatitlan.

The 70 km drive into Copan this morning showed lots of evidence of the impact of recent rains on the roads. We passed many landslides and there were many places where the road surface had been torn up by water.

The morning was a pleasant drive through hilly country with small pine forests dotting the hill sides. We took a short side excursion to the small village of Yuscaran noted in the guide book as a good example of a colonial mining town. It was perched on the side of a hill and had narrow cobblestone streets that made driving into the central square a bouncy affair.

Our drive got off to a rocky start today as we were pulled over by a police officer who insisted that we had committed an infringement by not driving in the curb side lane of a multi lane road. We spent perhaps 20 minutes debating this with him - he in Spanish and we in English insisting that we understood no Spanish. Eventually we (should I say Nina) proved more dogged and he gave up and waved us on.

We spent the day planning our route through Honduras and Mexico back to the US.

We were on the road by 7:30 this morning pleased to leave our curbside camping spot and have the vehicle air conditioner going.

This morning it was raining and the heavy clouds convinced us that it would rain all day so there seemed no point hanging around the coast. So we headed for the border. This turned out to be a good decision as heavy rain persisted almost all the way to the Costa Rica/Nicaraguan border.

Our goal today was to see some of the Pacific coast beaches of Costa Rica and see if we could understand what makes this country such a tourist attraction. Hence we headed south west from Liberia towards the Nicoya Peninsula. In turn we visited the beach towns of El Coco, Junquillal, and Samara. Along the way we had some navigational adventures and got to try the Tiger's 4x4 capabilities. One thing we discovered was that Costa Rican coastal minor roads become a quite interesting challenge during the wet season. The weather was grey and raining off and on all day so the beaches were not shown at their best. Even so we could see their attraction. The beach towns were humble, and a bit funky - or some would say with character - with generally low to mid budget accommodation. We did see some up market hotels and gated communities but these were away from the traditional towns on their own land.

We spent some time at a mall this morning getting another months supply of our various medications. All without prescription and for about the same price to us as in the USA - but with no insurance company contribution!!

The border crossing turned out to be quite straightforward though a little slow - details are given below in the camping section. Once into Costa Rica the road deteriorated into winding two lane black top with frequent large deep pot holes. The key task of drivers on this road is to avoid these holes - they would do serious damage.

In addition to some chores in nearby David we spent a much of the day exploring Bouquete. This town is famous as a retirement place for all manner of foreigners. Apparently some years back a US magazine rated it the best place in the world to retire. With this reputation we were curious to see what it had to offer. The town itself is small, consisting of only two main streets and square and a bunch of not very impressive shops - oh and a number of real estate agents. We explored the roads around the town climbing up into the mountains among the coffee plantations. The country side was beautiful and the weather balmy. We made the obligatory stop at a local coffee shop before returning to our camping spot. All in all a nice place but we don't see what the big attraction is. We did not put down any deposits on retirement villas!

It seems strange to me that one crosses Panama by traveling west. The US is supposed to be North!!

We heard last night that there would be a young dance group performing at the RV park tonight so we decided to stay another night. To fill in the day we drove to a nearby town named El Valle situated in the cone of an extinct volcano. From the highway a minor road wound up into the hills for about 30 km climbing 2000 ft through lush green country. We spent some time walking a jungle trail to a nice waterfall and had coffee at a shop that advertised gourmet coffee - it was good.

Last night I downloaded renditions of the song On the Road Again by - Willie Nelson, The Loving Spoonful, Canned Heat, Bob Dylan and Tom Rush. We had them playing this morning as we drove across the Bridge of the Americas and out of Panama City. It is good to be back in the Tiger and moving again. Three weeks waiting in hotels is too much.

We got the Tiger from the port of Manzanillo today, in what turned out to be a surprisingly easy exercise; though it was only easy because of the assistance we got from the folks at Wilhelmsen Ship Service. After a brief stop at the Wilhelmsen office in Howard Panama we went to their office at the port of Manzanillo (100kms away) were we were guided, by a Wilhelmsen employee, through a series of steps at various port and customs offices. By 15:00 we had the Tiger and were on our way back to Panama City through yet another tropical rain storm.

It is amazing how a one hour plane ride can take up the entire day!!

Not much to say about today. We picked up the final Bill of Lading - the main document we need to get our vehicle in Panama - from the shipping agent, had Pisco sours and pizza for dinner at the only 5 star hotel in Cartagena.

After a somewhat tedious wait in Cartagena the ship has finally arrived and we have completed the necessary formalities. We dropped the Tiger at the port on Saturday and today(Sunday) returned to the port so that Nina could attend (and unlock the house part of the vehicle for) a narcotics inspection. That took a couple of hours and Nina had to take all of our stuff out of the vehicle while inspectors searched through it and the vehicle looking for drug hiding places. Nina said that the police where polite, and helpful, but thorough.

Today we drove to Cartagena, the port from where we will ship back to Panama, and checked into a hotel. Our South American journey is over.

As soon as the park gate was open at 8:00 we travelled the few miles to Gayraca beach. The road was in even worse condition than the one we traveled last night and at the rate it is deteriorating it will be non-existent in a few years.

Our plans changed again during the day. We did not find anywhere that we liked to stop for the night along the highway so we pushed on to Santa Marta and Parque Nacional Tayrona.

Much of the morning was spent winding through jungle covered mountains on a narrow two lane black top. The 40 km from our gas station stopping place into Bucaramanga passed through the gorge of the Rio Chicamucha and then up and over a small mountain range. It was slow as there was a lot of heavy vehicle traffic. From Bucaramanga the mountains continued for 100 km before the country opened up into wet jungle lowland with rolling hills.

Today we headed north from Villa de Leyva starting the last leg of our South American travels. By this time next week we will be in Cartagena and starting the paper work to ship the Tiger to Panama.

This morning we visited the village of Raquira about 30 km from Villa de Leyva. Nina wanted to buy some more souvenirs, and this is a colorful town that is composed almost exclusively of souvenir shops.

Since we made such little distance yesterday we made a very early start today, and planned on making it a long day, in the hope of recovering some of the wasted time of yesterday.

The simple statistics of todays road journey are impressive, if more than a little frustrating.

We spent a pleasant day on the porch of the Hacienda doing accounting work. I took the opportunity to update my fuel consumption log which I have not done for many months. I discovered that we have averaged 13.5 mpg, paid an average of US$3.08 per gallon, and bought 3640 gallons of fuel.

Today was only a shortish drive north to Hacienda Bambusa. Finding the place was a good deal easier this time. Firstly because we knew the way, but also the directions are less complicated coming from the south.

As we passed Popayan today we took a detour and made a return visit to the market town of Silvia and its Tuesday market. We were pleased that the timing was such that we could again visit this town and market.

The border crossing was straight forward. The young Colombian lady that took the vehicle details was new at her job and was a bit slow and we needed to correct some of the details after her first efforts. One of the money changers had a calculator that produced the following calculation when I asked to change US$100.

Tulcan, the Ecuadorian town just south of the Colombian border, was our destination for today. From here we could get an early start on tomorrows border crossing (and search for Colombian vehicle insurance). Also, the guide book told us, the town cemetery was worth a look - and it was right. The cemetery was enormous, covering many acres of ground. The cemetery had normal graves, large and ostentatious mausoleums, and multi-tiered walls with small alcoves in which remains where placed - it was hard to conceive that this small city could need a cemetery this large . However the most amazing feature of the cemetery were the many large (up to 20 feet high) topiary trees carved into animal shapes. There were dozens of them. Maintenance of these trees must have kept a small army of workers busy. Also we happened to be there on a Sunday and the place was teeming with people paying their respects, placing flowers and generally enjoying a day out.

A little more shopping today. The excuse was that we needed another nylon bag in which to pack all the things bought yesterday; but once in the market area more woven goods soon started piling up. Nina also took the opportunity to take a few more photos of the local women in the traditional dress. It's quite different to Peruvian clothing. Head ware is typically some form of cloth wrapped around the head, the dress is a long narrow skirt. Babies are still carried on the back but here the cloth wrapping them is white not a multi colored stripe.

Today was souvenir day. Nina has been telling me for months of the list of items she was going to buy when she got to Otavalo. She had concluded long ago that Otavalo has the best quality and best prices of any place we have seen in South America for llama wool goods.

We hung around the parking lot this morning talking to Ollie and Sabina (the German couple with the American camper who were there when we arrived) about things we had seen and comparing our vehicles.Thus we did not get underway until almost lunch time.

This morning we caught the Teleferico (cable car) to the top of one of the mountains that overlook Quito. The cable lifts visitors 1000m to a height of 4000m from where there are great views of Quito, and the surrounding mountains.

We spent the day on chores like washing and walked to and from the vehicle a couple of times. On one visit to the parking lot we got talking to a man named Fernando - he is a Colombian living in Ecuador and has traveled by RV in the US. We spent some time chatting and then he suggested that he and his family could come back to see the Tiger after work.

We were excited this morning to see that the day was going to be clear for our last transit across the Andes down into Quito. Last time we travelled this road it was misty and we saw very little except the tail lights of the vehicles ahead.

This morning we traveled a twisting mountain road through cloud forest to the thermal baths in the town of Papallacta. The cloud made visibility poor which when combined with a number of serious rock falls and landslides, caused by recent rains, made for slow but sometimes exciting driving. Of course the locals do not slow down in such conditions.

We left Baños late in the morning heading East. The road traveled along the side of a steep spectacular valley, dropping down into the jungle of Eastern Ecuador. It was raining and misting, but even so the scenery was spectacular.

This morning we stopped at the town of Colta for a break. We had been looking for a place to stop for some miles when we came upon a road sign indicating a picnic area ahead. The sign was quite a surprise, signs are not common and official picnic areas even less so. But the place was even more of a surprise. A large very elaborate park with gardens, decorative bridges, children's play equipment and rest rooms was set beside a nice lake. The surprise continued. The place was swarming with people, adults and toddlers in traditional dress and children in school uniforms. After a while it became obvious that some kind of parade was going to take place and we stayed around long enough to see everyone line up and start marching east into the town center that was a little way removed from the highway and park. The banners being carried by the marchers indicated that the 28th anniversary of something was being celebrated.

The road North from Cuenca seemed generally to be in better condition than we recalled from last year. There were lengthy section of new concrete that last year were under construction. Just to keep us alert, though, there were still the occasional patches where the concrete was missing and the road surface dropped 6 inches into gravel and rock.

We stayed a few days in Cuenca in order to get some maintenance work done on the vehicle. Cleaning the air filter, oil change and new oil filter, and install the spare front brake pads we have been carrying since Phoenix.

On our map of Ecuador the 150km from Huizho to Ceunca is categorized as highway in poor condition. Mind you on this same map is no category for highway in good or normal condition. But it turned out to be a reasonably good road except for a 20 km diversion section that wound in and out of a valley on steep clay roads. The scenery was mostly tropical with steep green mountains swirling in cloud.

Not far north of Lobitos is the township of Cabo Blanco. This town is the southern end of a nice section of coast with clear sunny skies (rather than the normal Peruvian grey), white sand beaches and lots of hotels, restaurants, and surf shops. The Panamericana runs along side this nice stretch of beach until just south of Tumbes, the northern gateway to the Peruvian coast. Thirty km north of Tumbes is the border with Ecuador.

Today after leaving Chiclayo we crossed the Sechura desert of Northern Peru. This is a 100 mile section of road that passed through a vast expanse of flat sandy nothingness approaching the city of Piura.

This morning after a late start we continued north through more coastal desert towards the city of Chiclayo. The sun was trying to come out from behind the clouds and the temperatures made it as far as the mid 70°F.

This morning we visited one of the local archeological sites named Huaca de la Luna. This large temple made from (140,000,000) adobe bricks was constructed by the Moche people between 0 and 600 AD. The structure is in fact 6 different buildings built over successive 100 year periods. Each new building was constructed to cover its predecessor. So that the current structure is like one of those Russian dolls - peel one layer and find another inside.

Today we had a quiet day in Huanchuco. We spent some time walking along the beach front watching local fishermen in their little reed boats (called Caballitos) paddle out through the surf to set or check their fishing nets. Apparently the locals have been using this type of craft for at least 2500 years. Though on closer inspection we did note at least one modern modification to the boat - they now pack styrofoam into the center of the boat to reduce the quantity of reed required. Similar to the way coke bottles are used by the people on the floating islands on Lake Titicaca.

More coastal desert today. But fortunately we saw the sun for a while.

The drive up the coast and through Lima was mostly a replay of roads we traveled last year while heading south. But even so we were surprised at some of the sights. The juxtaposition of desert and large scale industrial agriculture, and the shanty towns being built in the desert. The coastal desert of Peru is certainly an inhospitable place and we noted again that the mountains of Peru seem to be a better place to live than the coast. At least there, one could grow some food.

Today we left the Andean Plateau and descended to the coastal town of Pisco (a region that makes that famous drink). The mountains gave us an appropriate send off. From our camping spot gas station we climbed into the Cordillera Occidental the mountain range that is the western border of the plateau. These mountains are similar to those we saw in south west Bolivia being composed of the bright colored minerals indicating thermal activity. From the high point of this climb at Alta Apacheta at 4750m the road descended to sea level in less than 100 miles. As you could guess, more switch backs. Initially the descent was through mountain grass lands with scattered habitation and then into a steep valley with numerous small villages and almost continuous cultivation. The final stage into Pisco brought us into the grey sea cloud that is apparently common this time of year.

We were woken early by the mini-buses taking workmen back up the hill for another day of road building.

There was mist around the mountains as we started driving this morning and for a few hours we had mixed visibility with the light wind sometimes blowing the mist over the roadway. This added some additional spice to driving the narrow, twisting, mountain track.

We got our washing back - quite a relief really. I was not looking forward to searching all over Cusco for replacement underwear for Nina.

Today was a chore day. Buy some groceries, get some welding done on the rear carrier (again!!) and pickup the washing that we left at a laundry last Friday. The last of these turned into a bit of a drama as the laundry did not open, even though we called back there a number of times. We started contemplating the possibility that we would never get our clothes back. Nina was particularly concerned about this as almost all of her under wear was in the load. Eventually we got some relief as we discovered that today was a public holiday San Pedro day. These guys in Peru seem to have a public holiday every second day. We will not know for sure if this is the reason for the closure until tomorrow.

