It is impossible to write about the wonders of the Iguazu Falls. It was definitely one of the highlights of tour trip in South America. From our first glimpse of the thundering magnificence of the falls we were on a total high! After settling into our hotel in Foz de Iguacu, the closest city to the falls in Brazil, we walked to the bus station and almost immediately caught a bus out to the national park which is 20 klms from the city. Once we arrived at the Visitor’s Centre we wasted no time on catching the transit bus to the ‘Path of the Falls’ bus stop. Our first view of the falls took our breath away. We had seen many photographs but they really don’t give you the full scale of the falls.. And the ... read more

Early in the morning Jaime drove us to the airport in Sucre - we were headed to the city of Santa Cruz (and nearly back to sea level at only 417 meters) where we planned on catching up with another member of the Argandona family, Rodrigo, before leaving Bolivia enroute for Paraguay and the Iguazu Falls. Unfortunately we found that our flight had been rescheduled and we had a four and half hour wait before departure though we managed to fill the time at the café and online, though the internet signal was very erratic. We had loved our time in the ‘White City’ and really appreciated how well our new ‘family’ had looked after us. The flight to Santa Cruz was brief, a mere 25 minutes, and a taxi took us to a hostel in ... read more

Uyuni didn’t look any less depressing after a nights sleep - it was just much muddier as the thaw was well advanced, It was actually the first large town in Bolivia that we had been to that had predominately dirt streets - we had been expecting to see many more then we had, The roads connecting all the main towns were mostly surfaced as well, It wasn’t long ago that only 200 kilometres of main roads were paved. The bus was late leaving and we spent the time trying to dodge the drips coming from all the roofs - they were heavier than rain. There was total chaos on the street which served as the bus station as the previous day most of he buses out of the town had been cancelled due to road closures ... read more

We spent part of our 36th wedding anniversary on a bus driving across the dusty altiplano from La Paz to Oruro. It is a dusty windy city once renowned for its silver mines, since exhausted, then tin mining, also now exhausted. Today one of its main attractions is the Carnival held here yearly. This festival, now considered second only to the Rio Carnival is similar to the Gran Poder, as wonderful masks and costumes are worn by all the participants as well. The festival in La Paz went for only 24 hours - the Carnival in Oruro involves similar festivities for a week. Oruro is set at an altitude of 3770 meters on the altiplano (high plains) region which stretches from Lake Titicaca and extends nearly 1000 kilometres to the south western corner of Bolivia. The ... read more

The Gran Poder parade is La Paz´s biggest street party. It's not sponsored by Kodak but so many of my photos seem to have their logo in them. We were just sitting opposite the store. It's actually a religious festival that involves an enormous carnival-like parade through the centre of La Paz. Dancers, bands and street performers from all over the city and surrounding hinterland descend on La Paz for a spectacular show. And spectacular it was! Sixty four groups danced this year - and we presumed before the event that each group would only have a couple of hundred dancers. How wrong we were - in total over 100,000 people danced through the streets that day in a never ending stream of colour. The parade started at 7am with the President of Bolivia marching with ... read more