If it isn't completely clear let me go through the itinerary:
- Started out in Manaus, Brazil, in the heart of the Amazon Jungle
- Flew down to Rio De Janeiro
- Flew to Iguassu Falls, Both Brazil and Argentina
- Flew to Buenos Aires
- Flew to Peru and did several cities and Machu Picchu
- Flew from here to Ecuador as a base for the Galapagos Islands.
- Flew Home.
The rest of this page will describe and show pictures of this entire trip. I truly wish that everyone has a chance to experience some of the most amazing sites and people that we met while on this tour. I still see a few of them every once and awhile while traveling around the world.
Without further delay I hope you enjoy the read here.
Manaus, Brazil and the Amazon Jungle
Our first stop was in the heart of the amazon, because this was one of the things that Audrey wanted to do from the get go.
Manaus, Brazil
Manaus is one of those cities that has the look and feel where you know that in the past it was super rich but is now dated and rundown. This is in fact very true as during the rubber boom, it had a serious amount of money pass through it. We saw evidence of this in our hotel and the city. Our hotel looked like it was something out of a James Bond movie, where it is an old super opulent place full of hardwood, and there is people dressed in fancy clothes gambling at what once was a casino. Sadly this time has long since left, and although it was clean, it also was super dated. Would have loved to see it in its prime.
The city itself had the same kind of feel. Thad the black and white swirls made by piecing together stones (representing the meeting of the waters..will discuss this later) all over. The following picture shows the opera house behind an example of this:
It is crazy to think that they are able to survive, but it was hot and humid the entire time we were there. As mentioned during the rubber boom Manaus was very rich. An example of this is shown in the picture below which is a rubber baron's house:The city itself had the same kind of feel. Thad the black and white swirls made by piecing together stones (representing the meeting of the waters..will discuss this later) all over. The following picture shows the opera house behind an example of this:
Really cool to see the pure craftsmanship of it all, even the dome of the opera house is made like this. People seemed to take great pride in their city, as we also saw beauty all over where people had planted orchids in the trunk of other trees:
It was absolutely stunning and definitely something that you could tell that they had a crazy amount of money when it was built. We had a lot of fun around here for the short amount of time we were actually in the city we went around to the above places, but also went to a market, and to another museum where we got to see the world record holding leaf:
Overall a really cool place. If you interested in seeing more of our pictures see the following Gallery:
http://www.abjm.ca/South-America-Revealed/Manaus-Brazil/
The Amazon and the Amazon EcoPark Jungle Lodge, Brazil
From Manaus, we proceeded to our actual destination, which was the Amazon EcoPark Jungle Lodge. We had to take a Boat, to get there, though. This allowed them to show us the meeting of the waters, This is a really stunning landmark in Manaus due to the dramatic difference in colour of the waters. This point is where the Rio Negro and the Rio Solimões meet forming the actual Amazon River.
The effect looked like you were pouring coffee creamer into coffee. The reason this happens is that is due to the differences in temperature, speed and water density of the two rivers. The Rio Negro flows at near 2 km per hour at a temperature of 28°C, while the Rio Solimões flows between 4 to 6 km per hour at a temperature of 22°C.
After seeing this we continued on and stopped at an area where we could see the local culture, have a local meal and meet some people before arriving to the lodge. This stop showed us how low the water really was in the dry season, and how amazing the food was. Starting off when we got here, we had to go across this bridge to get from the boat:
Once up the hill, we had to track quite a distance across to where we were eating.
I mentioned about the water level being low, well take a look at the water lines, in the following two pictures to get an idea of how low, and how high the water does get:
Normally they were saying that in the wet season it can raise as much as 15 meters! During these seasons people generally don't live here but find residence in Manaus. It was amazing to me to see the water lines as I was expecting them to say that it raises, but not THAT much. While we were here Audrey also made a new friend:
After lunch, we finally got on our way towards the Lodge. Got some really cool pictures, due to the low water:
Another view of the river in front of the lodge:
When we got there however it turned out to be exactly as depicted on their website. We got our hut key, and walked to our area:
Definitely it was rustic to say the least, but the only way to get supplies etc to this place was by boat, there are no roads etc to it. More on this later.
During our time here we had many excursions into the Amazon. This happened both day and night and the sounds that we heard were really cool. This video is what it sounded like at night when walking:
If I remember properly they were little frogs. The following are a few pictures follow to show how lush and green it was and of some of the tours we did:
- A Monkey Tour to a rehabilitation area, where they feed them 20% of their daily required food at two times during the day
- Did a skywalk to the Canopy of the forest.
- Jungle walks where we saw the Jungle and some of the wonders here
- Piranha Fishing where (Audrey met her third friend during this excursion - he Jumped into our boat...)
