Raya CAN

Half a year, gone, just like that. Even though I can't believe how fast the time went, we certainly did see and do a lot. We saw 11 countries in 6 months on 40 buses, 12 planes, 3 boats and 2 trains crossing 16 borders and adding 27 stamps and 1 visa to our passports. We managed to do a lot of interesting things including surfing, Spanish school, zip-lining, mountain biking, dune buggying, sand boarding, mountain climbing, trekking, sailing, paragliding, piranha fishing, rock climbing, and touring a 3rd world mine. We also saw the world's largest rodent (capybara), highest city (Potosi, Bolivia), widest avenue (9 de Julio, BA, Argentina), youngest mountain range (Alps), highest capital city (La Paz, Bolivia), biggest rain forest (Amazon), most expensive canal (Panama City, Panama), highest output hydro-electric dam (Ciudad del Este, ... read more

We arrived in Villa Florida following a short 3 hour bus ride from Asunción on the 20th. As soon as we arrived we were very happy that we would only be spending one night in the small town as it is definitely not a hot spot for tourists. The write-up in the Lonely Planet spoke of nice beaches and a good place to relax but we never found the nice beaches and the water in the river was disgusting. We spent the night at the ´Pasadas Misiones´ hotel right off the highway which was very basic and roach-infested. The only good thing about it was its location as we were able to catch a bus to Caapucu the next morning from right outside the front doors. Caapucu is a small town 20kms from Villa Florida. We ... read more

Ciudad del Este is a dump. I swear the entire city uses the streets as their own personal garbage; garbage which gets burned at night so the air becomes very thick and painful to breathe, just like in Bangkok. The city is also very unattractive and doesn´t have a lot to offer. We were told that it is ¨the¨ place to be if you want to shop (especially for electronics) however everywhere was over-crowded with people selling useless junk. There are a lot of electronics vendors but nothing is overly cheap and that is with the assumption that the materials are of good quality and not cheap knock-offs. Needless to say, we did not shop long or buy anything. Nor did we stay long. We arrived in the afternoon of the 8th following a 6 hour ... read more

Posadas - not much to say because there´s not much going on. This is a very small town that - as far we can tell - doesn´t see a lot of tourists. The people however are very friendly and, despite there not being much to do, it has been a really nice place to relax for a few days. We arrived in Posadas by bus (5 hours) from Puerto Iguazú in the afternoon of the 28th. We caught a taxi into town with a couple (Ashley and Katka) from Australia/Czech Republic and ended up spending the evening having dinner and drinks with them. Very friendly people which made for a fun night. We also met a guy from the US (David) who we´ve had dinner with a couple times. Funny how the only English-speaking tourists in ... read more

We now know why other backpackers called Uruguay the ¨budget breaker¨ and opted to camp during their stay here as it is expensive! For this reason, we decided only to make a quick stop in Colonia (2 nights) and Montevideo (3 nights). While we did consider camping at one point, we decided it wasn´t worth having to buy camping equipment for only a few nights, especially since we would just leave it behind. We arrived in Colonia on the 17th at 12:30pm following a 3 hour ride on a very large and luxurious slow boat. We stayed at the ´El Viajero´ hostel which cost us U$1000/2ppl/night for the first night in a matrimonial with private bathroom and TV which was expensive but nice. We decided to stay an additional night but had to switch to the ... read more