We left Santa Cruz, Bolivia on July 17th by train to head to the border of Brasil. We boarded the train which took fourteen hours to reach the town of Puerto Suarez, Bolivia where we would cross into Brasil. I then headed to the border check point of Bolivia to get my exit stamp which should have been free but the man with the stamp told us it would cost ten bolivianos to get a stamp. We paid our blackmail money and got our stamp as the border man put the money in his own pocket. We then headed further on [View Full Entry]

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I arrivied in Bonito, Brasil and decided to go snorkling in the Rio de Prata. Here are some pictures from snorkling in the Rio de Prata. The crazy thing is after a truck ride you have to hike in your wetsuit for 45 minutes through the jungle to get to the entry point of the Rio de Prata. We spent about two hours snorkling down the river which was like snorkling in an aquarium. It was unbelievable that there was so much colorful fish life in a fresh water river. If you find yourself in Bonito, Brasil then head over and [View Full Entry]

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This past weekend I took my first excursion and traveled to a sleepy little beach town called Caragutatuba. I went because we have family friends that are American missionaries there who I wanted to visit. So Friday after work I hopped on a bus and headed out to Caraguá, about a 3 hour bus ride from São Paulo. At the bus station waiting were our missionary friends, AJ and Barb as well as another guy who my mom knows well from her trips to Caraguá, my Brazilian brother, Felipe. AJ and Barbara live in a beautiful home just blocks from the [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Mendoza today after a week here. Great city. Quite sleepy, but very relaxing and much better weather than the cold and wet of Bariloche. This is wine producing region of Argentina so you can probably imagine that red wine consumption has been pretty grand! We did a wine tour on bikes which was great fun even if slightly dangerous after a fair amount of red wine. It was one of my best days so far. Great fun and the wine was out of this world. I reckon I´m a bit of a connessour now(I know that´s probably not how you [View Full Entry]

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Lake Titicaca is one of Peru´s greatest sources of pride. In fact, they are greedily seeking a nomination as another wonder of the world, which to be honest I feel is a bit over the top. Its a big lake, very high in altitude, but its not so wondrous as to count as Peru´s second submission into the pool. Our tour leaves at 6:45 am and thankfully we are both rested because the frigid cold immediately saps abot 50% of your energy reserves. We get onto a boat to head to Los Uros, the floating islands that have been the primary [View Full Entry]

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We made it! De afmattende 24-uur durende busreis naar Chili´s hoofdstad Santiago, waar we beide al weken tegen opzien, hebben we overleefd. Woehoe! En dat alles dankzij de twee ongelofelijk relaxte stoelen (we hadden VIP-tickets geboekt) en de voltallige verzameling illegale dvd´s van de buschauffeur. Het hoogtepunt waren uiteraard de films die meneer de chauffeur van de week zelf nog met zn handycam in de bios van het grote scherm had overgenomen. Want god, het beeld stond dan een beetje scheef, en je hoorde het hele bioscooppubliek erdoorheen giechelen, we waren wel de eersten in Chili die Kung Fu Panda buiten [View Full Entry]

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Went out to the Uros on saturday which are floating islands, and met some very cute families all dressed up for us tourists, then we went for 3 hours until another island, real one this time, and met a lovely family who took us in for the night, ate all kinds of roots and leaves, very very rico (mentiro), and then we got all dresed up in indiginous dress and went to the village party, danced some very interesting dances (pulling each other around in a long handholding line for hours, and i mean hours, on end!), then came the night, [View Full Entry]

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Whoaa I missed an entry yesterday. I know my readers must be VERY disappointed. Ha. Ha. Ha. Or Ja. Ja. Ja. Let me try to remember what we did yesterday. So we got picked up an hour later than usual to first go to this Artisan Fair in Las Condes. It was really cute, lots of artsy things. So I've noticed that they ahve most of the same things in places: lots of leather, lots of copper, lapis azul(beautiful blue stone), this greenish stone that looks like jade but I don't know what it is, lots of knitted things, jewelry, pottery... [View Full Entry]

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I woke up the next morning trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I didn't get my act together the night before to sign up for any tours or to try and figure out if I wanted to rent a car. That morning, I decided to do the tours instead of getting a car. The receptionist was very nice, and we spoke Spanish as I was trying to figure things out. So I extended my day in Salta for three more nights, and decided see as much of Salta as I could. Considering that I did that with Mendoza, [View Full Entry]

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21/7/2008 Today in Buenos Aires happened to be the worst day, weather wise, as soon as I woke up… it just started pouring non-stop…As you are overseas, you don’t just happen to have an umbrella lying around out of nowhere…! I don’t know why, but it must be due to being overseas as well…when it is raining cats and dogs outside, no one in the right mind would even think about going outside in general…Not only was I naive. I literally at the time had a foot the size of king kong probably stuck in my head as I decided to [View Full Entry]

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