WhyteyandDobertson

GUATEMALA Antigua After the luxury flight from Panama to Guatemala where we dined like royalty, quaffed champagne and sneered at the commoners in cattle class, it was straight back to the thrills of backpacking as we took one of Guatemala’s legendary chicken buses from the airport to Guatemala City. Chicken buses are actually old American school buses – some don’t hide the fact and look exactly as you would expect, whereas others are pimped to the max, fitted with the obligatory Jesus stickers and crucifixes, and pumped up sound system blaring out Reggaeton beats. Once you locate the bus you need (usually by a local shouting the destination you’re looking for in a garbled, incoherent dialect, whilst you stare blankly, looking like the stupid gringo that you are), you jump on and wait for the bus ... read more

VOLUNTEERING AT INTI WARA YASSI, PARQUE MACHIA, VILLA TUNARI THE JOURNEY TO VILLA TUNARI When we finally prized ourselves away from the comforts of Cochabamba to head off to the animal sanctuary, we expected a simple three hour trip in a microbus straight to Parque Machia. As you might expect by now, this wasn’t to be. About two and a half hours in, the micro pulled up at a queue of lorries, taxis and people outside a town called Cristal Mayu. Using our strong grasp of Spanish we deciphered from the driver that there was a roadblock but we simply had to walk for one kilometre until we would reach Villa Tunari where the park was located. Happy enough, we set off walking. And walking. And walking. After about 3km we were starting to realise that ... read more

Here´s a quick blog entry to update on our eventful first couple of weeks in Bolivia. Its a harrowing tale of frustration, misery, illness, coldness and pain, sprinkled with a wee bit of happiness. Here goes... JOURNEY TO UYUNI We set off from Salta in high spirits, well prepared for the long journey to Uyuni in Bolivia. We had Mike in tow, a good guy we met in Salta and we took the 5.30am bus, destined for the border town of La Quiaca, the most northerly town in Argentina. All was plain sailing until about 20km away from La Quiaca when the bus came to a halt in a tiny village. Fine, we thought, it´s just a quick stop to let people off or let the driver have a cigarette. 20 minutes later we started to ... read more

Having been caught out once already in our quest for serenity, we pre-booked our departure to Uruguay when we arrived in Cordoba. So it’s an early night before we head back to Cordoba in the morning, to catch the bus to Montevideo, Uruguay. URUGUAY Whilst looking in to the logistics of travel to Uruguay and then onwards to Brazil, we quickly realised that our budget was going to suffer quite considerably if we included everywhere we wanted to visit. Both countries are expensive at the best of times but unfortunately we’re also currently in high season and with carnival looming, prices can triple. After much deliberation, we decided to cut short our trip to Uruguay and only visit Montevideo en route to Brazil. We were really disappointed to have to do this as we’d only heard ... read more

MENDOZA We arrived pretty late in Mendoza , keen for hot showers, food and alcohol of some variety. Sticking to our original plan of walking from bus stations to every hostel we’re staying at, we started our 30min walk to the All In Mendoza Monkey Hostel. 20mins in and we were rewarded by an amazing live orchestra playing in the main square - Plaza Indepencia, in front of a beautiful water feature. We couldn’t have asked for a better welcome. Our first few days were pretty chilled enjoying the sun, checking out the town and searching for a municipal swimming pool (which is becoming a regular occurrence, although sadly our searches usually seem to be fruitless). We thought our luck was in when we spied a huge pool complete with sun loungers and bar in a ... read more

Having passed our Spanish course (with a certificate and everything), we are now completely fluent in the language and therefore the rest of this blog will be in Spanish, not English. Bueno…... Or maybe not; the course was good but not good enough to overcome our ignorance and lack of ability. It’s going to be a long time until we are conversant with the locals. We had just enough time before leaving Bariloche to spend a day horseriding. Initially it seemed like it was going to be a long day of sore backsides and insect bites, made especially difficult by the fact that we were nursing hangovers. But it turned out to be a brilliant day when the horses went a bit faster (felt like a gallop, was actually a trot), and then half submerged themselves ... read more

DONNY Right, so the 12 hour bus journey from Valparaiso to Pucon was a doddle, which is a good thing since there are 35hr+ journeys on the way very soon. We just watched movies and slept and tried not to retch at the intermittent toilet stench. We arrived at Pucon at 9.30 am and headed off to our Lonely Planet recommended hostel, Ecole. We were greeted at reception by an evil witch who is clearly their best attempt at a friendly face. Having read on their website that their staff were English speaking I politely enquired in Spanish if she 'habla'ed inglese'. She replied that "No, this is Chile, in Chile we speak Spanish". Charming. Anyway the hostel was largely disappointing, with snooty staff, no kitchen, dreadful atmosphere and a vegetarian only restaurant which, for the ... read more

DONNY We packed our bags to leave the comfort of our posh hotel (which we barely remember due to excessive sleeping) and set off to start our "proper travelling" in Barrio Bellavista. We were staying in La Chimba, a really laid back hostel which was right in the middle of a pretty cool neighbourhood where locals and travellers alike go to eat, drink, suck each others faces and throw drinks over each other. No joke. Having checked into our room with its paper thin walls (more of which later), we went for a walk in an attempt to find the public swimming pools in the Parque Metropolitano, a large, tree covered hill near the centre of the city with a statue of the Virgin Mary on top. Turns out that the pools don't open until December, ... read more