Hop, skip and a jump over to Surfers' Paradise! I arrive, take a little walk to my hostel, check in, dump my stuff in the room and in walks Leanne. We ask the typical first backpacker questions "where are you from?" "How long have you been in Australia?" etc etc and then Maria and Sylvia walk in and after 20 minutes of chat, we finally find out each other's names! I spend most of the afternoon chatting with my roomies and then went for a wander around the city which was much, much bigger than I expected it to be. It kind of gives this impression of what I expect an Australian Dubai to look like with all its high-rise buildings. Every night, the hostel organised trips to bars and nightclubs and tonight, we were off ... read more

Last day in South America and I'm trying hard not to cry. Due to a lack of small camera, I have no photos of Buenos Aires except for La Boca where I was brave enough to take the SLR out for the day. So I get up early, order a taxi to the airport and then run out with the big camera to take some last minute emergency photos. Run back and the guy at the hostel says there are 3 others going to the airport so I can share with them. One of them, Jamie, ends up being on my flight. We got there quite early and Jamie and I got in the queue and were there for quite a while. There was some sort problem with the computers so 40 minutes before departure time, ... read more

A pretty quiet day in all. Vikki, Vijay, Amanda and I go in search of our tickets to Uruguay. We get to the ferry port and Vikki and I have our passports so we can buy our tickets there and then but Amanda and Vijay have to come back the next morning. Eek. That night we were off to the last Bomba de Tiempo - an awesome percussion show. In the evening, Vikki and I asked at her hostel how to go about getting tickets and the guy was like “you better get down there now, it's the last one so they'll sell out really quickly.” OK so we'll just go get Vijay and make a move (just as soon as I get changed.) Where IS Vijay?! Whilst I've gone to change, Vikki and been looking ... read more

The rest of my tour group's last day in BA. So sad. I wish they could have stayed longer or I could have gone with them up to Brazil. In the day time, we went to the cemetery where Eva Peron's (Evita) grave is. The graves were elaborate to say the least- all little buildings beautifully designed. It didn't look like a cemetery at all. We managed to pick up a crazy Saffa outside Vikki's hostel who was a bit snap happy with his camera and a bit fast-running with his mouth. Not a favourite of mine. We then left and went to market (which was right outside.) I love this market! It's full of stuff priced to rip of tourists but it's still pretty cheap. As a big group, we decided go our own ways ... read more

After a 20 hour bus journey, I made it to Buenos Aires. Awesome. We couldn't check in so went for a bit of a wander with the girls to check out BA. First to the opera house which was closed for refurbishment, then to the court and then back. I spent most of the afternoon in the shops and did not see one Argentinian woman who wasn't perfectly dressed in full fashion. I LOVE this place! In the evening, the girls all decided to dress up for the tango show! It was nice and a little weird ro see us all in dresses, wearing make-up. We were picked up, and taken to the show, ordered our meal and then it was time to dance! A tango lesson. We learned eight steps, practised them over and over ... read more