I HEART PERU So, Peru has officially won my favourite south american country award! It is AWESOME. It literally has it all- mountains, lakes, beaches, wildlife, hot springs, jungle, cool cities, lovely people, great food (apart from guinea pig-more on that later!). Really very cool. LAKE TITICACA We began by crossing the border into Peru at Lake Titicaca,and were immediately greeted by Inca Kola signs EVERYWHERE- its peru´s soft drink of choice. Its fluorescent yellow- looks radioactive- a cross between the green radioactive stuff in the simpsons and dodgy cooking oil, and a [View Full Entry]

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We ended up spending about 2 weeks in Bolivia- a few days in Uyuni,then over a week in La Paz (didnt end up going anywhere else due to altitude sickness... more on that later!). To be honest, our Bolivia trip didnt begin especially well! The crossing from Salta in Argentina into Bolivia was a bit of a nightmare. The bus to the border overnight was freezing- I was still steadfastly wearing my havaianas (error). We arrived at the border at 6am,to find it a)shut and b)the temperature about -5 degrees. Cue layering up as much as possible (iona stripped to put [View Full Entry]

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Trick to keeping your lunch when racoons are around.. SHOW NO FEAR! As predicted, the waterproofs did get another outing at the argentinian side of Iguazu!! We arrived at the national park where the falls are located to find it was gloriously sunny which made a change from the rather chilly overcast weather the day before. We set off on one of the trails leading to the waterfalls only to find.... more racoons. Lots more racoons. Honestly,theyre completely terrifying! Some japanese tourists in front of us decided it would be a great idea to get out huge cameras and shove [View Full Entry]

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The day everyone started at a&o, I was on a yacht.... hello! After the madness of brazilian funk clubs in Rio, we headed down the brazilian coast to a town called Paraty which was basically the opposite of Rio- small,calm,peaceful and v v pretty and old. We decided it was like some kind of disneyland/noddy land town - basically too perfect! The houses were white with different coloured shutters, the streets were clean and cobbled and there were cute shops, bars and restaurants everywhere. It was very gorgeous but almost a little bit too gorgeous and perfect?! Worryingly perfect... [View Full Entry]

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RIO- beaches, sugar loaf mountain, christ statue, brazilian funk clubs, and TOO MANY CAIPIRINHAS! BOM DIIIIIAAAAAAAAA! We bid farewell to steaks,red wine and all the other lovely things in buenos aires to begin a bit of a mission of a trip to Rio... Iona and I had to fly to sao paolo,spend a night there and then get a bus up to rio which was all a bit of a pain but oh well! Sao paolo itself didnt seem that great,but the people were AMAZING. We had to get a bus and three metro lines to get from the airport [View Full Entry]

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Buenos Aires...strong coffee,cheap red wine and even cheaper steak. Yes please! HOLA! Thats about as much spanish as I can remember from school and mexico! Ok,slight exaggeration but it was a bit of a shock to leave america and the english speaking world! luckily we have iona with us,aka our official group translator so its all good. im finding I can understand a decent enough amount of what people say,enough to get the gist of it,but speaking is trickier and im generally pretty rusty but hopefully itll get better with time! Weve just spent a week in buenos aires, which [View Full Entry]

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I have never met so many hilarious randoms.... So we got another Greyhound to San diego, along with half of our Hollywood hostel (literally... then they all turned up at our San Diego hostel! Small world)... luckily this was a semi pleasant 3 hour bus trip so wasnt toooo bad. Our hostel was in the Gaslamp Quarter of San Diego (where the cool kids are apparently) and the area reminded me a bit of State Street in Santa Barbara- lots of nice restaurants, bars, shops- all very pleasant! It was also the hostel where we met the most hilarious randoms.... [View Full Entry]

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Los Angeles - beautiful cars, beautiful people and Hugh Jackmans handprints-waheeey! The first thing we noticed about LA (apart from all the homeless people at the downtown greyhound station- feenz was loving it as per usual!) was how friendly and helpful everyone was. Wed really noticed a difference in how pleasant everyone was in the USA generally compared to the UK, but it was especially noticeable in LA. On the hour trip on the metro and bus to our hostel in Hollywood, we were adopted by a precious old man on a bus, delivered to the right metro platform by [View Full Entry]

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What happens in Vegas.... 4/08/09 Time for another 5am bus - waheeey. We marched up State Street for the last time, backpacks digging into slightly sunburnt shoulders (delightful). We had to change buses at LA, and Claire and I sat together at the back of the first bus behind probably the most smelly man I've ever encountered. He kept manically twitching and scratching his head, and flakes of skin were flying off everywhere. It was really very unpleasant,especially at that time of the morning! Claire spent the 3 hour bus journey sniffing her hand which smelt of her Pink Victoria [View Full Entry]

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Santa Barbara.... home of State Street (most pleasant street ever), Sambos (best breakfast ever), Sandbar (where bad things happen to good people!), and Q's (most precious barman) So we set off to Santa Barbara on our first Greyhound bus - seriously,it was an experience. I've travelled on crazy buses in Mexico and Guatemala and have honestly never been in a confined space with such a collection of strange people! I'm seriously thinking of writing a book about it! Anyway,we arrived at 5am (stupid o'clock) and trotted off down State St towards our hostel (with Iona acting as chief [View Full Entry]

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