We are back after 4 days of ups and downs with the ups being largely responsible for the downs. Confused, then let us explain. DAY 1- We set off on our 4 day tour with the 3 great Alaskan girls we had met crossing into Bolivia as well as 1 Bolivian driver and 1 cook. We strapped our packs on the roof of our jeep along with several containers of gasoline and enough food and water to feed 7 hungry people for 4 days. It was quite clear this was not a trip to club med. On this day we climbed [View Full Entry]

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Tupiza is great! Bolivia has lived up to its reputaion of being cheaper than Argentina. we found a great hotel with cable TV, a swimming pool and the best breakfast we have had for 16USD (Hotal Mitur). We organized a Salar de Uyuni (salt flat) tour. We have been told this tour takes us up into some amazing environments although Leanne is slightly worried about the nightly -20degrees temperatures and the accomodation described as basic i.e no heating. After booking this we had a quick run down to the local market to stock up on winter woolies and Matt found a [View Full Entry]

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So after many kilometers travelling on buses around the fantastic and so diverse scenery of Argentina we finally said goodbye today and opened another shining chapter on Bolivia. What a welcome it had in store for us! The border crossing into Bolivia was a bridge spanning a small river. It was rather a chaotic set up but proved to be rather easy. We only had to ask several times where get our entry and exit stamps. First stop upon reaching the border (town called Villazon) is always to get the new countries cash and a ticket out of there as border [View Full Entry]

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We are currently chewing cocoa leaves (local remedy for altitude) about to take a 2 hour bus to enter Bolivia and can´t wait to get there. So where have we been in the last couple of days? A night in Salta was a great stop. We stretched our legs by skipping the gondola ride and climbing the 1070 steps to the lookout for panaromic views of the city. It was Sunday and mid afternoon (siesta time) so nothing was open but the parks were chocker full of people. It was nice wondering among the locals. From here we got on a [View Full Entry]

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We had read about Indian ruins dating back about AD1000 which were home to the Quilmes Indians and was the last place to fall to the Spanish empire in 1667. This was our next stop and although we debated whether to go given that there are no direct buses, we were very pleased we made the effort. We bumped into our Australian friends in Amaiche (nearest village to the ruins) who had done some investigating and found a great tour that would flag down the bus on the main road at the end of the day and get us on our [View Full Entry]

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On the scale of things our latest bus trip at 3hrs was like a trip to the corner store. Destination was Tafi De Valle which is located 2000m up in the mountains. We were expecting to finally enter cactus country as Tucuman and Salta are said to be very dry and desolute regions of Argentina. It therefore took us by surprise when the bus started winding up through dense green forest/jungle. To make it all the more bizzare, with the blink of an eye and a few turns of the bus we reached the peak to see the extreme jungle open [View Full Entry]

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After leaving Easter Island several days ago we have been constantly on the move catching planes and buses and living as gypsies on the road. We landed at Santiago in Chile in the evening and headed straight out to catch the airport bus to the omnibus terminal. Here we hoped to transfer to the next overnight bus over the Andes to Mendoza and on... So we hopped onto the bus with precision timing and departed within minutes of boarding. We placed ourselves down the back where there was plenty of room for our packs and sat back to relax before our [View Full Entry]

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Easter Island, no its not home to giant chocolate eggs! We arrived here 2 days ago on this remote spec of land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. When we say spec of land we mean an island of 3700 people that is 11kn wide and 23km long with its nearest neighbour Chile, being 3600km away. The first thing that hit us after disembarking the plane, was the friendliness of everyone (guess this comes with only having a handful of flights that visit per week) along with the sea air and 1000´s of twinkling stars shining down on us. We [View Full Entry]

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The wine tour was a very educational and fun day and although we had a perfect blue sky once more we were oblivious to it from the depths of the underground cellars. It was a mixed group of Americans, Israelis, French, Dutch and 1 Argentinean. So much to the amusement of the local Argentinean he spent the day listening to broken English speaking guides in his own country. We visited 4 wineries with a huge contrast between the old family run wineries with their cellars and old french oak barrels and the ultramodern stainless steel vats with artificial temperature controlled processes. [View Full Entry]

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You could sure finally feel the heat in the sun again as we woke and stepped off the bus into the perfect blue sky of Mendoza. Looking at a map its hard to imagine how far we have travelled over the last few weeks. But with Winter approaching it is nice to be chasing the sun and heading towards the northern hemisphere. Mendoza is the wine capital of Argentina with approx 60% of the countrys wine produced here. So with a quick trip to the Airline office to bring our flight to Easter Island forward we promptly booked onto a wine [View Full Entry]

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