Nina and I were both suffering a little from stomach upsets this morning so we did not do much other than pack the vehicle while Max finalized some business matters. By late morning we were on our way back to Cusco. Electricity was still not available in Ollantaytambo and traffic was still hectic.

Ollantaytambo sits at the junction of two river valleys - the Ria Urubamba is the larger and main valley and the Rio Patakacha is a steep side valley. The small flat area of the town in the Urubamba valley is given over to cultivation and the town itself is inside the narrow steep sides of the mouth of the Patakacha. On the West side of the town are the ruins of an Inca fortress with very steep terracing and many building ruins that seem to simply hang on the sides of the cliff. On the east side there are remains of Inca grain store houses. Surprisingly these also hang on the sides of the steep valley. They certainly did not make things easy for themselves.

Today we traveled up the sacred valley to the town of Ollantaytambo - or Ollanta (pronounced like Oi-yanta) to meet up with an Australian guy named Max that we have met a few times on the trip.

Entering Cusco this morning was familiar ground. The roads are still rough, and the traffic frantic. Fortunately we had not forgotten the route to the camp ground so that after some grocery shopping we arrived at the gate to be greeted by Heimie (the guy that runs the campground). The place was well stoked with vehicles, though we were told less so than the previous day.

This morning we took a tour to a famous Puno tourist attraction. The floating islands of the Uros people. Originally conceived as a defensive mechanism against the warlike Incas. The Uros make their homes and live their lives on floating platforms a few kilometers from the shores of Lake Titicaca at the Puno end of the lake.

Back into Peru today. Before leaving Copacabana we tried to get fuel but the local gas station would only sell us 100bs worth. So be warned; don't arrive here needing fuel.

It was cold this morning so we lingered in bed a little longer than we had planned. As a result we did not get to canvas the tour agencies in town about the day tour to the Isla Del Sol and Isla De la Luna before those tours had departed (at 8:30). Our tardiness was rewarded as the only way we could then do the day tour was to hire a private boat - which we did for a whopping US$100.

Today was a public holiday for the celebration of the Ayamaran New Year and the winter solstice. Throughout the day we saw vehicles decorated with colored ribbons and flowers and in the town of Achacachi we had a chance to witness a colorful parade. We did not get up early enough to see any of the welcoming of the sun that we later heard about from other tourists. But I am getting ahead of the story.

Late in the morning we ventured up into the center of the town from our Oasis camping ground. This was a notably strenuous excursion as it required negotiating a narrow steep footway, firstly down into the river and then up the steep valley wall on the other side.

Getting out of La Paz this morning and onto the road to Sorata was an interesting challenge that afforded us an up-close look at markets and traffic. The direct road from our hotel in Mallasa to highway 1 on the plateau in El Alto was closed for repairs so we had to resort to going directly through the San Francisco area of downtown La Paz. The traffic was perhaps the densest we have encountered. From there we climbed up to the plateau via a freeway and onto the road to the airport. Unfortunately we missed a turn and found ourselves on the southern side of the airport so spent sometime trying to correct this error. In the process we traveled through some miles of poor outer La Paz suburbs. A few more navigational adventures got us onto the road North to Sorata. Leaving the La Paz area we passed through a series of small communities. It was market day, and it seemed that in this part of the world markets are situated in the middle of the highway; which was packed with buses, trucks unloading people and goods and pedestrians darting across from one group of sellers to another. Quite exciting.

It has been a week since the last entry and during that week we have learned a bit more about Bolivian culture and I have attended 4 days of a 5 day Spanish course.

We had heard about the Bolivian death road well before we started this journey, and had even seen TV shows about it. But nothing really prepares one for the reality of this road, and the bike ride that is now the primary use of this road.

Into central La Paz again today to find the location of the Spanish school I will attend next week, to check in at a hostel (we have a very early start tomorrow for a tour), and a guided tour of the the city.

After a leisurely start to the day, with a shower and other chores to occupy us, we took a taxi into the city around lunch time. The ride was hair raising - the route into the city from Mallasa winds up and down the walls of the canyon in which the city sits, but this did not deter our driver he pushed his little Toyota sedan to its limit the entire journey with brake and tires squealing on corners and downhill sections.

We had not intended to get as far as la Paz today but the road was good and we made better time than we had anticipated. After about an hours driving the mountainous topography gave way to flatter more open territory facilitating faster travel.

We thought the big challenge of the day would be getting the Tiger out of the area in which it was parked. But as luck would have it another vehicle was parked near the gate and this forced us to consider a different approach - turn up hill not down. This was a stroke of luck as it made the whole exercise much easier. It did not stop all the locals from the nearby souvenir stands from coming over and offering advise.

We had a quiet day around the hotel with a bit of walking around the plaza area of Sucre. The day was pleasant, sunny and warm - but the altitude surely slowed us down, even though Sucre is low by comparison with Potosi and La Paz.

Today we took a bus to the nearby town of Tarabuco which is renowned for its Sunday craft market. We took a bus partly because we did not want to go through the process of leaving and entering our parking position more than necessary.

Getting out of Potosi proved to be a bit of a challenge. On entry to the town yesterday we saw no signs towards Sucre, our next destination, and throughout the day we saw nothing that gave a clue as to where we might find the road to Sucre. Late yesterday we got some directions from a tourist office but the lady that gave them did not seem very confident. So this morning we headed into the throng of buses, taxis and pedestrians with some nervousness. We did eventually find the correct road. The directions helped a bit, but following the buses (now a standard navigation strategy) proved to be the key ingredient.

Not withstanding an early start the town of Potosi was alive and bustling when we arrived. And so we had the pleasure of trying to navigate through dense vehicle and foot traffic to the hotel we hoped to stay at but for which we had only GPS coordinates and no address. As it turned out an address would not have helped as there were no signs naming the streets. Sharp observing by Nina who spotted the hotels sign, finally got us parked in a cobbled courtyard.

We experienced a strange coincidence this morning. At breakfast I noticed a group of guys wearing identical jackets each sporting the emblem of the Coyhaique 4x4 club - Coyhaique is a town in Southern Chile that we passed through while traveling the Carretera Austral to Villa O'Higgens. At the gas station later in the morning we bumped into them again, this time they were in their vehicles. A bunch of old FJ Toyotas. One of the guys came up to me and in Spanish told me that we had met on the Fiordo Mitchell ferry crossing (on Jan 16th - half a continent and almost half a year away). Once pointed out I recognized him - he was driving a late model Dodge Ram pickup truck and at the time we chatted in broken Spanish and English about our vehicles.

Today we ventured onto the famous Uyuni Salar or salt lake. Out goal was to make it to the center of the salar and an island called Isla Inca Huasi. In preparation for this adventure across the apparently roadless salar I had determined a series of GPS coordinates for points along our proposed route - courtesy of Google Earth again

The rough roads of the last few days finally destroyed the fix I made to overhead cabinets way back in April last year on the road to Inuvik. The screws holding the cabinets to the ceiling pulled out and in the process pushed a small hole right through the fiberglass roof. Todays task was to fix both the cabinets and the roof.

We were up and away early this morning looking forward to a shower in Uyuni - we hoped.

Another change of plans - today we decided to take the plunge and follow the trail north rather than return to Chile as was our original plan - why did this feel like a plunge. We had no GPS way points, poor maps and no idea how far to the next fuel source. But there are many tour company Toyotas so we did not feel too bad about the prospects.

We were up and away early this morning to give ourselves plenty of daylight for our first foray onto Bolivian roads. We have heard so many horror stories about these roads and this is apparently one of the worst areas of the country.

Our journey today continued across the Andean highlands to San Pedro de Atacama. It's hard to capture the beauty, barrenness and spectacle of the scenery. We travelled at between 4000 and almost 5000 metres (13,000-16,000ft) most of the day, surrounded by higher barren multicolored mountains, the occasional salt pan and little habitation.

Time to move on, but our plans have changed - and they probably will again before long.

Still waiting for insurance, so today we decided to do some sightseeing by vehicle.

Today is the big day, 25 de Mayo - Argentine Bicentennial.

What a beautiful day! Despite overnight temperatures well below freezing, by 11:00 the sun had warmed the air, it was 70°F and we were in t-shirts.

Last night was cold, well below freezing, the wind eventually dropped and we were treated to a bright moonlit night with star filled skies. Not that we saw much of it, we stayed inside staying warm.

Overnight we got a taste of the bicentennial celebrations. A local disco played loud music until 5:00 am. We could not so much hear it as feel it. The bass tones actually made parts of the Tiger resonate in sympathy with the music. It would be an understatement to say that the entertainment made sleeping a little difficult.

Tuesday next, May 25th or 25 de Mayo, is the bicentenary of Argentine independence from Spain. Monday is also a celebration day and hence combined with the weekend the Argentines have a 4 day fiesta starting tomorrow. We have seen national flags being put up in preparation for the celebrations for the past week or so as we have traveled through various large and small towns. But today the imminent festival was evident with crowds of people, including large numbers of teenagers in school uniforms, around the main plaza in downtown Salta. We were in tow for internet and other shopping chores.

We spent a lot of the day trying to get various wifi and internet connections working fast enough to do what we needed - a bit frustrating and boring.

I was excited about the scenery from yesterday when we headed east along Ruta 33 from Cachi towards Salta, thinking that today would be a bit of let down. How wrong I was. Ruta 33 climbed steadily into a range of mountains called Cumbre De Obispo - these appeared insignificant on our map - but turned out to be quite something. The road topped out at 3400 m before beginning a hair raising descent into Cueste del Obispo along a gravel road with many many tight hairpins - 1st gear most of the way.

Today we followed Ruta 40 nearly 100 miles north along the valley of the Rio Calchaqui. Though Ruta 40 returned to its tradition of a dusty gravel, and at times rough surface, that sometimes was barely wide enough for a single vehicle, it was a fabulous day. The scenery was magnificent, a green and mostly cultivated wide river flat surrounded by high desert mountains that had been carved into all kinds of shapes by wind and rain.

No rain today - it dawned bright, clear and still. There was fresh snow on the surrounding mountains.

We were told yesterday that it never rains here. Moreover the landscape is consistent with that statement, and the locals and indigenous peoples raise animals not crops because of the dry conditions. So we were more than a little surprised this morning when we woke to grey skies and a light drizzle.

From Amaicha we turned southish to visit the town of Tafi Del Valle an apparent summer retreat for the residents of the nearby city of Tucuman. This was a quite surprising excursion. From Amaicha in the desert with day time temperatures around 80 ° F we climbed into the mountains and mist to temperatures that got as low as 34 ° F. Even in Tafi, which is at the same latitude and elevation as Amaicha the temperature was only 40° F.

Before leaving the Londres area we visited the ruins at El Shincal. There are only a few walls and some stairways up to two lookouts remaining. The stone work is much rougher than the usual Inca stone work we have seen. Climbing up onto the lookouts gave very good views of the valley south and east, and perhaps that is why the village was built here - good protection.

A cold night and early start got us underway before 9:00. Not far north we rejoined the famous Ruta 40 and for many miles traveled on nice wide paved road. However this eventually ceased and we found ourselves on a narrow gravel road winding through a small but spectacular mountain range of red sandstone and red granite. Unfortunately the photos don't do the scenery justice but I have included them anyway.

Our next stop was Parque Nacional Talampaya north through more arid country from last nights camp. This park can only be visited as part of a tour, so we joined a group of about 20 in the small bus and headed up the paved road into the park. The road did not last long and then we were in the bed of the Rio Talampaya bouncing along through sand and boulders. We spent the next 3 hours in a gorge with 150 m vertical red sandstone sides, looking at the rock formations, petroglyphs, condors, and nandu's (large flightless birds). It was a spectacular place one of the best gorges we have visited.

The beautiful sunset of last night was complemented with a similarly beautiful sunrise this morning.

The highlight of the day was the town and shrine of Difunta Correa. You may have noticed from time to time I have include in this journal pictures of road side shrines that are composed of hundreds, sometimes thousands of plastic drink bottles. As I think I have explained before these are shrines to a women who followed her husband to war and dies of privation along the way - the legend is that her body was found with her child still alive suckling at her breast. The shrines are to her. Well today we found the ultimate example of such a shrine, close to the site of her death. It started out as a cross on a hill but today it is a full blown town, with post office, school, gas station and of course lots of souvenir shops. The shrine is composed of numerous crosses, a large fire pit for burning candles, thousands of plaques, thousands of license plates and hundreds of small doll sized houses, plus the inevitable bottles of water. All these left as offerings at the shrine.

Before leaving Mendoza we thought we would make one last visit to some of the inner city parks, but police had closed off many of the roads so we eventually gave up.

Between negotiating Mendoza's streets and traffic we made two note worthy visits today. The first called, Cerro De Gloria, a large and very impressive hill top monument to General San Martin, assorted other generals and the Army of the Andes, Ejerçito de los Andes, that fought the war of independence against Spain.

Argentina uses only one time zone. So for us here in the west of the country the sun is not rising until well after 7:40 - and hence we are not rising until sometimes after 8:30. This morning the late sun, contributed to a slow start so that by the time we got going we barely made it the 30 kms to our spa appointment at 12:00.

It was a cold night, but as soon as we woke we could see that today was going to be better weather than yesterday - the sky was clear and bright sun was touching the tops of the mountains. Once we got out of the vehicle we saw that there was a dusting of fresh snow on the mountains as little as 500' above us. Guess that explains why we felt the night was cold.

We woke to an overcast sky and mist, the weather forecast I had seen yesterday turned out to be correct, today was not as warm as yesterday.

There is not much to say about today, we spent it at the dealers waiting for the work to be completed. Boring but no problem.

The weather gods were good to us. When we first woke, the morning was crystal clear affording us some good views of the mountain. This really is a big mountain, we stood at the lookout at 2900m looking upwards another 4000m to the summit - that's almost like having Mt Rainier starting at 10,000ft.

We spent a bit of time exploring some of the outer parts of Mendoza this morning looking for other campgrounds and one of the Spas that we had heard about. We will visit one of these Spas when we return to Mendoza in a few days.

We spent the day at the campground.

We spent the day finding our way around the town. It's a bit of a difficult town to navigate, many streets change names a number of times, and on the perimeter of the city a lot of curved roads and roundabouts that are not well signposted.

