There are many stunning snow capped mountains belonging to 'Los Andes' which over look La Paz and most are available for tourists to trek, hike or climb. One of the most popular is Hyuni Potosi which is meant to be one of the easiest climbable 6000 meter plus mountains in the world, we seriously considered attempting this one but when we looked into it a bit more we found out that to get to the top requires 6 hours of climbing up a near vertical ice wall in darkness not tied onto anything and hanging on only by your ice pick and crampons. After speaking to a few people about it we also found that only about 50% of people who do the climb actually make it as far as the top because it's so difficult. ... read more

We only intended to stay in La Paz for a few days but after our first day of exploring we decided to stay for longer. Bolivia has two capital cities and La Paz is one of them. The cities location is stunning, it is 3650 meters above sea level and is built in a valley surrounded by huge snow capped mountains. The view of the city as you drive down in to it is breathtaking. Many of the streets, especially around the main tourist centre where we stayed, are very steep and we found ourselves out of breath most of the time whilst exploring them, partly due to the altitude but also our complete lack of physical fitness. The narrow, cobbled streets are alive with vendors selling all sorts of mysterious objects and foods and there ... read more

After spending spending an extra cold night in Uyuni due to the one and only cash machine in town running out of money, and us not having enough cash on us to get a bus out of there until the machine was refilled, we eventually arrived in Cochabamba. The bus journey there was terrible. We took a night bus and the driver seemed to think it was reasonable to play Bolivian pop music at full blast throughout the bus. Any music would have been annoying at this time of night but unfortunately for us Bolivian pop music has to rank amongst the worlds worst musical genres. Every song sounds pretty much the same, the lead instrument is a keyboard, with an effect that wouldn´t have even been cool in the 80's, that sounds like a trumpet ... read more

We left Uyuni at about 11.00 am for our three day Salt Flat tour. Our group consisted of us, a Mexican family (Mum, Dad and Daughter), a South Korean man called Ahn and of course our driver and cook. After about twenty minutes in the jeep we noticed that Ahn, who was sitting next to us, was looking rather sweaty and uncomfortable. He then revealed that he suffered from claustrophobia so we had to pull over and let him get some air. Not a great start, especially since we had three days ahead of us in this cramped jeep. This was only a taster of things to come. Our first stop was in a tiny village just outside Uyuni where we all stocked up on woolly hats and gloves, handmade by the locals. We were warned ... read more

We left Humahuaca in the morning and jumped on a bus to take us to the Argentinian border town of La Quiaca where we would cross over into Villazon on the Bolivian side. The bus journey was a sign of things to come, we had booked a ticket but there were no free seats so we spent the three hour journey sat on the stairs of the bus. We were definitely starting to feel the proximity to Bolivia. Once we arrived in La Quiaca we made our way to the border crossing which we only managed to find by following other people with backpacks, there were no signs. We queued at immigration for an age, they seemed to be letting people through at a rate of about one person every five minutes, we realised why when ... read more

We arrived in Salta early in the morning after another night bus. We got a taxi to the hostel we´d booked only to discover that there had been another mix up with our reservation and there were no double rooms available. Luckily they had another hostel in town with space, they let us have a nap in one of their dorms for a couple of hours until the room at the other hostel was ready and then paid for our taxi there. After finally getting our double room we dropped our bags and went for an explore of the city. Salta is 1150 meters above sea level at the foothills the Andes and is surrounded by hills. Its a stunning setting, sunny, green and very tranquil. We headed to the main plaza which is surrounded by ... read more

Villa Carlos Paz was described to us by the Lonely Planet as a 'mini Vegas' so we set off to the town with ideas of luminous Plazas, casinos on every corner and cheesy entertainment. It was a little bit of a let down as it was nothing like this, but we didn't mind too much because Blackpool style culture isn't really top of our agenda. Our hostel was a bit of a hike from the bus station but we resisted a taxi and walked it in the sunshine. When we arrived they hadn't received our reservation so it was another two nights in a dorm which was a bit annoying, but that was all forgotten while we were unpacking our bags as Luke noticed a special surprise under one of the bunk beds, it was the ... read more

After a torturous eleven hour bus trip from Buenos Aires with no food and no stops we arrived in Cordoba which is Argentina's second biggest city and holds the title of Cultural Capital of the Americas. It had a lot to live up to. We arrived at the hostel at about 10pm and were absolutely starving, but we were delighted to be greeted by Jujuy the hostel dog. We headed straight out to find some nosh and wine. The city looked really cool at night and we were looking forward to seeing it during the day. As we only had one full day in Cordoba itself we decided to cram as much in as possible so got up at 10am, fairly early for us, and hit the streets. At this time of year Cordoba is meant ... read more

We´d been looking forward to Buenos Aires since we first arrived in Argentina. We got the fast boat over from Uruguay and despite Lil still feeling a little fragile we were ready for some big city adventure. Buenos Aires is of course the capital city and is home to a third of Argentinas population of 39 million which shows how sparsely populated the rest of the country is. Our hostel was right in the heart of Downtown amongst the theatres and the opera house, their version of London´s West End. The streets were alive 24/7 which was exactly what we wanted. After checking in we went out to explore the sights of Downtown; Evita´s balcony, Plaza del Mayo and yet another Cathedral. The architecture was much more impressive than that of Uruguay's capital. We'd read many ... read more

Colonia del Sacramento is a little gem of a town on the bankof the river de la Plata which runs in between Uruguay and Argentina. Stacked with history and charm, after our stay in the concrete jungle that was Montevideo we were looking forward to some cobbled streets and pretty views. We weren't disappointed. We arrived in Colonia after a short 2 hour bus ride from the capital, and this time it really was a bus not one of the luxurious coaches we are starting to get used to. Luke and I could actually brush arms with one another by accident and the 'recline' was a mere 4 inches! We new that our hostel was within walking distance from the bus station and as it was still the middle of the day when we arrived we ... read more