Bye Bye South America!!

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Hey everyone!!

Towards the end of South America i started thinking about my general impressions of South America, best times, worst etc etc and thought maybe i should make these thoughts into a blog... so i have!!! :o)


SOUTH AMERICA:

- Drivers ALWAYS leave the engine running (especially on buses), they start the engine at least 30 mins before we are due to leave, leave engine running if we stop for breaks and also leave engine running when we arrive so you choke on the fumes while waiting for them to take your luggage out of the boot

- They play insanely loud films on the bus the WHOLE time, the first film starts before the bus even leaves the terminal. Its especially bad in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia (maybe Colombia too… cant remember!) and the films are always really violent!

- There is rubbish EVERYWHERE especially in Peru and Bolivia - most of the countryside sometimes just looks like one big landfill sight! The streets of Chile were really bad too - it looked like the bin men had been on strike for months! There also doesn’t seem to be much environmental awareness in South America - if you go food shopping they try and put each individual item in a separate carrier bag and look at you in horror when you start moving everything into just one bag! They throw everything on the street even if there is a bin right next to them, on the Amazon they just throw everything (literally everything….food, plastic plates and cutlery…etc) in the river. With the exception of BA and Santiago there didn’t seem to be very many rubbish bins….we spent most days carrying our rubbish around with us because we couldn’t find a bin!!

- There are stray dogs EVERYWHERE and millions of them!! :o( I tried to feed as many as I could but didn’t get to them all! :o( Animals are generally treated very badly in South America - the llamas in Bolivia and other countries are pushed around and grabbed for photographs with the tourists (I had to get a bit mad with out stupid lady in Bolivia who was dragging a llama across the floor (it was lying down) by its fur!) She rolled her eyes and smiled at me like “stupid llama” … I soon told her who was the stupid one! ;o) Donkeys legs are often tied together and are on a very short lead and don’t even get me started on the poor bull who had about 10 people abusing him in Ecuador!! :o( Maybe I should go into law after all and get some animal rights legislations pushed through asap! ;o)

- They have the weirdest set-up for shops and stalls in South America… nearly everywhere has a designated street for mechanical stores or hotdog stands etc! I would have thought that makes competition a bit tricky especially as they obviously don’t have much marketing knowledge so all stands/shops look exactly the same with no promotions - I don’t know how people choose which one to go to! Its quite practical though! :o)

- I was really surprised how many young children we saw working in South America from the 8 year old children selling sweets and gum etc in Lapa, Rio in Brazil, at 4am, to young children serving in restaurants or washing car windscreens at traffic lights in Bolivia!

- Bus drivers drive like crazy!! People in South America are generally extremely religious but I saw a lot more praying and people doing the cross gesture on buses and I don’t think that’s a coincidence!

- You never need to go looking for anything in South America… everything comes to you because people are so desperate to make a living! On long bus journeys you would never really need to get off the bus because sellers would jump on the bus at any opportunity and sell drinks and food before jumping off again and on to the next bus! This was obviously a lot more the case in the poorer countries, I don’t think I saw it at all in Argentina and Chile!

- Everything is a lot more relaxed in South America and people are a lot more tolerant of eachother - there really is a “live and let live” approach and things that I found annoying or which aren’t really socially acceptable in Europe like playing loud music from speakers on a bus etc doesn’t seem to bother the locals at all! They also all seem to randomly chat to each other on the street, buses etc!

- Everyone is soooooooooo friendly and they go out of their way to help you! So many times ive walked into a shop to ask where something is and the shop owner will leave their shop unattended to walk me there!

- There are a lot more overweight people in South America than I expected especially in Bolivia - although it almost looks like the fashion there as their traditional dress looks funny on the few skinny women we saw!

- There didn’t seem to be much attention to hygiene in South America especially regarding dental hygiene especially in countries like Peru and Bolivia! We saw so many small children who had rotting baby teeth as their diet seemed to consist of fizzy drinks (its so weird seeing small babys drinking fizzy drinks in their pram!), lollypops and sweets!

- Internet cafes are FULL of school children playing computer games (very loudly!!) its sooo annoying if your trying to concentrate on writing an email! I guess most of them don’t have computers at home and most internet cafes in South America are very cheap!



Hours (approx) spent in bus: 442 hours

Hostels stayed in: 59

Favourite countries: Colombia, Bolivia, Argentina + Galapagos Islands (Ecuador)

Cheapest country: Bolivia

Most expensive countries: Brazil, Chile and Argentina

Best book ive read so far:
A Thousand Splendid Suns (author of the Kite Runner)… cant think of any others right now but ive now got a list as long as my arm of books I apparently HAVE to read after book discussions with fellow travellers! :o)

Most beautiful beach:
Tyrona National Park (Colombia), the more remote beaches on Ilha Grande (Brazil) and the Galapagos islands (Ecuador)

Coolest markets:
Bolivia - SOOOO colourful! Although some of the things are a tiny bit disgusting….like the dried llama embryos! Yuk!