We were away early this morning in an effort to make it to Mendoza during business hours. Nina has a skin rash and we needed to see a doctor to get something for it.

Another nice sunny Autumn morning. We got through the usual chores in a relaxed manner, enjoying the sun and warmth.

The sunny autumn weather continued this morning as we continued west out of Cordoba towards Mendoza. For the first time in weeks (maybe a couple of months) we are back into some mountains. This time a small range west of Cordoba called appropriately Cordillera del Cordoba, which tops out at about 6,500 ft.

The weather reminds me of Easter camping in Australia. The nights are now cool to cold (not quite a frost), with clear skies and blazing stars. The days are clear and once the sun makes its presence felt they get to be warm, in the low 70° F's. The only downside of autumn are the short days, we are now getting less than 13 hours of light.

Today was a driving not a seeing day - we wanted to make it to Cordoba.

We had not traveled more than 50 yards this morning when we were directed to the side of the road at the Policia Nacional checkpoint (last night we drove through it twice without being stopped). I had quite a long conversation with the officer about the spare tire and rack on the front of the Tiger. He was telling me that this was not allowed and was an infraction. I was expecting any moment to be asked to pay a "fine". I just continued with no hablo espanol, no entende. Eventually the boss decided we were too much trouble and waved us on. That proved to set the scene for the day. We must have been waved over at least 10 times during the course of the day. Sometimes we were asked for papers, but as our we are Australians, no spanish and don't understand routine improved the stops got shorter. In fairness to the officers, they probably don't see too many tourists in foreign vehicles out here, and no-one actually asked for money.

While we were having breakfast this morning we were joined by perhaps 50 park workers who mingled around us for a while before filing into the nearby building for a start of day prayer meeting, followed by their own breakfast. Certain proof that, as the guide book said, Paraguay is a catholic country.

It rained heavily again last night, and to our shock and horror we discovered that we had left our book of maps and the Argentina guide book outside. They were saturated.

The rain stopped threatening and became an actuality early in the night. Thereafter we had bouts of heavy rain on and off all night, it also made for a wet breakfast.

This morning we went off to look at some of the local ruins at the old Jesuit towns. The Jesuits arrived in the province of Paraguay in the early 1600's and set up a series of towns all with a common layout and construction. According to history they were very successful at converting and protecting the local Guarani Indians from Portuguese slavers. Apparently they were generally too successful as in the late 1700's the king of Spain expelled all Jesuits from South America.

This morning we were again at the bridge over the Rio Parana going from Brazil to Paraguay. The crowds of pedestrians carrying large shopping bags of Saturday were gone, replaced by large numbers of trucks choking the bridge and its approaches.

We have found the town of Foz do Iguazu and the campground, it's friendly owner Matilda, and the resident pets a very pleasant and relaxing place (except for the Saturday night beer garden next door). Hence the decision to stay one more day and just hang out with the pool, computers, and sun, was an easy one.

The plan today was that the four of us would do some shopping in Paraguay - over that bridge again. Bernie however would be spending some more time at the Brazilian border crossing trying to get his vehicle documents corrected.

The bus for our tour to the Argentine side of the falls turned up a little early at 7:50, and off we went. It soon dawned on us that there would be no more passengers today and that this had turned into a private tour. The guide shepherded us through the border into Argentina and not long after 9:00 we were at the parque nacional, had bought our entry tickets and were on the mini-train that took us to the beginning of the 1 km walkway out to the top of Guargantua Diablo, the largest of the falls. We saw this same waterfall from below when we visited the Brazil falls. There was a light fog early in the day so we did not get very good photos of this fall.

The Lonely Planet guide book warns travelers not to walk over the bridge into Paraguay, but to take a local bus. But late in the morning we found ourselves on the bridge and could not see any signs of danger - unless of course the guide book was referring to the low safety rails.

There is not much to say about today, a last visit to the pool, a little sun and then into the shuttle bus to the airport and back to Foz Do Inguaçu.

Tonight we went to a combined dinner-show. Dinner was at a (I assume) typical Brazilian barbeque restaurant. A salad bar was provided and waiters came around with big pieces of meat from which they would cut a piece if you asked. Not a recipe for weight control.

A quiet morning at the hotel, by the pool.

We spent the morning walking north to Ipanema Beach. As luck would have it, it's Sunday and that's the day locals make the most use of the beaches - apparently. Half the beach front highway is closed so that people can walk, run, ride and just hang out along the beach front. Even though the summer holiday season is over the beach front was crowded. And there was a lot of activity. Many volley ball games, lots of jogging. We were surprised by the number of older (like us) people taking part in strenuous activities. I guess they have to do something to make up for all that beef they seem to eat.

We flew to Rio today. What with packing and waiting that took up the entire day.

Like the dam yesterday, the falls trip today was a very well organized tourist operation with well maintained and clean facilities.

This afternoon we visited the Itaipu Dam. This is a joint venture dam and hydro power operation between Brazil and Paraguay. Until recently Itaipu was the largest dam and largest hydro operation in the world. The Chinese Three Dams project has taken over the mantle of the largest dam and hydro installation, but Itaipu is still the largest producer of hydro power.

We arrived in Foz Do Iguacu, the Brazilian town on the Iguazu Falls in the early afternoon. While in the process of navigating our way into the center of the town a local man selling tours at a set of traffic lights offered to take us to a camping ground. We accepted, and off we went following him on his little motorcycle. The campground turned out to be very nice, shady, with all the facilities we require (see below).

Today was another travel day, so there is not a lot to report.

Melo proved to be a bit of a navigational challenge for us, not only could we not find the campground last night but we had to ask directions again this morning even to find the way north out of town. But after a few missteps we were on our way to Aceagua the border town where we would enter Brazil.

Today we headed inland away from the coast and probably have said goodbye to the Atlantic Ocean until we get back to Colombia to ship our vehicle north.

A leisurely start meant that we were not under way much before midday. Continuing north and east we traveled along highway 9, the road was inland from the coast and passed through rolling green country side with frequent stands of large eucalyptus trees.

We spent a quiet day, a bit of shopping, reading our novels, talking to the German couple camped next to us.

We spent the morning in Puente Del Este looking for Uruguay souvenirs and taking in the beach, Nina even got a chance to join the throngs and lay on the beach sunbaking. We also got a few more photos of the hand and a few local vacationers. Later in the afternoon we visited the very eccentric house of local artist Carlos Paez Vilaro. A white structure of 9 levels with whimsical spires that cascaded down the side of Puente Ballena.

Driving out of Montevideo today we finally saw the more up market side of the country and the beach side communities and resorts we had heard about. We followed the Rambler (a road and promenade beside the river) north and east out of old town into what I guess is called new town with many high-rise apartment buildings, nice beaches, yacht clubs, and many many people walking, jogging, and walking animals. The weather co-operated with bright sun and warm calm weather. We were seeing Uruguay and Montevideo at its best.

We had intended to be on our way today, but during the night I was suffering from a stomach upset of some kind, so we decided to stay at the Days Inn another day.

As you read this, you will no doubt have noticed the site has a new look. That is all thanks to our son Brendon. He has done all the graphic design for the new site (except where I would not let him change something).

We spent an hour or so today walking through one of the local flea markets, but other than that it was a day on computers trying to finish the revamp of the whiteacorn website.

This morning we drove the 170 km into Montevideo. The road was straight, mostly 4 lanes, and in places in need of repair. The country side was flat or slightly rolling hills, green with enough palm trees to give a slightly tropical feel. The towns and dwellings along the way indicated a population that was not particularly affluent. The old cars and trucks emphasized this.

We spent the morning lazing around the campground and waving goodbye to Sam and Bernie; we may see then again at Iguazu Falls.

The first order of business this morning was to repair the lighting problem. It took a while but I eventually discovered that at the point where Provan (the Tiger manufacturers) had connected their wiring into the Chevrolet wiring harness one of the connections had failed. A simple reconnection fixed the problem.

The ferry ride to Uruguay was a crowded and tedious exercise. The vessel had a single vehicle deck and three passenger decks. Because of the size of the Tiger we were held back until all other vehicles had loaded. I found this frustrating though it really did not matter. The crossing of the Rio de la Plata (River Plate)took 4 hours. This was slower than the usual three hours and was in part the result of high winds that, the crew said, made maneuvering difficult. The unloading process was a real riot, total chaos. For some reason, perhaps the wind, the vehicle docked in a manner that meant that all vehicles would have to reverse off, and that was a challenge that many of the drivers found was at, or beyond their skill level. Cars wobbling everywhere.

Its three weeks since the last entry! I will get back into the swing of things with a quick catchup.

We picked up our visas for Paraguay this morning, no trouble.

This morning we went to the Paraguay consulate to start the visa process. We are not sure we will go into Paraguay, but if we don't get a visa we won't have the choice. In the foyer of the building there was a huge lineup of people waiting for service at a clerks window. It took us a little while to work out that we did not have to wait in that line. We got forms, filled them out, lodged our applications, paid the fees and were out of there in about 40 minutes with a receipt and instructions to come back tomorrow at 9:00 to pickup our passports with the new visa stamps.

Over the preceding couple of days we had organized with Cristian of AndianRoads to drop the Tiger off at their facility at 10:30am. Yesterdays test run and Sunday mornings lower traffic volumes made the drive to the facility easy and we arrived a little early. The facility turned out to be a combined housing and vehicle storage compound in a nicely treed neighborhood, and for the first time in its life the Tiger will get to spend some time under the roof of a garage. All in all I feel very good about the security of this place and will not be worried about for Tiger.

The traffic of Buenos Aires came as a bit of a shock this morning. After all the miles of deserted highway going to and returning from Ushuaia we were once again in a large city, and on tightly packed multi-lane highways. And this time we had the added pleasure of crazy Buenos Aires drivers - they do seem a little crazier than others we have met on the trip - and in particular they don't seem to want to stay in their lane, but instead drive straddling the lane lines. I guess this gives them the option to dart into which every lane appears to be moving best when the traffic arrives at the next, and inevitable, accident or breakdown.

Overnight we had the most amazing thunder storm, the thunder, lightening and very heavy rain lasted all night. But surprisingly this morning the campground does not show signs of all that rain. The sandy soil sure drains well.

Today we moved on from Camp Americano heading to the coast further north and east near Mar Del Plata, reputed to be the most popular beach resort in Argentina. The guide book says that at the height of summer the beaches at Mar Del Plata are so crowded that one cannot find a place to lie down. Fortunately it is past the high season so we won't have that level of a crowd.

This is a huge camping area. Talking to one of the guys in the admin building we found out that during the height of the summer camping season this place will have as many as 5,000 guests. It must be a mad house, but a lucrative one at A$45 (approx. US$12) per person.

That's what we found out today!

We spent the morning cleaning house, and doing some repairs. Some parts of the Tiger have not been tidied up for months and it was showing - time to get organized. Also some parts of the tiger have not appreciated all the rough roads, mostly the cupboards. They are showing various signs of coming apart at the seams - so I spent time with a screwdriver trying to put it all back together.

Not much to say - walked on the beach, baked in the sun, visited the local town.

We spent a relaxing day, walking on the beach, getting sun burnt around the pool and just enjoying the warm weather.

We spent some time trying to find the Brazilian consulate in Bahai Blanca, we need a visa for Brazil, only to discover that they don't seem to open.

We spent the day and night in Bahai Blanca. It's not that it's such a nice town, in fact in most parts it's pretty dumpy - but we had business to do and the local ACA motel and gas station had good wifi.

We are now back above the 40th parallel and the weather is warmer - low 70°F's, the sun is shining and today the landscape changed. No longer flat wide lands with poor grass and prickly shrubs. It's now flattish (but with some rolling hills), and nice green grasses both in the farm fields and beside the road. This looks like the normal state of the ground not simply a reaction to recent rains. Buenos Aires is now only 700 kms away.

Overnight we decided we wanted to get to Buenos Aires expeditiously as the whale watching tours do not commence for several more weeks.. Sam and Bernie made an early start. We were a bit slower as we have business to do in the nearby town of Puerto Madryn - bank, groceries, internet and exchange our small propane tank. As a result we got a late start to the days drive - 4:30.

The rain has departed, blue sky is back.

There is not much to say about today - north from Deseado along more flat grass lands with grey skies and patchy rain.

That's why we were in Puerto Deseado, to see the Rock Hopperpenguins and their punk style hair-do's and yellow eye brows. And today was the day.

We want to do a tour in Puerto Deseado so we spent the day trying to find the right tour company - eventually we gave up on the one we were looking for and booked with Darwin Expeditions.

Before leaving this morning we needed fuel. We tried both the stations in the town only to discover that neither of them had gasoline or diesel, we were directed to the gas station 4 kms away on the highway. We noted though that both stations still had a full roster of tank-filler assistants!

We spent some time in the national park this morning - Nina walked along one of the hiking trails to see some more penguins, braving the Puma's that the signs warned about - but she did not see any.

We spent time in Rio Gallegos this morning on business.

We could not resist a stop at the panaderia in Tolhuin for a little indulgence on our way out of town this morning.

Well guess what - it rained again last night. The campground is again a muddy and puddled obstacle course.

It rained again last night and is cold again today - I know that's becoming a broken record, we are getting a little sick of it also - hence it will soon be time to start heading north in search of warmth and maybe beaches. Hence today we decided to make the obligatory trip out to the local national park; Parque Nacional Tierra Del Fuego. There is very little access to this park by road or by hiking trail. So we along with many individual tourists in local taxis and many many tourists from the steady stream of cruise ships that docked in Ushuaia headed out along the only road to get our photo taken at the end of highway 3 - the southern most highway in South America.

At least that's what the sign at the Ushuaia Golf Club says.

It rained all night and not far up the hills/mountains there was fresh snow.

We spent the morning and early afternoon trying to catch up with internet stuff using the campgrounds agonizingly slow wifi. Late in the afternoon we went looking for a metal fabrication shop to have some changes made to the carrier on the back of the Tiger. I decided today I would look for a wheel on which to mount the extra spare tire we have been carrying since Bariloche; thus giving us two complete spares. However that will mean more weight on the carrier, and will require some rearrangement so that we can still carry a local propane cylinder and a couple of fuel cans.

