Seven countries. 16,500 kilometres of overland busses. Countless ancient ruins, incredible landscapes and strange, unique wildlife. A few seriously big nights out, a fair bit of food poisoning and a heap of cheap hostels. The last six months in South America have been one truly epic adventure – the highlights of which we’d love to share in the form of our favourite photos from the trip.

Sunrise on the Bolivian salt flats – 26 May 14’
Our four-day 4WD trip around South-West Bolivia culminated in a drive across the world’s biggest salt flats at sunrise. As the burnt orange light lit up the miles of white, cracked salt that surrounded us, we felt like we were on another planet.

Gondola ride, Sugar Loaf Mountains in Rio de Janeiro – 9 April 14’
Rio’s Sugar Loaf Mountains stand sentinel over the city on a peninsula, guarding the semi-glitzy beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema. We caught the gondola to the top at sunset for epic views out across the coast, mountains and beyond.

Pablo Escobar’s Estate, Medellin, Colombia – 25 September 14’
Colombian’s most famous drug lord, Pablo Escobar is responsible for being the first person to traffic cocaine into the States. He made his millions through the late 70’s and 80’s, finally being caught and killed by the FBI in 1993. On a day tour around the outskirts of Medellin, we took a boat cruise on the lake where Escobar had one of his many holiday estates. Burnt out and abandoned, it was fun to imagine the great parties of the 80’s that would have taken place here. Movie stars, dignitaries, famous muso’s – many would have visited this place for some pretty crazy nights!

Santa Cruz Islands, Galapagos – 7 August 14′
On our first day in the Galapagos Islands, we went for a stroll to the Charles Darwin research centre. There, they breed tortoises in order to increase the population on the islands. In one of the enclosures there were two of these critters getting frisky with each other – quite a funny sight, and rather awkward-looking to boot. But the funniest thing was that the old fella was a little bit confused. Her head was actually at the end he was hammering away at for a good twenty mins.

Multi-day hike, Huaraz, Peru – 25 July 14′
After weeks of not much exercise whatsoever, our first day on the Santa Cruz trek in the Andes mountains of Peru was a pleasant experience. Our hiking adventure here was ‘Joel & Alli style’ – aka no guides or tours – and we had organised everything, including our food, independently. We hiked in to the mountains with packs full of food and supplies, shunning the ‘designated campsites’ for our own private, picture-perfect camping spots, this one in a hanging valley. In this shot I’m a combination of happy and exhausted, we’re about to prep dinner over the campfire.

Poison Arrow Frog, Sani Lodge, Ecuadorian Amazon – 30 August 14′
Deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon we splashed out and stayed in a beautiful lodge. Our wooden cabin was home to a tonne of creepy crawlies, as you would expect, including cockroaches, spiders, scorpions and termites. Joel nearly stepped on this cute little poison arrow frog – literally the size of the end of my thumb – inside our room when leaving for dinner for the night. We couldn’t touch him, but we got a great close-up photo instead.

Top of Dead Woman’s Pass, Inca Trail, Peru – 24 June 14′
One of the most special parts of the trip was when Mum came and met us in Southern Peru to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. This photo is a pretty special one – we had just climbed nearly 1,000 metres to arrive at Dead Woman’s Pass, on what was the toughest day of the trail. I was so proud of my mum – she even bet half of the youngsters in our group! This was a pretty special day as it would have been my Uncle Phil’s 60th (he’s passed away), so we made a little pile of stones on the highest part of the pass and left his photo underneath them. Mum said it was the closest she would ever be to him in heaven.

Miraflores Locks, Panama Canal – 30 September 14′
The Panama Canal blew our mind. When this photo was taken we were watching huge ships pass from the Pacific Ocean through one of the canal’s two lock systems, where each ship is lifted a total of 26 metres in two successive locks. The ship then sails through Gatun Lake, a man-made body of water bridging the Atlantic and the Pacific, before making it’s way through another lock system to reach the other side. Completed in 1914, the Panama Canal still stands as one of the world’s greatest feats of engineering – and it was fascinating to watch in full operation.

Mountain biking the Death Road, Bolivia – 30 May 14′
Just out of Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, lies the North Yungas road – christened as the ‘Death Road’ in the early 90’s because because 200 – 300 travellers would die every year trying to traverse it’s 69 kilometre length. A huge drop in altitude, hair pin bends, huge cliff drop-offs and waterfalls made this road one of the most exciting mountain bike rides of our lives. It took us four hours to get to the bottom – we started out high in the Andes amongst snow and ice, and ended the journey in a muggy, hot jungle.

