http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/droppa/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from droppa en-us Wed, 09 Dec 2009 06:25:56 +0000 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 06:25:56 +0000 Dear god I am a long way behind in these. It seems sort of pointless doing this now as most people know where I am etc. but to keep it all complete I will quickly do a couple more blogs to complete the diary. So much has happened in the last 10 weeks or so that it is quite crazy. Some things have been good some things have been bad but all in all Irsquom happy to be where I am now. But more http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/blog-150633.html Well last stop on the tour de force was New York. I was exhausted when i got there from memory this was 3 months ago and trying to be the cheap tourist i attempted to navigate the NY subway system at midnight by myself. Tip for young players don't do that. Doesn't work. Ends in disasterous cab rides at 2am in the morning. I stayed quite north of the city on 106th St and Central Park West it http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/New-York/New-York/Manhattan/blog-170545.html Just a quick one with some photos of my time so far in London. Since being here i have already worked three jobs one as a bloody warehouse worker for a luxury department store over here and for 7 an hour but i'm now settled in working for DeLoitte Touche as a data monkey. Incredibly boring work but i'm with a good bunch of temps and we all have a good laugh. Since getting over here i've http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Greater-London/blog-171073.html Some photos of my trip to Dublin caught up with Maddy house party nice lunch in a restaurant walk through town Guiness Factory. You get the idea. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Dublin/Dublin/blog-171078.html Synopsis 22 hour bus ride LondonPamplona 4 days of booze one bigarse campsite with a great pool millions of crazy Spaniards 1000's of crazy travellers 6 bulls one road and one bloody big and rammed bullring. Detailed description So i decided to hit up one of the biggest festivals on the European calender that being the San Fermin festival otherwise known as the Running of the Bulls http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Navarre/Pamplona/blog-180737.html So it all had to come to an end eventually and it did on March 6th when Josh and I both flew out of Peru Josh headed home as most of you probably now know and me off to Guatemala for a week before hitting up Nuevo York for a few days and then to my final resting place for a while anyway London.After being in the Andes for around 2 months and being sick and tired of being cold and not seei http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/blog-137210.html Alright then on to Huachachina it was. Now this is just a small little oasis where pretty much noone lives but 1000s of tourists flock to each year just to say that they have been in an oasis. That and it is also the base for some super extreme sports. We caught an overnight bus there from Arequipa on which Josh got off about 2 hours before me at the ungodly hour of 5am to go fly over t http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Ica/Huacachina/blog-135077.html So we headed off from Oruro on what was to be abit of a mission. A 6am bus was to take us from Oruro to Arica in Chile which was to take around 9 hours or so. From there we then decided to catch a taxi from Arica across the border to Tacna Peru making our stay in Chile a grand 5 hours or so where we were to stay the night. From there the next morning we were going to catch another bus http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Arequipa/Colca-Canyon/blog-134665.html So the mission was nearly complete accommodation had actually been sorted out for us thanks to Bella and Glen old friends we had met in Buenos Aires who had booked and paid something for us legends and we were on the bus from Uyuni. We arrived at about 6am in Oruro and the festivities had already commenced. The town was a sea of colour and everyone was dressed up to the nines.The carn http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Oruro-Department/Oruro/blog-133120.html So we struggled through the overnight bus from Potosi to Uyuni by struggled i mean taking 2 sleeping tablets and crashing out for the entire 8 hour nightmare and arrived at around 1am. Our grand plan was to get around 6 hours sleep arise bright and early and book a tour to start that morning at 10am. And we pulled it off with aplombWe met 2 american lads on the bus ride Seth and Andrew a http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Potosi-Department/Salar-de-Uyuni/blog-133114.html So off it was to Potosi the highest city in the world. Everything in Bolivia is the highest something whether it be the highest city highest ruin highest hotel or even the highest Irish owned Bar. But take it from me Potosi was bloody high. At around 4100m above sea level it was once one of the richest cities in the world due mainly to the abundant silver that was discovered in one of http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Potosi-Department/Potosi/blog-132203.html Sometimes when you travel for an extended period of time things end up happening which you just didnt expect. Sometimes its great and sometimes its diabolical. Luckily for us our excursion to Sucre was not the latter.We had been intending on going straight from La Paz which we returned to after biking the DANGEROUS ROAD to Potosi in the south of Bolivia. However when we went to the bu http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Chuquisaca-Department/Sucre/blog-130449.html After the jungle we just felt like we hadnt had too much action for the week so we decided to embark on mountain biking The Worlds Most Dangerous Road. We really are thrillseekers arent we However luckily or unluckily depending on how you look at it it is nowhere near as dangerous as it once was since the building of a new road. The old road still exists and this is the one that yo http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/Yungas-Road/blog-128282.html We flew out of La Paz on the 31st January bound for the Bolivian Amazonian Basin. There are two ways to get there from La Paz. The first option is to catch a 20 hour bus along a very hary piece of road that drops off to about 100 metre cliffs in some sections. Not very appealing. Option 2 is to catch a flight with Amaszonas Airlines which takes around 40 mins. Sounds very appealing. Not http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Beni-Department/Rurrenabaque/blog-127061.html I am getting really far behind in these blogs at the moment so today I am going to try to pump out a couple of them to get me back on track. We have just been so busy over the last week or so that I really havent had a chance to even get on a computer. So here goeshellip.. As I mentioned in my last blog we went from Puno in Peru to Copacabana in Bolivia where we intended on staying one nigh http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/La-Paz/blog-126991.html Okay so after the fun and debauchery of Cuzco came a trip to a place with the funniest name in the world. Bart Simpson found it funny and so do I. Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world and it sure is bloody high sitting at around 3700m above sea level. We parked our arses at the lakeside town of Puno which is on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca and organized to take a http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Puno/blog-123731.html Where do i begin This has got to have been one of the best experiences of my life without a doubt. I had been looking forward to doing the Inca Trail for a long time now and this was one of the main reasons why i had wanted to go to South America in the first place. And it certainly didnt dissapointWe spent about 4 days acclimitising in Cusco before going on the hike. With Josh layed up i http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Cusco/Machu-Picchu/blog-120436.html Rio has been conquered. Not that we got the best weather in the world while we were there thus making it hard to do all the sights but Rio has been done We arrived in Rio on the 29th December and we were booked into stay at a hostel in Copacabana called Stone of a Beach. It was a really cool hostel only 3 blocks from the beach and the people that we were there with over New Years were a re http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Rio-de-Janeiro/Rio-de-Janeiro/Copacabana/blog-117942.html We had ummed and ahhed for some time about where to stay for Christmas. Josh and I both wanted somewhere where we could hang out with a good bunch of people in an atmosphere that felt like home. On our travels we had heard so much stuff about this great hostel on Isla De Santa Catarina which is just over the bridge from Florianopolous one of the major cities in Southern Brazil. The island is http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Santa-Catarina/Florian-polis/blog-114927.html We spent a few days recovering from our Patagonian hike in Buenos Aires before heading north to Iguazu Falls. Iguazu Falls is seriously one of the most amazing things i have ever seen in my life. I dont know the facts on how much water tips over these rocks every minute or anything like that but it was just phenomonal. They straddle the ArgentinianBrazilianParaguayan borders with the maj http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Argentina/Misiones/Iguazu-National-Park/blog-114065.html