For our last leg of our journey, we took the boat from Colonia, across the River Platte, and into Buenos Aires. We planned on spending our last 2 weeks or so exploring Buenos Aires and all that it has to offer. Buenos Aires is a big city, divided into different neighborhoods, all with their own feel. We stayed in the Microcenter, which is the bustling business district, for a few days and got to feel the real chaos that is BA. We walked around, saw the Argentinian Presidents house (the Pink House), ate really good food at the mall food court [View Full Entry]

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In continuing with our altered itinerary, we headed to Uruguay. After traveling for almost three months, we figured that crossing into Uruguay would be a breeze. On the contrary, it turned out to be a big pain and resulted in another epic 28+ hours of traveling and sitting on buses. We first had to travel south from Puerto Iguazu, Argentina on an overnight bus (that showed english-language movies and served wine with dinner) heading towards Buenos Aires. We got dumped off the bus at 5am, a few hours north of B.A., in a random town right next door to Uruguay. Turns [View Full Entry]

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After we realized that making it all the way to Tierra del Fuego with the rest of our time (and money) was near to impossible, we opted to stay in northern South America. We had not expected to see Iguazu Falls, on the border of Argentina and Brazil, but it became a destination with our altered plans. We hired a taxi to take us across the border of Paraguay, thru a sliver of Brazil, and then into Argentina. The town of Puerto Iguazu is the gateway for visiting the falls on the Argentinean side. The taxi let us out by the [View Full Entry]

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After a wonderful month in Bolivia, it was time to bid it farewell. Unbeknownst to us, we overstayed our welcome by 3 days. The border guards weren't too happy with that and yammered away at us in rapid spanish. After standing at the border control office for 15 minutes while the border guards talked amongst themselves and looked at our passports about 7 times, they finally paid us some attention and charged us a few bolivianos for the days we went over our visas. It can never be easy in South America...instead of just charging us for our extra days right [View Full Entry]

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One of our highlights in Bolivia was the country's wine making capital, Tarija. Tarija was a beautiful town set among high rolling hills. We both agreed that the people in Tarija were some of the nicest and most accommadating in all of South America (this could be due to all the wine drinking that was going on). Our time in Tarija was spent trying a bunch of different wines and touring some vineyards. We took a tour to three different bodegas (vineyards). Honestly, the tour would have severely disappointed us if we hadn't gotten completely sauced and had a lot of [View Full Entry]

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The town of Tupiza, in Southern Bolivia, reminded us of the American West. Dry desert and large rock formations dotted the countryside. Sarah was sick during our time in Tupiza. And besides the benefit of getting some cough syrup with codeine, it meant we didn't really do a whole lot. The one outdoor activity we did fit in though, was a horseback ride. Neither of us had really ever ridden a horse, so we figured that Bolivia was as good of a time as any. So, we met our so-called guide, walked 2 blocks from our hostel and met the horses. [View Full Entry]

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Everyone who is travelling in Bolivia visits the Salar de Uyuni (salt flats). So, from Potosí we headed 120 miles south to the town of Uyuni, on a bus ride that took 6 hours. Uyuni left alot to be desired. It's in the middle of nowhere, dusty, and dirty. Unfortunately, people will always come to Uyuni for access to the Salt Flats, which means it will most likely never receive any sprucing up or the installment of a restaurant that serves something other than pizza...(but if you do end up in Uyuni check out Minuteman Pizza...it's owned by a guy from [View Full Entry]

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After Sucre, we headed to Potosi, famous for it's silver mines (although now it's mostly zinc). There´s not much left to see of Potosi´s mineral wealth except for some colonial buildings and churches. The main reason people travel to Potosi is do go on a tour of the mines...and thats what we did. No one adequately prepared us for what we were to experience. This coming from two people who regularly partake in "adventure sports". It was, honestly, one of the scariest things either of us had ever done. Our tour started by everyone getting kitted out in overcoats and pants, [View Full Entry]

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After our time in La Paz and the pampas we took an overnight bus to Sucre. We didn´t have much planned for Sucre, which worked out well, since the city was shut for a large part of our stay. The people of Sucre regularly hold protests and marches to become the official capital of Bolivia, which was why we spent our first day wandering around wondering why all the stores and cafes were closed. The town regularly shuts down and the people prepare and gather for a march and patriotic speeches in the main plaza late in the day. The next [View Full Entry]

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To get to the Western Bolivian Amazon and the town of Rurrenabaque, you can either a) take a 20 hour (if its not raining) bus ride on a dirt road or b) a 40 minute flight. We opted for the flight. Often flights to Rurrenabaque are cancelled due to poor weather and then all the other flights are pushed back for hours or days to fit in the cancelled flights. We met quite a few people in La Paz who were waiting for their flights to be re-scheduled. Luckily our flight to Rurre took off as planned. And the excitement didn't [View Full Entry]

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