Each of these areas was a really cool and it struck me the entire time that we were there why it was called a RAINforest. Every day it rained at 11AM and 3PM. Not a misty rain, no, a full torrential downpour and lasted for at most half an hour before it was beautiful and sunny out.
Audrey also made her second friend (I know i mentioned the third before the second...but oh well), who we affectionately know as Mr. Parrot, and have a canvas of him at our house:
I mentioned above, this place, was only accessible by boat. We didn't see this until the last day, but all of our luggage, the food, everything was all carried by these men in wheelbarrows....across the beach etc. to where we got on and off the boat.
Was crazy. Here is a picture of our luggage on the boat!
And with that we were off from Manaus and the Amazon Jungle to a much different kind of exploration.
For all of our pictures, see the gallery:
http://www.abjm.ca/South-America-Revealed/Amazon-Jungle/
Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
Our next stop was one of the most iconic cities in the world, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Famous for things such as Copacabana Beach, Ipanema, Christ the Redeemer, and Sugar Loaf Mountain, we were greeted by this friendly and awesome culture. Funny enough we were there over the weekend of 'Pride' which made it an even larger party atmosphere.
We actually started off as one might anticipate in going to our hotel. Now, if we would have realized (apparently we didn't investigate each hotel ahead of time, as we knew where we were actually staying) that the hotel itself was right on Copacabana beach, and actually was one of the largest. Saying no more than this, this was the view from our hotel balcony:
You may have to enlarge it, but it is visible almost anywhere. That being said, we ended up being eternally grateful that we were on a tour. I don't actually have a picture of it, but the line up to get to the monument was actually reallly crazy. Our tour guide, had done this so much though that she got our entire group up by having one of her minions go down to get our tickets early in the morning when the box office first opened. So we actually got up on one of the first trains up, and bypassed several hours of waiting...not to mention frustration with the sheer number of people that were at the base of the statue. It is interesting because when we got there we actually saw that the next time that was being sold was i believe 1PM, and we were going up at 8AM.
Here are some pictures:
Although I am not a religious person it definitely is worth going to see, but as you can see it was crazy busy. It didn't help that there was this religious youth group of some kind that was taking up a crazy amount of space and knocking people over doing a dance. Go early, get your pictures and then get out of there, that is my advice. :)
Another really fun thing to do is go to Sugar Loaf Mountain. From my understanding this is where the 'Jaws' from James Bond film Moonraker bit the cable Car Cable. Unfortunately here there was no pre-purchased group tickets, however it didn't take too long to get up. While we were waiting in line, the two mountains can be seen from the line:
Cable car ride up to the two mountains was definitely uneventful, thank goodness, and it showed some awesome views of the city:
When you get up there, one of the first things you see is the actual cable car that was used in the movie:
Also it is a lush green area. Audrey actually made a forth friend:
We did quite a bit of other stuff including a moderate temperature rain forest as well. Definitely a fun time....before we left however we had to go to Dancing and to a Rodizio...
This show was pretty crazy as they brought out the huge costumes:
Overall we really enjoyed our time in Rio and would most definitely go back. Brazil is famous for Gemstones so there is lots of opportunity to buy all sorts of things there, we got a few different gems, and other things that are now in our house now.
For way more pictures and other things see the gallery:
http://www.abjm.ca/South-America-Revealed/Rio-de-Jainero-Brazil/
Iguassu Falls, Brazil and Argentina
Our next stop was a short plane ride away, to Iguassu Falls, one of the largest ares of waterfalls that I have ever been to. There are a lot of waterfalls for sure, but the combined lot of them still dwarf in the amount of water that Niagara Falls puts over it every second. That being said, it was definitely still a stunning sight.
Much like the US and Canada, Brazil and Argentina both are on the border of Iguassu, and so therefore for the "far away" views, Brazil is where you want to go, and for the "Close up" views, you go to the Argentina side. We went of course to both over the course of a couple of days.
From the Brazil side, there is tons of different viewpoints and spots to get pictures along the paths leading up to the devil's throat where most water falls:
From the Argentinian side, we also got the chance to go right up to the falls edge:
All I will say is that it was moist. Lots of mist from the water going over the falls. You can actualyl see the water dripping from my glasses.
To give some perspective to the shear size of this place, we actually took a helicopter tour over the falls as well:
This was an additional charge, but I must admit was highly worth the money. The final thing we did here (other than relax at our resort spa...) was go to a Bird Sanctuary. There is a CRAZY number of pictures, but here are a few of our favorites:
Audrey also made yet another couple of friends:
(She actually looks nervous because, it was kind of a scary bird...not gonna lie)
Overall if you are thinking of doing some travel in South America, definitely Iguassu should be on your list, but not for a crazy amount of time. It is a waterfall after all.
