02. March 2016

Air Tahiti flies only once a week to Rarotonga with a limited number of passengers due to the length of the flight and the weight of the aircraft - there are only 28 passengers on board. We land in Avarua, the capital town of the Cook Islands. Rarotonga is the main - and with a bit more than 10,500 inhabitants the most populous - island of the Cooks. The Cook Islands are in free association with New Zealand and therefore we switch language again. The British navigator Captain James Cook arrived...

05. November 2015

Ici, on parle français! We have to switch languages which is not that easy as we got very used to Spanish in the past two and a half months. We spend our first week in French Polynesia on Mo'orea, which means 'yellow lizard'. Mo'orea is only seven kilometres northwest of Tahiti and therefore only a short flight. Unfortunately, the weather isn't as sunny as we expected it to be. People on the island are talking about taking precautions because of a cyclone expected in a few weeks from now....

11. October 2015

'iorana Rapa Nui Easter Island - a place we wanted to visit so dearly and ... we won't be disappointed! What an island! The island though is quite small - only 163 sq km - but famous all over the world for its almost 900 statues, called Moai. In 1995, UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage Site, with much of the island protected. After a six hours flight from Santiago de Chile we land not only on the longest and widest runway of South America but also on an island, which claims to be the...

30. September 2015

Calama in the Atacama Desert is one of the driest cities in the world with average annual precipitation of just 5 mm. We are now on 2,260 metres. Calama is not a touristic place and the most interesting place to visit is Chuquicamata; it is the largest open pit copper mine in the world. The pit is 4.3 km long, 3 km wide and over 1 km deep (pic. 1). We book a tour which is perfectly organised by the operating mine company COLDECO. First, we visit the original minig settlement which is very close...

17. September 2015

We enter Bolivia on land. The border crossing is fast and without any delay. La Paz city sits in a bowl surrounded by the high mountains of the altiplano (pic. 1). As it grew, the city of La Paz climbed the hills, resulting in varying elevations from 3,200 to 4,100 m. Our hotel is very close to the bus station and we pay the taxi driver way too much for the short drive. As there aren't any 'must sees and dos' for us in the city, we flee to the countryside again. We visit Tiwanaku, which is the...

01. September 2015

A five hours flight along the Andes takes us from Panama City to Lima, the capital of Peru. Lima is a huge city and we stay in Miraflores which is quite nice and - even more important - safe. Two days later we start our tour by taking a bus to Paracas. Travelling by bus is the easiest and most common way to travel in Peru. We highly recommend the company 'Cruz del Sur' as the buses are more or less on time, clean and very comfortable. We also appreciate the saftey measures which are taken;...

20. August 2015

It is a one hour flight from San José to Panama City. As we are approaching the city, we are already able to get a glimpse of the Panama Canal. This Canal is the main reason for us visiting Panama as it is named to be one of the seven wonders of the modern world. Panama City is the largest city in Panama and is home to almost half of the 3.9 million people living in Panama. With the help of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, in return the US were allowed to build the...

28. July 2015

Costa Rica is our first destination on our round the world trip and it turns out to be a good decision. Although we know some bits of Spanish we are relieved that most Ticos speak Englisch a little. In San José we rent a 4x4 SUV and head to the Carribean Coast of Costa Rica. Tortuguero is a quite remote village and can only be reached either by boat or plane. We take a speedboat which turns out to be a fun ride along the mangroves. Tortuguero NP is famous for its wildlife; especially for the...