Matt Writes - Sad to leave Buenos Aires we fly due south into Patagonia. El Calafate is close to 3000km south of the capital, deep in Patagonia and almost the end of the inhabited Earth. The town itself was not particuarly charming, its existance now purely for tourism/overpricing and the constant gale blowing off Lake Argentina. However, it was the place to plan trips to the infamous Perito Moreno Glacier - the reason we had come this far, one of only two Glaciers left on the planet that are still advancing and not vanishing up global warming's arse along with with [View Full Entry]

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Emma writes - We continued our tour of fine football stadiums of the world by getting hold of some tickets to a Boca Juniors v Argentinos game at la Bombonera - the chocolate box. Buenos Aires guide books will tell you that this is a dangerous place to be for a tourist and suggest that you go on a tour for 100 or so quid, with a bus to take you there, a pizza meal, nice safe seats to sit in and a guide to tell you where to go, what to do and when to stand up and cheer. No [View Full Entry]

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Matt Writes We had mentally prepared ourselves for our epic 17 hour journey by relaxing around the pool with a beer. I added some momentos to my travel scrap book while Emma read a novel. Our coach was luxurious enough but being stuck in here for that amount of time is trying to say the least. The landscape was heavily wooded with logging trucks carrying their harvest, being the most frequent passing traffic. A traffic jam transpired to be a road accident and a fatal one at that, with body still on the road outlined in chalk. Although I averted Emma´s [View Full Entry]

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Matt Writes - After an exuberant time enjoying the festivities of Rio carnival, we managed to blag a cheap last minute package deal that flew us (and put us up in a rather nice hotel thank you very much) south to the border town of Foz do Iguaçu, this instead of a 40 hour bus ride. Iguassu Falls or Foz do Iguaçu (Brazillian) or Cataratas del Iguazú (Spanish) is a collection of 275 waterfalls that straddle the Brazillian/Argenine border. Four times the width of Niagra falls, it is only rivaled in size by Victoria Falls in South Africa. Infact, so large [View Full Entry]

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Matt writes - Arica was a warm relief after the rain and altitude of La Paz as Emma and I travelled with a Norwegian Hannah, Swede Anders, and Dutchman Jip. We had a confusing half an hour at the Bolivian/Chilean border where the bus conductor took the passports from everyone for checking elsewhere, whilst we missed another fantastic view of a snow capped volcano in the distance obscured once again by grey clouds. Our journey would take us through the beautiful national park of Lauca, although the weather would deny us this view also. Refreshments were taken at the beginning o [View Full Entry]

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Today's activity would consist of throwing ourselves down a big mountain on a bike in the rain. We went with a company called Gravity Bolivia, who have just recently started offering their famous tours in the wet season, after previously saying it was too dangerous in this crazy weather. We met in a cafe at 7.15. Our group consisted of two semi pro mountain bikers (one of whom had dragged his not so enthusiastic girlfriend along), an American woman of ample bosom to whom a bike had been a stranger for 15 years, and a bunch of boys from Ireland with [View Full Entry]

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Matt Writes : At 8am we leave the fantastic Lake Titicaca town of Copacabana in an awful minibus heading for the Bolivian capital of La Paz, a sprawling city in a basin surrounded by mountanous ranges, the highest capital city in the world. Only after arguing with the bus driver does he stow our backpacks into the boot of the bus and not on the roof rack in the pouring rain. Even the locals are hurling abuse at him for being already late and already overfull yet he remains greedily touting to get more customers to board. We wind our way [View Full Entry]

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Emma writes- We took a boat trip on Lake Titicaca to the floating islands of los Uros, and decided to stay there the night at the Kamisaraki Inn. It costs about a tenner for a night's bed, dinner and breakfast, with the dubious question of "would you like trout for breakfast or dinner?" Staple diet of the islanders it seems. "Dinner please. Without a head." Conversation and company was shared with a Californian photography student, who like us had ignored the warnings of a loud mouth Peruvian tourist that it was very dangerous to stay on the Islands, due to the [View Full Entry]

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Matt Writes Clouds seem more 3 dimensional and at our finger tips as our bus drives around mountains. On the plateau the weather can be seen all around you - corridors of rain erase the landscape and highlights of sun where brilliant blue breaks surrounding cloud who's shadows blacken hills. Wild Llama and Alpaco get bibbed off the road and dot the landscape in their abundance. We pass a jack-knifed lorry and car embossed into a barrier - a reminder that these roads are as wild as the surroundings they carve through. Next to me a child sleeps on her mother, [View Full Entry]

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Emma writes - I definitely think we hit Lima at its best in early January. The infamous smog that can plague the city at other times of the year was taking a break. We had some top tips from the folks from Lima we met in Mancora. Stay in Miraflores and drink in Baranco. So that's what we did. We stayed one night in backpacker hostel Loki, but were so jet lagged from the 19 hour bus trip, (yes nineteen hours!) that we made the schoolboy/girl error of having a disco kip at 7pm, before heading out for the nightlife, only [View Full Entry]

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