After all of our little unexpected stop-offs we finally arrived at Peru's main attraction, Cusco, where many people trek the Inca trail up to Machu Picchu. Unfortunately the Inca trail was closed whilst we were there- they close it for the month of February so that they can clean it. Still we had the most manic of weeks as we realised that we had less time than we originally thought due to all the little adventures we had been on and therefore we crammed everything into one week. Cusco is a very small town but such a great, traditional place, especially [View Full Entry]

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A year ago and we would have been staying in the city of Pisco as this USED to be the second most visited city in Peru after Cusco. However, we were advised by a local taxi driver to stay in Paracus, a small fishing village half an hour away from the city because on August the 17th in the previous year a devastating earthquake had hit Pisco. The earthquake was 8.1 on the richter scale and still 6 months after the tragedy the city is still a picture of rubble and torn down buildings. We took a ride into Pisco and [View Full Entry]

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Peru was very manic and as we arrived into the airport we were continously warned that we must check that our taxis are real taxis etc. We left the airport and took a ride with a taxi company through one of their reps and headed to Loki, our hostel. We saw a lot of poverty on our way, the streets seemed full of beggers and the buildings in a bad condition. The driving was some of the worst we have experienced in South America (and that it saying something), the drivers swerve in and out of traffic and constantly beep their [View Full Entry]

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Rosario was similar to Buenos Aires, though not quite as nice, it seemed extremely civil. Our hostel was decent and we moved into a room with two extremely beautiful guys from Holland that we had met on the bus so it seemed we couldn´t go far wrong. We all decided to go for a walk around the place and discovered many student streets filled with cheap cafes, restaurants and clothes shops which suited us just fine for a few days. The river side beaches could only be reached by boat or a very long taxi ride. Rather than taking a boat [View Full Entry]

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fAGD [View Full Entry]

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I wasn't sure what to expect leaving Brazil and heading to Argentina, but I was extremely conscious of the fact that any beach was miles away from Buenos Aires. We checked into our hostel and bought a hostel international card to get money of this hostel and others belonging to the association. We then found that, ironically, our dorm was full of Brazilians. The hostel was quite nice as it was central to everything and we could see the Obelisk from our bedroom window. This is a famed monument and it is placed on the widest street in the world. We [View Full Entry]

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We decided to take a bus journey from Buenos Aires to the Argentinian side of Iguaza falls in order to save some much needed money. The bus was supposed to take 16 hours, however, it took a little longer due to the bus breaking down a few times a long the way- lovely!! Two English guys Matt and Tom that we had met in Buenos Aires travelled with us, though they couldn't stay in our hostel as it was fully booked. Our hostel was very strange, we were located in a little shed to the side of the main building, here [View Full Entry]

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Shane and I returned to our old hostel in Ipanema after spending one night in Botafoga and disliking the area. It was great to go back and see some familiar faces and it´s definitely been our favourite hostel so far. A couple of days were spent chilling out on the beach with some fellow hosteleers and we decided we had to see Sugarloaf before we left and so hopped on a bus or two and went on our way. Sugarloaf is a peak in the mountains and is said to have it´s name as it has the shape of concentrated refined [View Full Entry]

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Shane and I had heard nothing about Ilha Grande until we got to Ipanema and heard locals and the people of the hostels speaking about how beautiful it was. Ilha Grande is an Island just off the coast of Brazil and Shane and I thought it was one not to be missed. We booked three nights in a hostel and headed to the port. There were only two ferry crossings but locals often negotiate with the fisherman and can get rides on their boats over to the island, so Shane and I did this and jumped on to a local fishermans [View Full Entry]

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Well where to start..... Firstly Brazilian food! I would say the speciality is meat, meat and more meat, it is ridiculous and fortunately ridiculously good. Every restaurant sells steak and if you order it the amount you get would cost a fortune if the same was ordered in England. It is all served medium rare- perfect!!!! One night Shane and I ventured to a meat restaurant in Copacabana, it was a buffet costing 19$R, approx 6 English pounds. There was a huge choice of pasta, salad etc on the food stand and then meat was bought around on skewers and the [View Full Entry]

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