Life Is Beautiful

As we left backward Bolivia and arrived in advanced Argentina, we felt how the Yanomami Indians must have felt after leaving the jungle and finding the city. It was almost too much for us to believe - the bright lights, European-looking people, paved roads, hot showers and flushing toilets. No longer were we appalled and feeling sorry for our fellow human beings. Now, instead, it was them that were staring at scrawny-and-scruffy us. The next couple of weeks we got ourselves cleaned up with the functioning facilities and regained lost kilos with the succulent steaks. Thereafter, we made contact with Liba’s long-lost family in Buenos Aires, whose existence was by chance discovered by Liba on the internet before we left on our trip. In typical South American spirit, they made a bigger-than-necessary deal about us as ... read more

Bolivia is, by a long shot, the least developed country we have visited so far. The conditions are rougher - lodging is a lot more basic; clean, flushing toilets are rare; hot water even more so; food is way more risky; and only 10% of the country’s roads are paved. The temporary discomfort is, however, rewarded with the most unique and authentic culture this continent has to offer. The vast majority of this country’s people are the indigenous tribes of the Quechua and Aymara people. The women, from girls to grandmothers, wear exuberant, large, pleated dresses of various colours; thick, llama wool stockings; and bowler hats over their black, double plaits. All of them remarkably resembling each other like a never-ending Russian matryoshka doll set. Many of them speak only their indigenous languages, and those that ... read more

On the moment the plane touched down on the strange new terrain with funky-looking cactuses everywhere, one British voice blurted out: “By golly! We’ve landed on the moon!” - and we knew this was not going to be no ordinary place. According to Darwin (who also developed his theory of evolution on the islands), because the islands were never connected with the mainland, any plants or animals that somehow made it onto the islands were allowed to evolve differently to their counterparts on the continent. Consequently many of the plants and animals on the islands are completely unique and are found nowhere else in the world. Furthermore, since man only inhabited the islands recently, the animals, as yet, have very little instinctive fear of man. 200 year old giant tortoises roam the countryside remembering the days ... read more

Colombia was one big surprise. After hearing all the terrible, horrifying stories about Colombia from the Venezuelans and Brazilians, we prepared ourselves to drive through Colombia in as little time as possible. We were pretty excited to leave Venezuela and Chavez behind, but were also worried about what would happen to us in this country that has such a bad name, and which is so full of criminals, drugs and guerillas. Well, as we should know by now, not everything you see on the TV news, or hear from the mouths of people who have never left their own country, is always true. Colombia surprised us first with its excellent roads, then with its unspoilt, super-clean beaches, beautiful mountains and lakes, colonial towns, and its intriguing history of pre-hispanic civilizations and profound wealth of ancient, breath-taking, ... read more

After 4 memorable months, it was finally time to say goodbye to Brazil and hello to Venezuela - the land of free petrol and no eggs. Venezuela is an interesting, but not too welcoming of a place to visit. Political tension is always in the air and the communist mood is inescapable. We had to quickly get used to societal climate change - coming from the warm, caring Brazilian people to the cold, unconcerned Venezuelans. The socialist president, Hugo Chavez, recently said something along the lines of “what the Americans don’t understand is that Hugo Chavez is not just Chavez, Hugo Chavez is Venezuela”, and whilst he may be slightly delusional, he is certainly doing a good job of convincing the majority of the population. Using the country’s wealth of oil money to finance his so-called ... read more