Though perhaps the most sobering realisation is that when one is away for so long and has been exposed to such wonders it takes something truly majestic and wonderful to really get you ooh-ing and ah-ing.
It was inevitable I suppose, but neither of us had thought about that for even one second.
The things we loathe so back in Blighty: food shopping, routine, having to do things through necessity and not choice, have manifested themselves, albeit in slightly different ways, out here.
For food shopping read: sitting in a restaurant ordering a meal that isn't quite what you want.
For routine read: "Up, pack, to the bus station, arrive new place, find a room, repeat ad nauseam".
Necessity comes of the trip nearing it's conclusion and we have a commitment to be on a flight from Santiago on 15 January.
We think ten months might be too long so we've decided our next trip will be for a maximum of six.
Having said all that, there are some places in this wonderful world that make any length of time incarcerated in a sweaty bus worthwhile, restore lead to the most flaccid of pencils and raise the spirits of the weariest traveller.
Iguazu Falls is just such a place.
We arrived at Puerto Iguazu on Tuesday just after lunch, having successfully negotiated the world's most confusing border crossing, that of Paraguay to Argentina via Brazil.
We trundled our cases in a westerly direction from the bus station, reaching the Casa Blanca hotel after barely five minutes of my handle continually coming off in my hand, wheels catching my feet and of even the tiniest obstruction causing my luggage to pirouette.
I have mixed feelings about my case. On the one hand I'm proud of its battered look, missing pockets courtesy of Easter Island airport, broken handle with strategically positioned sock by way of padding, wheels about to split in two and the very fact that a £32 case from a backstreet shop in Teignmouth is going to complete an arduous ten month trip.
On the other I want to hack it to shreds in a frenzied machete attack before setting fire to it, then buy a new, non-aggravating case like Kerry has.
Having hardly slept last night due to the bed bugs we didn't have the stomach for a long and hot search for a room so, despite the proprietor of the Casa Blanca unyielding over the price no matter how much I tried, we took it.
The deciding factor was the pool, a blissful escape from the oven-esque heat of the day.
We were out of cash so before we could go and eat that evening we had to find a cashpoint.
With Puerto Iguazu seeing hordes of tourists you would have thought that the town would be replete with banks but, as far as we could tell, there was only one.
It was on the other side of town and when we reached it we found a rather large queue ahead of us - frustrating but there's nothing you can do except suck it up.
Queuing at ATMs is very much the norm in Argentina. I haven't seen one yet that didn't have a dozen or more people waiting to use it.
As we were leaving Argentina again tomorrow we calculated how much money we'd need and went off for a quite delicious meal before turning in to prepare for tomorrow.
We fairly dragged our wearisome frames out that morning, down to the bus station and onto one of the many shuttles to Parque Nacional Iguazu.
Iguazu is not just a spectacular set of waterfalls, there's a zoo and nature trails and various other things to do here.
The bus fare was high and the entrance fee was double what we expected but we were soon inside and riding the little train to "Garganta del Diablo", The Devil's Throat, the main part of the falls.
A walkway of 1km in length leads you to the falls and as you approach you begin to hear a foreboding roar. Spray is rising up above the jungle and people you meet coming in the opposite direction are usually wet through and beaming excitedly.
Nothing can prepare you for what greets you as you reach your mecca though. The walkway deposits you in the middle of a 260 degree wall of water and you can do nothing but stare agog for a few seconds before involuntarily exclaiming something like "ho ho ho, look at THAT!!" and descending into excitable giggling.
You cannot see the bottom of the falls due to the amount of spray generated but I can tell you that the drop is 82m, higher than Niagara Falls by some 30m though 20m lower than Victoria Falls on the Zambezi.
What a sight they must be!
Figures shmigures. To stand before Iguazu and soak it all up, literally and figuratively, is such a joy that you cannot imagine there is anything more wondrous to behold on the entire planet.
The Devil's Throat, fabulous though it is, forms only a small part of your day here. There are hundreds of smaller falls, emerging from verdant jungle and thundering down onto rocks below.
When I say smaller I still mean awe-inspiring and world class in their own right.
They're amazing and it's difficult to describe in words just how beautiful a sight they are.
Just install a visit here to the top of your bucket list. You won't be disappointed.
We walked a long way around the park so were about pooped by the time we were done.
As we were deep in the jungle we were soggy with perspiration too, a less than ideal state to prepare to board a night bus.
With the day costing more than expected we didn't have enough money to pay for dinner so had to cobble a part peso/part dollar payment together, a situation that rendered us completely currency free as we waited for the 1745 to Concordia on the Uruguayan border.
All buses were late, something about flash floods somewhere, so we had to wait before boarding and feeling the bliss of an air-conditioned environment about us.
Kerry wasn't dealing too well with the situation and engineered a seething row with a bus company official over the confusion surrounding our departure.
A dodgy stomach compounded the poor lamb's misery and no doubt intensified the wrath her unfortunate adversary was feeling.
A temporary diversion in the form of Ecuadorean Andrea, arriving from Salta for her Iguazu experience, helped us all out; hugs, kisses and "see you in Uruguay"'s all round and before too much longer we were away.
We neither of us slept that well but at 0800, two hours late, we were in rainy Concordia.
Our late arrival meant we'd missed the bus to the border, thereby missed the connection to Montevideo. Uruguay is also one hour ahead of Argentina so we were now looking at arriving at our destination at 1800 - another full day on the road.
This border was a sensible and logical affair and we were soon passing through the countryside of our 17th country with much interest. Before coming I knew next to nothing about Uruguay save for its capital city and the fact that the first world cup in 1930 was held here.
I don't believe I'd ever even seen a picture of the place.
I can now tell you that it is seriously underpopulated, low-lying - the highest point is only 1600 feet high and the people are pretty much exclusively descended from white Europeans.
It has a nice feel to it but can it offer us the quiet beach resort that if we don't find soon we may very well become demented?
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