San Pedro de Atacama, in the desert of the same name . A small town with a reputation for being a touristy place where they quickly separate tourists and travellers from their cash. This was to be our last stop before heading home and the main reasons for going were that it was on the way back towards Lima for the dreaded flight to London, it was a region of Chile we had not seen before, it supposedly had lots of interesting sites/sights to see, and most of all (for me at least) it is the start gazing capital of the [View Full Entry]

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And so it was time to move on from the city of Salta to Tilcara a small adobe village set in the Quebrada Humahuaca valley in Northern Argentina. As our Balut Bus (AP$16) made its way up the valley the journey became more and more spectacular, multicoloured mountains on either side with layers of colours from terracotta to copper green to cream and adobe villages clinging to dusty hillsides punctuated with stands of Cardon cacti. Arriving at sunset in Tilcara (2500m) we soon realized that shorts, flip flops and strappy tops were not the way to go - it was freezing [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Asuncion in Paraguay we are headed for Salta in northern Argentina. A midmorning bus from Asuncion and another lengthy border crossing (made worse by immigration officials trying to get me off the bus and alone to coerce me into paying them a tip for stamping our passports, us being the only gringos on the bus and Paraguay being bribe hungry), followed by another luggage search five miles into Argentina, gets us to Resistencia, where Claire runs to get us onto the bus to Salta that should have left 5 minutes before. This she does and we get straight onto the [View Full Entry]

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Paraguay - our tenth and last new country of our trip to South America. Landlocked by Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina and to coin our phrase "very bloody hot" (41 degrees today). Cant go on too much about Paraguay as we were only there for a short time and as you can see from the photos we saw most of it from a super fast bus! Brazil and Paraguay share an enormous Hydroelectric Power Plant called Itaipu. Its said to be the biggest in the world, bigger than the one they are building in the 3 gorges in China. They run slick [View Full Entry]

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"Brasil, Brasil" - its carnaval time and those patriotic Brazilians were in full on party mode when we arrived in Rio in a huge storm. Well most of them were, we stopped at the Riotur desk in the airport for tourist information and the Carioca on duty got out a map, circled the Sugar Loaf, the Corcavado (Christ statue) and said - "well there isnt really much to do here except for the beaches" - hold on a minute, isnt the world´s biggest party due to start in just a couple of days.....? Well that´s Brazil for you - full of [View Full Entry]

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As we are now so close to the end, we´ve been rushing about like mad things in Brazil for carnaval and now in Salta for wine/food, so the blogs are a bit delayed. As a result I cant remember much about this bit so I’ll bluff it quickly and we’ll move onto the Brazil one...! Left Punta Arenas amid a hearty final booze up and fancy dress party with the other volunteers, and went to Puerto Natales. Here we had dinner in restaurant overdecorated in Beatles mania and then went to bed. During the night the wind huffed and puffed so [View Full Entry]

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Punta Arenas Just a quick one because people keep asking to see photos of where we have been living and volunteering for the last month. First things first, where are we? Punta Arenas is in Chilean Patagonia. Punta Arenas is a very pleasant town of about 125,000 inhabitants hugging the shores of the Straits of Magellan. Its origin back in the 19th century was as a trading port mostly for wool and as a fuelling stop for the steamers on their way around Cape Horn. Around its main square are beautiful colonial mansions in a European style, think Paris and London. [View Full Entry]

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Wow. National Park Torres del Paine. Geologically speaking not much more than rocks, but amazing to look at and even better to walk around. We came here when touring patagonia three years ago, but only managed to walk around two thirds of the accepted route - called the "W" because it goes up into the three valleys in a W shape. So, this time we are back again to complete the unfinished. We had a weekend free for this and managed to take the Monday off teaching/nursery as well, so three days in total. From Punta Arenas the park is nearly [View Full Entry]

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Instituto de Serabales “So we´ll meet at 9 outside the school …” said Juan, little did we know that by 10am we would be on our feet in front of our first class. That was it, no teaching expertise, no lesson plans, no teaching guides and no teachers to shadow. Just the merry band of TAPA volunteers and an expectant bunch of Punta Arenan students. And so began my month as an English teacher in Punta Arenas, good job I’d done it before in Bolivia. A quick trip to the shop at lunchtime with my teaching partner Michael (the man with [View Full Entry]

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So we get to Punta Arenas for a months volunteering, and I’m all revved up to work on a project to make walking trails through the countryside. I’ve got the cold weather gear and thinking that once I get to see what it’s all about I can be a little less on the manual labour side and a bit more project management! Humm… no such luck…soon as we meet the organizer, Juan, I’m told that this is no longer running (any particular reason why you couldn’t tell me this in the previous seven months Juan?!) and as an alternative I could [View Full Entry]

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