redemma

So tonight I am leaving La Serena, a small city about 6 hours north of Santiago. I have been here for a few days. There are lots of beaches here - not the nicest ones - they are rather marred by strings of tacky hotels - but beaches nonetheless! I am still really enjoying being in Chile. I have eaten some fantastic fish, and I continue to find the people of Chile to be friendly, expressive, interesting. The other night I took a tour to an observatory 1 hour away, near Vicuña. We were able to look through a super-powered telescope and saw the rings around Saturn! A very knowledgeable tour guide then took us outside and pointed out all kinds of constellations to us. Using an outdoor telescope, we saw close-ups of the moon and ... read more

I was very fond of Arica. A small city, comfortable to walk around, and with a beach! What more could you ask for. Unfortunatel my stomach bug was lingering... so after a few hours of tummy aches my first night I finally caved in and took one of the antibiotics my doctor had given me. However, it was a 1000 mg dose - which was way too huge!!! So I felt even worse afterwards. As luck would have it, there were 4 young Americans staying at the same hotel as me who had literally just finished med school, and they advised me to cut up the antibiotics into 4 parts and take them for a few more days. So I did just that, and was feeling better in no time. There are so many things I ... read more

So I´m a little behind in my blog entries!! Arriving in Bolivia seemed to really take the wind out of me, literally. The altitude in Uyuni, La Paz and Copacabana were so outrageous: at times over 4500 metres above sea level. Walking up a slight incline feels like a marathon, and I ended up feeling like an extremely out-of-shape person with emphyzema! I was so lucky to be travelling with my new friend, Sarah, from Salta all the way up to Cochabamba. We were both headed to Cochabamba to do some volunteer work: she through an organization called Sustainable Bolivia, and I, through a friend-of-a-friend, who had connections with some cultural organizations in Cochabamba. Unfortunately, my volunteer work fell through, as my contact was experiencing health problems and couldn´t get in touch with me. It all ... read more

9000 square kilometres of salt on the southern Altiplano of Bolivia... what more can be said? I think the photos say it all.... read more

So I´ve had the good fortune to meet up with a very nice girl from Chicago (named Sarah) who is heading in the same direction as me: Cochabamba, Bolivia. I´m planning to do some volunteer work there, with a cultural agency, through a contact who was recommended by one of my dad´s colleagues. Last night, I joined Sarah in Tilcara, an unbelievably picturesque village just a few hours south of the Bolivian border. We are staying here one more night, and then tomorrow we´ll spend the day and night Humahuaca, before taking the bus up the to La Quiaca (at the limit of Argentina), crossing over into Bolivia, and taking a train from Villazon to Uyuni in Bolivia. Sarah and I are both overjoyed to have found one another, as we were both nervous about travelling ... read more

I spent a great week in Salta (after getting over my stomach bug.) I ended up hanging out with a great couple from the UK as well as another guy from the UK whom I had met a few days before at the hostel in Buenos Aires. The highlight of my time in Salta was when the 4 of us rented a car to do a 2-day road trip to visit the nearby sights: the Quebrada de Humahuaca, with the famous "Mountains of Seven Colours", as well as the salt flats, and several small picturesque villages along the way. We started out by driving along the same pathway that the "Tren de las Nubes" (Train to the Clouds) would normally follow. We couldn´t do the train trip because it´s closed until April....poo. The scenery was full ... read more

I´m glad I gave Buenos Aires a second chance. The first time I was there (in mid-January) it was so terribly hot and humid that it was hard to enjoy my time there. Plus, I think I was in major culture shock. I spent 6 nights in B.A. this time, at the Terrazes Estoril hostel on Ave. de Mayo, a very nice hostel with a rooftop terrace. I was hoping that the higher price would attract more of an "older" crowd, but it didn´t really. However I met a few cool people there. The only problem is, once you meet a nice person there´s a pretty good chance they´re about to take off for another city! So you need to try not to get too attached and always expect the unexpected. One good aspect of having ... read more

So I´ve decided to stay in Buenos Aires for awhile, not sure for how long. Need some downtime to re-group and take a break from trip-planning!... read more

Yesterday I arrived in Buenos Aires after spending a couple of days in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina in order to see the Iguazu Falls. If you´ve ever seen photos of these falls (and maybe I will post some!) you will see that they are quite amazing. I believe the largest section of the falls, Gargantuan del Diablo, is similar to Niagara or bigger, but the difference here is that there are a whole series of falls which stretch for almost a kilometre! The heat in Iguazu is absolutely overwhelming. I think there was a humidex of about 40 degrees, and it was officially the beginning of the "winter" season at Iguazu National Park! Many of us felt a bit ill or out of sorts because it was so hard to adapt to the weather. Fortunately there were ... read more