March | 2013 | The Clark Family's Amazing Adventures

Flat Stanley’s Andes Adventure

14 Mar 2013 4 Comments

by Zoe in Adventure, Family Gap Year, Kids Stuff Tags: Andes, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Flat Stanley, lake Titicaca, Machu Picchu, Peru, salt flats, South America, Titicaca, Uros islands, Uyuni

Flat Stanley has travelled with me in South America for eight months now…..

We said goodbye to Miss Jane, Mrs M and Miss Place at the end of year 2, last July, spent our summer hopping around in Brazil , journeyed the length of the Amazon to Columbia, Peru and the Napo River to Ecuador!

We took a bus way up into the Andes Mountains to Quito, the capital of Ecuador, where we learned Spanish and then flew out to the Galápagos Islands.

Quito and Waterfall near Otavalo, Ecuador

You might remember these photos in Quito and at a waterfall near Otavalo, Ecuador

Machu Picchu and Sacred Valley Adventure

07 Mar 2013 2 Comments

by Mo in Adventure, Family Gap Year, Top Experiences Tags: Aguas Calientes, Chinchero, Cusco, gap year with children, Las Salineras, Machu Picchu, Moras, Moray, Olantaytambo, Peru, Pisac, saqsayhuaman, saqsaywaman, Tipon

Machu Picchu was always a planned highlight of our round the world family gap year – although Martin suggested at one point we skip it and come back when the kids are bigger? No way! – OK so it’s crowded, but you have to go!

New Year’s 2012 Machu Picchu

Probably the first highlight that comes to most people’s minds when they think of visiting South America. It was certainly on my long term bucket list along with the Galapagos islands. But we didn’t have much planned in advance, we hadn’t even heard of the Sacred Valley More

From Cusco to Lake Titicaca and Bolivia

01 Mar 2013 2 Comments

by Mo in Family Gap Year, Travelling Tags: Amantani, Bolivia, Copacabana, floating islands, lake Titicaca, Peru, Puno, Taquile, Uros

January 11th. Six months to the day after we started out family gap year journey in South America, we say goodbye to Cusco and take a 10 hour tourist bus to travel the Route of the Sun, south to Puno and Lake Titicaca.

It’s a much better option than a direct bus, stopping at view points and tourist stops along the way:- Andahualillas, where we visit the so called Sistine Chapel of America (we’d have liked to visit the tiny museum with the mummified alien babies that we’d heard of from Lainie and Miro, our friends in Cusco, but we can’t see it and follow the guide to the church! Ah, the difficulties of being on a tour bus!). It has huge, dramatic frescos all over its insides (photos strictly forbidden!) and the kids enjoy studying them, then we’re off to the amazing Raqchi temple of Wiracocha which in spite of all the sites we’ve visited, still wows, although its hard to figure out how much, if any, is original!