http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/NickiG/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from NickiG en-us Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:11:21 +0000 Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:11:21 +0000 Granada is the second biggest town in Nicaragua and a pretty colonial town with a very European main square and pedstrianised streets. The hostel was a pleasant surprise clean dorms with decent warm showers and even a pool The hostel in San Juan had not only caused my backpack to get soaked during the rain storm despite being in my room but had also had people removing cockroaches from the http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Nicaragua/Granada/Hostel-Oasis/blog-284748.html I arrived in San Juan Del Sur after a long bus journey from Monteverde via a hot a rather scummy town called Rivas. I had left at 6am and then spent 8am til 1130am sat on the side of the motorway waiting for my bus to the Nicaraguan border. I had various amusing conversations with locals while I was waiting which helped to pass the time Most of them looked at me funny as I was in the middle of n http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Nicaragua/San-Juan-Del-Sur/blog-282648.html I got an early bus from Puerto Viejo to Monteverde towards the North West of Costa Rica. Monteverde and Santa Elena are two towns in between two huge cloud forest reserves. Monteverde is a quaker settlement founded by 4 American families who moved to Costa Rica after being imprisoned for refusing to fight in the Korean War because it was against their Quaker beliefs. They started dairy farming in http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/blog-280523.html I arrived in Puerto Viejo after staying just one night in San Jose. To be honest I didn't see much of the capital as I was tired from our last night of partying in Havana and so just wanted to catch up on sleep. My hostel was quite strange and they put me in a dorm room with 3 men over 40. One of which would laugh out loud in his sleep and scare the st out of me and the others were quite amusing http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Limon/Puerto-Viejo-de-Talamanca/blog-276759.html Trinidad is about 4 hrs drive from Havana on the South Coast of the Island about half way across. We decided that as we didn't have that much time in Cuba we'd divide the time up halfhalf between Havana and Trinidad rather than trying to rush around like I have been doing everywhere else on this trip.We got to Trinidad on Saturday afternoon and checked into another casa. On Saturday we had some http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Cuba/Centro/Trinidad/blog-275555.html Unfortunately some of the photos have uploaded very badly and i tried a few times and can't seem to resolve this Shame cos I really like the photos but you're all welcome to a full slide show when I get back ....I arrived in Havana after a terrible journey in which we'd been stalled at the end of Lima runway with a 'technical fault' and then I ended up missing my connecting flight as a resu http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Cuba/Oeste/La-Habana/blog-274513.html This entry will be very hard to write because it is such a mixture of amazingly good stuff that we did mostly involving scenery and time spent without our guide and amazingly awful stuff we did on the way to Machu Picchu usually involving the name Felix. If you haven't read the previous entry about pretrek panic then it might help you to understand the following...We left at 4am on Sunday mor http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Cusco/Salkantay-Trail/blog-270249.html On Thursday we got up early to go up to Machu Picchu before sunrise. Once the hotel staff had managed to wake Felix aided by some quite strong banging on the door we set off and got up there by 6am. The whole thing was covered in cloud and we couldn't yet see the whole thing together but we walked up to the guardhouse looking over the city to begin our tour. On entering the place I asked Felix i http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Cusco/Machu-Picchu/blog-270250.html We left early on Saturday to catch the bus up to Cusco where we had a trek briefing at 7pm. We'd been promised a very nice looking bus which would take 6 hours to make the journey in complete comfort and through beautiful scenery...After an hour we stopped at a place called Juliaca to find more passengers for the trip and ended up waiting there for an hour with passengers shouting at the driver th http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Puno/Puno/blog-270238.html Let's just say that our first impressions of Peru didn't exactly get much better anytime soon. Straight from the bus we checked into a hotel called the Nios Hotel a very pretty and quite expensive in Peruvian terms hotel run by a Dutch girl who uses the profits to provide street children and orphans with food school supplies sports lessons and healthcare. The