After a 3 and a half hour flight we finally arrived in Santiago and the weather was incredible! Not a cloud in the sky and it must have been at least 30 degrees, a nice change from the cold, wet Cusco. We got a taxi to our hostel but the guy didn't have a clue where it was. We ended up driving around for over an hour with him asking loads of different people, including Police officers, where to go and we finally made it. We checked into the hostel and our room was pretty tight but we had a little balcony overlooking the small pool, nice! We nipped to the supermarket and it was so hot that we didn't enjoy the walk at all. We made lunch and then just chilled out in the pool. ... read more

After an early wake up call and breakfast at the hotel, yes HOTEL (an extremely rare and almost magical experience after being in hostel dorms for 6 weeks), we jumped in the mini bus and drove to km82, the official start of the Inca Trail. Our group was amazing, there were 16 of us with an age range of around 20-35, with English, Australian, American, Swedish and a Porta Rican! We got our passports stamped, yes you need to show your passport on the trail, had a quick briefing and then headed across the bridge over the raging river. Our guide told us we had to take the first step with our right foot for good luck. Only 500 people are allowed to start the inca trail each day and this includes the porters that carry ... read more

We arrived in Buenos Aires around midday and first impressions were not good, the bus terminal and surrounding área looked like a slum, with rubbish and wild dogs everywhere. We jumped in a taxi and as we got into the main city centre we realised the city was actually really nice, with beautiful high rise buildings, it seemed like a European city such as London. After checking into the hostel we headed to the infamous Florida Avenue to change our dollars to Argentinian Pesos on the ´black market´. There were so many random people in the Street shouting ´cambeo´(change) and offering a variety of rates much higher than the oficial rate. We ended up getting 9.7 pesos to the dollar which against the oficial rate of around 6 pesos to the dollar gave us a financial ... read more

After a poor 22 hour bus journey we finally arrived in the Brazilian town of Foz Do Iguacu. Our plan was to visit the Brazilian side of the falls but after our bus arrived late and spending a couple of hours trying to get dollars out the park was closed. Instead we crossed over the border which was nice and easy then got dropped off at the hostel we had booked. Turns out they had messed up the booking and didn´t have any spare beds so i was massively stressed out as i was so tired and hungry after the long journey. In the end they managed to book us in at another hostel which actually worked out well, as we pulled up in the taxi there was a massive swimming pool and the place looked ... read more

After a boat back to the mainland and a 2 hour mini bus journey we arrived in Paraty. Our hostel was right on the beach front and the beach bar had a lot of locals playing music and drinking, straight away this seemed like a really relaxed place. However, the relaxation didn´t last long as Freeman realised he had left his iPhone on the bus leading to a two hour panic trying to hunt the bus down and searching the bus only to find out it wasn´t there, badden! We then showered and headed into the main town of Paraty which is a really old school fishing village with cobbled streets, lots of nice restaurants and a ridiculous amount of liquor stores. We grabbed a hot dog (with mashed potato filling, amazing but strange) and a ... read more