It was time for a small interlude as we made our way to Ottawa for Oliver’s sisters wedding. We actually crossed over to the border a few times on our trip, the first to visit New York and the second to join Oliver’s parents on a road trip from Toronto to Chicago. Here’s a few highlights from the trip:
17th June – 17th July 2014.
Canada
Toronto/ Niagara Falls
We flew into Toronto from Lima, Peru. Here we had a few days to explore one of the world’s most multicultural cities. The city is filled with quaint neighbourhoods and eateries from around the world. We enjoyed a day trip to Toronto Island with great views of the cityscape.
Located only 110 km from Toronto is the magnificant Niagara Falls. Whilst it may look smaller than Iguazu Falls it actually has a greater flow of water.
Algonquin Provincial Park
A quinessential Canada experience has to be a canoe boat trip to one of Canadas many large and beautiful parks. We had resident squirrels, toads and even a snake! We went fishing, ate by the camp fire, attempted to hide from the gigantic mosquitos – although I wasn´t particularly successful with that one. On our last day we sheltered from a summer storm when the weather turned foul, huddling under a tarpaulen for around an hour. It was great.
Montreal
Montreal is in the french speaking part of Canada and home to 1.6 million people. Quaint French styled building and street art went side by side. It was a whirlwind trip to Montreal but it was a great taster.
USA
New York
I´ve also wanted to visit New York having studied it in Year 12 Geography over a decade ago. I imagined a bustling city, full of sights, sounds and smells… I wasn´t disappointed. Here we were joined Oliver´s brother and his girlfriend, Briar, and did the cliched but great city activities including: renting an apartment in Manhattan, cycling Central Park, heading to the Rockfeller Centre for the city views, crossing the Brooklyn bridge, visiting the bright lights of Time´s Square, watching a broadway show (Les Miserables) and trying out the delicious food at many, many restuarants.
Chicago
After New York we took a bus ride bound for Toronto city with the famous/infamous company ´Grey Hound.´ Greeted by Oliver´s parents we took three days to drive to Chicago city, A.K.A ´the windy city´, visiting lakes, forests and qaint villages along the way.
The third biggest city in the USA, Chicago is well known for it´s blue´s scene… and for year 12 students a high per capita murder rate. However, Chicago is much more than that. We were impressed with the architecture tour that followed the Chicago river, interesting city art and, again, more delicious food. It is also the home to the most interesting and museum I’ve ever been to – the Science and Industry Museum. Featuring an interactive extreme weather display where you can make your own tsunamis, tornadoes (photo) and avalanches, an entire 77 m long German U-505 submarine that the US captured in WWII, and the actual Apollo 8 moon lander.
From Chicago we took a flight back to Lima, exactly a month after we originally left it. North America was a blast and it was lovely to catch up with Oliver´s family however we were looking forward to continuing our adventures in South America.
Ms Feary in the Americas 