And so the countdown to the end of our South America trip begins! We have only 3 dys left in this crazy, beautiful, challenging, corupt and awe inspiring continent...which mebns only 3 more days of speaking in 'pretend' Spanish (although our Spanish IS actually barely understndible now!!) only 3 more days of taking random buses and only 3 more days of waking up each morning parying that last nights dinner has not created WW3 in your stomach! For the last week we have been based in Cusco - the historical centre and main city of the Sacred Valley - home to [View Full Entry]

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We're now in Peru. Thank god. They nearly didnt let me leave Bolivia...i'll get to that in a minute but first an update on our last few days in 'lovely' Bolivia (i only write that with muted sarcasm becasue Bolivia has really pissed me off in the last 24 hours, i love it really!!) So we ended up getting delayed in our Amazon oasis, Rurrenabaque for another day as we were rained in meaning no planes could fly. By the end of our week there we were getting a bit fidgety and as everyones stomachs had turned to sludge we were [View Full Entry]

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Most people arriving for a tour of the Amazon would be well prepared in advance - drink plenty of fluids the night before, get a good nights sleep and brace yourself for the humidity, heat and general uncomfortable ness of Amazon life. Not us. Drink fluids we did the night before, just the wrong type, and lots of the wrong type. And so on the morning of our flight (the night after our hostel trivia quiz and celebratory shots at winning best team name) to Rurrenabaque a small town in the Beni region of North East Bolivia from where we would [View Full Entry]

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Following our 3 day adventure around south west Bolivia hanging out in hot springs and amusing ourselves, with what we have all decided are the campest animals in the world, Llamas, we arrived in lofty La Paz, the second largest city in Bolivia. I had heard alot about La Paz, mainly so from the book i read last year called Marching Powder, which tells the story of a Brit who got locked up in a prison in La Paz for trying to smuggle a shed load of coke out of Bolivia to the UK, smart guy. But La Paz really is [View Full Entry]

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After a few days in Tupiza, some horseriding and more pizza eating, we headed off on a 3 day 2 night jeep tour of south west Bolivia. Its a well trodden route, every backpacker does it, and i now know why! It was the best 3 days we have had on our travels yet and we have taken in some of the most unbelievable sites, animals and people! As we are with Jack and Jess we already had our group of 4 good to go so there was no danger of being stuck in a jeep for 3 days with people [View Full Entry]

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Now i´ve of course read about Bolivia. Its renowned for being a hard place to travel around, or at least it used to, its renowned for coca leaf production and therefore keeping half of Europe and Americas noses powdered and its renowned for its crazy llama textiles and clothing. In the last few days we have experiences all of this (NOT the powdered nose bit, just the leaf!!!), and more. As soon as we arrived at the Argentina/Bolivia border we could tell it wasnt going to be an easy crossing. For starters, we had to queue for about an hour, for [View Full Entry]

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Adios a muchus gracias Argentina and Bien Dias Bolivia! We´re now in Bolivia but spent pretty much the last ten days before we arrived here having an aweosme time in northern province of Salta in Argentina. Following Iguazu Falls we took another crappy overnight bus to Resistencia, a ´city´ that was half way between Iguazu on the Argentinian border and Salta, our destination where we planned to stay for a week. Instead of doing the 24 hours on a bus straight we thought it would be nice to drop into Resistencia, have a nose around, get a cheap hotel room for [View Full Entry]

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I sit and write this with a hangover. And not any hangover, i drank enough cheap Argentinian vodka last night to fuel a whole bloody nuclear war and the fumes seeping out of my skin right now, a good 12 hours after the night ended (yes, it was a 4am finish, nice) could fuel a small car, so excuse the spelling mistakes. I think last time i wrote we were on Ilha do Mel. Not much to say about that one...no one was there, it rained, none of the restaurants were open, showers were cold and we only had enough money [View Full Entry]

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Currently on an island called Ilha Do Mel, 12 hours south west of Rio. Its raining so i thought i´d take 10 mins to blog about a VERY important experience i encountered in Rio that i forgot to mention in my Rio blog...and also to give Brazil some credit following my bashing about how bad the food can be here........... in Brazil they have pay per kilo restaurants! Now we´re talking.....one hungover day in Rio , Nat and i stumbled across a restaurant that we thought was all you can eat. As a massive fan of all you can eats (I [View Full Entry]

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Oi! And that´s hello in Brasilian Portuguese, not me shouting at you with poor English! So we´re here in Brasil, the land of Samba, Caiprinhas, beautiful people who dont understand much english (at all) and.....expensive everything!! If there was one thing about coming to Brasil that Nat and i werent prepared for, it was how expenisve this place is and how hard it is to communicate with the locals for day to day things. First example...we arrive at Rio, its boiling, we get in a cab and rather confidently ask the driver, in our well practiced 4 days of Spanish from [View Full Entry]

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