Condor spotting, Colca Canyon, Peru – 3 July 14′
Deep in Southern Peru lies the Colca Canyon – at 4,160m it’s one of the world’s deepest (that’s double the Grand Canyon!) It’s also one of the best places in South America to view Andean Condors, a huge, endangered vulture-like bird with a wingspan of up to 3.2m. We watched for ages as maybe twenty five birds swooped and soared in and out of the canyon.

Candlestick Mountains, Bolivia – 23 May 14′
At the beginning of our four day 4WD trip around South-West Bolivia, we drove through the Candlestick Mountains. A riot of red, orange and burnt yellows, these mountains were dry and arid, full of canyons and like nothing we had ever seen before.

Ipanema Beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 7 April 14′
We had to do a bikini shot on Ipanema Beach on the first day of our trip – we just couldn’t resist. This famous beach is pretty beautiful (as are the locals) with it’s backdrop of the Sugarloaf Mountains and it’s endless golden sand. What we found most interesting at Ipanema was Rio’s beach zoning system – ‘zones’ were marked along the beach, so each demographic of people knew where to sunbathe. Families were zone 13, while zone 11 was very obviously for gay men. Zone 9 was a favourite – that was where all the 20-something’s came together to laze around in the sun and smoke the green stuff, dental floss-like g string bikinis and all.

La Cumbrecita, Argentina – 27 April 14′
We had never planned to visit La Cumbrecita – heck, before we arrived in Argentina we had never even heard of it before. We arrived in this tiny mountain town after receiving a glowing recommendation from our spanish teacher in Buenos Aires. And what a place it was. Settled by German nazi’s fleeing the aftermath of World War Two, La Cumbrecita was a curious mix of German and Argentinian goodness – think incredible sausages, log cabins, copious amounts of Malbec and good cheese, and lovely, chatty locals. We spent two weeks here, and even now we reminisce at how much we loved the place!

Hummingbirds of Mindo, Ecuador – 11 September 14′
Every morning at our hostel in Mindo, a tiny town in the foothills of the mountains in Ecuador, we would have breakfast surrounded by tens of tiny hummingbirds drinking sugar water out of feeders. Their wings move so quickly it’s just a blur to the naked eye, but Joel managed to capture them with our new camera.

Sand buggying in Huacacina, Peru – 7 July 14′
Who would know that Peru is home to a huge desert of Middle-eastern like sand dunes? We sure didn’t, until mum, Joel and I arrived in Huacacina, south of Lima. We felt like we had stepped into Saudi Arabia. Our sand buggy driver wasn’t afraid to feed it the fat, and we spent an evening screaming up and over the dunes, sand boarding in between. Mum even loved it – she’s in the back of the buggy.

Machu Picchu, Peru – 26 June 14′
The best place to view these famous ruins is from high above, away from the crowds. This photo was taken after we had just finished walking the Inca Trail, descending down from the sun gate into Machu Picchu itself. The ruins get overcrowded and stiflingly hot rather quickly – so we spent a good few hours appreciating their grandeur from above. We were so lucky with our sunny day!

Tortuga Bay, Galapagos Islands – 10 August 14′
One of the most beautiful beaches we visited was Tortuga Bay on Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos. Warm, turquoise water, sunny skies, a stretch of golden sand and even some little critters – marine iguanas – to keep us company. This special Galapagoan species is the only iguana that has actually adapted to be able to swim. Seeing these characters paddle past as we played in the waves was pretty stunning!

Multi-day hike, Huaraz, Peru – 27 July 14′
Scenes like this surrounded us on our four-day hike in the Andes of Peru. The colours in this photo speak for themselves!

Snorkelling with sharks, Galapagos Islands – 16 August 14′
There are some special locations on Isla Isobela where marine life congregates, whether it be iguanas, sea birds, sea lions or turtles. Here, sharks rest in rocky tunnel systems in the shallow water. This volcanic labyrinth was a memorable stop on our island snorkelling trip and Joel dived down to get this fairly confrontational photo!

Isla de Pescada, Salt Flats, South-west Bolivia – 26 May 14′
In the middle of the largest salt flats in the world lies Isla de Pescada, a 200 million year old rocky island that rises from an endless ocean of salt. Once upon a time, these salt flats formed the waters of an ancient sea. The island itself is not really rock at all – it is the skeletons of a prehistoric coral reef that once thrived in an old-world marine environment, and spectacular cactuses now dot its surface – some nearly 1200 years old! The climate here is extreme; well below freezing at night and dangerously hot during the middle of the day. This photo was taken early morning, so the llama wool was a necessity.

