Day 2 starts off with a very hearty breakfast, still don't understand where this massive appetite is coming from, and then onto a small dinghy to cruise down the Rio Claro for a few hours, spotting numerous waterbirds, Hawks, Kites, Iguana's, Monkeys and of course Caiman. The weather is overcast, so it means the animals are a bit docile, but it also means that us of the fair skin do not fry and crumble under the usual mid 30 degree heat and high humidity. Once again Flavio is a machine, pointing out animals with his eyes that are so well camouflaged, that we have trouble finding them with binoculars. Our break after lunch allows us time to go through Flavio's encyclopedia-like mind and write down the names of the birds that we have managed to take ... read more

It is 2am, Sunday night, and we are in the Campo Grande bus terminal. The Lonely Planet guide said that this is supposed to be fairly seedy at night, with hookers & dodgy characters. But there is nothing that interesting to observe to help kill the next 3.5 hours till our bus. We arrived here at 11.45pm, after another fairly torturous day. Getting to the border crossing at 9am this morning high hopes were held of getting into Corumba, Brazil by 12. We got through the Bolivian side in 2 hours, but the Brazilian side took another 4 hours. Not sure if today was a special day, but there were a lot of Bolivians seeking visas today, the majority on their way to Sao Paulo. There was around 150 people to process, including 5 gringos, and ... read more

After a very nice 12 days in Sucre, we are moving onto Santa Cruz for a quick stop before venturing into the northern section of the Pantanal in Brazil. Sucre has been good to us, firstly as a place to chill out and get aclimatised to the Bolivian lifestyle, and also where we have done our first week of spanish school. Things are ridiculously cheap here; we are staying in a very nice B&B, La Dolce Vita, where we have a private room that is the size of a small studio, for $18 a night. It is next door to the main market where there is an amazing selection of fresh fruit n veg, as well as all sorts of meats and other produce, where we can walk away with two large bags of goodies for ... read more

The last blog was a long one, so i will keep this one brief, and beef it up with photo's... We are granted a sleep in until 6.30 on day 3, but it is still bitterly cold when we leave the homestay. Shortly after leaving we arrive at the Arbol de Piedra, the petrified forest. It is not a petrified forest, but a cluster of large volcanic rocks in the middle of the desert that had been spewed out by a volcano millions of years ago. Soon after we reach Laguna Hondas and find that is completely frozen over, even though it is 100's of metres wide. There are still some brave (or stupid) flamingos walking on the ice hoping that it will melt and provide them with a feed. Next is another lagoon, Laguna Negra, ... read more

Ah Salta, you have made up for the bus trip from hell to get here. Leaving Mendoza at 8pm last Friday we were in good spirits after having spent a nice week in Argentina's 4th largest city and wine capital. Soon though, our spirits were dented as not long after a somewhat passable dinner was served, a loud clunking sound started emanating from the back of the bus. It was not a good sound, and was even louder when the bus changed directions between lanes or around corners. The drivers soon took notice and started stopping the bus to check on it every 30 minutes. After a few hours we found ourselves in a very small & dusty truckstop of a town disturbing the local mechanic from his friday night beer drinking (it was midnight by ... read more