mchan

Oh Cafayete! What can we say? The asado´s were delicious, the wine was divine and the people were welcoming. The only unfortunate thing was that this was the point where our "family" had gone separate ways so were by ourselves again. Luckily, we still had one member with us. On the first day, we were greeted by the friendly family who owned the hostel. Little did we know, there are a lot more things to do in Cafayete than we thought. After being overwhelmed with the list the hostel had given us, we decided to look things over while eating emapanadas. The empañadas were delicious! We were accustomed to only 2 types of empañadas and they offered 12 different types here! Let´s just say we got super excited and stuffed ourselves. Little need to say, we ... read more

Well... Just our luck! We got stuck in San pedro de atacama. Porque? We arrived on a Saturday and wanted to take the bus to Argentina on Sunday, but it was sold out and the next bus didn´t leave until Tuesday. Good thing we had our "travelling family" (the group from salar de uyuni) to keep us company. So we ended up staying in a dorm with the family. 8 beds for 6 people! Hooray we got the whole room to ourselves... So we thought. Halfway through the day, we had a new roomie, Sketchy Francois. Lets just say he enjoyed substances of the illegal nature. San pedro de atacama itself is quite nice even though it´s very touristy. It was nice and hot so we enjoyed many helados. There are quite a few number of ... read more

Fortunately, the overnight bus was OK. We arrived about 630am in the morning to Potosi @ 4100m above sea level. Unfortuantely Lydia felt a bit sick... perhaps due to the altitude :( That morning, we had some Salteñas for breakfast and rested. At about 130pm we went on a tour to see the Mines. The mines were very interesting to see but we would never do it again. The working conditions and the air quality were terrible! Before heading to the mines, they gave us clothing to wear on top, a helmet with a headlamp, and rubber boots. We also opted for the bandana´s so that we could minimize the amount of dust we would breathe in. So we were ready in our gear! They took us to the miners market so that we could buy ... read more

Well lets just say the bus ride from Puno, Peru to La Paz, Bolivia was quite an adventure on its own! Fortunately, the bus company we took was recommended and taken by many tourists so we weren´t scared. Well to start off, we stopped at Copacabana as expected. But what we didn´t expect was switching to a much smaller bus and making an extra stop. I still don´t know what city or area we stopped at but they told us to get off the bus, buy a ticket for the boat, and take the boat accross the lake where we would be picked up. While we did that, our bus drove onto a platform that floated across the lake. The bus picked us up and continued driving to La Paz. Oh yea, I shouldn´t forget to ... read more

What an experience! We arrived back in Cusco last night at around 10pm from our Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu. It was absolutely incredible! We were pushed to our limits during this trek... we were sweaty, freezing, dirty, deprived of oxygen and aching but it was all worth it! During the trek, we were dreaming about clean clothes, a toilet, and a shower but now that it' over, we miss hiking and camping in the Andes. Yes that's right, we miss waking up at 6am and hiking from 7am - 530pm. It was quite an amazing 5 days. We were able to hike along snow capped mountains (highest point @ 4500m above sea level), visit villages, and hike in the high jungles. Keep in mind that it was our first time hiking... but we were lucky ... read more