Today we rolled into Ushuaia, Argentina - the end of the road south. Deadhorse Alaska is 289 days and 28061 miles behind us.

If anything the wind was even stronger this morning; there were big white caps on the waters in the straights.

Overnight we decided that we would give the boat tour a miss and drive ourselves to the Seno Otway Pinguinera a rookery on an ocean inlet west and a little north of the town. The drive was via a reasonable quality dirt road through more flat wind swept steppe country.

It took a long time to say goodbye to everyone this morning. We had to chat with Bernie and Sam now that they are back from the hike, and say another set of goodbyes to Max the Aussie cyclist, and of course a last stop at the local internet cafe. But we were eventually on our way, heading to Punta Arenas one of the gateways to Tierra Del Fuego.

Cleaning up from the hike and preparing to move on.

For the past 4 days I have been hiking with our friends Sam and Bernie on a trek called the W in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine. Nina (and Max a temporary traveling companion) drove with us to the park entrance about 90 kms from Puerto Natales on Sunday morning the 31st January and dropped us where a shuttle bus took us the last 7 kms to the start of the hike. Thereafter Nina and Max drove the Tiger back to Puerto Natales where they stayed while we were on the hike - unfortunately her foot is not up to hiking. Max is acting as guardian of Sam and Bernie's vehicle.

We spent the day getting organized for the hike we plan to start tomorrow.

We moved on again today. Destination the area of Parque Nacional Torres De Payne and Puerto Natales Chile.

We spent much of yesterday trying to work out which of the many glacier tours we should take; El Calafate is famous for the glaciers that can be visited. Today we decided to drive west to the Parque Nacional and have a look in the hope that this would help us decided. On the way out the road traveled through Patagonia steppes country, wide, wind swept grasslands. To say that the Perito Moreno Glacier was a surprise would be a massive understatement. The road rounded a bend and there before us was this massive wall of ice.

We moved on to El Calafate today. Driving away from El Chalten the weather quickly became sunny even though the wind did not abate.

We had fierce winds and rain all day - a bit like a Washington winter storm. We spent it in the Tiger reading a novel.

The weather was clear with only light winds this morning, so I saddled up to repeat yesterdays hike sure that today would give me the views that I failed to find yesterday.

The weather was windy with broken cloud this morning, which in these parts almost qualifies as a good day, so Nina encouraged me to hike the trail to Lago Torre, at the foot of the Grande and Torre glaciers and from which there are supposed to be good views of Cerro Torre.

We traveled 300 miles today over 200 of which was gravel and the whole day was through dusty, dry grass lands with little habitation. There were only two places we passed today where we could buy fuel and at one of those the owners for some reason just left the customers waiting without service - we gave up after waiting 30 minutes. Incidentally that was the town of Bajo Caracoles which I commented on in yesterdays camping section.

We decided that this morning we would take a slight detour to Cueva De Las Manos a local archeological site with 9000 year old cave paintings. The turn off from Ruto 40 coincided precisely with the end of the Ruta 40 pavement and involved 22 kms of some very rough road to a wind swept parking lot on the cliff tops overlooking the valley of the Rio Pinturos. From the parking lot a very rough walking track led down into the valley and up the other side to the entrance station of the caves. To view the paintings we had to go on a free conducted tour which was fabulous. The guides English was just good enough for us to get some of the facts about the paintings, almost entirely of the human hand, and mostly left hands.

We busied ourselves in Chile Chico until late morning with washing and internet and then continued east for a few kms on good road to the Chilean border station. No dramas on exit - the same three steps as all other Chilean crossings. A little further down the road is a nice new Chilean border station building nearing completion with a sign proudly proclaiming that it will be complete in 2009 - huh??

We were greeted this morning by a clear sky and bright sun, what a treat. We continued North to the junction of highway 7 and the road to Chile Chico (highway 256). Along the way we said goodbye to the mighty Rio Baker and its turquoise waters, and Lago Bertrand. The Carretera Austral has been, despite the rain, a wonderful experience and we are sad to leave it.

It rained hard all night and this morning the river was at least 2 feet higher.

From our gravel pit camping spot we continued south in overcast and wet conditions on a road that was essentially a single track forest road in OK condition. The road was pretty spectacular though, as it travelled along, mostly, the steep west bank of the Rio Bravo and then the equally steep west bank of the Rio Colorado before crossing a narrow causeway to gain the east bank of the Colorado for the final few km into O'Higgins.

We were treated to fine weather today and it really did show off the country side and scenery.

We continued south along the western shore of Lago Carrera this morning to the exceptionally small town of El Maiten and a road junction. Right is to Villa O'Higgins and the end of the Carretera Austral and left is to Chili Chico and the Argentine border. We are going right, but will be back as the O'Higgins road is a deadend.

South from last nights camp we crossed the Cerro Castillo range of mountains heading towards the town of Cerro Castillo and the end of the paved road. However before arriving at Cerro Castillo we took a detour, still on paved road, to the port town of Puerto Ingeniero Ibanez. This town is the ferry port for the ferry across Lago General Carrera (called Lago Buenos Aires in Argentina) to Chile Chico. Along the Ibanez road we got some fine views of Cerro Castillo, plus some of the strongest winds we have experienced on this trip, sustained 40 mph I would guess. It was difficult to open doors and walk into the wind.

A day of paved roads

It's still raining.

It was raining when we woke this morning and except for a few momentary breaks when the sun won through it was wet, overcast and not particularly pleasant all day. Though even the weather did not prevent us getting some of the wonder and awe from the never ending vistas of mountains, glaciers and lakes. But .. this must be just a stunning place when (or maybe it's if) the weather is clear.

The weather gods seemed to be on our side as this morning was mostly clear and sunny. We continued south through Parque Alerces past beautiful clear lakes and river, with snow capped mountains, with some fresh snow, in the background. Along the way we saw many campers and a number of RVs made from converted trucks. Argentines seem to be avid campers.

So why the reference to Butch and Sundance?

I spent the morning repairing the storage rack on the back of the Tiger. The deck of the rack is plywood and over the past month it has deteriorated. I did not replace the wood simply placed a new piece over the old and painted both pieces black. That should last a few months.

I realized last night that I should get new tires in Bariloche if possible. There is still a few thousand miles in the existing set of tires but we are about to travel the worst roads of the trip, not a place to have tires that are at the end of their life. And availability will probably only get worse farther south. So we spent the morning looking for our size and load rating - eventually finding 4 at one of the local tire dealers. We kept one of them as an additional spare (though not mounted on a wheel), it still has over 50% life in it (It was the spare when we left Texas). The only problem now is how to carry the extra tire ???

Nothing worth reporting

Today we decided to take an excursion to the town of Pampa Linda. It seems there is some spectacular mountain scenery and a glacier to see. But what first attracted us to this town is the road. It seems it is a narrow road and dangerous, so to protect travelers the road is only oneway. It is open to traffic going to Pampa Linda until 2:00 pm, then closes to new traffic, and opens to returning traffic after 4:00pm.

Another sunny day - but cool. We must be getting old and feeling the cold. The locals are running around in shorts and T-shirts and we are wearing heavy sweaters.

We eventually got underway after saying our goodbyes to Sam and Bernie. The weather was cloudy and so we did not see anything of Volcan Orsorno as we drove along its flanks.

The sun came out today and we had a gloriously sunny day. We got to see both the volcanoes that sit beside the lake, they are quite impressive. It was warm, light sweater weather, not hot but that did not stop the locals from frolicking on the beach and swimming in the lake - brrrhhhh!.

We spent a quiet New Years day in the camping ground at Ensenada. Most of the day Nina and I worked/played on our laptops, she cataloging our 13,000 photographs and me updating the software machinery that controls the whiteacorn website.

Today the four of us (Nina and I, plus our friends Bernie and Sam) drove into Puerto Varas about 50 kms from the campground to do a bit of sightseeing. The town has a number of old German style buildings that the guide book recommended; they were pretty run down and needing some maintenance. Another example of Chilean tourism infrastructure in need of repair. We took the opportunity to have lunch at a Mexican restaurant.

Today we are heading north to the towns of Puerto Varas, and Ensenada to meet up with the Canadians (Sam and Bernie) that we met in Colombia and Iquique Chile.

The weather had improved over night so we could explore the camping ground before leaving without getting wet. It was in a wonderful position right on a headland with fine views of the ocean. Like many camp grounds we have seen in Chile it was once an impressive facility and a substantial investment but over the last probably 10 years there has been little maintenance and now it looks run down.

We joined up with the Panam Highway at Orsono late this morning and followed it south with a small side trip to explore the town of Fruitilla, then around a peninsula (jutting from the west into Lago LLanquihue), and back to the Panam. The drive was pleasant through nice green country side. The weather was cold, grey and wet - not really encouraging for getting out and seeing things.

We got off to a bad start today. On the exit from our hotel parking place we had to go through a narrow gate. The gate posts were about 3 inches wider than the Tiger. But the driveway was not level so part way through the gate the Tiger tilted and bumped into the left hand post causing some damage to the house body and damaging the plastic panel where we put in fuel.

We spent the day looking around the town of Bariloche and communicating with family. One of the things the town/region is known for is chocolate and there are many stores around the town selling it. Of course we were not able to find simple plain chocolate. The weather was much improved today, sunny but windy and still cool. Santa Claus was out traveling around on a red fire truck. He seemed very athletic, jumping on and off the truck, for an old guy. Made me more than a little envious.

Today we drove back to Bariloche. The weather turned wet and miserable for the first time we can remember. As a result we checked into the Hotel Tirol a day earlier than originally planned. They had space in the back for us to park but the entrance way was really tight. We had to fold the mirrors in on the sides and I would guess there were only a couple of inches spare on top. The manager was very nice about it and tried to help us with directions.

We used up all of our minutes at the hotel this morning leaving right on check out time of 11:30 making the most of hot showers, a sumptuous buffet breakfast, and that last click on the internet.

We set out from the campground today to explore west along the lake shore with the intension of eventually stopping in Bariloche to look around. Oh how plans can change. We drove past a number of scenic lakes and called into the famous hotel LLao LLao just to have a look at the place. It's really grand, with a great location on a hill with commanding views of lakes and mountains. While having coffee and chocolate in one of the restaurants we asked ourselves- why not stay here for a night?. Within 10 minutes we had a room.

We continued our tour of Argentine lakes, rivers and mountains today.

Today was sunny, but with a blustery cool wind. We spent the morning in San Martin shopping and looking around and then headed south down highway 234, also called the Ruta de Los Siete Lagos (route of 7 lakes) towards San Carlos De Barioche. As the name promised we spent the remainder of the day driving past and viewing lakes, the rivers that feed/drain them, plus some spectacular mountains. Really a very pleasant day.

We left Panguipulli about 10:00am maybe a little later than expected after the usual chores, fuel, internet, groceries and a few last photos. It is a really nice little town, not particularly touristy.

It was a beautiful morning with the sun shining off the glassy waters of the lake, and the occasional small wavelets washing the black sand beach. This really is a lovely setting for a campground.

After a slow start, partly caused by me wandering off to an internet cafe without telling Nina where I was, we headed off looking for a minor road that would (we hope) circumnavigate Volcan Villarrica and lead us to Laguna Lican Ray the next lake south. The scenery was lush pastures, fine stands of evergreens and crystal clear rivers and a few minor water falls. The road turned out to be a little rough and gave us a chance to experience the positive effect of new shock absorbers. We even got to take the Tiger on some real 4x4 road - but only a little way. We could not complete the traverse to Lican Ray as the road became impassable to a vehicle as big as the Tiger. So we retraced our steps back to Villarrica and took the opportunity to do some chores, washing clothes, and washing the Tiger.

Today we left Highway 5 (the Panam) for an excursion East into a region of lakes and volcanos. The country side is now very temperate in appearance, rivers large and small, evergreen trees, lush pastures and spring flowers.

It's 9 months today since we left Gig Harbor, seems amazing that we have been living in this little vehicle for so long. When I look at the map I am a little surprised by the distance we have travelled and even more surprised when I contemplate the return journey - I think it will take another 9 months.

Today everything was closed, even the toilets at the gas station, for the presidential election. Guess this is another good excuse for a day off.

We drove back to Santiago from the coast to pick up a new (warmer) jacket for Nina from a local camping store. They said it would be available Saturday. To do this we had to negotiate our way through Santiago traffic in the, ritzy, Los Condes area of the city. But - when we got to the store it was closed!!!!

We did not travel far today. Nina has a cold and needs to rest in the sun. So we drove from our gas station just west of Santiago to the coast to a camp ground near Laguna Verde. We found the camp ground from a tourist brochure.

This morning we discovered that we left one set of keys at the workshop that replaced the shocks. What a drag - we had to drive all the way back into central Santiago to get them.

Today was going to be another day of chores. First stop an organization named SALFA (the local Chevy dealer). We found one of their outlets near where we spent the night but it turned out only to be a sales office for very large Mack trucks. They sent us into the heart of the city to there light vehicle sales and service office. To cut a long story short, the Chevy people checked the brakes for us (did not need any work) but could not replace the shock absorbers as they did not have replacement parts. However they drove us to a local workshop that dealt in aftermarket parts and they were able to fit 4 new shocks. Mind you this took all day. But the tiger feels a lot better with the repairs.

Another milestone - 30,000 miles since Gig Harbor in just under 9 months

A milestone again today - over the 30th parallel.

We continued up the valley this morning to the town of Vicuna. Quite a lovely place, clean and tidy with a wonderful main plaza with great old trees. We walked around for a while absorbing the atmosphere and soaking up the sun.

A long drive today trying to make some headway south. Today signaled the first of a few milestones, the vehicle ticked over 40,000 miles on the odometer, and we left the Atacama desert behind finally. Coming up in the next few days are 30,000 trip miles and S 30° latitude.

Today we were simply heading south, trying to cover some miles. More desert scenery.

Last night Nina and I were talking about bureaucracy and which of the countries we have visited display the worst bureaucracy. This conversation was prompted by a conversation Nina had with her sister about the level of effort and paper work associated with moving their family back from Germany to Australia.

A quiet day!

