Elephant Ride

All aboard

We took an elephant ride into the Chitwan National Park one afternoon to search for one-horned rhinos. We didn't see any, but it was a fun ride anyway. As a bonus, I got to drive the elephant on the way home.

The trainer made the elephant go by kicking it gently behind the ears

Very tall grass

Deer

Tourists

I tried making the elephant go faster by nudging it behind the ear, like the trainer did. But that just made the elephant flap it's ears, which I think means they're annoyed. I still had the memory of being thrown from the back of an elephant when we washed one the previous day, so I didn't kick it too many times before just letting her go at her own pace.

Wood-Shaped Rocks in the Petrified Forest

It looks like wood, but this is solid stone

Montezuma Well

Adios Latin America!

A statistic: After fourteen and a half months, we left Latin America and entered El Paso, Texas. In the 444 nights since we landed in Santiago, Chile, we stayed in 148 different hotels and hostels. Some of those hotels we stayed in more than once, and we also spent 20 nights sleeping on buses. Add up other random nights on boats and camping and we come to a total of 211 different sleeping places. So, on average, we moved to a new bed every 2.1 nights.

La Ticla

Beachfront cacti

Another inspiring room, this time made completely out of concrete (even the bedheads)

Highway 200, the coast road

Atitlan at Sunrise

I'm not sure what came over me but one morning I got up with the sun...

A fisherman in one of the boats from the last post

Hacienda Merida

The danger of staying in a place that houses you, feeds you and has stunning views from the bank of hammocks is that you may never leave. It’s all very easy and holiday-like at Hacienda Merida, where the bell rings for organic buffet dinner every night at seven and there’s not much to do other than sit around and order the odd meal from the best kitchen we’ve eaten from in ages. In this environment, the littlest decision becomes a major dilemma. The question of leaving the hammock to grab a book, or go swimming in the lake takes up half an hour of sun-stunted thinking time, weighing up other options such as ‘maybe I will just stay here’ or ‘perhaps I may go swimming later’. It’s tough, really tough.

IncaTrail Flora

This moss grows metres deep along on the rocks beside the trail. To prove this, our guide, Puma, pushed a walking pole vertically into the moss until the stick completely disappeared.

This is a 'You Will Cry' orchid.

These little fluro orange flowers pop up allover the site.

Daytura