JustJen

We left Santiago at 11am and took a 2 hour bus to Viña del Mar. First impressions were not brilliant, bit scruffy. We headed out of the bus station in search of our hostel by foot- it only seemed a small walk from the station. Half an hour and 18 hills later we arrived all sweaty to the hostel. We checked in then headed out for a walk. Bearing in mind Viña is on the coast and we were hoping for some beach time, it was 10 degrees and actually quite cold so we walked up the coast, stopped for a coffee then wandered around some more for a couple of hours taking photos etc. Actually not much happening in Viña, maybe because its the low season, maybe because it was cold, I don´t know but ... read more

From landing in Buenos Aires I made my way to the bus station, met up with Jenny. We geared ourselves up for a long bus ride and boarded at around 5pm. We got on and our ´bus host´ was a bit of a dude...all leather jackets and slick sunglasses. He introduced himself and explained the route and the itinerary for the journey (it´s just like a flight really) And what a journey it was! We were with Andesmar, the quality of buses can vary in South America, but this company was great! It started off with a film, Due Date playing, then Date Night- but stopped half way through so we could play a game of bus bingo! A bottle of wine was the prize- me and Jenny were so close...we were waiting for the number ... read more

I arrived in the afternoon after taking a 2 hour bus from Montevideo. The weather was gorgeous so I dumped my bag down and headed out to the main square and started to get my bearings. Colonia is a beautiful colonial town (suppose the clue is in the title!). It has cobbled stone streets and quaint restaurants and ice cream parlours...not much to do really except wander round, soaking up the atmosphere and ´taking it all in´. I did spot some dinosaur remains in the municipial museum, which apparently were found on the coast of Colonia 400 years ago. I decided to treat myself to some tea out so I found a nice restaurant and had some steak and wine as the sun was going down. I headed back to the hostel and made friends with ... read more

From Florianopolis we took a long overnight bus journey to finally leave the most expensive country on the planet (honestly, more expensive than home!) and head to Uruguay. It was on arrival to Uruguay that Jen&Moz became JustJen so from now on I can bore you all with my solo antics! So the "party beach town" of Punta del Este actually greeted me with a grey and rainy ghost town. My hostel was prebooked and there was no sign of a taxi so I set to finding my hostel. After 10 minutes I had reached it; Punta del Este is a tiny town with only a few main streets. I got chatting to some Aussies (I don´t actually think there any Australians left in Australia...they´re all here in South America) and they were telling me its ... read more

So we arrived in Sao Paulo in the late afternoon and didn´t do very much as we felt quite tired after our bus but we´d planned an action packed sightseeing tour for the following day. Sao Paulo is enormous. There are around 20 million people living in this city and it holds about 33% of Brazil´s entire population. That said, it doesn´t seem that manic, probably because the city spans out so wide. Apparently it rivals the Italians foodwise- they have their heritage so the cuisine is heavily influenced by Italian cooking so after our tea we bought some great Italian influenced ice cream for dessert- 7 pounds for 2 scoops! There are tonnes of ´Heladarias´in South America...it´s hard resisting them! The dorm room we had booked in was a bit horrendous though. In the morning ... read more