Leaving San pedro this morning we had one of those delightful little surprises. Just outside the town was a sign pointing to a gravel side road with the sign Cordillera de la Sal. We spent about an hour negotiating our way along this track past various weird geological structures formed by salt pushing up the ground. Eventually we got stopped by deep sand and had to turn around. Our next expedition vehicle will have a better (ie higher) tire floatation in sand.

Well the effects of altitude did not diminish during the night. We both suffered from head aches and an in-ability to sleep - it made for a long and uncomfortable night.

Over the past couple of days we had been indecisive about our route after Tocopilla, would we or would we not head inland towards El Tatio Geysers. Well today we decided - El Tatio here we come. The downside of this decision, which we would later suffer with, was altitude. In one day this route would take us from sea level to 14,500 ft. As it turned out this was too much - but that's getting a bit ahead of the story.

We got a late start from Iquique as I wanted to hang around the flight school using their wifi to fix a problem that had developed with the software that downloads maps to our GPS. Got it fixed eventually but it left me with the feeling that maybe we have too much technology with us - you think!!

Today Sandra, Bernie, Nina and I went for a 30 minute paragliding run hooked up in tandem to an experienced pilot. This was Bernie's way of celebrating his birthday and Nina and I just tagged along because it sounded like a good idea.

Today it was our turn for vehicle work. The truck needed the fluid changed in the transmission, and being hi-tech it needed a special fluid that I feared only a Chevy dealer would have. Dextron VI is the stuff. We hung around town for 6 hours while they changed the fluid, and topped up the differentials and transfer case. Why 6 hours - that was courtesy of their 1:30 - 4:00 lunch break.

We spent most of the day around the campground. I could say we relaxed and in part that would be correct. But also I spent a good deal of the day working with Bernie on his RV (and drinking beer). The metal cover over the valves on his propane tank was badly bent from an encounter with part of a gate and it needed to be straightened. This involved removing the tank, releasing all the propane, bashing the protective cover with a large hammer, and having a bracket re-welded onto the tank (that's why the propane was released from the tank). In the end it all worked out, but there were periods of doubt.

The drive to Iquique was about 200 miles and it turned out to be generally a good road through desert scenery. Just out of Arica we came to some very interesting structures called something like guardian angels, they were abstract sculptures that seemed to be made out of mud. The remainder of the drive went through a series of large dry valleys. In each valley, the road descended 2000 ft down to a small river and then climbed out again. This happened maybe 6 times. The valleys were dry, completely devoid of vegetation except on the floor where the small river flowed.

We awoke to a grey sky; sea mist in the mornings and evenings is apparently the norm in this part of the world - but eventually the sky cleared into a bright warm day.

The drive out of Arequipa was stark and desolate. Big bone dry hills of sand and crumbling rock. But it set the scene for the days travel, all day we drove through variations on the theme of desert. If we had stayed on the coast in Peru we would have travelled through desert all the way from the Ecuador border and, from what we read, there is still many hundreds of miles of it to go in coastal Chile.

Throughout the night activity continued on the highway with more and more vehicles arriving and joining the line waiting for the road to be opened.

Today we started the next leg of our journey - onwards towards Chile. We travelled over familiar territory today, first taking the road from Cusco to Juliaca (a grubby town with lots of small scale brick makers belching smoke everywhere), then onto the road towards Arequipa. We did not (plan to) make Arequipa today but camped again at the road junction just north of Imata on a very large flat area near a salt lake.

For me today was another day of chores, mainly emails and updating the website. However Nina visited the nearby Inca ruins of Sacsayhuaman. These are right next door to the camping ground and are a large complex that has had very little excavation. It seems that up until recently all the money available for excavating Inca sites went towards the work at Machu Pichu, but now some money has been ear marked for work at Sacsayhuaman. The guide told Nina that in the 1930's locals mined stone from the ruins, using dynamite to break the stone, and sold the stone for one sol (today about 30c) per truck load. Other interesting tid-bits

A day of chores, cleaning and drying gear from the trip.

Today was a long day of travel.

Today turned out to be a day of relaxation.

A somewhat leisurely start this morning (7:00 am departure) as we are starting our return journey with a 5 hour boat trip to Pantiacolla Lodge on the banks of the Alta Madre De Dios. Along the way we stopped at Boca Manu village for some cold drinks. The up river journey seems to be taking about half again as long as the downstream journey as the river is flowing very swiftly. The boat trip was again cool, insect free and pleasant - except for somewhat uncomfortable seats. We got a brief glimpse of a Capybara this morning, it's a member of the rodent family but about the size of a large dog. The name comes from a local indian language and means master of the grasses, which is what it eats.

A 5:00 am start for one of the highlights of the trip, The Macaw clay lick. What's that you ask?

Today we said good by to the Manu River and National Park. After a relatively leisurely start we were into our boat and headed down the Manu River to the confluence with the Madres De Dios. Along the way we got really lucky as one of the guides spotted another jaguar on one of the numerous beaches along the river. We got a good, though distant, look at him. That's our second. Many groups don't see one in their 9 days in the jungle.

Today was a full day of looking for animals. We started by returning to Cocha Salavador early hoping to see the giant Otters and we were not disappointed, there were a group of maybe 7 of them frolicking in the lake and having breakfast on the local fish population. We spent a couple of hours following them around the lake hoping to get close but they kept us at a distance.

Today we entered the Manu River and the Reserve Zone of Manu National Park. The Reserve Zone is a recent addition to the national park and together with the Cultural Zone are the only parts of the park that allow visitors, the bulk of the park is restricted to scientists. Access is carefully managed and we had to call in at the park office to register.

We were awake at 4:30 am this morning to go to see a bird called Cock of the Rock. Each morning and afternoon these birds gather in a section of the forest near our lodge for about an hour, then disperse for the day, until their afternoon gathering. We spent an hour at this place looking with great diligence for a glimpse of the bright red male birds.

We were awake at 2:00 am for our 5:00 am pick up; how silly was that.

Only chores today in preparation for our 9 day trip to Manu National Park in the jungle of Peru.

It snowed in the hills above our camping spot last night!

Last night was the coldest we have experienced since Alaska/Yukon. At 6:00 am after the sun had been on the vehicle for 45 minutes the trucks thermometer showed 22°F. The cold, and a desire to cover some distance today had us underway by 6:00am.

We had a nice quiet night at this spectacular lookout. We were more than a little curious as to how proceedings would get started this morning after discovering that there was no afternoon activity yesterday. The security guards arrived by bus about 6:00am and the first of the vendors about 6:30am but by 7:00am when we departed there were no tourists, not all the vendors, and no condors flying (presumably because the thermal air currents had not yet started). On the drive back to Chivay we passed dozens of large and small tourists buses. We concluded that Cruz Del Condor only operates from about 7:30 to 11:00 am each day.

We were on the road to Cruz del Condor by about 7:00 am as the condors, apparently, are only visible around 8:00 am and 4:30 pm, and we wanted to be there in time to see them this morning. Apparently so did every other tourist and tourist operator for 200 miles around as the road was busy. It was also rough with the traffic from tourist buses making heavy washboards in addition to the parts of the road that are simply creek beds. But to compensate for the roughness the drive was wonderful. It winds along the side of a very deep steep valley both sides of which are covered with terraced agricultural land, foot trails, and villages (with no road access). The scale of the terracing is hard to comprehend, particularly when one realizes that much of it has been done by hand over hundreds of years of farming.

The antiplano is the name for the high desolate plateaus of Peru, Bolivia and Chile; and that's pretty much where we spent the day. From our camping spot last night at a little over 13,000 feet we drove all day at altitudes between 11,000 ft and our high point of 16,000 ft. And desolate it is, dry, dusty and cold. With the temperature at times as low as 35°F and never about 60°F. But - there are small communities and even individual family groups scattered all over the antiplano making a living from a combination of agriculture and rearing llama, alpaca, and sheep. Plus all these scattered little settlements are served by buses. The bus services are all the more amazing considering the quality of the roads, they vary from good black top to terrible gravel and broken pavement. On the bad sections of roads the buses travel at speeds of 40 mph whereas the roads restrict us to 10-15 mph. Anyone interested in building a vehicle for rough roads should come talk to the Peruvian bus companies for some hints on suspension design.

Today is proof that we don't plan a long way in advance.

We spent the morning doing some more washing and other chores - boring.

Everyone is told that you have to get to the ruins to watch the sunrise. Also one part of the ruins, Waynapicchu mountain, is restricted to 400 people per day. So by 5:15 am there is a huge crowd in the main street waiting to catch the first bus (5:30).

The day started with a bit of a mad rush. We got a taxi to Cusco's San Pedro station only to discover that our train departed from a different station 15 kms out of Cusco and that we had to be there is 20 minutes. So another taxi and a bit of hair raising driving; but we made it.

A couple of days back the Tigers engine computer started telling me it was time to change the fuel filter. This was a bit of a surprise as at the start of that day I am sure the same computer said we had 40% life remaining. Guess we picked up some dirty fuel along the Cusco road. So this morning we went off to the local Volvo/Mitsubishi dealer to get it changed - luckily I have a number of spares. I was a bit anxious about this because the vehicle is sometimes difficult to prime and start after a fuel filter change. But I should not have worried. The guys at the local Volvo dealer had it changed and the vehicle running again in 40 minutes from the time I walked into the showroom. Also only cost us $13.00.

There is not much to say about today; we stayed at the camping ground doing the washing and catching up on other chores.

What an arduous day. We were on the road for over 12 hours (6:00am to 6:30pm) and covered 550kms over yet another amazing road. The scenery was simply awesome, and the road surface generally excellent. But the topography - has to be seen to be believed. The high point on the road before the town of Puquio was just on 15,000 feet, but altitude alone does not give the full picture. At least three times the road descended to 6,500 ft before climbing back to 13,-14,000 and each time both the climb and descent was achieved by what seemed like never ending switch backs. The climb out of Abancay was perhaps the most impressive of all. The town was at 6,500ft and within 30 km of road travel and no more than 10 kms of actual distance we were back at 14,000ft.

There was never any doubt that we would take a scenic flight to look at those famous Nazca lines and figures, so that was the first item on the days "to do" list. I must admit that they are less impressive than I expected. The photos I have seen in places like National Geographic make them look bigger than they are in real life. Also there are lots of marks made by modern man that cut across the ancient lines and figures. But I am still pleased we took the flight, and the lines and figures are worth seeing. Even if smaller than expected you still can't help but ask yourself - why; why would a group of people make these figures ??

This morning we decided to try and find an Acogas place we had read about where other travelers had purchased an adapter that allowed US fixed propane tanks to be filled at gas station GPL pumps (location details in the camping section below). This proved to be a challenging driving experience as it took us on some of Lima's busiest streets at rush hour. Also took us through some of the up market shopping areas. But it was successful; we got the fitting and a couple of hours later at a gas station filled our fixed tank with no trouble.

When we left the camping ground at De Lachay this morning we had no intention of stopping in Lima; in fact we had spent most of the previous evening planning to get up early to try and miss the worst of Lima's notorious traffic.

Words are going to fail me today.

So what are giant Puya Raimondii?

Before heading out of Caraz this morning we had a challenging and somewhat unusual chore to perform. Nina receives a pension from her time as a teacher in Australia. Every year the pension organization requires proof that she is still alive (I know it sounds like the Russell Crowe movie Proof of Life). She must fill in a form and get it witnessed. So this morning we set off to find a notario, the Latin equivalent of a US notary or Australian JP. That accomplished, with lots of laughs, we went to a post office to send the letter certificardo. It's amazing what a few words of Spanish, lots of miming, and some intelligent locals can accomplish.

We continued on the rough dirt road this morning to the village of Huallanca looking forward to the sealed road south to Caraz as described in the guide book. But alas the book lied, at least a little. After Caraz the road continued to be gravel but of a better quality as it climbed up into the Canon Del Pato. This was yet another amazing road. Built about 1913, presumably to put in the hydro power plant, it winds along the side of the canyon for maybe 6 miles and passes through 30 rough rock tunnels. At places the canyon (like the one yesterday) is less than 50 yards wide (about a 1/2 wedge shot).

We were away early this morning heading for the mountain town of Caraz in the valley that lies between the Cordillera Blanco (snow covered) and the more westerly Cordillera Negro (not snow covered) mountain ranges. The route we chose travelled down the coast to Chimbote, then headed inland along "highway 12" through Huallaca, and the Canon Del Pato.

Today was a quiet day. In the morning we drove the few miles to the archeological site of Chan Chan. It is the remnants of a city built by the Chimu culture who occupied this area for about 600 years from 850 AD. From the remnants archeologists think the city was 28km square and supported 60,000 people. The Chimu were conquered by the Incas before the arrival of the Spanish. The site is not spectacular, just a huge expanse of adobe walls, corridors and burial chambers. But the scale of the site is impressive. You are left with the impression that this was a powerful and well resourced culture.

We had a very pleasant night, temperature in the mid 60°F's and no insects. Not what we had expected from a desert.

We had a few emotional moments in Tumbes this morning as Nina thought she had lost her ATM card, and then for a few moments feared the ATM had eaten the card she borrowed from me. While all finished up ok it was not a encouraging start to the day, but .. things improved from there.

What a day!!.

We hung around the hostel most of the morning before making our way back to the Tiger at the parquedero and getting underway.

I am back from the US with the various parts for the Tiger, oil filters, fuel filters, oil seal, and assorted other things. I was worried about how Ecuadorian Customs would react to a bag full of car parts and after I saw the dire warnings on the declaration form I was even more worried; so I listed the parts on the form as instructed. Need not have bothered; the customs man did not even look at the form. But he did notice the strange shapes on his x-ray machine; not to worry - when I told him I was going to Peru he waved me on.

We were out in the dingy this morning by 6:00 am to ensure that even the last few hours of our visit got in some animal watching. And we were not disappointed. We cruised around a mangrove cove for an hour and saw a number of sea turtles, some small sharks, an eagle ray, and the most amazing sight of all - a flock of perhaps a thousand Blue Footed Boobies hunting and feeding in a pack. The flock would circle over the cove until a school of fish was spotted and then the entire flock would dive to feed. Just an amazing sight. After hitting the water the flock would surface and take to the air again - on some occasions almost running over us in our small dingy.