woman has already adopted abou http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Cusco/Cusco/Cusco/blog-270245.html We've made it to our 7th and my last country in South America. As a little update Lara and I will prob be separating after the trek when I fly to Cuba and spend time there with Jon and then continue on to Costa Rica to do some volunteering for 23 weeks before the last fortnight relaxing in Nicaragua and Honduras for before heading home midJune. Lara has decided to stay down here for a while to http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Puno/Lake-Titicaca-/blog-267511.html We arrived in Copacabana on one of the smelliest buses I have ever travelled on. I don't think anyone on there had washed their hair in weeks and they didn't like us opening the window for fresh air so the 3 hour journey was not the most pleasantWe had originally planned to go straight to Isla del Sol and spend the night on the island but we then found out that we couldn't go to the bank until af http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/Isla-del-Sol/blog-267503.html Straight from arriving back from the Salar de Uyuni trip we had a quick dinner greatly enhanced by a drunk Bolivian puking in the corner and then got an overnight train to Oruro a town 3 hrs by bus from La Paz. Again the train proved to be a good way to travel and I snuggled up with a proper blanket and pillow and woke up 20 mins before we arrived. Then a short bus trip and we arrived in La http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/La-Paz/blog-267484.html I think the pictures should speak for themselves...So unless you're incredibly bored at work won't mention any names Amelia then just scroll to the pictures I really couldn't write this very well and it doesn't do it all justiceDay 1 we left Uyuni in a group of 6 all British with our excellent guide Obed. Our first stop was the train cemetry where there are a load of trains that were made http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Potosi-Department/Salar-de-Uyuni/blog-266124.html Potosi is a mining city standing at 4070m above sea level. We arrived here by bus surprisingly only half an hour late its a 3hr journey that the GAP year students we met got stuck on for 9 hours and immediately noticed the change in altitude. Neither of us have ever been at altitude before and so didn't know if we'd get it but we probably deserved it as we had flown straight to 2700m and then http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Potosi-Department/Potosi/blog-264871.html We arrived in Sucre late on Sunday afternoon after a 30min flight from Santa Cruz. We ended up splahing out 37 pounds on business class to get on the flight as we are suddenly realising how short of time we are and how much we want to do before our Inca trek starts from Cusco in Peru on the 20th April.Sucre is at 2790m above sea level and we noticed it was slightly colder although still sunny an http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Chuquisaca-Department/Sucre/blog-264868.html Unfortunately Santa Cruz turned into a bit of an administration day while we booked a flight and arranged the next couple of weeks and I phoned family to talk to them on my birthday. However we did fit in a visit to Don Freddo's a very upmarket restaurant with a 3 course meal for 60p. It wasn't worth it. The waiter came to clear the table and saw how disgusting and dirty the tablecloth was and http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Santa-Cruz-Department/Santa-Cruz/blog-264867.html After the Pantanal we spent the evening in Corumb a city right on the Bolivian border. We found a random restaurant doing even more allyoucaneat pizza and happily dug in while some random couple serenaded us with interesting attempts at songs in Spanish Portuguese and English playing drums and what I think must have been a guitar except it only had a block of wood with strings and then a me http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Santa-Cruz-Department/Santa-Cruz/blog-264857.html We left Rio on Sunday night for a flight to Campo Grande the gateway to the Pantanal. We arrived at the hostel around midnight and then made our way to bed and got up to leave at 1030pm for the 4 hour drive to the middle of nowhere in the Pantanal.The Pantanal is basically a huge wetlands the size of and it is home to loads of animals who gather on the dry parts when the whole area floods. We b http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Pantanal/blog-262778.html Wow. What can I say about this placeWe left Rio on an overcast day to head down to Ilha Grande on the coast. We were warned against it because the slightly dodgy weather by this i mean clouds rather than bright blue sky as the island has very little except for beautfiul beaches for entertainment.So after managing to catch one of the slowest buses in the world to the bus terminal we got the la http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Rio-de-Janeiro/Ilha-Grande/blog-261323.html