We're here, we made it - overland from Buenos Aires to Caracas in 4 months, more or less on or following the world's largest mountain range. When we've been sat waiting for hours at bus terminals we devised a way to amuse ourselves and here are the results... We have: * Visited 8 countries * Been to the world's driest dessert * Been to the world's largest and highest salt flats * Visited one of the seven wonders of the world * Crossed the equator (stood on it, hopped over it, straddled it) * Been from zero meters above sea level [View Full Entry]

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We said goodbye to the Andes via a 2 hour true winding mountain road through spectacular scenery - huge steep mountains dropping down into a deep gorge. With every metre we descended the temperature rose until eventually we were in hot, dry Barinas. We did the rounds of bus companies for the last time, looking for ones that go overnight to Caracas and secured our tickets for our last South American bus. With over 12 hours to kill we found somewhere to dump off our big rucksacks and caught a local bus into the town centre where we spent the rest [View Full Entry]

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Think Venezuela and you don't normally think of the Andes, but the last 400km of the Andes does indeed reside here. We're not talking little mountains either, these puppies are up to 5,000m high. From Maracaibo we took what should have been an 8 hour night bus to Merida. It was by far and away our crappiest night bus and had precisely zero leg room and the journey took 3 hours longer than it should because the bus kept breaking down. The biggest town in the Venezuelan Andes, Merida is used to seeing tourists and so was very welcoming. We soon [View Full Entry]

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Having flagged a bus just outside Tayrona National Park, which incidentally was the worst shed of a bus we have seen in Colombia we arrived at the border town of Maicao into chaos. There were several men greeting us off the bus shouting "Maricaibo, Maricaibo, Por Puesto, Por Puesto", traffic all over the place and no sight of a collectivo. We were closely followed and harassed as we tried to refuse to get in an unmarked bashed in shed of an old American Chevrolet as our taxi and headed over to the Brasillia bus terminal to be quietly reassured by the [View Full Entry]

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Our 3 weeks in Colombia are at an end, we've travelled overland from one end of the country to the other - Ipiales on the Ecuadorian border to Maicao on the Venezuelan Caribbean coast border - and stopped off lots on the way. What they say Colombia is known for terrorist guerrillas, cocaine and for once being the kidnap capital of the world (Iraq now holds that title), and Bogota as the most dangerous city in the world. Various governments travel advisories still don't make for pretty reading... Current NZ travel advisory for Colombia: There is a high risk to your [View Full Entry]

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After asking around in Taganga we found a boat to take us 1 hour round the coast to Cabo San Juan de la Guia in the Tayrona National Park. The first couple of people we asked wanted a lot of money 50,000 and 40,000 each but then we met John hanging out on the beach and he does it for 35,000 pesos per person as he's a friendly chatty guy that easily puts groups together (about 14 went out on our boat). We asked about his name (he's a tall carribbean Colombian black man) and when he was young mucho boats [View Full Entry]

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We were determined to get a bus out to Cartagena bus terminal even if it was a mission because taking a cab was way too expensive. As it turns out it was pretty easy, we got up really early to get as much of the travelling done as we could before it got too hot, walked to where we were told buses go past, asked a man on a street stall there and he flagged us one (which because it was early on a Sunday morning was pretty dead). It was a proper local bus with caribbean music blaring full blast [View Full Entry]

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The night bus to Cartagena took 13 1/2 hours, getting us in at 7:30am. It had the most leg room of any bus we've been on and even had a boys and a girls toilet which we thought was bliss (we all know that men struggle to pee in a stationary toilet, never mind on a moving bus and honestly on the Cuzco to Lima bus we don't think that any of the men managed to get even a drop in the toilet going by the 2 inches of liquid sloshing round the floor...) It was an easy journey and we [View Full Entry]

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The bus station in San Gil was dead when we arrived but we sussed out that buses passing through tout for business on the main road just below the park. We also found a bus company office opposite who go to Bucaramanga every half hour, so on the morning we came to leave we dragged our heels walking down the road and when nothing passed (it was a bit early for buses from Bogota to have got that far) went to the bus office. The 2 1/2 hour journey took us through the Chicamocha National Park and some cool high Andean/big [View Full Entry]

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We caught a collectivo back to Tunja and had our strangest bus experience yet - we found a tout for San Gil buses who went and found his mate, who made a call and got in a cab with us and took us to meet the bus that was stopped on the outskirts of town. They must have really wanted our fare! The journey took 4 hours and we were a bit annoyed to get into San Gil as we'd both just fallen asleep to escape the death defying bus driving. The bus station was completely dead and our first thoughts [View Full Entry]

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