This morning when we woke the boat was anchored just off Santa Fe Island and the plans for the day were in the same pattern as the previous days. First a walk on the island to look at the local animals and then some snorkeling in the bay. Our walk found the now common colonies of sea lions snoozing on the beach and rocks, an assortment of birds, a new variety of land Iguana, and a number of Galapagos Hawks. Another interesting morning. The Snorkeling was good today, the water a bit warmer than some of the earlier days and a number of sea lions were prepared to keep us company. I also saw a couple of small sharks, not the man eating variety.

Isla Espanola today, the southern most island in the Galapagos group and the place where we hope to see Albatrosses, and a new variety of marine Iguana.

We arrived in Peuto Ayora late last night after a lengthy navigation. Some of the group were leaving today so they were up and away early for a quick visit to Darwin Station before catching their plane out.

The nights navigation was rough but between the pills and our tiredness we slept the night through without much disturbance.

We awoke this morning in Darwin Bay, Genovesa Island. Everyone is showing the effects of last nights navigation - as they call it - which began at midnight and was rough. The morning is a bit misty and there is cloud over the top of the island. We spent the first couple of hours walking around the shores and rocks of Darwin Bay. There are the usual collection of sea lions, a few marine Ignuanas but the special treat of the day are the hundreds, maybe thousands, of nesting birds. Red Footed Boobies (with blue beaks), frigates, and gulls, plus the occasional heron, mockingbird, and even a finch or two. The birds simply don't see us people as a threat. It is common to walk within a few feet of a mother and chick without any concern being shown by the birds. The land is flat, and composed of old volcanic lava flow and supports only the most hardy of plants.

Today we visited two islands and had a couple of snorkeling sessions. The first location was only two hours sailing from yesterdays location so the boat stayed at anchor until 4:00 am this morning, then sailed to todays location by 6:00 am. The seas over night were mild but we both noticed the rocking motion. I hope we get accustomed to this.

We had a bit of a rocky start to the Galapagos trip today. We had no trouble getting out of the parking lot at 5:30, the caretaker Diego, was true to his word and was awake in time to unlock the gate for us. But getting our ride to the airport was a bit more problematic. First we got into the wrong taxi - one just stopped and asked us if we were going to the airport. It took us 100 yards to realize that this was just a random request from an alert cabbie, not our designated ride. So we got out and waited some more. We had a number of further offers but now we knew that the correct answer was no. The appointed time, 5:45am, came and went and still no sign of the correct taxi. So we called the travel agent emergency number. Eventually discovering that the driver was waiting on the corner of Almagro and Pinto not Almagro and Pinta. That seems like a pretty basic mistake, particularly since we had given the street number in Almagro as well as the intersection. But ... we got to the airport, onto the plane and out to the Galapagos Islands.

Today was another - not much to say day.

Just doing stuff - not interesting stuff - in Quito

Before leaving Papallacta this morning we treated ourselves to an hour in the baths, hot pools. While still part of the Termes De Papallacta, this was more basic. Just a series of nicely finished hot pools. It was cold (45°F) and drizzling, so one did not spend much time out of the warm water.

Today we headed for the thermal pools at Papallacta up in the mountains and on our way back to Quito, but before leaving the area we took a drive into the town of Tena to see another jungle park mentioned in our guide book. Tena is a sizable town that is becoming a significant tourist destination for those seeking a jungle experience or kayakers seeking access to the rivers and rapids of the area. It also looked like the town was trying to rebuild itself to cater to those tourists as roads were being dug up everywhere.

Not long after leaving the Puyo area this morning we got a taste of our first tropical rain storm. The small rivers crossing the road were running full of brown water and puddles were building up in the villages and along the road side. This gave us a little sample of why the road builders are so keen on the road side drains we have seen everywhere.

Today we planned a return visit to the resort town of Banos, but this time approaching it along the Pastaza river valley from the East. It made for a leisurely day of driving as the round trip only racked up 75 miles. Starting in humid tropical conditions at 3000 ft in Puyo the road winds its way along the Northern wall of the Pastaza valley above the cliffs of the lower gorge and eventually climbs out of the tropical vegetation as it nears Banos at just under 6000 ft. It is an impressive road, a number of dripping tunnels and lots of tight turns. Also a number of places where it is taking a lot of hard work to keep the road from being swept from the mountain side by slides and rock falls. There are a number of narrow side roads that enable tourists with smaller vehicles than ours to visit local villages, water falls and other attractions. There were quite a few tourists, both young and old, riding bikes along the 12 km section of the road into Banos.

The road between Macas and Puyo was on the whole new, and much better than we had anticipated, except for a small number of sections that still had to be made. Those sections were simply river gravel and rocks laid over what I assume to be the old dirt road. There were only a few sections of the unmade road and probably not more than a few miles in all. One of the more interesting bad parts of the road was the river crossing in the town of Sucua. there used to be a suspension bridge crossing the river, but that obviously collapsed some time ago as the remains are still lying on the ground and in the river. The replacement bridge is only one lane and hence impatient bus and truck drivers simply drive through the river - I presume until it is too deep.

We tried to get an early start this morning, but got delayed by an attempt at a last minute stop at the Mall De Rio - we are still not sure what time it opens, but its after 9:30.

Spent the day stocking up on things for the next week on the Orient Road(where we don't expect to find any supermarkets) and interneting in the Mall.

The plan today was to get setup to use a local-country propane cylinder. This would involve buying a filled propane tank, some hose, and having the carrier on the back of the Tiger modified at a welding shop. I was confident that all but the welding would be straight forward as other travelers had told us about a very good hardware store close to the campground.

We stayed around Alausi for some time this morning doing some business on the internet. Then in bright sunshine we headed South along the main road to Cuenca. For many miles the road was in great condition with newly laid smooth pavement. And I was thinking how nice it was to be back on a major road rather than some of the rough routes we had followed in recent days.

Neither of us slept well last night, and Nina was definitely suffering mild altitude sickness, with head ache and insomnia so we headed for lower altitude and Guaranda. We stopped just east of Guaranda on the road to Riobamba for Nina to sleep for a couple of hours, she was more her normal self after that.

As I hinted in yesterdays entry, today would prove to be another of those days that leaves one searching for words. Seems appropriate somehow that the start of our second 6 months on the road should be memorable - and it was.

It's interesting how the days on the road vary, some are so mundane that there hardly seems to be anything to say, then others like today (and tomorrow - this is the hint that I wrote up two days at the same time) are so packed with sights, experiences and surprises that it seems impossible to capture even the basics.

Last night was windy, did I say it was windy last night. Not a constant steady wind but terrific gusts that shook the Tiger. At times I feared that a window might give way or the Thule luggage container on the roof would rip off and get carried away. The wind we felt in Atigun Pass on the way to Deadhorse, AK was stronger but we did not camp with that wind. This morning was cold, for the first time since leaving Canada we turned on the house heater. Outside temp was about 40°F but with the wind - at least 30 mph it felt much colder. Even the locals were rugged up.

This morning we had to finally face the task of finding our way out of Quito to the south. This was always going to be somewhat of a challenge as the city is hemmed in on the east and west by mountains and hence it stretches south/north a long way. The challenge was increased by the fact that we only had a tourist map of the city and a map of the country. Nothing that showed the outer parts of the city in detail. It was around 8:30 by the time we got underway and over the course of the next hour we tried in turn each of the four main north-south trolley bus routes, starting with the eastern most and working our way to the west. Why did we do that? Not by choice. We either came to a police blockage to south bound traffic - to give north bound vehicles more lanes, or simply took the wrong turn. But in time the western route got us to the southern boundary of the city and back onto the PanAmericana. We must be becoming seasoned travelers as all of this was done without arguments or angst between driver and navigator.

This morning we found a newly opened cafe with WiFi, so settled into their comfortable lounge chairs to collect emails and upload some recent contributions to whiteacorn. Unfortunately this took much longer than we had hoped as I found a bug in my whiteacorn code. The map of our camping locations was not handling southern latitude with 0 degrees correctly. I had to go back into programmer mode for a few hours to fix it.

There is not much to say about today. I had hoped to get the vehicle serviced at a local Chevrolet dealer and was optimistic enough to hope that they would be able to supply the engine, transmission and fuel filters. But it was not to be. The Tiger would not fit into their workshop, and they could not provide any of the filters.

A friend in Washington had given us the phone number of some of their friends, Gene and Helen, in Quito. Thus the first task of the day was to make contact. We arranged to meet Gene at 3:15 pm.

Another clear but windy morning in Otavalo. The wind is blowing dust everywhere. The last few days have been windy and dusty, so much so that I will be be pleased to get away from Otavalo's dust. Though I will miss the town.

Another lazy, but unfortunately windy and dusty, day in Otavalo. Its amazing how you get comfortable with a place and are content to just hang out.

Friday was the start of Festival in Otavalo and the kick off would be a parade through the streets and around the main square commencing at 7:00 pm.

Not much to report about today. It took some careful driving to descend from our ridge top camping spot and thereafter a slow drive down the cobbled road back into Otavalo and then another trip to the super market and hardware store in Ibarra. On the way out of Ibarra we found a Lavadero to wash away the Mojanda dust and San Agustin mud that was now covering the Tiger. We sat for almost two hours while a team of three worked to get the vehicle back to something like clean condition.

We stayed at Cuicocha until late morning trying to get a good photo of the snow brushed tip of Mount Cotacachi. In the process a snow capped mountain emerged out of the clouds to our East. I guess from the map that it is Mount Cayambe at 5790 m. While at the lake we bumped into an Australian and two Swiss tourists who had come up to take the hiking trail around the lake. They gave glowing reports on their trips to the Galapagos Islands, so that is now back on Nina's agenda.

Another relaxed (read lazy) day. Mid morning we drove down into town and found a laundry that did our washing. While the washing was in progress we visited an internet cafe, bought some groceries and Nina had a wonderful time buying a truck load of souvenirs.

Not much to say about today, we stayed at the campground all day. At first putting Bernie's vehicle back together, the internal engine cowl was not put back completely by the mechanics that fixed the problems. And then cleaning up the inside of the Tiger, at least Nina cleaning up and tidying up the inside.

We were out of the gas station by 8:00 am looking to get some propane and have the Tiger washed. For some reason at the 4 places we tried all said NO!. We drove a few miles north to a propane plant, they were willing to fill Bernie's portable bottle but initially said they could not fill the tank on the Tiger. However, after a while, and we think a discussion with the plant boss they story changed and I drove the Tiger into the plant. Like in Central America, at first, the plants pump could not force propane into the tank against the pressure of gas in the tank. But eventually they cranked up the pump pressure and we got topped up.

As planned last night we were up and moving by 7:30am and made good progress south on slightly less twisting road than yesterday. The drive was simply spectacular as it passed through wide and deep valleys. There were sheer drops mere feet from the road way. As has been the case on most Colombian roads the scenery is spectacular but there are no places to pull off the road so any effort to enjoy the scenery has to be done from the moving vehicle. This does not make for good photographs.

This morning we made an early start on retracing our steps along the slow road back to Paletara. The weather was better but the road was not. About 60 miles in all back to Paletara, the last 40 over dirt and the total trip took 5 1/2 hours. Lots of low range over big pot holes. There was more traffic on the road today almost all of it trucks carrying cattle or sacks of something. One truck driver stopped to warn us that there were guerillas on the road - at least that's what we think he said. But we had no problems.

This morning was wet and somewhat miserable. Last night there had been some discussion about leaving both vehicles here for the day and catching a bus to San Agustin but Nina and I decided we would drive and Sandra and Bernie opted to come with us.

We headed north and then east along a minor road to the village of Silvia to see the Tuesday market. The Lonely Planet guide book suggested it. The road was another one of the now familiar twisting mountain roads that followed the side of a valley. However this road was not complete and we eventually came upon the road crew that is building the last few miles.

We headed back into the Southern fringes of Cali this morning to visit Jardin Plaza on Carrera 100. An impressive modern mall with a Carrafours supermarket, a very large hardware store and many other clothing stores. Very up market. Wifi in the outdoor food areas. We stayed there much longer than expected as I was trying to buy some parts for the propane system as the time is approaching when I will have to figure out how to get our propane tank refilled or use a local gas bottle.

Leaving Bambusa was like jumping back into the fray after a nice respite.

A second day at Hacienda Bambusa. In the morning we drove into Armenia to do some shopping and internet. The town was bigger than we had expected and we were pleased with ourselves that we found a parqueadero close to an internet store and large enough for the Tiger.

The first task this morning was to get some minutes for my cell phone and lookup the internet for directions to Hacienda Bambusa. We found a Comcel shop on the road into Armenia and parked in a side street nearby. It took me about 20 minutes and when I returned to the vehicle Nina was nowhere to be seen. Then I heard a voice from a nearby house. Nina was inside talking to Deisy, the lady of the house, who was preparing hot chocolate and food for us.

At the start of the day it seemed like it would be an easy 200 miles or so today, so we did not rush to depart and sat with our hosts, Gloria, Martha, Miquel chatting until well after 10:00 am.

Our hostess Gloria and her family have opened a bilingual school for their own and other local children. This is probably what would be called a Charter School in the US. We spent much of the day at the school meeting the children and hearing the story of its creation, about current activities and plans for the future. It definitely threw Nina back into Teacher mode and we have had a number of conversations about what would I - Rob - do if we came down here for a few months so that Nina could work at the school.

We got really lucky today when our hosts Gloria and Miguel offered to take us into downtown Bogota to see a few of the sites.

The camping ground was much quieter this morning, with many of the cars of last night having departed sometime during the night. The campers that were still present were in the process of packing indicating that the holiday weekend was coming to an end. The road down out of the mountains was also much quieter with only a little bit of local traffic.

I think it would be accurate to say that today was a full day.

We had a quiet day looking around the town, lazing around the campground, and simply enjoying the place.

Back into San Gil this morning for a bit more internet business and to discover that yesterday we had missed the center of San Gil and its almost stationary traffic, and multitude of road works. There after we followed the highway through Barbosa towards Tunja and Bogota until early afternoon when we arrived at Arcabuco.

As you can see we did not travel far today.

