Mendoza can only be summed up by one word - Vino! And we had alot of it! Being the capital of the Argentinian wine district we expected nothing less! Although it was just our luck that the mountain pass between Chile and Argentina was closed for two days due to unseasonally high snowfall. Sigh. And then we showed up on May 1st (Labour day) - a national holiday in Argentina (so nothing was open)! Sigh sigh. But we still managed to go on a few tours of the wineries whilst we were there. [img= http://photos-b.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v286/145/67/223401787/n223401787_6270273_2861.jpg center] Hmm ... Vino We took [View Full Entry]

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Billed as being one of the most beautiful places in Chile to visit, we headed off to Valparaíso expecting stunning views and lots of pretty streets to explore. A quick weekend out of Santiago we thought! Maybe we just didn´t “get it” but as far as we could tell Valparaíso was just a port which a few multi-coloured houses. All this was not helped by the fact that when we arrived (10pm), all the resteraunts were closed so we had to resort to eating bread and cheese that we got from a supermarket near the docks. Even the tramps looked at [View Full Entry]

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After a thoroughly needed shower, we set out into Santiago with two Brits that we had met on the Salar tour to explore the city. What better way to start than a traditional Chilean chinese? Well, we were definately in another country - you could tell from both the higher prices (ouch) and the higher levels of food hygenie (hurrah). Santiago is a very pleasant city, but not with masses of tourist attractions. It has a great zoo as well as the house of the poet Pablo Neruda, not to mention good restaurants (a good place to celebrate someone getting onto [View Full Entry]

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The tiny town of Uyuni is just a blip on the map in Bolivia - a town of former glory as a major railway junction, it has been all but deserted now. The only reason to go there is as a gateway to the largest salt plain in the world - the Salar de Uyuni. Hence why we were there. Getting in on a Saturday evening, we checked straight into a hotel and put off organising a tour until the morning. Bit of a mistake, since we didn´t manage to get a tour sorted out until the Monday, which meant that [View Full Entry]

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Although La Paz is the biggest city in Bolivia (and the seat of government), Sucre is actually the capital of the country. A very odd arrangement. But we had heard that it was a nice, romantic city so we thought that we´d check it out. Also known as "the white city", we didn´t find it as pretty as Arequipa, but we did still find it quite charming. It was a fantastic place to sit about, relax and talk (we spent almost 3 hours just sitting on the Plaza de Armas talking such was the atmosphere), althought there wasn´t a massive amount [View Full Entry]

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Never heard of Potosi? Well, neither had we - but supposedly it was the largest city in the entire world during the 1600´s. The reason? Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain), which contained ore of silver content five times higher than anywhere else on the planet. The Incas believed the site to be holy; a natural shrine to Pacha Mamma (Mother Earth) and forbid mining there but the Spanish, however, had no such qualms; they shipped in slaves from Africa to work the mines (which are at a whopping 4200 metres above sea level). Often working for 16 hour days on nothing but [View Full Entry]

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What better way to break away from the crazy city of La Paz than to visit the beggining of the Amazon rainforest. Also known as ´The Pampas´, these wetlands go on for miles and miles in rainy season (which we were lucky enough to be in) and has to be one of the most remote places that we have ever been! [img= http://photos-h.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v252/145/67/223401787/n223401787_6227415_8477.jpg center] No runways - you could tell that we´d landed somewhere remote! After taking a flight from La Paz to Rurrenabaque (we did have the option of a twenty-four hour bus along windy trails similar to the infamous [View Full Entry]

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La Paz has to be the craziest city we have been to - not only is it the pseudo-capital of Bolivia, its also just a huge party town for gringos taking advantage of how cheap this country is. [img= http://photos-g.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v252/145/67/223401787/n223401787_6227398_3700.jpg center] Crossing from Puno to La Paz - only in Bolivia could they do soemthing as unsafe as put a bus on a raft! We stayed at the Loki Hostel most of the time we were in La Paz which was definitely the "party" hostel. Most people we met there seemed to be high on coke and unable to get themselves [View Full Entry]

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Puno sits on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world, and straddles both Peru and Bolivia. Supposedly, "Titi" means puma whilst "caca" effectively means to go to the toilet and there is a saying around here that its "Titi" in Peru and "caca" in Bolivia. However, having been to both we can definitely say its the other way round. Puno is a bit of a hole, dirty and polluted no-one even goes near the water unless they are in a boat. [img= http://photos-a.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v252/145/67/223401787/n223401787_6227208_1897.jpg center] A big pile of ´caca´. Not to say we didn´t have a [View Full Entry]

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Having got an overnight bus from Arequipa to Nazca, we arrived at 5AM rather less than ready to get on a plane. Luckily we got to sit in the office of the airline we were flying with until 9AM, watching a video about the Nazca Lines and Marie Reiche, who spent her life studying the lines. Although a very interesting documentary, we did watch it about 4 times in a row. [img= http://photos-a.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v252/145/67/223401787/n223401787_6227072_3273.jpg center] We´re going up in that thing? Our airline company did want to separate the two of us, which did not go down with a tired Katie who [View Full Entry]

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