Ian Kasia

We set off to Uyuni, the departure point for the 4x4-ing expedition around southwestern Bolivia on a night bus. All in all, the bus wasn´t too bad,however the same couldn´t be said for the roads, which are one part gravel and two parts pot holes...perhaps we got spoiled in Argentina! We arrived in Uyuni in time for our tour, which took us to the largest salt supply in the world. For the next 3 days we would be exploring the most bizarre and extreme landscapes that we have seen on this trip with Agostino (our driver extra ordinaire), Lola (his wife and our cook), the English (2 guys from Stoke), a Japanese girl and a professional traveller from Swizterland. Our first stop was the Salar de Uyuni(salt flat). It was an amazing site, since the Salar ... read more

Ian has had a hard time saying goodbye to eating two steaks a day (I´m sure his arteries are thankful) as we left Argentina and saying hello to vegetarianism. We both decided after reading that Bolivia has this meat called ¨false rabbit¨which essentially can be any meat...dog, cat, etc...sticking to veggies might be a good idea. True to our motto ¨expect anything¨...a flight from Buenos Aires to La Paz with one stop over seems too easy. Why not add two other unscheduled stop overs along with a 2 hour delay on the runway due to a grass fire that got out of control near the end of the runway. The fire trucks and water bombers had to be called in and the smoke cleared before we could take off. In any case we made in to ... read more

After a few nervous hours where we thought we would have to change, even cancel some of our plans for the next few days, the protest dissolved for now (the protestors got all the requests they asked for...helps having a bunch of tourists as your pawns) and we made it back to Buenos Aires in time for the Bocas game last night. ..so all is good. Our new motto for South America is 'expect anything'. Today we´re off to Patagonia so we will write more when we come back. besos y abrazos Kasia and Ian... read more

We write today stuck in the northern corner of Argentina. We arrived in Puerto Iguazu this morning excited to see the 'Cataratas' of Iguazu, one of the most beautiful waterfalls in the world. Our plan was to stay here for just two days and one night returning to Buenos Aires in time for the Boca Juniors soccer game tomorrow night. Unfortunately we still haven't seen the falls and we may be stuck here for a while. A local protest (non violent) has cut off access to the waterfalls and the airport. Apparently the locals aren't happy with a recent cross border tax that the argentinian government has implemented a few months ago and have decided that they WILL make the government notice and listen. Nothing says 'Bienvenidos'(Welcome) like a blockade of burning tires. On an upside ... read more

We´re back from hiking the Inca trail for the last four days and are still basking in the beauty of it all. We started our trek at kilometer 82 and hiked 16 km the first day stopping at various Inca sites along the way. The first part of the trail was quite dry and arid, but had us walk through many farms and villages on our way to the cloud forest. The camping spots along the way took a bit of getting used to...squatting toilets only! Our first spot had llamas as our neighbors and we both slept in four layers of clothing. Day 2 was the biggest challenge...wioth us taking on the elements...wind, rain, snow, sore tummies and the altitude. The highest altitude we reached was over 4200m and had us dipping into the local ... read more