JoffandCaro

We arrived in Sao Palo and passed through immigration quite easily. They have a very organised taxi system to get into town so you give the hotel name to the lady at the desk, then pre-pay for the taxi by credit card, hand the receipt to the driver and then you are on your way. The hotel did get good reviews, unfortunately when we looked at it the day before it did not get such good reviews. They were doing some work and although this did not affect us the area was pretty interesting in the streets around the hotel. We got them to order us pizza on the first night as it was late, we were a bit nervous about wandering around the first time in the dark and also we were tired having spent ... read more

Joff: We arrived in Equador after a brief stopover in Lima. Having been only told what a dive Lima is by everyone we decided just to have one night there and then head on to Quito. The hotel in Lima was fine and had a decent TV so considering we were practically under house arrest due to the dodgy nature of the neighbourhood in which we stayed this was a good thing. We woke early had breakfast and excitedly boarded the flight to Quito. Quito was a somewhat later addition to our travels but we decided that as it broke up the journey to Colombia and contained the cheesiest tourist attraction (the equator) it became a must! We landed and were met by a guy called Paco who was the husband of the Elena who ran ... read more

Caro: Our last night in Salta was one of indulgence, some nice steak, red wine and a pizza. I am glad that we did indulge to be honest as we had no idea of what was to come. I boarded the bus wearing (as you can see on the pics of the previous blog) flip flops, leggings and a dress. I had my fleece, a cardigan and a pair of socks in my bag, just in case it got a bit cold overnight. I was getting some bizarre looks at the bus station but this didn´t surprise me; people tend to stare at you when you have light coloured eyes and white skin. The men in Argentina also stare quite blatantly and comment quite a lot, it is probably just as well I don´t really understand ... read more

We arrived in Puerto Iguazu having spent 17 hours on the overnight bus with a woman who seemed to talk without even drawing breath for the duration! In spite of this we managed to get some sleep and arrived feeling pretty fresh! We found the hostel in Puerto Iguazu without any problems, we had booked in advance and had a nice room in the Pop hostel which was close to town. In spite of being called Pop it was not young and trendy and seemed to be filled with couples and families so partying would be limited! It was warm, no actually hot, which was something of a novelty after the last few weeks. We got into our room right away which was a bonus and gave us the opportunity to ditch our bags and go ... read more

Caro; We arrived in Mendoza in the afternoon. The bus journeys had been fine so far in South America and unlike SE Asia the buses seem pretty reliable. This will likely change as we head into Bolivia and Peru but for now we have been pleasantly surprised. We had chosen the hostel because it was cheap and it said "Free wine" on the website. We are very easily pleased granted but when we arrived the chap on the desk was extremely helpful and our room was clean and cosey. I had expected all of the men in Argentina to look like Maradonna, I was in fact correct, they all look like a younger or older version of the infamous "God" with the magic hand. Fortunately, not that many men look like Carlos Tevez, he has that ... read more