Huayana Potosi climb, Bolivia – 3 June 14′
We attempted a 6,100m peak in the Bolivian Andes on our trip – I had to convince Joel, but he eventually relented and agreed to the climb. Before our summit attempt, we did a little ice climbing practice (Joel was A LOT better than me – all that upper body strength!) It was my fault that we didn’t actually summit – with only a few hundred metres to go, we were scaling ice walls with huge drops and crevasses, and I freaked out. Joel would have probably been happy to go all the way but my nerves were totalled.

Llamas, South-west Bolivia – 25 May 14′
In the high-altitude Bolivian wilderness, the only things that grow and survive is quinoa, llamas, becunia (like a deer), flamingoes and ostriches. People do live in this barren and isolated part of the world, and they own llamas to slaughter for their meat and their wool. They would put colourful tags in their ears to show what family each llama belonged to. The llamas are cute little critters, but Joel and I did eat quite a lot of llama meat during our time in Bolivia (quite yummy).

Nazca Lines, Southern Peru – 5 July 14′
In the deserts around Nazca lies a series of huge ancient geoglyphs that can only be seen from the air. Using clever surveying, the Nazca people created more than 300 designs of animals, insects and shapes between 450 and 600 AD – and these creations are still easily viewed from the sky today. Mum, Joel and I took a 45 minute scenic flight (my first) to see designs of a whale, an alien, a hummingbird and more. Seeing the Nazca Lines with my own eyes was magic – some believe that the lines were created to be seen by gods or beings in the sky, or for complicated religious and astronomical reasons.

Amazonian lagoon, Ecuadorian Amazon – 28 August 14′
The lodge in our first Amazon experience was built right on the edge of a lagoon. Later in the day just before sunset, the water would turn a beautiful, calm, chrome-like colour. Macaws and toucans would fly overheard and the skies would turn orange and yellow for sunset. A few hours after this photo was taken, we were paddling around the lagoon in a dug out lagoon spotting Cayman with torches. Awesome.

Sculls of dead pilots, South-west Bolivia – 24 May 14′
On our 4WD trip here we stayed in a tiny town in the middle of a high altitude desert, near the border of Chile. On a morning walk we stumbled across the wreckage of a plane and the sculls of the pilots who had died in the crash. It seemed crazy to us that their remains had not been removed and taken back to their families, but this was just the way things were in such an isolated, poor place. The locals saw us taking photos, and came out showing off other pieces of wreckage from plane crashes that had happened. Spooky, fascinating place.

Cusco, Peru – 10 June 14′
Cusco was our favourite city in all of South America. We fell in love with its old Incan masonry, narrow streets, delicious food and colourful locals. Everyday, locals would flock in to the centre of the touristy historic area in an attempt to make money off the tourists. We couldn’t resist giving the lady a dollar for a photo of her colourful clothing and her cute llama.

Camp II, Huayna Potosi, Bolivia – 3 June 14′
The night before our summit attempt of Huayna Potosi we stayed higher up the mountain in camp two. Crowded with climbers, guides and cooks, we preferred to spend the afternoon sitting just outside the cabins, looking out over the otherworldly view.

Multi-day hike, Huaraz, Peru – 27 July 14′
Can you tell this hike was one of the highlights of our trip? Here’s Joel with his much-loved (and travelled) One Planet Pack in front of a high altitude lake. We had just climbed over a mountain pass and it was freezing, but utterly beautiful.

Inca Trail, Peru – 24 June 14′
It was the afternoon of Day 2 on the Inca Trail and we had just hiked over two mountain passes when Joel and I stumbled across this beautiful piece of trail. The stonework here is original Incan masonry – all 42 kilometres of trail was paved like this, to make it possible for the Incan nobles to travel on foot from Cusco to Machu Picchu on pilgrimages.

La Cumbrecita hiking, Argentina – 2 May 14′
In La Cumbrecita, we packed our bags with as much german sausages and cheese as we could find and we headed for the Andean foothills that surrounded the town for a 5-day hiking mission. We didn’t really have any idea where we were going – with a compass and a vague map, we thought we’d be ok. On our first day we met a bunch of Argentinian locals doing a long weekend in the mountains, and made fast friends. We hung out with Mauricio, his dog Flloyd and his mates for four days, cooking huge cuts of meat on the assado, drinking copious amounts of Malbec and exploring hidden valleys during the day. One day, Mauricio showed us a 5-tier waterfall hidden in one of the canyons that nobody else knew about.

Adios, South America. We might be back some day.