Our first destination today was the town of Giron said by our guide book to be noteworthy for its cobbled streets and white washed Spanish colonial buildings, and its beautiful central square. Our first effort to turn off the highway into Giron was less than successful, we turned into a nice cobbled one-way street the wrong way. Needless to say the street was narrow and took us about a dozen back and forward moves to get turned around while the local drivers encouraged us by sounding their horns, and squeezing around us while we tried to turn. Our second effort to turn in Giron ended in another nicely cobbled street, but a dead end. This time Nina asked a pair of moto (small motor cycles) riders where the entrance was and rather than explain one volunteered to lead us there. Well, the correct turn was a sharp 330° corner that we could only negotiate with a K turn. But the fun was not over. This town was founded in the early 1600, well before motor homes were thought of and the streets are narrow - at one point we passed between a pedestrian and a moto rider and both of them had to duck so as not to be hit in the head by our side mirrors.

After our goodbyes this morning the road continued a winding climb. The streets in some of the villages were so narrow that home owners had erected posts made of 10 ft sections of railway track in front of their houses to protect then from passing trucks. In a couple of places there was a man with a flag to ensure that only one vehicle at a time tried to negotiate a particularly tight corner. Twice we were forced to back up to allow tanker trucks to pass. All very exciting!! And this is a toll road.

After a relaxed start we set about driving south through the center of Medellin. Our goal was to at least traverse the city using the main north-south road to get a little flavor of the place. As a goal we set ourselves a Texaco station on the southern side of the town that we had heard about as a potential over night stopping place. It was hectic following the traffic and trying to read the signs, but we were helped by the GPS and the free Colombia map we got on the internet. We found the Texaco and also got stopped by some transit police, they gave us the most thorough review of any police so far but in the end we were on our way with no troubles.

The road started to climb almost from the start of todays travel and after we crossed the bridge over the Rio Cauca the climb was on in ernest. You might notice in the photo of the bridge the sand-bagged machine gun post at the far end of the bridge. We climbed from 500ft to over 9000 ft in less than 100 miles and got to 7000ft in about 30 miles.

Our first night camping in Colombia was without problems; though the local roosters got active about 5:00 and ended our nights sleep earlier than we might have liked.

Checkout was 13:00 and we stayed at the hotel until almost that time doing a variety of packing, computing and shopping chores.

Not a very exciting day. First thing this morning we did some repacking of the Tiger, in particular I put the storage pod back on the roof-racks - turned out to be much easier than I had feared. Then we visited our customs agent office to get the insurance. We are now set to travel.

By 8:10 this morning we were in the office of the customs agent, and then out to the port for a customs inspection and other formalities that we did not understand. It took all morning with Nina and I sitting in the waiting area while Betty (the agency representative) talked to various officials getting papers signed and stamped. Back in the agency office just before lunch we found out that the customs officer decided not to physically inspect our vehicle and that all we needed now was one more signature at the customs house near the agency's office, Columbia car insurance, and then we could get the Tiger. So come back after lunch.

First task this morning was to try Citibank in Cartagena to do the money transfer - no such luck, only if we had a Citibank account - even though the money was going to another Citibank account in the US!!.

We spent a restless morning waiting around the hotel and shopping at nearby stores for groceries and buying some additional minutes for the Colombian phone chip . Unlocking my Blackberry to work with any phone chip is turning out to be a good move.

No tours today. We simply spent some time walking on the beach, visiting the old town and researching the route we will take through Colombia.

We had a tour booked for today to a place called Islas Del Rosario. It had been suggested by the travel agent in Panama but we really did not know much about it nor what to expect. But as instructed we were waiting down in the lobby of the hotel at 8:00 am where after a while we were picked up by a bus containing a number of other tourist and taken to one of the tour docks near the old city. Eventually we got seated in an open boat with seating for 30-40 people, issued life jackets and told that we had a ride of about an hour to the Islas.

We had an organized walking tour of the old city this morning. And even though the guide did not speak very much English, and heavy rain accompanied us and wet us for most of the tour it was a good introduction to the walled old town area. Even from this short introduction we can see why everyone we have talked to about Cartagena says it is a lovely place.

We both woke early this morning, I assume partly because we are anxious about what lies ahead but also because at about 5:00 am a rain storm started with the most amazing heavy rain that sounded like jumbo jets over head. It lasted for a couple of hours. The rain, and its impact on traffic caused the driver taking us to the airport to call and suggest we leave half an hour earlier than planned; and then he arrived 15 minutes earlier still.

We have heard a lot about Colon while we have been in Panama, almost all of it bad. We have heard that it is ugly, poor and dangerous. We had also heard that the train ride between Balboa and Colon is very interesting. Just to emphasis this we would learn later that an American family staying at the hotel visited Colon today, catching the train over and a bus back. At the Colon end the local police insisted on giving them an escort between the train and the bus, and the bus driver would not let them open the windows of the bus even just to take a photo. As we would learn first hand the ugly and poor part was evident.

Today was the big day on paper work, late in the day we heard from the customs agent that all was complete and Nina's passport had been stamped to indicate that she could leave the country without the Tiger. In each of the countries we have traveled through Nina - as the owner of the Tiger - got two entry stamps in her passport, one for herself and one for the vehicle. This prevents her from leaving the Tiger behind when she leaves the country. Thus to leave Panama she needed to have the vehicle stamp effectively cancelled.

We visited an indian village - Tucipono - today situated east of the canal. The people are called the Embera and migrated from the Darien region about 40 years ago and settled in the forest east of the canal where they continued their traditional life style of slash and burn farming. In the mid 1990s the Panamanian Government created a National Park encompassing this region and as a result the Embera people where prohibited from continuing clearing land to conduct their farming. Now they rely on tourism for their primary income and this allows them to continue a way of life that is close to their traditional existence.

Today was the Canal visit - I am sure everyone who comes to Panama City visits the canal and locks at some time. Today we took what is called a partial traverse. Which means we started in Gatun Lake, the highest point of the canal, and descended 31 meters through Pedro Miguel locks and then through another 27 meters in each of the two chambers of the Miraflores Locks to the Pacific Ocean level. In the process we passed under the.

After early morning coffee at the local McDonalds we settled down to wait for news on the progress of the police inspection and other paper work.

Today our priority was to get started on the paper work associated with shipping the vehicle to Colombia. The latest information we have is that the ship will depart from the port of Colon - on the Atlantic side of Panama on Friday 31st July and arrive in Cartagena Colombia Sunday 2nd August.

Yet again, last nights rain is gone, and we are now convinced of the Panama rainy season weather pattern. Clear in the morning and storms in the afternoon.

Again the morning was clear with no signs of last nights rain storm.

The morning dawned clear and with no sign of the rain and cloud of last night.

Apparently the monkeys made some noise over night - but I did not hear them.

Last night Norm paid a local man to sit guard over our vehicles throughout the night. I am not sure that this was necessary but he certainly carried out his part of the deal as he was still awake guarding us when we woke at 5:00 am this morning.

Getting out of Managua and towards Lake Nicaragua Norm got stopped by a radar trap and paid US $40 in "fines"

At dinner last night Norm suggested we stay at the hotel another day and spend today touring the nearby city of Granada - about a 50 minute drive from the hotel.

At breakfast Norm offered to conduct todays city tour himself rather than use a local tour company, and we accepted.

It's the afternoon of July 14th and I am sitting in a nice room at the Camino Real Hotel in Managua Nicaragua. The last 4 or 5 days have been a bit of a trial and it is a pleasure to have some comfortable surroundings for a brief period. Its also good to be past the question mark of Honduras and now - we hope - definitely on our way to Panama and thence South America.

Norm has injured his ankle - I don't think he knows how he did it - but it's definitely swollen and appears painful. So this morning we spent some time at the local hospital and pharmacy.

The only thing of note today was some work we got done on the Tiger. Norm had suggested that we should get a cover for the propane valves that are visible on the side of the Tiger; his thinking - the shipping company may not notice the propane and ask us to empty the tank. This is of some importance as (apparently) propane will be hard to find in South America.

We moved to a new location today, but since it was only about 50 miles away we started at the civilized hour of 8:00 am.

Another quiet day at the Centro Obrero La Libertard. Nothing hopeful seems to have happened in Honduras over the past few days, we will wait a little longer before looking at radical options.

Another day in La Libertad. I am sitting in the passenger seat of the Tiger, the engine is idling to charge the house batteries and as a side benefit the air conditioner is on. The vehicle thermometer says its 88°F outside but that does not do justice to the feeling of heat and humidity.

This morning Nina decided to stay at the camp while Norm and I went for another look at the antics of the fishermen and their boats. Being Saturday did not seem to make any difference to the level of activity.

A correction - the place we are staying near La Libertad is called Centro Obrero or workers center and is provided by the government for "workers" and visitors.

We awoke to the clouds misting around us and drifting across the car park, and a bit of light rain accompanied breakfast. By 8:00am the first bus load of workers and tourists arrived, among them the man who controlled the main gate, so now we could leave.

We had a surprisingly comfortable night, the noise of trucks did not disturb us, and our $9 Wal-Mart fan kept the climate tolerable.

I was pleased to awake feeling a lot better this morning. Which meant that we would be moving on. The plan was to cross into El Salvador and drive to a government Work Center near La Libertad. These centers are provided as vacation destinations for locals and visitors alike.

This day was a complete right-off for me. During the night I started getting stomach cramps with the usual consequences of such feelings. With some foul tasting medications to punctuate the day I did my best to sleep for 24 hours.

This morning we set out at 8:00 for a visit to the city of Antigua in Norm's vehicle accompanied by the two children from the water park and the hair dresser lady mentioned in the previous entry.

We spent today in the area around our Water Park Automorisco.

We had a surprisingly comfortable night at the border. The weather was pleasant and not too hot, our parking place was almost flat, and the noise was not too bad. Fortunately Nina did not hear the nine gun shots in the middle of the night. Norm later heard that the police shot a local gang member - Nina Says Sorry no photos.

Norm's ford had a flat battery this morning, and it took a little while to charge it using the Tiger and our jump leads. However, even with that hiccup we were on the road by 6:30 am.

We were underway by 6:00 am this morning, todays leg is long.

I forgot to mention in yesterdays journal that mid afternoon we crossed the Tropic of Cancer at latitude 33°N. The only marker or monument was a forlorn yellow ball, a photo of which is included in yesterdays entry. This event got Nina and I thinking and we were a little amazed to realize that from the Arctic Circle to the yellow ball we have travelled across 33° of latitude, and we have a like distance to go before we get to the Equator at Quito Ecuador, the same distance again to the tropic of Capricorn in Chile and yet more distance before we turn north again from Patagonia. I think this is the first time we have really appreciated how far we have planned to travel.

At one level today was a lot of miles, that started very early and drove without many stops for 450 miles. But on the other hand it was a day of sudden and complete emersion.

There is not much to say about today. Last minute shopping.

We were quite excited on this day as we were finally going to arrive in Pharr, meet the trip organize Norm and start the final preparation for the Central and South America legs.

We lingered at the camping ground this morning sheltering from the strong morning sun under the shade of the trees and enjoying the Texas country side.

We woke this morning to find that the rest area was next to a prison and that the truck engines had not become any quieter during the night.

We are back on the road after some last minute chores and goodbyes. We are following Highway 10 so that means out of Phoenix we headed south and then eventually east.

We have had a hectic week in Phoenix, catching up on family matters, maintenance on the Tiger and emails/phone contact with Norm so that he could arrange insurance and shipping for the trip into central and south america.

We planned on getting to Phoenix today, a drive of something like 600 miles, but Nina could not resist the temptation of Zion National Park and we had to see some of it on our way.

Today was one of contrast, this morning driving through Helena, MT there was fresh snow on the ground and occasional flurries and by the afternoon at Lake Yuba the temperature was nudging 90°F, people were boating and swimming and we were worrying about how to stay cool.

A light dusting of fresh snow greeted us this morning and although we did not know it when we woke this would be a very appropriate farewell from Canada nicely bookending our time in Canada and the north; snow when we arrived - snow when we departed.

We spent the today in and around Calgary with Nina's cousin Yvonne. It could have been a rest day with time to do washing, catch up on emails, catch up on family doings and relax; but for Nina and Yvonne it wasn't. There was a FedEx parcel from Richard for us and it had to be cleared through Canadian customs; a task that proved surprisingly difficult and complex.

Our goal for today was to get to Calgary for a visit with Nina's cousin, so we got an uncharacteristically early start.

After a leisurely start to the day we drove back into Jasper and spent some time in an internet cafe catching up on emails, our journal and various researches. Jasper was picturesque, with another bright sunny day really showing the mountains and the town at its best. It was with more than a little regret that we headed south down the Icefield Hwy out of Jasper. A little way south we stopped at a hiking trail around the five lakes and spent a couple of hours strolling through the pine forests and admiring the lakes; what a wonderful setting for some well needed exercise.

Another beautiful sunny day awaited us and we were away early, at least compared to our usual relaxed starts. After a brief stop in Jasper to make a few phone calls we found our way to the Jasper Tramway which lifted us up the side of Whistlers Mountain for a panoramic view of Jasper and its surrounds. From the upper station a trail continues a couple of kms and several hundred feet farther up the ridge to the summit of Whistlers. We spent an enjoyable hour hiking up the trail, admiring the scenery and soaking in the atmosphere. We had visited this region in 1976 and had a few adventures on the lower slopes of a couple of the local peaks, so we did more than a little reminiscing also.

We spent much of the morning and early afternoon exploring downtown Edmonton. Certainly not enough time for what appeared to be a wonderfully positioned city on the high northern banks of the Saskatchewan River. We did get a chance to walk along the river through Victoria Park. A lot of people were out walking, jogging and cycling. I guess the local citizens like to enjoy the limited sunny, warm weather when ever they can.

Our route today followed a series of increasingly busy secondary rural roads through farm country. The wind of the past few days was still blowing strongly and occasionally small dust storms assaulted us.

We stopped in the town of High Level this morning to get fuel, groceries and to see what the local visitor information center could tell us. The visitors center contained a small but interesting museum displaying relics of the past. As with a lot of these types of displays we both learned things - for example that washing day was the same day as pasta making day so that the starch from the pasta could be used to starch shirt collars - and saw things that we recognized from our own childhood - another hand operated cream separator.

During the morning we took a side trip to the town of Hay River, a prosperous little town near the southern end of great slave lake and on the Hay River. It is a transportation and service center particularly for the summer water traffic on Slave Lake. The town boasts the Purple High School. The town was moved to its current location when the original town located on the river flats was flooded in 1963.

