http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/jimandmel/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from jimandmel en-us Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:55:28 +0000 Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:55:28 +0000 Through the hard times and the goodI have to celebrate you babyI have to praise youlike I shouldddddddddddddddddddddddd... We're writing a blog again which can only mean one thing...we are waiting. Only this time it is for a big huge plane that will bring us back to England. That is now a lie but we are too lazy to change things...Hello out there See you all soon.Since http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Argentina/blog-57965.html We eventually escaped the evil clutches of the bus strike they were striking because they were being asked to pay 80 Bolivianos 6 GBPounds tax a year and headed overnight to Sucre Bolivia's second capital. Whitepainted redroofed colonial buildings and numerous historical sights abound but the main draw was... the Dino Truck We were a little sceptical of this gringomagnet complete wit http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Potosi-Department/Salar-de-Uyuni/blog-53748.html Sorry for the doublewhammy but there is a bus strike in la Paz so we are stuck here and bored. Hope you enjoy our walk on the wild side or just flicking through the photos.The World's Most Dangerous Road runs from La Paz towards the rainforest and is so named due to its accident rate. The road meanders up the side of the mountains with a drop approaching 1000m in places. The worst single road http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Beni-Department/Rurrenabaque/blog-50597.html With slightly more stable stomachs we departed to the bus station in Cusco to travel to Puno. The train had looked very promising until we discovered it costs twice as much and takes four hours more. The bus it was then only our bus company decided it lacked bov on that particular day so a very friendly lady helped us swap buses. We spent the next eight hours at the front of a very busy doubled http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/La-Paz/blog-47339.html A few questions for you1 You drive a minibus. It has 14 seats. How many people can you carrya 14. You want your passengers to be comfortable and safe.b At least 20. Preferably more. With sacks and animals too.2 You drive a taxi. What safety features should it havea Crumple zones airbags seatbelts ABS braking etc.b None of the above. In fact if it has them you should rip them out. An http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Cusco/Cusco/blog-46275.html Determined to escape the desert we travelled into the Canete valley and to the town of Lunuhana. The taxi dropped us off in Imperial a district of Caete amid a swarm of market traders. Seconds later a colectivo materialised. Colectivos are a cheap way of getting around they consist of a man a van and a lad who hangs out of the side door screaming the destinations at passers by. Lunahuanaw http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Ancash/Huaraz/blog-42794.html PART 1 Mission Impossible.You mission should you choose to accept it is to get from Santiago Chile to anywhere in Peru. Sounds easy and it should have been if only we could have had some luck with the buses All the Chileans were so busy going on holiday they forgot about the needs of the poor Gringos. The upshot of this is an amazing skill in sitting looking at desert. To give you an idea http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Ica/Huacachina/blog-40738.html Here begins the tale of failure we hope its not a chapter that is repeated often. Count them and see.After Christmas in the tent we were determind to have a slighly louder New Year shame that we didnt realize that everyone goes home to be with their family at ten oclock Failure 1. After a fantastic steak dinner and spending an entire 10 pounds on the two of us it took a while till we even http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/blog-35798.html We finally left Patagonia and felt like we were starting on the next stage of our adventure. And it shall be called the Hot City stage. Mendoza was a pleasant enough city but most importantly we were in beds again. After spending half of our time in Patagonia camping we were saying goodbye to our tent and hello to space and new clothes. That was the plan anyhow but the Argentinian post office http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Chile/Santiago-Region/Santiago/blog-39668.html ...that was the mantra we had often repeated to ourselves when things weren't available or stupidly expensive in the south. Bariloche was our last stop of our Patagonian adventure and was going to be the biggest city we had visited since Buenos Aires. We spent our first day wandering around town trying to readjust to being hot. We had finally reached a place that takes more than 10 minutes to com http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Argentina/Rio-Negro/San-Carlos-de-Bariloche/blog-39042.html Happy New Year to y'allA ridiculous o'clock alarm got us up and ready to leave Ushuaia for Puerto Natales. It was a lot of miles consisting of mainly nothing. Not even roads bumpy gravel not ideal for sleeping. We stopped somewhere to swap buses before embarking on a journey of more nothingness. It was amazing to see so much nothing just flat bare windswept and barren land. The border cr http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Chile/Magallanes/Puerto-Natales/blog-33312.html Hola Chicos thanks for all the messagesWe're beginning to get used to the lingo out here faring a bit better than we did in Korea at least we dont get too many surprises when ordering food. Unfortunately we dont quite have enough to ward off taxi drivers in the process of ripping us offWell were not in Antarctica unless anyone feels like giving us a very nice Christmas present any takers http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Argentina/Tierra-del-Fuego/Ushuaia/blog-31155.html For those of you sitting at home holding a baby its really rubbish here so dont bother reading any furtherThe sun was shining and we had somewhat high hopes for Buenos Aires the guidebooks talked it up and showed some beautiful photos but most of what we saw was typical city. Theres a lot of traffic loads of buses and lorries spewing clouds of diesel fumes everywhere. However we did see http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Argentina/Buenos-Aires/blog-29053.html