Having absorbed a lot of history of Paraguay it was time for some nature. There are a few National Parks/Reserves to choose from and for us it was really a matter of possibility to DIY. We generally only take tours if we really have to so we scanned internet and our guidebook for some nice and easy to reach places. That is how we stumbled across Laguna Blanca. Chalo confirmed to us that it is in fact one of the Paraguayan’s favorite places to chill out so we did not think twice. We expected the journey to be long so we set off early in the morning and by 8 am we were already on the bus heading towards Parque Nacional Cerro and Santa Rosa del Aguaray. It is very important to stress out which Santa ... read more

Of course we were excited. We always are when we reach any world famous site. Iguacu Falls being one of the examples. We said that before – we don’t like touristy places but they are famous for a reason. Their beauty usually exceeds the negative impact of being part of a crowd. We came in a low season, rainy weather being a norm at this time of a year. We waited few more days in Curitiba before coming to Foz to be able to take advantage of better weather. When we checked in to our hostel (Favela Chic Hostel – really great place, recommended) we were told that weather had been bad for a week or so. We crossed our fingers and hoped for the best;-) Actually within last 13 months we were pretty lucky with ... read more

Rio Grande de Sul: Porto Alegre & Santa Catarina: Florianopolis Once again we found ourselves without a plan. As I mentioned before we were not even supposed to cross into Brazil. We quickly scanned our guidebook and found out some really interesting information about Southern Brazil, the land of Gaucho people. Apparently the Rio Grande de Sul, Santa Catarina and Parana are mostly inhabited by the descendants of German, Italian, Swiss and….surprise, surprise Polish people. This, we have not expected. We decided to break our journey up north in Porto Alegre - not a typical tourist destination but apparently worth a stop. From a border town of Chui there is another 7h on a bus to Porto Alegre. Chui is nothing else but a two lane road dividing the town between two countries and a bunch ... read more

Probably the title needs some explanation on my side. Why I wanted to visit Uruguay since like forever. It is not because we hear so much about beauty of this small country right? The reason will make you laugh for sure and I don’t expect you to understand but it is the way it is. Well, then I need to go back as far as ’90 and explain that during this time Poland and Easters Europe for that matter was bombarded with many Latin-American soap operas. As a child/teenager I was never curious about the reasons why but nevertheless the nation watched them. There was one soap opera in particular that I learnt to love and watched it probably 4-5 ... read more

We were nervous, that is right. We were anxious about arriving in the western world. What a weird feeling as this should be the familiar ground for us, like coming back to the roots thing ….Yet we felt awkward when we stepped out of the plane. It just felt so foreign and we really wanted to withdraw back to Indonesia for some reason. Maybe we wanted to desperately hold on to that continent as moving forward meant that majority of our trip was over now. Or maybe we felt more comfortable with Asian culture that we gave ourselves the credit for. Nevertheless it was a big change for us. When we reached the passport control we were back to reality. Suddenly we were not a very welcomed and looked upon tourists but members of ever migrating ... read more