Phew - made it across to Bolivia yesterday...overnight bus from Salta then a quick coffee at 7am before a walk across the border into Villazon on the Bolivian side...very different. Not unlike the way the roads used to change from tarmac to something less when we´d go across the border to Donegal years ago! Probably shouldn´t have said that since we´re now in Tupiza together with a couple of Donegal men we met in Salta last week, together with a couple of English girls who are heading the same way. Very nice hotel with a pool - not bad for GBP10per [View Full Entry]

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I´ve only been driving for a few years, but in that time have seen many lovely places from behind the wheel. The journey which we have just completed over the past three days has to rank up there as probably the best yet. We hired a car here in Salta having scoured the town looking for offers..worth the effort for anyone trying it. Having planned not to drink the night before the drive, I quickly went back on the plans, opting for a BBQ at a local hostal. Once there, we ran into two guys from Donegal in NW Ireland who [View Full Entry]

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My 31st birthday started somewhat slowly, following the early birthday celebrations the previous night. Several coffee injections and staring at email for an hour was required to get the old brain in gear again before venturing into the city. Unfortunately, this being Argentina, it was siesta time and everything was shut. This strikes me as somewhat mad for a country where it's considered perfectly normal to think about geing out for dinner around 10pm but often not commence eating until midnight, then pass the next 3-6 hours in bars or clubs. Surely it would make more sense to open everything [View Full Entry]

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An extremely comfortable bus journey landed us in Mendoza a few days ago. The Argentinian buses are fantastic..we´d paid 6quid extra to go "Coche Cama" instead of the normal semi-cama (the primera clase not being available on the route) and got a superb leather reclining seat with tonnes of room on the bottom floor of the bus..nice and quiet and a superb place to spend 20 hours. We had hot food (3 courses) and free soft drinks, and managed to get something of a good night´s sleep...a good thing as you´ll see below. Walked through the lovely tree-lined boulevards of the [View Full Entry]

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After Antartica, there was only one way to go, so after a final night out in Ushuaia (which meant not everyone made their early morning buses), we headed north to El Calafyate. Thanks to Aerolineas Argentinas habit of resheduling flights, our 1 o'clock departure was moved to 4, meaning we arrived in the town slightly too late to make it worthwhile to take a quick trip out to the Perito Moreno glacier (despite the valient efforts of the taxi driver to presuade us otherwise). No big deal, we saw plenty in Antarctica, and can always come back another time. I'd heard [View Full Entry]

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Where do you start with this one? A stupidly spontaneous decision at an airline checkin desk and 3 days later we were on a lovely red ship bound for Antarctica. This would be something different. After checking in to our nice little cabin, replete with bunks (including nice little rails to keep you in bed when the boat swings through 80deg at 4am) we wandered upstairs to the lounge expecting to be greeted with the US pensioner set and their nurses. Couldn't have been more wrong. This was the last trip of the season for our ship, the Explorer, before the [View Full Entry]

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Hmmm - not sure how to explain this, but it´s probably something to do with the 6 hour hike up a mountain we did the day before...we got to the airport here in Ushuaia this lunchtime for our flight to El Calafate to see the big glacier there. We had spent some of the previous evening and this morning deliberating over whether paying a lot of money for a 10 day boat trip to Antarctica was something we wanted to do, and having spoken to a number of people who¨d done it we were a little unsure whether to go for [View Full Entry]

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Still covered in the dust from the fossil park, we arrived in Ushuaia on Saturday evening. It{s the most southerly city in the world and has a stunning setting on the Beagle Channel, surrounded by mountains on most sides, and looks almost nordic in many ways. Guess there is a style of house that suits this kind of weather, so it makes sense there is a similarity between the northern regions and here. It almost came as a surpise to hear people speaking in Spanish though. ´ Saturday night was spent sinking beers in the cosy hostel bar with an American [View Full Entry]

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The Spanish language has a great word to describe the roads in much of this lovely country - ripio - but more of that later. We flew down to the town of Trelew with Aerolieas the other night in the hope of seeing some wildlife and maybe getting some cooler weather - we got the first but not the latter. Puerto Madryn is the big draw in this area, but muggins´here stayed in Trelew for a few nights as it was closer to the airport. The hotel we stayed in (Touring) had lost much of it´s glory since the days when [View Full Entry]

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So, one week on and I´ve finally managed to prise Luke off the PC long enough to write myself. Think he´s missing the Blackberry more than he lets on. The fact that it´s recently been launched here and there are billboards all over the city may be adding to his sense of loss. I did relent and permit him buy a new gadget yesterday, but only because our travel radio broke. He still had to be steered away from camera shops though (I can´t face any more after Tokyo) So, we´re leaving Buenos Aires this afternoon to head south. No direct [View Full Entry]

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