Astrienne

I never got such an expensive bus that gave me so little value for me. I think it cost about $50, it was a 9 hour journey, which could have been cut a lot shorter, it wasn’t even comfortable and there wasn’t any proper food. Furthermore it didn’t actually go all the way to Antigua as we were told, but only to Guatemala City, so we had to take a taxi from there which cost another $10 per person. Arrgh!! Not a good start, but hey. Avoid the company Hedman Alaas if you can! The four of us checked into a, for the country with $7 per night, expensive hostel, one you would call party-hostel. For a party hostel it was quite lame though, so we checked out the nightlife in pretty little Antigua, which you ... read more

After the extremely long day which I had to spend on six different buses plus a ferry, I had finally crossed the border to Nicaragua and made my way to San Juan del Sur. It was fairly late already, so after grabbing some street food, me and three other Germans who I met at the border, went to a couple of the most popular bars in San Juan. When we were just leaving to go back to the hostel, it started raining like crazy all of a sudden. Well, turns out that the rain didn’t want to budge the following day, and as there isn’t much to do in a beach town when it rains, I left again the next day. Off I was on another chicken bus, i.e. old yellow American school buses that are ... read more

Border crossing over to Ecuador, another very easy one. So far I hadn't had problems crossing any of the borders which is quite unlike what is being said in guidebooks. First I was off to Guayaquil, Ecuador's biggest city. I decided to only spend the afternoon there as I didn't really see the attraction to the place. I had studied about Guayaquil in one of my Spanish courses and kind of just wanted to see the peatonalización and modernisation of the place with my own eyes, and as expected I was done seeing everything quite quickly. I carried on towards Montañita, a small village by the seaside in the South-West of the country, which is famous for its hippy atmosphere. The sun didn't really show its rays much, night clubs were shut and bars and shops ... read more

On that overnight bus on the way to La Paz I met a couple from England who I shared a taxi with as we had booked into the same hostel, Wild Rover. This is one of a few hostel chains in Bolivia and Peru, they're all party hostels, so extremely busy with a cheap bar, nice food and super clean. The perfect place to stay in in La Paz, as there's not a lot to do apart from partying. La Paz in itself is a strange place. The capital of the country, it doesn't look like it though and the only way you 'feel' it is because there are constant demonstrations featuring dynamite and fire barricades from the demonstrator's side, and tear gas and water canons from the police's side. What the crowds were demonstrating for ... read more

My flight from Rio de Janeiro went via Montevideo... I think I was away from 10am to 22pm local time, long day. Luckily I had a very nice Uruguayan man sat next to me, whom I practised my Spanish with... the one with the Argentinian/Uruguayan accent that is... "vos" etc. It's a whole different world, honestly ;) I arrived in Santiago and shared a taxi together with two Kiwis who I met sometime in Rio, however, we had to split up at some point as they went to the bus station whereas I had to make my way to my couchsurfing host's place. I had agreed a price with the taxi driver and told him that I didn't have any more money on me than that (can't remember how much it was now, 4000 pesos or ... read more