Victor78

Hay español abajo! I promised myself that I wouldn’t need to say this again, but here it is, time for another long over due update!!! It’s a whole 4 months since my last update so what an earth have I been doing?! After my trip to the Galapagos I flew to Guayaquil, rather than return directly to Quito. Guayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador and itss commercial heart. It doesn't really have any prime tourist attractions but I was immediately drawn the hustle and bustle and rough and ready nature of the city. Stories abound of robberies and many of the Ecuadorian friends I made there have been robbed multiple times in their lives but I had no problems and never felt unsafe. In recent years the city has started to regenerate itself and itss ... read more

Hay espanol abajo! I left Panama on Monday 6th of July on a short 1 ¼ hour flight over to Cartagena, Colombia which is on the Caribbean coast. I arrived in Cartagena at about 11pm and despite not having booked any accommodation I found a small hotel with a dorm room with 5 beds and immediately got chatting to the guy on the bunk above me. He was Colombian and we spoke in Spanish for a while and I found out that he lived on a nearby island, painting (he was an artist), catching fish and living a life without modern comforts, including electricity. He had space for backpackers and invited me over to stay and said that I could make arrangements through the hotel. Cartagena (Cartagena de Indias, to give it its full name) was ... read more

Hay español abajo! I flew from Peru to Nicaragua, via Miami on 05/06/09. Not the most direct route you might be thinking but it was the cheapest way of getting there. My reason for leaving South America was to catch up with somebody (Alyssa) I had met in Guatemala who was studying and travelling for 6 weeks, whilst in between jobs in the States. I studied at a Spanish language school, La Mariposa, from 07/06 to 27/06. The school was set up on a not for profit basis two years ago by a British women, Paulette, who donates the profits from the school to various local organisations. The school is also an eco-hotel with 8 bedrooms and I stayed there for the 3 weeks, enjoying the creature comforts of a large room and hot (solar powered) ... read more

As always I am behind on my updates so I am going to try a different approach - write about what I am up to at the moment and fill in the gaps later! At the moment I am in La Paz, Bolivia which is the highest capital city in the world at 3,400 metres, although constitutionally it isn't actually the capital and it should be in Sucre in the south of the country, where the Judicary still sits. I arrived at about 5 o'clock in the morning of 6th of May and after grabbing a couple of hours sleep in the apartment of a couple I met on a tour the previous weekend (James is English and his wife, Maughe, is Bolvian) I went to the language school I had been in touch with previously ... read more

Hay español abajo! _______________ Here’s an update on some of the missing time from my blogs. This covers the time period from 22/04/09 to 28/04/09. In case you are confused here is a very brief over view of my travels since I left Guatemala: 03/03/09 - Left Guatemala. 04/03/09 - 08/03/09 - Uruguay: Punte del Este; Montevideo; Colonia. 08/03/09 - 16/03/09 - Argentina: Buenos Aires. 16/03/09 - 18/04/09 - Overland tour of Argentina & Chile 19/04/09 - 22/04/09 - Chile: Santiago & Valparaiso On Wednesday 22/04/09 I left Santiago on an overnight bus for a journey which I thought was going to take 20 hours but was in fact scheduled for 24 hours. After that length of time an extra 4 hours is pretty unimportant and the journey itself passed relatively quickly. My destination was San ... read more