Here are the Gallery's of the pictures from these two areas:
Brazil:
http://www.abjm.ca/South-America-Revealed/Iguassu-Falls-Brazilhttp://www.abjm.ca/South-America-Revealed/Iguassu-Falls-Argentina
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Buenos Aires was our final stop in Argentina. I am not going to lie, it wasn't a highly ranked place on our list of stuff to see. It was after all a big city, and didn't have a lot of appeal to us as other places have. I will start off by saying that the food was amazing. there are some food pics in the gallery, but I am not going to post them here. The namesake was actually awesome as it did smell good there, almost sweet. It was also pretty beautiful as the trees were just blooming in purple:
The highlights to me were:
- One of the famous areas, La Boca, with all their colorful houses. I wouldn't be surprised if you have seen this in pictures before randomly in stores:
- The Mausoleum, which was super creepy but also has one of my favorite pictures that we took (the cat in the abandoned walk way):
(This is the mausoleum, of Eva Perone)
- The Gaucho Ranch with their amazing food and games:
Although we enjoyed ourselves here, it wouldn't have been a place that we would have specifically went.
Here is the gallery for Buenos Aires:
http://www.abjm.ca/South-America-Revealed/Buenos-Aires-Argentina/
Lima, Cuzco, Sacred Valley & Machu Picchu, Peru
The next country we flew to on our trip was Peru. There is so crazy much history here as well ruins and all sorts of other culture, it is super easy to get lost in the sprawl. I think that on my camera alone I have over 700 pictures from our time here. We first flew to Lima, and spent a night there, but didn't actually do a lot while there because we actually were transferring up to Cuzco later on, which is probably a good thing. The altitude was definitely a challenge and took some time to get used to. On our way down towards Machu Picchu, we stopped at a Llama farm, and Audrey made several other friends:
This took us down from 11 thousand feet to around 6 thousand, if I am recalling correctly. We also stayed a night at a hotel in the Sacred Valley, that used to be an old monastery:
From the monastery, we proceeded to the train that would take us to Machu Picchu City. Audrey laughs at me as through out all the old architectures, we saw running water built into the stone, and it amazes me to this day that they had the engineering capability to actually do it.
There is all sorts of ruins etc. along the way, however lets just go directly to Machu Picchu, as it is stunning. Our first view of it was at the entrance:
The Trafalgar tour for this that we were on actually allowed us two days of time that we could go to see the ruins. Now from Machu Picchu city, it is at the base of the ruins. It is about a 25 minute bus ride up to the actual ruins site, and it is on this road that is winding and about a bus and a half wide...so we often had to come to a fast stop as other busses went by very quickly.
The first day was in the mid afternoon and the clouds held off and it was an amazingly stunning day. I have so many pictures that are here but I will only post a few. See the gallery for a ton of different shots:
(See...Running water to this day!!!)
To dirt path and stone stairs really quickly:
During our time, we could see hardly anything at times:
And other times we could see the entire ruins in the clouds. Really really cool views from here, but it is definitely for someone who likes to hike and has the ability to do it:
This was our group of awesome folks, who took the journey with us:
This path is actually part of the Inca Trail, which is about a 4 day hike from where the train departs all the way up here. It apparently is amazing to do, but is grueling. Not wanting to go further down the trail, from here we backtracked back to Machu Picchu. The next thing we did prior to more ruins to look at was to go down to the Inca Bridge. Now, it isn't exactly what I would call a bridge, but more of a security system. To get to it, you have to go down more narrow paths, and to be honest, if the Fog wasn't there it would have been terrifying at one point, where there actually is a rope on the wall to hold on to:
Audrey of course not looking too confident at the huge drop....not that I can blame her:
Other trail pictures getting there:
The following is the bridge itself:
What it actually is meant for was to stop invaders. It is a path that goes to other mountains and the trade networks on the other side. If there ever was a time when they wanted to seal off access to the city they hit the boards off and no one from that side can get in, and it is easily defensible. Pretty cool I must say, although I admit I am not a historian, so I don't know if everything that we read and were told was true.
The final thing I will talk about in this portion is the last set of ruins that we went to, which was at a place called Saqsaywaman. This ruin actually has some of the biggest stones that I have ever seen. The larges one is over 150 Tonnes if I am remembering correctly:
Again the engineering is quite impressive a sit is all interlocking and was apparently cut off site and brought here. More pictures:
Overall I HIGHLY recommend Peru if you are interested in seeing ruins etc. It is one of the coolest places that I have been (baring the last section of course). There is so much history and so much to see.