Most challenging thing I did in South America:
Lost City trek in Colombia (it was amazing though and well worth it!!)

Thing im most proud of:
learning Spanish and making it to the Lost City! :o)

Hardest journey:
From Salvador (Brazil) to Colombia = 2 weeks of solitude - didn’t meet a single English-speaking person and was forced to be a bookworm! :o( But its also one of the things im most proud of too sticking it out on the one week boat instead of getting off when I realized I was the only tourist on a boat of over 200 (mostly men) locals and flying instead!

Longest bus journey:
Taganga (north Colombia) to Quito (Ecuador) = 53 hours!! …. Obviously also comes under hardest journey due to the company I was in and the fact he chose “chicken buses” (tiny cramped little buses full of locals who carry chickens on the bus.. im not even joking!!) instead of proper bus companies!!

Best experience:
snorkeling with sharks, seals, turtles etc. in the Galapagos islands!

Coolest hostel I stayed at:
jungle lodge in the Amazon (with the cool monk and the insane monkey!)!

Nicest hostel I stayed at: Casa Roja (Santiago) - my last stop in South America….good job that wasn’t my first stop and thought everywhere in South America would be that nice!

Things I didn’t do but wish I had:
South Argentina - Patagonia (glaciers, penguins, whales etc!) and seeing a famous football match in BA! That will be my next trip! :o)

Food ive learnt to love in South America which I hated before:
Fish, sushi, jam and red wine!! Im still working on olives and coffee!!

Item I lose/break most often:
Sunglasses! I think im on my 10th pair! Only one pair wasn’t my fault….the monkey in the Amazon broke my favourite pair - it was also the pair id managed to hang on to the longest! MONKEY NO!!
Item ive nearly lost a million times but have somehow managed to hang on to: im still wearing my havianas despite lots of near escapes!

Person ive missed most:
whoever is still reading my blogs! ;o)

Things I wished I had done before I left:
saved more money, learnt Spanish and put more music on my ipod!

Best nightlife: BA!!

New travelling resolutions:
spend less money, say no more to going out even if the peer pressure is huge, trying more weird and wonderful local foods, do cooking course in Thailand and try and keep my current pair of sunglasses for more than a month!

Most embarrassing experience:
me being me there a probably millions but I can only think of a few - being catapulted onto sleeping couple when standing up to go to loo on bus, sinking up to my thighs in mud when getting of boat in the Amazon (didn’t see the plank of wood designed to avoid such mishaps!!) :o)

Favourite accents:
still Irish and Australian and South African is quite cool too! Im slowly but surely starting to love the American accent!! (almost!!) :o)

Funniest travelers: definitely the Irish!!

Most upsetting food facts about South America:
Cadburys does NOT taste like Cadburys 90% if the time due to a chemical they put in it to stop it melting so don’t get excited/fooled, there is no marmite to be found anywhere on the continent and peanut butter is available but you will need to take out a bank loan to be able to afford it!

Thing im most shocked about:
not getting food poisoning anywhere in South America… not even in Bolivia! I think im one of very few travelers who manages to avoid the food poisoning fate!


As soon as I log off I will probably remember a million more things I wanted to say but im afraid that’s all I can think of right now! :o)


Im now in New Zealand and having a great time….. well actually no .. its not that exciting but I think that’s just because im working most days, long hours, in a big warehouse selling cheap cds, dvds and books for Christmas! But I need the money so its good and its cash in hand which is perfect as I don’t have a working visa! Im spending Christmas with Esther and Steve (couple I met in Colombia) and Esthers family in the very north of the north island… her family sounds lovely, really relaxed and apparently are looking forward to meeting me, especially her dad who spent ages living in Bavaria (Germany) so im starting to look forward to it now and don’t feel like im intruding anymore! Its going to be weird nonetheless though…. Beach, BBQ and cocktails on xmas day!! Crazy!! After that Im going to do an organized tour of the north island for a week with Stray bus (who are apparently the best company here as the groups are smaller and more personal and they are the only company who go off the beaten track and to the very southern tip of NZ!) so that should be good! :o)

I probably wont get a chance to do another blog before Christmas so I just want to wish everyone a really really happy Christmas… hope you all get lots of nice presents from santa and have an amazing new year!! And if anyone fancies a trip to South Asia next year then start googling cheap flights!! :o)

Lots and lots of love and Christmas cuddles, lisa xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

P.S…. miss u most mummy!!! :o( xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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[Holly Macdonald]

Still reading....
Merry Christmas to you too my lovely. xxx