What a beautiful (and strange) town! The old colonial architecture mixed up with new office buildings and factories processing metals, all just hundreds meters from the Cerro Rico - once the richest silver mine in the world. The mine is still operating; in fact 15,000 miners every day enter the dusty, gassy, and extremely narrow shafts to make their living... The bus journey to Potosi, the highest city in the world (over 4,000 masl) was interesting, but painful. I again was suffering from stomach problems and the road was bumpy, but most importantly even though the bus was completely full [View Full Entry]

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Finally in Bolivia! The overnight journey from Salta in Argentina to the border town was the prediction of what was to await us in Bolivia. Bumpy roads, people shuffling seats on the bus, and cold nights. I was first seated next to a young female tourist but ended up (not sure how and why) being seated next to an overweight but friendly Bolivian in his 60s. Right as we met, he very proudly mentioned he had been visiting with his “senora” in Salta but he later also added that he also had a wife and family in Bolivia. Still, he [View Full Entry]

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The bus ride to Salta took 20 hours. I have never seen that many action movies (bad ones might I add) in my life. The bus companies in this country seem to love Hollywood trash. Our last movie was directed by, based on a screenplay of, and with the main actor being Steve Segal. Do I need to add more? We arrived on Friday afternoon and were quickly enamored by Salta’s beauty. This Northwestern capital had its charm - clean streets, lovely architecture, green spaces, and mountains everywhere around! Albeit being completely exhausted, we hit the bars that night, only [View Full Entry]

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Next morning we took a bus to San Ignacio, home to the largest and best maintained of the old Jesuit ruins in Argentina. These were not just religious settlements, but rather complete economic cells, providing accommodation, education, and work to indigenous people and also European settlers. Their success caused their sudden death - the Spanish crown was afraid of their growing influence and so the king banned these missions in the 18th century. We were lucky to come here in the evening when there was hardly anybody in the area, and as the sun was going down. The whole city [View Full Entry]

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I departed Buenos Aires quite sad, again leaving my friends behind, but I was also extremely excited about the journey ahead of us. I was heading to Iguazu with Nick from Scotland. We happened to book the Inca trail in Peru for the same week (end of May) and so we are heading there together through northwest Argentina and Bolivia. We found a rather standard hostel in Port Iguazu (Argentina) and headed for the waterfalls falls in Brasil. In minutes after entering the national park, we were surrounded by hundreds of butterflies. They followed us everywhere, frequently landing on our [View Full Entry]

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The arrival to Buenos Aires was an experience on its own. Just before landing, a storm took upon us, and we had to stay in the air for two hours, waiting for the storm to leave. In the middle of the clouds, flashes everywhere! It was 2 in the morning when we finally arrived to the city. By then, my host family was surely sleeping, and so I decided to go to the hostel instead. When I gave him the address, the taxi driver with a grim on his face informed me that it will be extra since the streets [View Full Entry]

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By the time I reached Ushuaia, I had had enough of fast travel. I had been up by 6 am every day for a week, moving from one place to another or catching the sunrise. I was ready to chill out, and I chose end of the world for it. That’s how Ushuaia, the southernmost city of the continent and the world is advertised - the end of the world. In reality, not quite so, I though, as I arrived and saw the touristy shops accepting credit cards, Dollars, Euros. Must have been quite a different place when Darwin came [View Full Entry]

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As we drove south from Puerto Natales to Punta Arenas, the landscape changed quite dramatically, from deserted land to woods. Many trees beautifully covered with lichens, guanacos and sheep freely roaming in between them. In Punta Arenas I met with Pedro (a friend from the boat) and Tine, one of the German girls that we hiked with, and we went to see the local cemetery. Why?, you might wonder. These institutions are actually quite interesting to visit here, as you can see some of the most beautiful architecture and landscaping there. The one in Santiago is endless, housing indiscriminately an [View Full Entry]

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Back to Puerto Natales, get cleaned up, and a nice dinner in the city, finally letting go the sausages and stinky cheese we were eating in the mountains. Next morning we headed to Calafate in Argentina to see one of the last advancing glaciers in the world - Glaciar Perito Moreno. The sight is truly impressive (albeit too touristy for my liking), with the ice wall reaching 70 meters in height, being pushed by the pressures from the ice shield flowing from the mountains. This glacier is part of the largest continental iceberg in the world extending from North Patagonia [View Full Entry]

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Here we go, on the mainland again! For two days I still felt like I was on the boat, my body leaning from left to right, awaiting the waves. In couple hours, we were heading to the national park Torres Del Paine, the hikers paradise. It was me, Michael, Judith, Isabella, and Tine. First night was quite disappointing - we stayed in a camp with a screaming group of Israeli tourists, and I was wishing we had been camping illegally in the woods. (Another Czech hiker did so couple years ago, and caused a big fire in the woods - [View Full Entry]

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