Jeroen
Jeroen Bakker Joined: August 19th 2007
Logged in: December 22nd 2010
Logged in: December 22nd 2010
Check for a rough itinerary: http://www.travelblog.org/gmaps/create.html
Travel Blog Posts
La Casa Rosa
Buenos Aires.. 25th of June I got down to the busterminal in Mendoza around 10am and heard the next bus would go at 2pm, so I settled down at a cafetaria. What I did in those hours? Eating, drinking, reading, buying food, water and a newspaper for in the bus, called KLM to varify my flight, which was still in process and that was about it.. I reckoned the bustrip would take 24 hours, but I was wrong and arrived safely and with 2 hours of sleep in Buenos Aires around 7am. Next I took a cab into the city and after stopping at some hotels which costed around 40 euros a night, I decided to stay in a hostel´s dorm for 35 pesos; 7.50 in euros. After having a bad night, I decided to change ... read more
Wine cellar
Hee mates! I´ve arrived in Argentina. Passing the tops of the Andes, through all the beautiful mountains and seeing everywhere around me, snow.. Couldn´t stop dreaming about putting on skies again and hoppa get to know those mountains. However, my destintion was Mendoza. It´s quite cold around here and the city isn´t the most pretty one I´ve seen. But I love the wine they serve here. Monday I went to some Bodegas and tried some different wines: loved it.. Today, the 24th of June, I´m starting to think about my flight back.. I´ll be taking a plane from Buenos Aires the 1st of July and I´ll be landing in Amsterdam the 2nd of July around 2pm. Such I strange thing to realize that my trip is over in 1 week.. I remember clearly 2 months ago ... read more
Santiago centre
Amigos! I left San Pedro last thursday 12th of June after a good night out. After a dreadful trip in the bus I finally arrived Fridaymorning 7am in La Serena, which turned out to be a very boring town, so I left the very next Sunday to visit Santiago. Santiago, wonderful Santiago.. I really love this city for its organisation although it´s enormous. The well-planned infrastructure of Santiago with its delightful metro-system make my stay here a blessing and really easy. I can go to many places in the city in a really short notice and just for 380 pesos. Sundaynight I arrived in Santiago and took the metro to the nearest station to Barrio Bellavista where I found myself a expensive but wonderful hotel and good central point to visit the city from. Monday, a ... read more
Sand-boarding
Monday 09-06: After leaving Arica at 10pm, I arrived in San Pedro the next morning around 11am. This day I didn{t feel like doing anything active so I settled down in a laid-back hostal (San Pedro lives on tourist-incomes so it can get quite expensive..) and booked some tours for the following two days also I reserved a place to go star-watching the same night, unfortunately, this didn{t go through due to clouds. In the afternoon, I was watching Netherlands vs Italy which I really enjoyed! Tuesday 10-06: At 9am I arranged a trip into one of the valley´s to go sand-boarding, but when I got to the agency it turned out that I was the noly one going that day, so Sam (the agency-guy) and I took mountain-bikes with a motor, hmz motor-bikes? and sand-boards ... read more
Iglesia
Border crossing from Peru to Chile was more official than I yet had experienced, but no problems anyway.. Well, I arrived in Arica around 5pm after which I wanted to get some chilean pesos.. But what is a normal sum to walk with? Without having a clue how much things cost and not having thought about it in the 7 hours bus and 1 hour taxi trip to Arica, because I was reading a really great book, I was standing in front of the atm and got out 5000 pesos which, after paying the cab-driver 1200 pesos for going to the center, turned out to be nothing. 10 euros is around 7400 pesos.. After dragging my bags with me, I found a nice hotel with cable tv, private bathroom and a kingsized bed for 7000 pesos, ... read more
La catedral
After travelling all the way from La Paz to Arequipa I finally arrived around 8pm. The trip included a border crossing where we also had to change buses. I haven´t had such a bordercrossing as this one yet and I guess it´s good to know that it can get this badly organized. Got of the bus at the Bolivian side and hardly had I stepped on firm soil when the first ´cab´ drivers asked me if I needed a right over the border. But, first things first, getting my stamp from migration, freaking queue, lots of peruvians and bolivians wanted to cross the border too, then getting back to the bus for my bag, unfortunately, I had to wait for all the passenger to be gatherd around again, so the local cabdrivers had a lot of ... read more
La Paz
La Paz, I have to admit that my first impression was negative: too many people, no organisation, traffic is a chaos. However, after spending some hours in the city and exploring the little streets and old buildings I certainly have to change my opinion, there is more to this city than meets the eye. This said I go to Arequipa tomorrow and so will be leaving this city a day earlier than planned. All big cities in South-Amerika, that I´ve visited, are really exhausting: Quito, Lima, La Paz.. I´m wondering how Santiago and Buenos Aires will be like. I can say that I want to come back to this country, where poverty is a bigger issue than in Peru or Ecuador.. Fact: La Paz is the administrative capital of Bolivia and Sucre is the constitutional capital ... read more
Islas Flotantes
My last day in Cusco was a great day, the whole day there were festivities going on, loads of Peruvians on the plaza, enough to see. In the evening I ended up in an Irish pub where I ate wonderful nachos and talked several hours with the people around. At a certain point we had a blackout, so that was good fun, sitting in a pub with candles everywhere. Next morning, after sleeping 6 hours, I got on the bus to the lake titicaca where I arrived 7 hours later. After dropping my bags at the hostal I walked up to the plaza de armas and Calle Lima, where the nightlife is.., and wanted to try Alpaca meat. So, I settled down in one of the restaurants and after 5 minutes a German guy came up ... read more
La plaza de Armas
Machu Picchu!!! woohoo! However, I´ll start by telling somthing about the last few days which also include places like Cuzco, Pisac and Ollantaytambo. after leaving Nazca with a nightbus, which was actually quite luxurious, I arrived in Cuzco arond 11am and found my hostal within an hour. After that, I walked through the amazing cobble-stoned steets of Cuzco, the whole city breaths it Inca-like past. Nowadays, the streets are filled with tourists, however, on my first day I spend a few hours with a peruvian guy which I met in Trujillo, so I had some new experiences again with the peruvian or more specifically andean culture. I tried real chicha, which is juice of mais or something, anyway it didn´t taste so good.. Next day, I visited some museums which were quite interesting, also because the ... read more
Cemetario
Nazca woohoo! The main reason for tourists to come to Nazca are the lines. The Nazca lines were made by the Nazca-culture (and later on the Wari-culture ruled over this area). Anyway, the only good way to see the lines is by plane (sobrevuelo) so I arranged that, which of course was really expensive in comparison to other things.. The guide got me from my Hotel around 7.30am and after seeing that there was a lot of fog over the desert I needed to wait before things started to get better... That´s why we were first brought to the cemetery of the nazcas. Pretty interesting too.. However, when getting back the sun was shining and temperature was getting up to 30 degrees.. So, I settled down in the sun and started to read my book.. Actually, ... read more
