suzyandtodd
suzy maidens & tgun Joined: November 18th 2004
Logged in: December 19th 2004
Logged in: December 19th 2004
Travel Blog Posts
The plan was to take the ferry across the Rio del la Plata to the little colonial town of...Colonia, of course, and spend a few days taking it slow. Somehow along the way I (suzy) got the urge to go to the beach and convinced Todd we should skip Colonia at first and hop a bus to one of the beach towns in Uruguay. Maybe it was thinking of heading home to cold cold NorteAmerica...who knows! He agreed, of course, and when the ferry reached Uruguay we hopped off, bought ourselves tickets to the popular beach resort, Punta del Este, and we were off. What was going to be a 3 day historic tour sort of thing turned into a week of sunbathing, swimming and your basic holiday laziness. We tried to stay at a hostel ... read more
We´ve been in Buenos Aires for a couple of days now... around every corner this city proves to us again and again that it is one of the must see cities in the world. We had high expectations because people we´ve talked to in the past two months have raved about it. We really, really wanted it to live up to that reputation, and it does! Culinary art, theater, architecture, city grittiness (and non-grittiness), lush parks and harbors fuse into one little tastey, dulce de leche pastry that would be great washed down with a latté sitting at a street-side café. yum. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes had a great exhibit on Argentine painters and sculptors, the portraits in this exhibit really stuck with me, and if I had my notebook at the time I would ... read more
We were so excited to be heading for La Paz...the guidebook makes like theres tons of good outdoor activities around the city and lots of interesting museums and markets to visit in the city... Well, it´s definitely an interesting place...but after Todd spent the whole of our first day with altitude sickness...fever, and throwing up, we aren´t feeling so up for adventurous undertakings. So, there will be no bike ride down the World´s Most Dangerous Road, no long, bumpy, and for Todd, who gets the motion sickness, nausea inducing bus rides to beautiful little Andean towns, and no boat rides to jungle retreats (again, the dirty old motion sickness). But no worries! Sunday there was literally nothing going on in the city, because of municipal elections. We found just 2 restaurants open for dinner, and we ... read more
Arrived in Cuzco bright and early on Suzy's birthday...was greeted with a birthday hug by the owner of the Hostal Resbalosa, where we are staying in Cuzco. Went to a restaurant called Macondo for dinner, which is supposed to be nuevo andino/ jungle cuisine...what can i say, it was ok, the chocolate mousse for dessert was the best part, though! Relaxed and took in the charms of this beautiful city...smaller than Arequipa, with a few more backpackers, of course. Highlights include the excellent Museo Inca, and the Santa Catalina church, which is now a museum full of religious art...from the Cuzco school. Also, there being a number of supposedly Irish, English and American pubs/ restaurants, we found ourselves looking for some kind of food that would remind us of home. The food in these places isn't ... read more
Just had to add this to the Arequipa blog...went to the url=http://www.llamatravel.com/guide/sitesection.cfm?sectionid=220®ion=Arequipa&site=45&country=PeruMuseo Santuarios Andinos and saw a frozen mummy, human sacrifice! Wow! Apparently, she is the best preserved mummy / human remains found...because she was sacrificed at the top of a volcano in the Andes that was only accessible to the Incas because a nearby volcano was erupting, which melted the ice off the top of this neighbooring volcano...the height is something amazing, somewhere around 15,000 ft...imagine climbing that with sandals and no climbing equipment!?! So, the neigbooring volcano stops erupting, and the ice and snow comes back, perfectly preserving the young Inka girl...who they call Juanita because the man who found her in the 90's on a climbing expedition's first name is John...and she is young, and bl... read more
We are in Peru! From San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, it took 20+ hours by bus. All of which was through the desert. After hundreds of miles of rock and mountains of sand, it was nice to be off a bus once again an settle into the oasis, Arequipa. We are becoming experts in bus traveling. Snacks, book trading, passport flashing, bus bingo, its an artform really. We did see the cast and crew of the Amazing Race filming on the street where are hostel is. The contestants were busy trying to find the quickest way to Buenos Aires, the camera man bought his refrigerator magnet, I was doing some holiday shopping, everyone was happy. Must see tv. The highlight of our Arequipa visit was our excursion to the Colca Canyon. Twice as deep as the ... read more
From Santiago, we took a 23 hour bus ride to San Pedro de Atacama...a desert oasis in the north of Chile. The bus ride was actually very pleasant, we went Cama class, which is to say, the seats completely recline to beds, and there is meal service, movies, all the mod cons, while moving up the coast. San Pedro is in the desert, needless to say it's real dry, real hot during the day. It's a big backpacker destination, and for a small town, it seems the backpacker population may actually rival that of the local population. We stayed at Hostal Katarpe, which was lovely, quiet and calm, especially coming from crazy Santiago, and the eminent Bush-Apec protests. First thing we did was book an astronomical tour, which left at 8:30 at night, took us a ... read more
Rapa Nui, Rapa Nui! That's how the song goes that is playing constantly on this cool little island in the middle of the Pacific. The song is playing in the airport when you land and get off the plane onto the tarmac and people are waiting to put flowers around your neck, it's playing in your taxi, it's playing in the restaurant, in the hotel...it's a good song, really, and catchy...yeah, really catchy. Anyways, we had an awesome time here, starting with appropriating a room, it was easy enough, as there are booths of all the hotels and hostels right next to the baggage claim, and whichever place you pick out gives you a ride, also. First of all, the place we stayed, Cabanas Vaianny was great, we had our own bathroom and breakfast, and we ... read more
Now, having purchased tickets for Easter Island, that weren´t due to leave Santiago for a week, we decided to take a little trip to Argentina, and see what all the fuss was about. From Santiago, it´s about a 7 hour bus ride, through the Andes! On our way to Mendoza we went at night, though, and didn´t see to much. Found a hotel fairly easily, it´s a small city with lots of touristy things going on, like wine tours and outdoorsy stuff, so lodging in all price ranges are available. After getting settled, the first thing on our agenda was to have a famous Argentine steak for lunch...score! Ok, this is what all the fuss is about. Super cheap, expertly prepared, and the best tasting steaks, ever. Suzy even liked it a lot. The best meal ... read more
Hi again, I´m just goint to recount a few things that happened while we were in Santiago. Just a short summary of October. If you managed to see our JourneyFile blog, please go straight to the next entries. It just makes me feel better to have some sort of starting point here. We arrived in Santiago on October 2nd and started our Spanish classes two days later. For five days a week, four hours a day we struggled and made our heads hurt for the rest of October. But it is paying off now. In between classes and on weekends we did manage to get out of the city a couple times. In Valparaiso for a weekend, which was like being transported to a small Italian coastal town. Steep, winding street that we didn´t mind getting ... read more
