This will probably be the final entry in this blog. I'm back in Geneva and as it's mid-February the weather's cold. I've enjoyed about a year of summer, with the exception of a few cool days in the Australian and New Zealand spring, so I'll have to get used to it again. It's good to sleep in my own bed again, not in a dormitory bunk bed with half a dozen others in the room with me. It's nice not to have to repack my backpack every couple of days, or wear dirty clothes, although I got used to the dirt. [View Full Entry]

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These were the major stops on my route, essentially the flights and overland routes I took. [View Full Entry]

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This was my route through South America. [View Full Entry]

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Rio....football, samba, beaches, crime, pollution, beauty, traffic jams, poverty, wealth: it's Buenos Aires on crack, New York in a bikini, Vancouver on speed, Istanbul on illi. All superlatives apply. I went to a football game in the world's largest stadium, able to hold 200 000 people, to watch Botafogo and Flamengo battle it out to a draw. I hung out on Copacabana and Ipanema beaches where bikinis and silicone rule, where buff guys swagger and pose. I went to pre-Carnaval beach parties where everyone wandered along the street drinking beer as girls and boys kissed passionately, th [View Full Entry]

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From Salta it was a 20-hour trip across the pampas to one of the chief destinations in South America, Iguazu Falls (pronounced Ee-GWAH-soo) consisting of 275 separate waterfalls stretching 2.7 kilometres along the Iguazu River on the border between Argentina and Brazil. The highest is 82 metres while the majority drop about 64 metres. The annual peak flow of water is calculated to be 6 500 cubic metres per second. By comparison, Niagara Falls' annual peak flow is less than half of this at 2 800 cubic metres per second. Only Victoria Falls in Africa is greater than Iguazu. You can [View Full Entry]

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Humahuaca (pronounced HOOM-ah-walk-ah) is a small, dusty town of cobblestone streets laid out in a grid and it reminds me a little of San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. There's a bit of Inca-style construction at the base of the town hall - shaped stones fitted neatly together without cement - that's imitated less perfectly in many of the other low buildings. Town hall is a tall, white building with a bell tower that's beautifully lit at night. Locals are mostly aboriginal or of mixed blood and as they're used to tourists they pay you little attention. The older men and [View Full Entry]

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Early one morning I went up the the Bolivian border, to La Quiaca. Here the buses have been demoted from the long-distance service out of BA to the shorter routes of Northwestern Argentina, so they're a bit older, shabbier, smell of diesel fuel in the seats at the back. Leaving Salta we crossed a broad plain of green fields. In the distance stood green, rumpled, fuzzy hills. The bus climbed and climbed and soon I began to feel breathless again, as I did in Cuzco while the green fuzziness turned to a smoother nap that became stoney as the hills turned [View Full Entry]

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Mariana Navarro is a bus station tout for a pair of hostels, Sol Huasi and Iskay Huasi. She approached me as I stepped off the bus and as she's bright, energetic, speaks great English and is so friendly she easily convinced me have a look at her hostels. I chose the second because it was quiet, airy and very clean. Salta is a pleasant city of about 300 000 people set in a valley surrounded by the low foothills of the Andes. A central square with a big, ornate pink-and-cream cathedral. If you take the cable car to the top of [View Full Entry]

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I don't know if that title is true or not as I haven't ridden every bus in the world, but these are the best ones I've ever been on. Apparently they have five classes but I've only ever seen three: economy, semi-recliner and full recliner. As I was heading for Northwestern Argentina and the ride would take about 18 hours I chose full recliner. Steward aboard, departure announcement over the microphone, then an evening meal served to me in my seat, with wine and liqueur afterward. And when you're ready to sleep the seat goes all the way down flat and [View Full Entry]

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Given the location - La Recolta cemetery - I found this to be entirely incongruous and I don't mean to be irreverent here, but shouldn't it read "Died"? [View Full Entry]

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