Petey Pablo

Monday 21st May - Chuy, Uruguay to Chui, Brazil Chuy as it's known in Uruguay, is a dump! It's best avoided if possible and is most likely unless you happen to bump into a Uruguayan doctor in the middle of the salt flats of Uyuni, Bolivia, who then takes it upon himself to graciously act as the pseudo Uruguayan tourist board and invite you back to his pad in Rocha, a place not often visited by the intrepid european backpacker. Chui as it's known in Brazil, is in fact probably more commonly visited by the locals looking to snap up a bargain due to its' duty free status and in our case, the 1st of a few new pair of havaianas for Stacie. Having wandered across the main street and asked a local for directions to ... read more

Sunday 6th May - Cordoba to Buenos Aires A mere 10 hour bus ride journey and we were in the capital. Argentine buses have turned out to be rather frustrating as they continuously pull off the main roads and will take 10 minute detours into town centres to the bus stations to pick up one man and his dog, especially when you're paying $50 for bus rides that were costing only $10 in Bolivia. Anyway our first sight of Buenos Aires wasn't a great one as we arrived at the Retiro Bus Station which is seeping with scallys and trash but bus stations are generally not a good advert for cities and we were later to find out that BA is one of the great cities of the world, full of energy and character. The arrival ... read more

Thursday 26th April - Salta Argentina seemed a nice enough place on first sight, maybe not quite as attractive, affluent and European as we expected but it was certainly a lot more expensive than everywhere else we'd been to in South America. As a result we've decided to try and make a concious effort to be more economical which meant a return to the supermarket and more home made ham and cheese sandwiches. Friday 27th April - Salta One of the benefits of arriving in a more European style country was the potential to indulge in a game of golf which is quite common here. Before we could do this however, we had to secure some coin change in order to ride the local buses which is harder to obtain than you might imagine. It's so ... read more

Tuesday 17th April - La Paz to Oruro We were somewhat fortunate to be able to get out of La Paz as we'd heard the exit roads had been blocked regularly of late by people protesting about some dodgy characters being let out of prison. Thankfully, Oruro was a transiting point for us as it was yet another dustbowl. We walked into town for a restaurant and had the pleasure of watching a young couple chew each others faces off as is so common in public in Latin America as we tucked into our dodgy lasagne. Wednesday 18th April - Oruro to Potosi Off we set on our 6 hour bus ride to Potosi which started off with the obligatory pitch by some sharkish travelling salesman in a suit which consists of him standing at the ... read more

Monday 9th April - Cusco to Puno Woo hoo and we're finally leaving Cusco. And what a warm feeling to get on the bus and be asked by the french couple in front how much we paid for the ticket and tell them they got stung for 50% more and even after they made the effort of booking in advance rather than just rock up like us. How could they be so stupide! We drove through Juliaca on the way to Puno which was yet another Peruvian dustbowl, crap hole of a city (where does all the money go?), which even gets a very poor write up in Lonely Planet which is oh so rare so must be true. I´ve just been left a comment on my Huaraz blog by a Peruvian who isn´t happy with ... read more