Advertisement
Published: October 26th 2006
Edit Blog Post
After the Maccu Piccu experience we started to make our way down through bolivia and chile with Argentina being our final destination, first stop was Copacobana, a little beachy kind of town on Lake Titicaca. After a 10 hour bus ride which we were promised was a direct bus(blatant lie!) the 3 of us were then loaded off the bus into the middle of no where and escorted by some random to a tini 10 seater mini bus where our bags were chucked on the roof and they piled at least 12 people into the van, but this was not the end of the passengers, along the way we picked up random people by the side of the road and by the time we reached the border we had somewhere between 16-17 people in a 10 seater van, it was quite a experience and there was nothing you could do but laugh and stare in disblief at the amount of people they managed to squeeze in! after the border crossing we then got back in the mini van for a 20 min ride to cobacabana again witnessing how many bolivians they can squeeze into one vehicle!!
so after or
me getting excited about the sheep!
some random lady decided to bring her herd of sheep, as you do,to graze on the front lawn of our hotel! interesing journey it was heavan to check into the most beautiful hotel right on the hill over looking lake Titicaca just in time for my birthday, they guy that runs the hotel is a really nice helpfull german guy and when we went for dinner that night in their restaurant he arranged the kitchen staff to bring me out a birthday candle and free banna splits for us whilst they all sang happy birthday, so very cute!!
we spent a few days chilling in the hammocks and enjoying the sunshine and then left for La Paz a bit further south in bolivia,once again a very unusuall journey, after a few hours the bus stopped at what seemed to be a huge lake and we had to go get on a boat whilst our coach went on its own boat, loaded up with all our luggage on the roof it slowly made it across and we got back on the other side! we stayed in La Paz for the night and caught the bus to Arica the next day, another mammoth journey ...hours!!
Arica is right on the beach, its quite a small town and when your on
the beach instead of being surrounded by the usuall tall buildings your surrounded by the desert we stayed in the sunny days hostel run by a sweet old kiwi guy and his wife who welcomed us with cake and juice!! arica was the perfect spot to stop for a few days and it made a nice change to be somewhere warm!!
from arica we went to la serena which is the 2nd oldest town in chille, although it didnt look it, we stayed in a cute little hostel run by a lady called maria and her sons, where she fussed over everyone like they were her children after a couple of nights we caught the bus to mendoza this involved catching a bus to santiago and then another bus to mendoza but the long bus trip was most definatly worth it, we drove through snowy mountians and arrived in some outback town where we picked up a whole heap of people for some unknown reason, the coach was so packed there were people standing and laying in the aisles, i spent the best part of an hour and a half with some old guys butt in my face! lovely!
when we finally arrived in mendoza it was very late but beautifuly warm we found our selves a friend named chris from leeds who was a most welcome and funny addition to our group.
We spent the next few hours getting to know him and went out for dinner and a few drinks, after quite a few drinks the trouble began, chris pushed bridie into some guy asleep on the sofa in the hostel so she pushed him back, only to send him flying into the glass french doors resulting in half a smashed door, bridie then lost her key to her locker which was tied to a massive block of wood somewhere between the smashed door and the room, we all found it higly entertaining and amusing until the cash had to be coughed up for the broken window and the key that was lost and the padlock that had to be sawn off by the handyman and his hacksaw!! after a day of exploring mendoza we booked ourselves on a wine tour!!
we stopped at 3 wineries where we were shown the vineyards and all the equipment used to make the wine and talked thorugh the
our room
our beds lined up just like goldilocks and the 3 bears, but minus the goldilocks process, and then we got to sample the wine! after the second tour we were all very well educated on the process of wine making and were keen to just get to the tasting!!! we stopped for lunch and then went to the 4th winery where the tour was all in spanish so we just kinda wandered of and got lost for a while then we were taken to a small chocolatier where we were given free samples of chocolate liquores, all in all a good day was had by all, the vineyards are beautiful and the vats where the wine is kept are big enough to fit a car inside! one of the barrels used to store the wine where it ages and picks up its woody taste holds up to 440 thousand litres which is 880000 pints!!
so after paying the hostel for all damages caused the four of us got on a bus to Buenos Aires in Argentina, this we thought would be a relitivly pain free bus ride, long but thats nothing new, well how wrong we were!!
after about an hour of driving our bus pulled over at the side of the motorway next
next stop.. the middle of nowhere!
this is where we were carted off the bus somewhere near the bolivian border and then loaded into the mini van with way more people than legally allowed! to some kind of toll, after sitting on the bus for 20 mins we got of to see what the hold up was, aparently the bus had broken down but no one thought to tell the passangers on the bus, most of the spanish passengers had hitchiked!!carzy people which left a handfull of us not quite sure what to do, thankfully after and hour or so waiting by the side of the road we were piled onto another bus, this time with fully reclining seats, sweet!!! not for long though, after another hour we were carted once again of the bus and put on a different one, this one with crappy seats, what a cheek!! anyway after an extra 4 or so hours onto our journey we arrived in BA where we said goodbye to chris and made our way to our freinds parents house who were kind enough to let us stay with them in their gorgeous house in BA.
next stop, uruguay!
the next one wont be as long i promise!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.093s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 11; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0416s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Kiers - Ex switchbarlounge.com!!
non-member comment
Hello ladles!!
Ohmygoodness - so many stories so much to ketchup on!! Just figured out the whole blog thing, (welcome to the 90's i hear you say - yeah whatever!!) You ladles look like your having a fab time together, keep the blogs (my new word!!! - Yipee!) going. Cant wait tot get the nx one. Be safe be happy!! Miles o smiles, Kierson x x x x