It was cold over night as this morning there was fresh ice at 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick on the lake. And I thought that we had escaped the cold weather. However the day is clear and bright, but chilly.

We spent a considerable time this morning trying to get water to top up the Tigers water tank. At the campground we tried a number of options to fill from their water tank but there was not enough pressure to do the job. After further investigation we were directed to the town water plant that fills tankers for household water delivery, again no luck - this time they did not have a hose small enough for us. Only 2 inch diameter hoses for filling the trucks. So we eventually gave up on the water.

We pushed hard today to get to Yellowknife.

The Liard Highway finishes at Checkpoint, a now closed gas station and convenience store at the junction with the Mackenzie Highway. We turned west at this junction for a short side trip to the settlement of Fort Simpson, 60 km away and across the Liard River ferry - it's an ice bridge in the winter.

We were quick to depart the clouds of mosquitos at Beaver Lake, but pulled into a clearing not far up the Liard Hwy to spend a couple of hours sorting through photos and composing some web entries.

The character of the road and terrain changed today. There were more mountains and they were closer. We were beginning to enter the northern Rocky Mountains. The road is more twisting and there are more rough spots.

Our journey today followed the Liard River for much of the day from just outside Watson Lake to Liard River Hot Spring. We were surprised by the size of the river, it is wide and fast flowing.

Today was a long drive from the Atlin Road to Watson Lake. In truth the scenery was splendid, as we passed numerous lakes and had views of mountains all day. But it is unfortunately true that after a while one gets accustomed to the scenery and its impact is lessened.

Earlier in our trip we had bypassed Atlin with the thought that we should make that side trip later in the season when, we hoped, more things would be open and the lake might be blue rather than white. So at Jakes Corner, we made the turn and started the 98 km journey to Atlin. The day was clear, blue sky, and bright sun; a perfect day for this scenic road. Interestingly the lake was still partly frozen, with slushy ice covering a good proportion of the lake area.

I decided to buy two new rear tires for the Tiger this morning. So I was up early and phoned a couple of the local tire shops, and as luck would have it one of them (KAL-TIRE) had in stock some Bridgestones compatible with the existing tires. So off we went to get them fitted. To cut a long story short we waited from 10:00 am until 4:00 pm, but eventually got our tires.

In 1999 when we drove through this area we visited an exhibit of first nation lifestyle and Nina wanted to visit it again, but we could not remember where it was exactly or what it was called. When we drove through Whitehorse in April on our way north we saw a sign that looked promising but still could not find the place. On the Juneau trip two days ago we got lucky as one of the other guests knew of the place and gave us the name Long ago ... peoples place or Kwaday Dan Kenjii. So finding this place was on our agenda for today.

Last night after the trip to Juneau we went to one of the local RV parks for the night. When we got there we could not find the manager so picked a site for ourselves and settled in for the night. This morning when we went to pay for our night, again we could not find the manager, indeed what we thought last night was the office, was actually the laundry. We only found the office by asking some of the other residents. Turned out to be a plywood door with a 4 inch nail as a handle - tells you something about the standard of this RV park. But still no manager, so we got a free night.

I was restless during the night and by 5:30 am I was awake, hence by 6:00 am we were parked at the small boat harbor where we would meet the catamaran that would take us to Juneau and back. The boat turned out to be a 65' cat with a large single enclosed cabin and a small open after deck.

Nina woke this morning with sore eyes so we spent a good amount of time today getting her to see the medical clinic.

After I wrote the journal yesterday Nina had a special wildlife experience when she spotted a beaver swimming up and down the lake, it was visible for a long time.

People are funny. This morning at 1:40 AM I was awakened when a pickup truck passed by our camping spot in the bed of the Copper River. The truck was towing a trailer which was loaded with a fish wheel. After passing us the truck continued upstream until it was out of sight. Now I ask you; who launches a fish wheel at 1:40 AM.

From our camp in the bed of the Copper River the McCarthy road climbed along the face of the valley wall over recent small rock falls to a ridge between the Copper River and the Chitina River. From this vantage point we could see east and south into the Chitina where the river meandered through a very wide valley. In the distance the valley was full of dust haze whipped up by the wind.

Today we racked up the 10,000th mile of our journey.

To day we spent much of the day driving, what appears to me to be, one of the iconic sections of the Alaskan Highway; namely the Glenn Highway through the valley of Matanuska River and past the Matanuska glacier to the junction with the Richardson Highway. We also passed the Musk Ox farm - which we did not visit this time.

We woke early to a sunny but crisp day. After the usual breakfast routine of coffee and muesli we walked to the end of the spit. A vehicular ferry was unloading and we stayed to watch. Unlike most of the ferries in the Seattle area this one was not strictly a drive on drive off type. The ferry had a large lift or elevator structure that carried vehicles from the hold up to the level of the dock, where they drove off the lift onto the dock. It was interesting but a very slow way to load and unload. It was a beautiful morning, no wind, bald eagles all over the place and sports fishermen getting ready for the days adventure.

The campground that was closed last night was obviously going to open soon. As we went for a morning walk we found the campground gate open and a workman blowing the leaves from last fall off the camping spots.

This morning in Seward the sun was out, and the broken clouds had lifted above the tops of the surrounding mountains. A beautiful setting.

Before leaving Anchorage this morning we were to have the Tiger serviced, an oil change and new fuel filter. The replacement of the fuel filter was something I was a little nervous about. It is a task I will probably have to do myself while we are in South America and I had read that it is difficult. It's hard to get access to it - and also that once replaced it can be difficult to get the fuel lines and pump primed with fuel. This is a well known problem with diesel vehicles.

We spent the day talking to the family, updating websites, and catching up on emails.

We only had about 100 miles to drive to Anchorage today so it was a short driving day. Again we were granted a clear day with bright sun and wonderful views of mountains on either side of the road.

I know it's getting boring, starting another entry with a weather report; but - it's another beautiful day with blue sky and bright sunshine.

Nina had read that during the off season it was possible to drive the first 30 miles of the 90 mile long Denali Park road. We thought that this would be a nice treat if possible as during the summer the only access to that road, and its views of Mt McKinley, is by bus. The previous time we were here the bus ride was 2.5 hours, each way, of sweaty people and a nice view of rain and cloud.

What with more phone calls, emails, packing the Tiger, shopping, and just enjoying the warm weather we had a late start from Fairbanks.

Today is an R & R day. A chance to clean the vehicle both inside and out and to put our heavy winter clothes into the carrier on top of the Tiger - we anticipate that they will not be needed again. The temperature in Fairbanks today was 75, and this looks like it will persist for most of the next week.

We woke to another blue sky and bright sun day, but with that same strong wind of last night.

At midnight last night even though the sun had set the twilight was bright enough to take photos. I guess we are in the land of the midnight sun.

I am sitting in our Tiger in the parking lot of the Caribou Inn, a motel, in Deadhorse Alaska and behind me a guy in a huge CAT front end loader, is clearing snow from the car park as if he is in a race, and while he is doing this workers in pickup trucks are entering and leaving the lot as if an earth moving machine is just another normal vehicle on the roadway; which come to think of it in this part of the world, it is. This seems like an entirely appropriate way to end what has been another exciting and some what surreal day.

This morning in our motel room was a time to catch up with emails, journal entries and talk to Rick and Brendon, consequently we got a late start from Fairbanks.

We called into the township of Tok this morning for fuel. It seems like there is only one street maybe that's why it has been designated Mainstreet Alaska.

We camped at the Tok River Campground - Tok is pronounced to sound like Coke. This is the first public campground that we have found open since central Washington. There is still some snow around the grounds and over parts of the river but the roadways are all clear.

As luck would have it there was an RV parts and repair place almost immediately across the road from the RV park we stayed in last night. So just after 9:00am this morning we were in that establishment seeking parts.

This morning before leaving Dawson City we drove up to a local lookout called Dome Hill which afforded a wonderful 360° panorama of the area and of the town sitting at the junction of the Klondike and Yukon rivers. From this vantage point the effect of mining for gold is evident, with numerous long winding mounds of river gravel and rock that are apparently the spoils of major dredging in the Klondike River.

This morning it was still snowing, and now the road north was closed for sure as the big yellow boom gate was across the road and locked. Some had clearly not been as lucky as us as there were at least two trucks and one SUV parked just the wrong side of the gate.

We stayed in the Capital motel in Inuvik again last night; and it is amazing just how much stuff we managed to take out of the motor home and into our room in just one night. It felt like repacking was a major project.

Overnight it snowed a few inches so this morning the world looks clean in the bright sunshine and blue sky. Unfortunately the water system froze up overnight and the pump is leaking again. So until we get to Fairbanks we will be using water from a 5 gallon plastic container.

We were somewhat excited and apprehensive this morning. We have heard and read so many stories about the Dempster highway and its challenges and magnificent scenery.

Today we had our longest driving leg of the trip so far, from Whiethorse to Dempster Junction. As indicated in yesterdays entry the reason for this is to start the Dempster Hwy while the ice bridges to Inuvik are open.

The campground manager told us this morning that it had been 18°F minimum overnight, and again the ground was frozen this morning. But the day dawned clear, blue sky and bright sunshine.

Again the ground that was muddy last night is as hard as a rock. As we soon discovered this also meant the gravel road back to Dease Lake was frozen hard making for good driving.

Back on the treadmill this morning. The forests of small and sparse spruce trees is even more evident this morning and there is definitely less snow on the ground emphasizing the colder winters and lower precipitation of this area.

Driving back up highway 37A today from Stewart to Meziadin Junction the same caterpillar loader was still clearing snow debris from the roadway. It must be a big and costly job keeping that road open during winter.

At Meziadin Junction we confirmed that the gas station was closed and discovered that everything was covered in several feet of snow. It was a good thing that we had not planned on staying there last night, as we had at one point discussed, as there was no where to park.

From our overnight spot beside the highway we drove back up the Naas valley in low cloud and mist to the junction with the Nisga'a highway and into the town of new Aiynash. There was not a lot to see on the way because of the weather but the sea birds could be heard squawking away.

After a late start we drove back to the town of Terrace and again headed for the Safeways cafe and their free wifi service. Terrace is now very familiar and I was beginning to feel like I was having a 3 week vacation in this town. However Terrace just happens to be at the junction of some interesting side trips and we keep coming back to Safeways because we like/need to have internet access.

Some how I lost this entry. I cannot recreate the text, but I can put the images back.

The clear sky of last night pushed temperatures down to 16-17°F, but by the morning the sky was overcast signaling a, slightly, warmer day.

Today we traveled west on highway 16 towards Prince Rupert. The day was clear and sunny, although cold with temps around 28°F, until late in the afternoon. Last night was cold as the muddy roads in the camp ground were as hard as concrete this morning.

Last night seemed like a warm night so we were surprised to see about 4 inches of fresh snow in the morning.

I was cold during the night and had to crank up the propane furnace. When I got out of the vehicle in the morning I understood why. The thermometer showed 25°F and the ground which was muddy the previous evening was frozen solid. The puddles of water had ice 3/8 inch thick on top. So I estimated the temperature was something like 20°F during the night.

From our camp we continued north west along highway 99 following Cayoosh Creek. The river valley was really spectacular, winding river, steep sides, and rocky crags atop the mountains all covered in fresh snow. As a consequence the road was twisty and steep in places, even in this weather there was road work in progress and signs along the way identified a number of projects to start once the weather improved. We were surprised that neither of us had much memory of this part of the road.

We continued along Hwy 99 this morning into Whistler. The highway is much improved from a few years ago with a lot more 4 lane sections but there was still a tremendous amount of construction and road work going on. I sure hope they get it all done before the Olympics in 2010.

We had morning coffee with Brenda and a bit more catching up and then we had to leave to make our next visit.

We could not resist a walk around the town of Leavensworth, the cute always seems to win out over the kitsch. We were a bit early at 9:30 so most of the shops and businesses were closed; probably a good thing as we didn't need to find any more Washington souvenirs.

The Wal Mart parking lot proved to be a most adequate place to sleep. You would not call it a great camping spot. Certainly not the kind of place you would want to sit in a camp chair, next to the motor home and drink a beer, but flat, safe and relatively quiet. Also in the morning a short stroll to the store provided very clean and warm rest rooms.

There is not much to say about this day. We got the vehicle to Car Toys at the scheduled time and they had fixed the issue within half an hour.

We woke to a light covering of fresh snow, maybe an inch, the last traces of the fire sending up little wisps of smoke, and blue sky above the low cloud or mist that was swirling around. Back on the road everything was covered in fresh snow, and the morning light was making it all glisten. It was a very pleasant drive into Libby

The saga of the leaking water system continued this morning.

Well the pump repair did not work. This morning when we investigated the area under the seat, it was wet, and it seemed to be newly wet. A bit more investigation and it was clear, the pump was still leaking. A new one was in order.

From our camp at Bannack State Park we returned to highway 278 and through Big Hole Pass and into the Big Hole River valley. Winter had not yet departed from the valley. There was a carpet of snow across all the fields and the whole valley was white, except where it was dotted with cows and hay.

Our day started with a stroll down the streets of Virginia City, an old gold town that is being maintained as both a historic site and a living town. Some interesting old buildings displayed a way of life that is now gone. Not far from Virginia City is the town of Nevada City an even smaller town again with a good collection of late 1800 buildings and a lot of railway relics and a workshop in which some locals maintain a train that runs from Virginia City to Nevada City. Both these towns were major centers of gold production in the late 1800's and at one point Virginia City was the capital of the Montana Territory.

A very short drive today. We spent most of the day saying our good byes to Rick and Lizzie and finishing some last minute business chores.

We woke to the noise of semi-trailers, they were also parked in the rest area with us, and about 4 inches of fresh snow. The storm that dropped snow on us yesterday along the Clearwater was still in force last night.

We took our time getting under way this morning as we decided to enjoy the amenities of the Hells Gate campground, a nice warm (?) shower, paved walking track and beautiful setting.

Despite the regular noisy goods trains that punctuated the night, we slept well last night. For Nina that meant no iPods or radios were needed to induce sleep. Hope for her sake that is a portentous sign.

We are (finally) on our way.

Finally we are in the last week before departing and Nina is telling me it's time to get all that test data off the web site, so that we don't confuse friends and family.