The following is the gallery with all the pics:
http://www.abjm.ca/South-America-Revealed/Peru/
Quito, Ecuador
Our final country was Ecuador because we were going to the Galapagos Islands. We had a day or so to explore the city prior to departure. Quito is actually at Latitude 0-0-0 so literally is the center of the world. It is funny as you are actually 2 lbs lighter here apparently due to the gravity. Definitely worth going to check out the Center of the world:
The streets at some points remind me of San Francisco, if they were not cobblestone...very steep:
Lots of different things to see as well:
One of the more interesting was that you can balance an egg on a nail right on the equator:
Video of this as well:
Few other pictures are in the Gallery:
http://www.abjm.ca/South-America-Revealed/Quito-Ecuador/
We were at this point off to the Galapagos, the final leg of our trip.
Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
Our final stop was a week long expedition style cruse to the Galapagos Islands. To be frank, we paid almost as much for this week as we did for the rest of the trip, however it is by far both of our favorite place that we have ever been to.That is saying something for me, as I have been to a great number of places in my travels. The first thing that was very striking to me was the fact that even before we landed at the airport they were very concerned about protecting the ecosystem, and they opened all of the overhead bins and sprayed insect repellent to help prevent pests from spreading. The good thing about it was that it truly was all inclusive and as such we had 3 meals a day, and two expeditions on one of the islands that we were near that day. Our route as as follows:
Our host was the MV Santa Cruz, as there is no hotels actually on the islands. She had about 90 rooms for guests and the crew was on top of that. You get there by pontoon boat from the harbor by the airport. Here is our friends Willie and Selina with Audrey:
She definitely was a decent sized ship:
We lost no time, and the voyage started immediately:
The route that we were taking is as follows:
The first part of the journey was short as you can see and we got to do an expedition not hours after we got settled on the boat, and had our safety and other instructional videos. The expeditions are very much explorer style, and therefore there was no docks etc, you jumped off the pontoon boat and walked onto the island:
As you notice it is stunningly beautiful:
The first thing you notice as well as how full of Life it is there were lots of little crabs all over the place:
Here is another video, this time of crabs scuttling:
From here we proceeded further inland on the island and started to see the multitude of wildlife. Starting off with a mysterious track:
This actually turned out to be a track of a sea turtle going to lay her eggs. We also saw another turtle basking on the beach for some stunning photos:
There was also a crazy amount of iguanas, which you will see more later and in the other pictures:
The sun then started to go down and we headed back to the ship for dinner. Not before the opportunity though to get some amazing pictures:
What a first day. Throughout the week we went to many islands as well as saw many different species of birds. One thing that struck me immediately was the fact that every morning we had a different colour of beach depending on the iron content. The above was the white sand beach, but there was many other colours:
Finches and Mocking Birds were in abundance:
We did many snorkeling adventures:
We even got to see the Penguins:
This brings us to the Birds. They were abundant as can be seen from other pictures, but we saw several as this hawk, that were just hanging around:
Which brings us to one of the last mornings when we went to the Bird island. You could tell that we were getting close as when we went to the upper deck in the morning we saw the following:
They were everywhere and followed the boat. Once we actually were at the island we got to see them like i have never seen birds before. Most importantly they were not scared, they were just going about their life. From the booby (Nazca first and then red footed after):
To the Frigatebirds, they were all there just sorta chilling. My favorite is when one mistook the blonde in Audrey's hair for nesting material. Got some awesome pics:
One final thing which was kinda interesting was the poop circles:
The Nazca booby apparently only ever keeps one of their offspring if more than one egg hatches. Thus there is a battle between siblings and whichever one gets kicked out of this circle is left for dead. Sad for sure but a really interesting thing.
Finally the cruse was coming to and end and we departed the boat and took a tour to see the Giant Tortoises. These guys were absolutely amazing and I can't say how cool it was to see them:
I also have a video of the above tortoise going to get food. Huge things they are:
Definitely was the top off of the trip and something that is really impressive to see. From here we boarded our plane back to the main land and onward home.
Here is the gallery with all the pictures, there are a lot of them:
http://www.abjm.ca/South-America-Revealed/Galapagos-Islands-Ecuador/
Conclusion
Overall this tour more than exceeded our expectations. The Galapagos and Machu Picchu were definitely our favorite places to go and we definitely could go and see them again. If you are looking for a South American adventure, hopefully this gives you some ideas of the types of things that you can see and experience.This is most definitely one of my favorite experiences of my travelling. I can't wait until our next trek to Africa, which is coming up soon as of the time that I write this article. Look to see a full write-up of it!
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