Sign In
Tom Dearden
I am a 27 year old male with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for drudgery. I'm an author of two criticially acclaimed novels - The Dr Bumfleece Experiment and Fiancees and Ski Jackets, but found myself getting the travel bug again. I am currently living in Boston with my girlfriend Laura and we will head to the sunnier shores of South America in about two months to explore the backbone of the andes, inca history and Argetinian steak. Flouse
Cheers x
Travel Blog Posts
The Big island and cash-strapped in the River of January!
Published: May 9th 2008South America » Brazil » Rio de Janeiro » Ilha Grande
May 9th 2008
Friday 2nd May - We arrived at 5.30am to Angra Dos Reis (Land of the Gods) in Rio De Janeiro province. Got very little sleep again as the bus stopped every hour or so and turned all the lights on. Also we were right at the back by the toilet and the bus crowd was a restless lot, to-ing and fro-ing all night!! As the sun rose behind an overcast sky, the first boat to the island (Ihla Grande) was at 8am, so we sat around in the tourist office drinking black sweet coffee with Laerte, who had lived in New York and Boston and amongst other things had worked in Dunkin Donuts. His advice was great but i am sure he embellished alot of things. Anyway half way through our crossing, the sky turned black ... read more
May 1st 2008
Oi! Or should I say hello (in Portuguese) from Sao Paulo. The language here is very strange like a cross between Spanish and Dutch and South-East Asian. I keep saying gracias and other words it took me ten weeks to get on top of and now its all changed and how so. Since my last blog, we caught the overnight bus up to Iguazu Falls on the Argentine and Brasilian border. Here Walter and his wife Yolanda took great care of us and were very informative of the local area and the tour guides. We managed to secure a flight to Sao Paulo from the Brasilian side for two days time for $110, not bad when the bus took 18 hours and cost $75! Saturday 26th - I felt sad to be leaving Buenos Aires so ... read more
Buenos Fucking Aires
Published: April 25th 2008South America » Argentina » Buenos Aires » Buenos AiresApril 25th 2008
Hola todos! Well alot has happened in the last few days. We had two days in Rio Gallegos, a shitty flat oil town with nopthing to offer and no hostels with kitchens. We literally stayed in and watched movie after movie on cable TV and ate junk food in bed. Then on Monday 21st we finally made like a shepherd and got the flock out of there, arriving in Buenos Aires (a joke here apparently is that its the ugliest city in Europe!) around 3.30pm into Tango Backpackers. We could only really afford to stay four nights, but on the first we found an Irishj pub with Guiness on draft although it was 4 quid for not quite a pint! Then we got lost twice at midnight and ending up eating in a loverly street cafe ... read more
April 18th 2008
Hi there! Today we went for a 4 hour walk up to the top of a chairlift 7km from town and back. We couldn´t quite make it to the Martial glaciar as the snow was too thick. this really is an amzing place, a small town surrounded by mountain peaks that doubles as a ski resort in winter. I still can´t get over how far south we´ve come! We had an amzing free hot chocolate at a spa resort and got a free map (from our boat trip to the light house at the end of the world yesterday. Gutted we couldn´t make it down to Puerto Williams, the lowest town in the world (2500 pop) as there lives the only true blood native Yamana, an 80 year old woman. these people do not wear clothes ... read more
It´s not the end of the world...um, actually it is!
Published: April 17th 2008South America » Argentina » Tierra del Fuego » UshuaiaApril 17th 2008
Hola todos! Thurs 17th. In Ushuaia, Tierra Del Fuego (Land of Fire Island) on the southern archipelago tip of Patagonia. Due South 700km is Antarctica and boy I want to come back one day and do that little beauty although it only runs Nov - March and is like $ 4000 for 12 days (with 4 days pure boat travel). I forgot to ask why they haven´t built an aisport there yet or maybe that is a stupid question as it would probabl melt away. 70% of world´s water comes from there, if it all melted (about 50 UK´s does every year in summer and then re-freezes in winter) the oceans would rise by 65 metres! Ouch! ushuaia is a city f 50,000 people and tax-free, strangely looking like a Scottish port town or something from ... read more
On course for the end of the world!
Published: April 16th 2008South America » Argentina » Santa Cruz » El CalafateApril 16th 2008
Hola todos! So its been an eventful week´. Sorry this keyboard is a shocker! Wednesday 9th April We were up at 5.45 and an hour later were sat on the Ruta 40 bus. Ruta 40 is the road that runs down into deepest darkest Patagonia and very little of it is paved, so bring on 2 days of arse pain! Fernando, our´"guide" our should I say babysitter, a nice lad, proceeded to tell us all the info we didn{t want to hear. The guy who sold us the tour, a bearded speccy little Steve Buscemi computer says no type had been wrong on a number of issues. Apparently we had only paid to El Chalten and had to cough up another $20 each to reach El Calafate (Prick!). Also what he had told us $12 entry ... read more
Edelweiss en Argentina - Bariloche and the Lake District
Published: April 8th 2008South America » Argentina » Río Negro » San Carlos de BarilocheApril 7th 2008
Before I begin, I think it is time to say I am getting very tired of sending photos onto this blog as it is proving a nightmare, so what I will do is just use this for writing until I get back to America, using facebook (search Tom Dearden) for the photos as they seem to upload better! Tuesday 1st April - no fool´s day tricks this year, but if I pay for a bed I expect one. Problem was I didn´t read the book properly and a cama bus is very comfortable but not a bed as such. So we had a wide leather business class airline type seat for our 18 hour (complany Feltch-a) bus ride to Mendoza, where we arrived at 11am. This nice lady accosted us at the bus station and we ... read more
April 2nd 2008
Hi...photos up to Bolivian Salt Flats. having a few issues putting them up with computer. A few more on Facebook!... read more
Take everything with a pinch of Salta
Published: March 31st 2008South America » Argentina » Salta » Salta
March 31st 2008
Hola amigos! Again lo siento para the delay in getting back to you. It truly has been a hectic two weeks, which I now have a couple of hours trying to summarise. Well we arrived in Puno on the 16th march, and apart from the polluted green algae entranceway to the lake titicaca (At 3900m the world´s highest navigable lake), one decent high street with pubs and restaurants, and a huge papermache Puma overlooking the town, it was in a Welsh accent, a pretty shitty city! It didn´t help matters that I was coming to the jagged peak of my illness. Apart from the gravel in the throat and the amazing consumption of handy andies, the altitude wasn´t helping the sinuses and I was longing to come down. On top of this I was (see photo) ... read more
Tot: 0.127s; Tpl: 0.006s; cc: 11; qc: 75; dbt: 0.0324s; 1; s:apollo w:www (50.28.60.10); sld: 1; ; mem: 6.5mb
© 2013 TravelBlog.org & Bloggers