OK deep breath and here we go.... After an uneventful flight on what appeared to be a 100 year old American Airlines service - no seat back entertainment system, what are they thinking of - I arrived in Rio de Janeiro. So named because when the Portuguese arrived in Guanabara Harbour on the 1st of January, 1502, they thought that they were sailing up a river....hence, the River of January. After an interesting taxi ride with Flavio who was gobsmacked that I spoke not a word of Portuguese (but happily gabbled away pointing out favelas here and football stadiums there) I [View Full Entry]

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Oh the coincidence... First day I get to my e-mail, and my inbox contains a reminder from travelblog.org. "your account has been innactive for blah blah blah..etc." and so it was my friendly reminder that when its raining on your snowboard trip, you should sit on the internet for an ungodly amount of time and right a bunch of shit. You could say I am here, to entertain those back home, behind a desk, holding a tray, getting drunk due to lack of a better idea...luckily for all involved i'm only gone for three weeks, one of which has already passed [View Full Entry]

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The sun came out for us in Sao Paulo, but we were only here for a night in transit. The only thing to say about this city is it is MASSIVE!!!!! For as far as the eye can se on the plane, the city pushes on, full of clusters of large buildings. With 11 million people, it's one of the biggest cities in the world. Went straight to the pool at the hotel to try and get a bit of colour in to our pasty bodies before we headed out to check out the shops. Unfortunately we heard and the saw [View Full Entry]

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I'll never be good about updating this since I'm already "behind." So instead some thoughts over the last month: - I'm always amazed at what is considered "healthy" in different countries. If I remember Spain right, an (iceburg) lettuce salad drenched in oil was considered "light." Here, I bought what comes down to vitamin infused (packaged) pasta. Pan integral is basically white bread with a little color to it. And this is why Chile has a horrible child obesity problem. - Women don't exercise. At least, I don't think so. Either way, good for me - I won two one-day spa [View Full Entry]

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We thankfully get the weekends off and this one we went on an adventure into the jungle. Friday night we took a five hour bus ride north of Huancayo to La Mersai, which is a small town near the jungle. we didnt get into the town until two am and it was like something out of a scary movie. all the stores and homes were gated and barred shut. only a few stray dogs wandered the streets. it was hot, humid, damp, and dark. shady men stared out from dark corners. seriously creepy. luckily though, we found a hostel and didnt [View Full Entry]

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This city is fabulous. We are staying in San Telmo in a nice apartment on Peru and Chile. We've seem to have done quite a bit of shopping already and we have only been here two days. There are amazing street markets on the weekends. We haven't even gone into any of the shops yet. We walk to the first street market yesterday in Recoleta. Even though we got a really late start having woken up at 1pm Saturday (a bit of jet lag from not sleeping for 3 days) we walk down Peru street through tons of main stream shops, [View Full Entry]

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Heute mussten wir eine sehr traurige Geschichte miterleben. Beim Aufstieg vom Cruz Loma oberhalb von Quito auf den Rucu Pichincha kamen uns sicherlich um die 20 Polizisten und Bergretter entgegen. Die letzten Bergretter zogen eine Bahre hinter sich her mit einem/einer Toten. Wir waren absolut geschockt. Dieses Bild wird sich fuer ewig in unseren Gedanken einpraegen. Auf Nachfrage erfuhren wir, dass am Samstag, 23.8.08 drei Personen auf dem Berg starben. Sie wurden von einem Unwetter mit Schneefall ueberrascht. Wir waren neben einem anderen Schweizer nun die ersten, die wieder auf den Berg stie [View Full Entry]

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Dag 73. Bussen kom naar den skulle, og vi "snek" oss ombord for aa ikke vekke alle som sov. Bussen gikk litt for tiden, ikke akkurat noe chilenerne er beryktet for... Vi sov til bussen kom til La Serena, ca kl 08. Her var det 15 minutter stopp for aa tomme og rengjore toalettet paa bussen. Det var rart aa se hvor mye landskapet hadde endret seg paa det stykket vi hadde kjort paa natten. Naa var vi helt tydelig helt ute av orkenomraadene. Det var gront, og vi saa mange vingaarder langs veien. 12.30 stoppet bussen for 30 minutter lunsj [View Full Entry]

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We took a half day tour to Chacaltaya which is 5421 m high, about 30km from La Paz. It was beautiful and we got some great views of Lake Titicaca in the distance and amazing, colouful little lagoons as well as Huayna Potosi. Apparently there used to be much more snow all year round but sadly due to global warming this is no longer the case. We could really feel the altitude despite being well aclimatised. It was not easy getting to the top as we kept getting out of breath but it was well worth it in the end. Beautiful, [View Full Entry]

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Just after coming to La Paz Monia got pretty excited about biking on the World Most Dangerous Road. Both she and Kiki had heard and read quite a lot of scary stories about it. Kiki therefore chose not to do it, as she gets quite scared biking downhill. There are many travel agents in La Paz who organise similar tours but to the best of our knowledge Gravity Assisted is the best, most popular and most expensive too. At least the price goes with the quality as they provide 2 guides per group. One of them is English speaking and the [View Full Entry]

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