Dougy
Jeffrey Crocker Joined: March 6th 2007
Logged in: December 13th 2007
Logged in: December 13th 2007
Travel Blog Posts
El Calafate Glacier
We got to El Calafate and it was a tourist town again, everyone comes here to see the Perito Moreno Glacier one of the closest ones you can get to see it really well. It took two hours to get to it and when we got here we could see why people come here. It had awesome blue colourings and we were fortunate enough to see a few chunks break off. Have a look at the photo´s attached. From here we took a 4am bus to Commodore Ridivaria or something like that where I am now writing this blog on the 9th of July. One word for anyone thinking of coming here. ¨Don´t¨its crap and some of the people we have met have been so far from the normal Agentines. A waste of space and ... read more
Punta Arenas
From Ushuaia the southern most city in the world to Punta Arenas in Chile, this trip took us around 12 hours and we did an overnight in this city before heading to Puerto Natales - the launching pad for our accent on Torres del Paine National Park. Nothing interesting to note about Punta Arenas except that the price went up and that we had the best Lomito (steak sandwich) ever. We arrived late into Puerto Natales and were greeted by an old lady from Niko´s a Hostel mentioned in the lonely planet who offered us a price we couldn´t refuse and wisked us off to her accommodation. This women had seen us coming, she had seen the tourists come and go and we would be no exception. She organised us a trip up to Torres ... read more
RECOVERED
We left Buenos Aires on the 21st on Aerolineas Argentina on a flight to Rio Grande (10:30 am - 2:30pm) we actually arrived at our accommodation at 11:45pm that night. Why you ask? Well the plane which because we are tourists we pay double - broke down and had to land at Trelew in the middle of nowhere. The 3-4hr wait turned into 7 and we were a little annoyed. Nothing to do in the airport except eat overpriced food and wait not knowing what was going on. They flew down their engineers who quietly fixed the problems and flew off into the night while the Argentinean passengers began to get really vocal. When we got to Rio Grande there was snow, and it was bloody cold. I had to rethink my clothing options while ... read more
RECOVERED
We´d taken the best bus we´d ever been on from Paraguay for 16-18 hours, I can´t remember anymore and arrived around 10am in Buenos Aires and decided to find accommodation in San Telmo (named after Saint Elmo but they put the T from saint infront of Elmo?? too much vino me thinks). Found a hotel Bris del Mar @ 40 pesos a night - a bargain for a double ($16 AUD for 2). The first thing I could say about this place is that I could live here in a second. I love it, its fantastic, the people are great, there are so many things to see and do, the food is excellent and cheap, there is culture and the romance of the Tango - I know a few steps now... I see why they ... read more
Now the first view I had of Sao Paulo at night from the airplane was a city that just didn´t end. It was massive. From the plane it was difficult to determine where the centre of the city actually was because there were massive clusters of sky scrapers everywhere. For those travellers who only venture to Rio here and Iguazu, this is nothing like the rest of Brazil, nothing like it. It´s a pretty clean young and well organised city with the most efficient subway system I´ve ever seen. You have to wait less than a minute between trains and the lines are nice and close together. We arrived late and took an over-priced bus into the centre and stayed with the formula 1 hotel chain - was $10 reals more than a hostel - avoid ... read more
Foz do Iguacu
From leaving Sao Paulo, Brazil we were about to arrive Foz do Iguacu to do the Brazilian side of the Cataracts Iguazú Falls one of the best in the world, when I discovered that my camera was not in the bag where I left it. 10:1, one of the pricks on the bus had it and I immediately had enemy´s everywhere. Worse than loosing a Canon Ixus 60 was that my 1 gig card had photos of Manaus, Sao Paulo and the end of our Amazon river trip and they were in the hands of a theiving cock head. The wost thing was that It was the only time, I mean only time in 2 months that I had not travelled with it in my pocket on a bus and it was even rarer that Lisa ... read more
The Santarem - our Boat
The aircon area in the boat was upstairs and this was where we spent the first night. There was an elderly lady who worked on the boat and we dubbed her ¨The Hammock Nazi¨- because if you didn´t have your hammock in the correct spot (males & females were separate) or where she wanted it - then you got moved. And we got moved! Sleeping in the upstairs the first night was hell, the area was so jam-packed that each hammock touched the next and if you needed to change position during the night, then all the hammocks around moved in unison. I must of kicked the guy next to me in the head heaps because the first thing he did in the morning was to move downstairs. I was keen on getting out of there ... read more
Belem - The Amazon
Belem About a 12hr overnight bus ride arriving at 7 am we were finally in a big city - around 2 million people. Craziness. Belem is a land of street vendors and entrepreneurism right on the Amazon river. You can see its charm with the old Port still loading like it once did a hundred years earlier and a central market nextdoor with all the fish, meat and fruit / vegetables you desire, interesting smells but you can tell that not much has changed and it has been the same every day. It is chaotic but steeped in character of yester-year. There are numerous museums and a Zoo but in true Brazillian style, the government decided to renovate them all at the same time and close the lot to allow the tourist dollar to flourish! ... read more
Sao Louis at night
The next day from Bara we caught the first bus out of dodge to Sao Louis another one of the Portuguese early settlements that produced sugarcane and had a good little slave trading racket going on. They´ve done up the old heritage centre of the town and we actually prefered it´s vibe to that of Salvador and the shopping street is insane. You can take a boat ride to Alcantara where all the sugar Barons once lived in the many mansions (most ruined). One of the two ways to get there is a boat that takes about 1:15 and it is so noisy. It sounds like and Elphi 2900 at full noise - for an hour this can wear thin. We only really went to the island because it has the only preserved Pelourinho or ... read more
Arriving in Jeri
Well its been another couple of weeks and I´ve been in country for five weeks now and when I last left you I was leaving Fortaleza heading to a funky little beach town called Jericoacoaca. It’s a cross between Airlee Beach mixed with Coral Bay (WA - people will understand Dowdell) with sandy roads everywhere and heaps of accommodation and restaurants for the tourists. It also must have one of the worlds largest number of beach buggies because everyone has them and run sand dune tours and take you out to some lakes to swim etc. Then in the arvo everyone heads up the sand dunes and watches the sunset over the town. The first day we got there you get off a bus and into a 4 wheel drive truck for an hour-long ride ... read more
