Houly

As I required seven dental implants I had been researching the market and dentistry abroad for some time. The price has come down in the UK but they are still cheaper in Hungary so I decided to travel to meet some dentists in Hungary. I flew to Budapest which is a beautiful city. There is so much history here with a lot of the major European civilisations coming through here at some stage. The Romans were here, as were the Ottomans for many years. It was in a period of piece where it was jointly governed by the Austrians that most of the architecture you will see today was created. A lot of it was destroyed during World War II but the recreation efforts have been magnificent. I stayed in a Pest which is the more ... read more

We had a few more nights out in Rio after this. I kissed a sexy Isreali girl one night before we headed onto the Panthanal. We made the mistake of travelling to Corumba, a one hourse town that belongs in a county like Laois, to enter the Panthanal and ended up retracing our steps for 2 hours to enter the National Park. The Panthanal is an area bigger than France, made up of swampland and jungle. We were greeted by a jeep with a big box on the back that brought us to Santa Clara Pousada, which is in fact a farm. We were worried by the lack of guests on the first night and are fears were compounded each day as the numbers dwindled and not a single bird never mind a looker in the ... read more

After Carnaval, I got a cheap last minute flight to Salvador de Bahia, the oldest city in the New World (Rio airport is fairly swish by the way). We stayed in Pelourino which is the historic area of the city, in a cool hostel where we would spend most our time. The drinking game circle of death was a big hit here and we got pissed on daquari fruit drinks playing this most nights. We usually conspired to get one of the new players sick each night, but it was good craic. Carnaval was fissiling out when I arrived. I met Aussie Adam, Saffa Charl, Dub Simon and some others here. One of the first nights here I was kissing an American girl who was real ugly and awkard. We had some trouble in the street ... read more

I arrived in Rio de Janerio four days before Carnaval, very excited to be attending the biggest party in the world. My hotel was in Botafogo and had views of Cristo Redentor and the Sugar Loaf Mountain. I was unimpressed by the hostel as it was more like a converted office that a residence. I wanted to get the toursit activities out of the way before Carnaval kicked off so I went up to see JC on the first day. The views over Copacabana and Impanema were amazing. I was also impressed by the effort it would take to get such a large statue up to the top of such a big hill, apparently it was built in components which were assembled at the top. The other tourist activity which I was really looking forward to ... read more

Myself and Matt travelled to Igazu Falls together. We crossed the border back into Argentina, because this is apparently the best viewpoint of the falls and checked into the Hostel Inn. It was a pretty swish for a hostel, with a big pool in front, albeit filthy dirty. When checking in I met Jenny and Nadia again who I had met in Montevideo. I ended up meeting this pair lots and even ended up travelling with them which turned out to be bogey. After a night on the piss where i kissed a Swedish chick, we dragged ourselves out of bed to see the falls. The falls are the largest by volume in the world and truly amazing. They are fucking massive with so many different sections and waterfalls of different shapes and sizes, I was ... read more

Our first stop in Brazil was Florianopolis or Flori for short, a beautiful green island connected to mainland Brazil by bridge. We stayed in Backpackers Sharehouse which was a really cool hostel, overlooking Barra de Lagao beach. This place seemed to collect tired backpackers and the lads were calling a backpackers retirement home. The retired backpackers included Andrew Murphy and his mate Brady, Dave who should be completing his first novel any day now and Jay the mad looking Manc. The weather was not great here as it was overcast and rained alot so we didn't spend as much time on the beach as we would have liked. The days we did spend on the beach were passed surfing, swiming, body surfing in some monsterous waves and checking out the chicas. Nearby beach Praia Mole had ... read more

Next stop Cordoba, which was pretty dull apart from doing a sky dive and Seans birthday celebrations. The sky dive was the biggest adrenaline rush of my life. I'm a little scared of heights anyway but I was shitting it. On the way there I was tempted to jump out of the taxi and leg it. We got to the site and they give you a short instruction. Around your first 10 jumps need to be tandem so there's not a whole lot to do only arms in at first, arms out and legs up when landing. He does it all for you. You go up in a small plane that can sit three people and there's no backing out now. For some reason the higher you go, the scarier it gets. Why is this. If ... read more

From BA the four of us travelled overnight for 12 hours on a bus to Mendoza, a popular holiday destination for the Portenos. We stayed in the Damajuna hostel and did some adventure activities and wine tours. The wine tour was pretty boring but I enjoyed the cycling. Adventure activities included zip-lining and white water rafting in grade 3 and 4 rapids. The rafting was deadly and definitely something I want to do again. Donagh's mate Paul was way out his depth and looked like a washed up fisherman from a fisherman’s friend advert throughout. The zip-lining was cool aswell but I wouldn't bother doing it again. We went to see a football game in Mendoza which was part of a summer league that neither team really cared about. Riverplate were playing against Racing. The game ... read more

My journey started in Dublin Airport with a short flight to Heathrow. My onward flight departed from the much criticised Terminal 5 which is actually a very impressive airport terminal. Typical whinging from the Brits, the same facility in Ireland would be marveled at. After a stopover in Sao Paulo, I landed in Buenos Aries and got to the Millhouse Hostel where I met up with Donagh, Fresh and Sean. It took a bit of adjusting to hostel life living in busy shared dorms and having people around 24/7. I was enthusiastic to see the cultural sites and visited Recoleta cemetery and went on a walking tour of Microcentro. Recoleta is a grandiose graveyard where Evita Peron and many other distinguished Argentines are buried. The detail and grandeur of some of the tombs was very impressive ... read more