Our last few days in Buenos Aires was spent watching free tango shows (Argentinians are all about the tango so street shows are abundant), visiting the posh Recoleta Cemetery, and doing all sorts of "touristy" things. The cemetery was opened in 1822 and is the final resting place of many famous people, the only one of familiarity to us being Eva Peron. It is in a pretty swanky part of town with storefronts among the Ralph Lauren, Cartier, and Armani variety and sidewalks occupied by the uber wealthy and their purebred pooches. We felt slightly underdressed and out of place! Some random notes on Argentina/Buenos Aires: We've learned that Argentinians are all about the dulce de leche, which is a thick caramel spread that they put on EVERYTHING. Supermarkets have entire isles dedicated to it, and ... read more

Here is what happened ... We had just returned to our hostel. There are huge bird cages near the front door and when we walked by them the birds started to flip out. Like really flip out. They were going crazy. We couldn't figure out what we had done to startle them. At the same time there was a man sitting on the couch watching a movie and we asked him what movie he was watching. He jumped up and said "EARTHQUAKE!" - but neither of us got what he meant. We just looked dumbly at him like "Huh? A movie called Earthquake? We haven't heard of that movie before." And then the ground started to shake, like really, really shake, and the walls and columns of our hostel were shaking too. The man asked us ... read more

And it really, really sucks! The ironic thing is that our last blog was about how much safer we have been feeling even though Quito has a nasty reputation for muggings and such. We haven't felt threatened in the least. This is what happened: The night of our last post (Monday) we planned to drop off some laundry, get some dinner, and update our blog. As we said in our last post, we have realized that if we leave our hostel at night with very little on us (so just enough money for what we need), we feel much safer. So, instead of taking our camera with us to update our blog, we just took the memory card and left the camera in our room. After doing everything, we went back to our room and packed ... read more

With the financial meltdown diverted, we are now onto ANGEL FALLS! To our pleasant surprise, the tour we paid for turned out to be legitimate and actually quite nice. After the drama with the slimy tourist guys, we felt a little anxious that we were still being ripped off, but decided to just go with it and crossed our fingers and toes for the best. We caught an overnight bus from Caracas to Ciudad Bolivar at 9:30pm, and caught a flight to Canaima National Park early the next morning. The plane was a little 6 seater and because it was a clear and sunny day, we were treated to an awesome view of Venezuelan countryside. It was so beautiful and lush! Upon arrival at Camp Wey Tupuy, we were debriefed and told to pack ourselves a ... read more

Next on Trevor's "must do" list is a visit to Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world! After disembarking in Manaus, Brazil on Monday evening, we headed straight for the airport to catch our flight to Caracas, Venezuela. Our flight was an overnighter that neither of us could sleep on (gross - we arrived about 6am Tuesday morning) ... and as we were waken up every morning on the boat at 5am by darling little children, we arrived in Caracas rather cranky and just wanting to be on our way to Angel Falls. We set about to arrange a tour through one of the "tourist" booths at the airport, and things didn't go so well. We have officially had our first experience of being swindled -- BIG TIME. Our first bit of advice for anyone ... read more

We survived! The boat ride from Belem to Manaus lasted exactly five days - 5 VERY LONG DAYS, almost to the minute! Our experience on the Cisne Branco started off on the wrong foot and was interesting to say the least! Here is a rendition of our brilliant Amazon "cruise" ... We arrived at the boat later than we had hoped (due to a kerfuffle over which boat we were supposed to be on), and that resulted in a struggle for us to find an "acceptable" place to hang our hammocks. The boat was nearly full. When they say to arrive early to secure a good spot, they mean it! We didn't want to be separated and didn't want to be in a "high traffic" area. We also didn't want to be near the bathrooms or ... read more