Surely with that great punning ability, a future career at the Sun is beckoning!!! My two weeks based in La Paz, Bolivia’s de facto capital, have come to an end, and while the city is certainly no architectural beauty, its location in the Andes' Cordillera Real (Royal Range), is pretty spectacular and in my mind makes La Paz pretty attractive. Set in a bowl or canyon at 3,600 metres, the city's housing and buildings stretch steeply up the walls of said canyon to the Altiplano 400 metres above. Handily this makes La Paz one of the easiest cities I have ever [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Samaipata I was completely ready to break with my penny-pinching ways and try and fly from Bolivia’s largest city, Santa Cruz, to the small town of Rurrenabaque, where I would hopefully be booking myself onto a couple of tours - both of the Pampas wetlands and of the Rainforest. However, in what seems to be Bolivian style, the flight no longer existed and so it was on the bus for young Marky. The journey wasn’t too bad at all, given the horror stories from other travellers, and I broke it up with an overnight stay in Trinidad. Not the Caribbean [View Full Entry]

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Having spent so long in Sucre I was looking forward to getting back to nature a little bit. Thus, I headed to the small town of Samaipata, about 10 hours north-east of Sucre. Only problem was that the bus would arrive there at about 4 a.m. and drop me at the side of the road - or that was the plan. Predictably, they forgot about me - but luckily I was on the ball and managed to get the driver to stop only 200 metres past the town!!! One of the big draws in Samaipata are the ruins of "El Fuerte", [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Sucre, Bolivian capital, hoping to spend about ten days trying to improve my Spanish. 3 and a half weeks later - the last two of which has been spent living with a Bolivian family - I am finally packing up my bags and moving on. My time here has been fantastic. The language school has helped improve my Spanish immensely, and living with "mi familia Boliviana" has been a new and fascinating experience, as its allowed me to view a side of Bolivian life not normally accessible to tourists. I started off my time in Sucre in a [View Full Entry]

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A slighty belated report of my time in Potosi coming up. Potosi is touted as being the highest city in the world, 3,977 of your finest metres according to the guidebook. (Although I have seen this claim caveated (sorry, been reading my word of the day toilet paper again) with the fact that its the highest city of its size in the world). Anyway, its quite high. High enough so that anything more than a leisurely stroll is inadvisable as it leaves you a mite breathless. Thus, it would seem a slightly foolish idea to travel even higher to crawl around [View Full Entry]

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Have just completed my first week in Bolivia and to say that getting around this country has been eventful would be an understatement!! After crossing the border without the slightest hitch, I boarded a bus to head north to the town of Tupiza. After hearing horror stories about the state of Bolivian buses I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the vehicle - an assigned seat and a reasonable amount of legroom - although there was a definate whiff of piss coming from the aisles!!!. However, this was all to change as, after narrowly missing a fish-tailing truck heading the [View Full Entry]

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I've now finally reached Bolivia. Its a country I feel I've been meaning to get to for a long time, but have been delayed by the sights and attractions that have kept cropping up en-route from Santiago!!! Before updating what I've been up to the last week or so I thought I've jot down some more general views on Argentina as a whole. Before setting out I didn't expect Argentina to be one of my favourite places, but having left it for the final time I can look back on my travels there and say that they've been superb. Argentina seems [View Full Entry]

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Am on the verge of dragging myself away from Chile's capital Santiago, where I have been staying for the last two weeks. (Although this could all change as I am heading out for St Paddy's day tonight with a couple of Irish mates, and am booked on a bus tomorrow morning. They suggested starting drinking late - midday rather than the usual 9 a.m. I hope they're joking, but I fear they may not be!!) As I've alluded to in the title, Santiago has been an absolutely great place to stay, but I can't really put my finger on why that [View Full Entry]

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Pucon is the first taste of good weather I've had in a long time. but donning a pair of shorts was not the entire reason for travelling here: the plan was to climb the 2847 metre Volcan Villarica - an active Volcano on the town's doorstep. The ascent can only be done with an accredited guide, so we signed up with one in town and we were fully kitted up with boots, gaitors, waterproofs and best-of-all an ice axe!!! As I said to Chris, my motivation for doing even the most menial of tasks would be huge if only I was [View Full Entry]

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As the title suggests Chris and I have recently disembarked from a 4-day journey north along Chile´s Pacific coast. It was something I´d been looking forward to for a long time, as the cruise was a big expense for someone on my budget, and I had never been on a boat for such a long period of time, so this would be a new experience for me. The weather, however, was the usual chilly, blowy combination we've got used to - with a fair bit of cloudy and drizzly thrown in for good measure!! I'd like to be able to say [View Full Entry]

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