Aussies por el mundo

Kyle It was in Puerta Iguazú where we ran out of two very essential things when you´re travelling; the first being money, and the second being an idea of where to go next. Nearly all backpackers experience the first dilemma, but very few travellers find themselves in the second predicament. However here we were with about 10 days left on our trip and no clue what we could do with them. And obviously the first problem directly affects the second; our lack of funds severely limited our options as to where we could travel to in our remaining time. Arriving earlier than expected in Buenos Aires was out of the question as ten days in this European-priced city would cripple anyone´s budget. We tossed around the idea of staying up north and exploring the Misiones region, ... read more

Kyle As Tahlei explained in our previous blog, it was in San Rafael where we said our tearful goodbyes to Blake and Rhiannon. It wasn't just the thought of not seeing them again for over a month that made us well-up with emotion, it was also the prospect of being stuck on a bus for the next day or so. We had all planned to do such epic mileage over the next few days it would have even the most seasoned traveller on the verge of breakdown by the end of it. Blake and Rhiannon were doing almost half the length of Argentina and the whole of Bolivia in 5 days. If they were still talking by the end of it they did well. We had the slightly less unenviable task of covering about 800km in ... read more

Kyle While sitting down to what would be our last meal with Blake and Rhiannon for quite some time, someone remarked that we hadn't seen a single other tourist in the last five days of travelling together. No matter where we are Tahlei and I always strive to stay clear of the hourdes of day-trippers, boring packaged tour sightseers, snobby jet-setters, know-it-all globetrotting backpackers and pretty much anyone else carrying a map and a camera. Although we never thought we'd find such relative seclusion in the province of Mendoza; one of Argentina's most visited thanks largely to it's wine-making and close proximity to the Andes. But here we were tucking into our milanesas de carne, washing it down with yet another bottle of Quilmes, and talking about what crap service you get in all South American ... read more

Kyle While having a few drinks in a bar in La Paz we noticed that on the bottom of each page of the menu there was a joke making light of each country’s stereotype. The joke for Argentina was as follows: “How does an Argentinean commit suicide?” “He jumps off his ego.” As you can see from this joke it is common belief (amongst other South American countries) that Argentineans are quite arrogant and feel they are superior to their neighbours. We had no problem with the prospect of them being conceited; to us it meant we’d saved the best country until last. If they were indeed extremely proud of where they come from, then they must have good reason to be. However the only thing that seemed to change as we entered northern Argentina was ... read more

Kyle From our last blog it wasn't hard to see that we were feeling a little disheartened after our La Paz experience was not all we had hoped it would be. Tired of waiting for the Yungas roadblock to reopen we decided to cut our losses in La Paz and continue our journey south. We were pinning our hopes on Cochabamba, Sucre and Potosí to redeem the Bolivian leg of our trip, and thankfully they did so. But not in the way we were expecting. After eight days spent powering up and down the steep streets of La Paz the seven hour bus ride to Cochabamba was actually a nice opportunity to put our feet up and relax. We still were yet to experience a horror Bolivian bus ride like those we have heard so much ... read more