Salvador is a beautiful colonial city looking out over the South Atlantic - cobbled streets and brightly coloured buildings. Often called Africa in exile due to it's mainly afro-carribean population, we certainly felt like we stood out here more than anywhere (Katie especially). Food in Salvador was far spicier than in the rest of Brazil on account of this, which was certainly a welcome variation. As was a deliecious type of meat called "Carne do Sol" - beef that had been salted and then sun dried (a variation called "Carne do sol y luna" we reasoned was simply the same stuff [View Full Entry]

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It's rather scary going travelling. One minute you're in your local weatherspoons, drinking 79p cups of tea because you're desperately trying to save money and dreaming about the far-flung places of the world that you intend to go to - then in no time at all you're there! And half way through the trip! Time certainly does have a habit of creeping up on you - Rio had always felt so far into our travels that we had barely paid it attention, but suddenly we were off our bus and in Brazil, trying to speak spanish to people who spoke portuguese [View Full Entry]

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Iguazu Falls aren't really done justice by words and photographs. I know it sounds cliche, but it just isn't possible to show the immense scale of the falls! The best description would be to say that it makes Niagra Falls look kinda pathtic in comparison (Niagra just has a better marketing campaign). Around 275 small waterfalls (depending on the time of year) over 2.5 Km make up Iguazu Falls and they really are as impressive as they sound. [img= http://photos-d.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v300/145/67/223401787/n223401787_6941523_4586.jpg center] Photos really don't do the f [View Full Entry]

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Cuidad del Este was a pretty god damn horrible place. Supposedly Lonely Planet describes it as the worst town in South America (we learnt of this after we went there), and we can completely see why. Under the former dictator, President Stroessener, the city (then Cuidad del Stroessener) became a centre for piracy and contraband, being perfectly situated for both since it is on the border between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. It felt like the most unsafe place that we've been to so far! Imagine an Oxfam shop, but over several square miles and with a really rough edge to it [View Full Entry]

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Asuncion is, well, pretty off the gringo trail. Most people usually go straight from BA to Iguazu falls in northern Argentina, but we felt that we shoudl at least see what Paraguay was like (especially since it was a minor detor from the the route to the falls anyway). Paraguay is a small (by South American standards) country between Argentina and Brazil, which has been pretty devestated by wars and a corrupt dictator during their short time as a soverign state. This means that there wasn't the huge buildings in the capital city left over from days of greater glory or [View Full Entry]

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Well, we should start this blog with some kind of apology, since we're lumping lots of little things together into one article. But over these few days we were pretty much always on the move, so it's hard to break it up! After a rather stressful return back to BA from Montevideo (not helped by the fact that South Americans view Sundays as not only a day of rest, but also a day to be as unhelpful as possible), we checked into yet another hostel in the city centre (making it our third in BA). The atmosphere in Buenos Aires is [View Full Entry]

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Uruguay is such a tiny country that it takes a mere two hours on a bus to go from Colonia to the capital, which after the buses we´d been on during the rest of SA was nothing. The weather was more like back home - pretty grey. But palm trees everywhere made us feel like we were away somewhere really exotic! Montevideo is a great city to walk around and enjoy the arcitechture, althoguh sadly alot of the buildings have fallen into disrepair and ruin. However, this gives a bit more of a dilapidated feel (for lack of better words) to [View Full Entry]

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We don´t know how the idea of a road trip got in our head, but after checking out the cost of hiring a car in Uruguay ($57 a day - but you get th 22% VAT back!) we decided to spend a few days driving along the Uruguayan coast. [img= http://photos-a.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v300/145/67/223401787/n223401787_6940088_8943.jpg center] It's all very well renting a car - but which way are we going? By complete luck (although Adam claims that it was his planning), we had a bit of a heat wave whilst we were on our drive. Score. Driving along palm-tree lined roads next [View Full Entry]

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A nice little UNESCO world heritage site, Colonia del Sacremento is just a ferry ride away from BA. A perfect place to kill a couple of days by the sea. The weather was grey and overcast - just like being at the English seaside. [img= http://photos-f.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v300/145/67/223401787/n223401787_6940077_5265.jpg center] Thankfully the weather cheered up. Rather childlessly (and we freely admit that it was), we rented a little motor-buggy and set off along the coast. Just out of town was a beach resort that had been set up for the wealthy from BA, bu [View Full Entry]

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Buenos Aires was a city that we´d been looking forward to since we started planning this trip. The Porteños (as the locals like to call themselves) have the ultimate cosmopolitan lifestyle - up late (until 3am), tons of coffee and lots of eating out. What better place to spend Katie´s birthday? [img= http://photos.l3.facebook.com/photos-l3-sf2p/v300/145/67/223401787/n223401787_6939955_6365.jpg center] We absolutely loved BA. We´d sat on an overnight bus from Mendoza (which was of such amazingly high standard that the word "bus" doesn´t really do it justice - we were [View Full Entry]

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