We caught the bus out of El Calafate without any problems, and after an unpleasantly brief sleep arrived in Rio Gallegos. The bus that we were planning to get to Mendoza left at 11am, only a 3.5hour wait, however the service had been cancelled the day before, leaving us only two options, get a bus at 9am without any food for 48hours, or wait until 6pm. So we spent the day in the bus station and the supermarket across the way, picking up supplies to keep us going. Eventually we boarded the bus and started our 41 hour journey north, the [View Full Entry]

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Before leaving Trelew we made time to venture out to the paleontological museum, with fantastic exhibits, (all original fossils) of prehistoric life in Patagonia, including some amazing fossilised crabs, a huge (about 1.7m diameter) ammonite and more full skeletons than I can remember! After spending a couple of hours there we headed back to the hostel to pick up our bags and head to the bus station. The bus to Rio Gallegos, the furthest point south we will travel, was long but the views spectacular, just endless scrub, no trees, no hills, no life to break up the monotony for hundreds [View Full Entry]

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After our visit to the cemetery we got our stuff together and headed for the train station to catch the night train south. It sounds more glamorous than it was. Something that could have only been built by Fred Flinstone pulled into our platform and everyone charged it before it had even stopped. Some people were getting on through the doors and fishing there bags and remaining members of there families through the windows. The interior of the train was like a Guatemalan bus, with only benches for seats, and the lights only functioned when the train was moving fast. Fortunately [View Full Entry]

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After a long bus journey with no drinking water on board, it was replaced for us by fizzy drinks and tea, we arrived in BA and made our way to our hostel that we booked a couple of days earlier. It took us a while in our sleep deprived state to find the hostel, and after grabbing some breakfast and showers headed for a wander before we were able to check into our room. On our return we found our friends Dave and Ollie and planned to go out for a famous BA steak dinner later on, before hitting the equally [View Full Entry]

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Having arrived back in Campo Grande at 7pm, we had an hour to hunt down the guy who was looking after our bus tickets whilst we were in the Pantanal before our night bus left. Thankfully we found him in good time and were swiftly on our way to Foz de Iguaçu. We decided last minute that it would be ashame to miss Iguazu Falls from the Brazilian side so left our bags at the bus stop and jumped on a local bus to the National Park. The view was spectacular, offering a panoramic view of all the waterfalls (there are [View Full Entry]

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So having left Rio without managing to see any of the major sights, although neither of us would have changed our time there for the world, we headed off the Campo Grande from where we were hoping to arrange a tour to the Pantanal, which are the largest wetlands on earth, not far off the same size as Great Britain! Our original plan was to try and do them on our own, making it a lot cheaper in the process, but we felt that we must keep moving and so figured for the time saved a tour was probably worth it. [View Full Entry]

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Well it´s been quite a while since our last entry, but as you can imagine there was little time to spare in a city like Rio! We left Trancoso shortly after our last entry with some banana cake and minging guacamole to keep us going. The bus ride took 21 hours but was quite enjoyable as they supplied us with biscuits and films for entertainment. After settling in to our hostel in Catete, we headed out to meet Dave and Ollie (Dave being our friend from Uni for those who don´t know him) for a few drinks. We were ambushed by [View Full Entry]

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The following day we left Jacuma, armed with half a cake that we couldn´t resist buying from a little cake store before we left. We caught the bus to Joao Pessoa where we ended up waiting in the bus station for the rest of the day, while armed guards seemed to be running around the place, until it was time to board our night bus to the city of Salvador. Salvador was a city that from the early planning stages we both wanted to see, but having been to many cities we were worried about it due to the constant fear [View Full Entry]

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After quite a heavy last night in Praia de Pipa, we dragged ourselves out of bed after about an hour´s sleep to pack up and make our way to Olinda. We had arranged to travel with 2 girls we met, so when we all discovered that the 3 buses we had to take to get there worked out more expensive than splitting a taxi 4 ways we were all over the moon! The drive took about 4 hours though we slept for most of it. Upon arrival in Olinda, where the streets were already bustling with Carnival preparations, we bumped into [View Full Entry]

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I´m sure that you will all be glad to know that we managed to get our parasending done and both survived, with an awesome experience to keep with us! After a lazy day on the beach we left Canoa on the night bus to Natal and got a bus to Praia da Pipa, a small but rather touristy beach village. It is touristy for very good reasons however. Our first day here, after very little sleep on the bus, was unfortunately quite rainy and so we ventured to a nearby beach before giving up and going back, drenched and quite cold [View Full Entry]

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