Montevideo - 26th and 27th of June, 2009 Montevideo is sometimes called the poor man´s Buenos Aires or even referred to as a suburb of BA because so many Argentineans holiday there. But we arrived in winter time and although it was sunny we couldn´t really enjoy Montevideo’s main highlights, especially as were only there for one night. It was dark when the bus arrived so we took a taxi to a place recommended by the Lonely Planet. The hostel was actually a beautiful colonial house, with a very nice lady at reception. After dropping our stuff in our room, we [View Full Entry]

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Colonia del Sacramento - 24th to 26th of June 2009 With only a few weeks left before we leave South America, our visit to Uruguay was short. We got our stamps to enter while at the ferry port in Argentina, making it the easiest border crossing we´ve had. After an hour on the ferry, we arrived to a very sunny but cool day in Colonia del Sacramento. Colonia is the oldest European settlement in Uruguay and because of its strategic location, the Spanish and the Portuguese argued over it for a long time. Its Barrio Histórico (historic quarter) section is UNESCO [View Full Entry]

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Buenos Aires - 17th to the 24th of June 2009 When I told my friend Mark that I was in Buenos Aires (BA), he quickly replied with a 'Oh my god, you´re in Evita land´. Having never seen either the movie or the musical versions of Evita and with a certain lack of knowledge about Argentinean history, I didn´t share his enthusiasm about all things Evita. But I was very excited about being in BA. Everyone I´ve met who has been to BA has raved about it. It´s very European, it's full of people who have had plastic surgery and it´s [View Full Entry]

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Puerto Iguazu and Iguazu National Park - 15th and 16th of June, 2009. Our border crossing was painless (though we never got an exit stamp for Paraguay) and in less that thirty minutes, quickly detouring through Brazil, we were in Argentina. With a world famous tourist attraction just down the road, Puerto Iguazu gets a lot of tourists and has all sorts of accommodation. But we, very blindly, didn´t notice any hostels when bus arrived at the terminal and wandered across the road to a hotel instead. We´ve stayed in a mixture of places on this trip, some good and [View Full Entry]

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Cuidad del Este - 12th to the 15th of June 2009 Cuidad del Este is a strange place, coming to terms with a strange past - it was previously named after a Paraguayan dictator and has a history of black market activities. It's full of electronic shops and Asian food, casinos and market stalls. It also borders Brazil and Argentina. It was dark when the bus arrived in Cuidad del Este so we got ourselves a taxi to a place recommended by the Lonely Planet. It was full however, as were the next five places the taxi driver took us too. [View Full Entry]

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Asuncion - 9th to the 12th of June 2009 The bus journey from Villamontes ended up taking 18 long hours, ensuring we had spent 38 out of the previous 48 hours travelling. The bus drove down through the Chaco in Paraguay, the petroleum area which Bolivia and Paraguay had a war over. In between bouts of reading and sleeping, we watched barefooted children run alongside the bus while red dust came in through the windows and settled over our bags and us. While we had crossed the Peruvian border in the middle of the night and received stamps to say the [View Full Entry]

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Sucre (6th and 7th of June) and Villamontes (8th of June 2009) After a taxi ride with the craziest driver in the world (we really nearly got driven over by a lorry), we landed outside the Amigo hostel. Richard and I got a room there for 65 bolivianas (we thought that was each, until I paid the next day) and went for some lunch with the Irish and English guys from the taxi. After lunch, we ventured to the bus station where we found out about getting to Paraguay from Bolivia and then took a colectivo back to town. We wandered [View Full Entry]

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La Paz (3rd of June) and Potosi (4th to the 6th of June, 2009) We arrived in La Paz around 3pm and quickly arranged another nightbus to Potosi - two night buses in a row. We both didn't want to stay in La Paz again but were glad of the opportunity to get some nice food. We went to our favourite Thai restuarant and followed it with ice-cream sundaes from Brosso. We also stopped off at the tourist police to finally report my iPod stolen. By 7pm, we were back on a bus again. After the luxury of the buses in [View Full Entry]

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Arequipa - 28th of May to the 2nd of June 2009 It was dark by the time we arrived in Arequipa and we had no idea where to stay. We decided on somewhere recommended by the Lonely Planet but got distracted by the taxi driver who showed us another guesthouse type place in a beautiful colonial building. Having our own ensuite room with cable TV won out, even though it was slightly more expensive than where we were planning on staying. AXN has become too much of an addiction - I don't know what we'll do when we go home! After [View Full Entry]

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Santiago - 25th to the 27th of May, 2009 Santiago is one of those big cities of South America. Although its population is smaller compared to Buenos Aires, it's still one of the cities most travellers fly in or out from. It's also got a mixed reputation. Many people who I've met on this trip advised me to skip Chile, and Santiago in particular. But after my few days in Santiago, I think that reputation is unjustified. We arrived early in the morning and waited in the restaurant area of the train station for a few minutes while we figured out [View Full Entry]

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