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Published: April 29th 2005
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Welcome to South America! I thought I would do a special article as a summary with links to the top 12 highlights of the 4-month South American leg of our Round the World trip. For those interested in doing something similar or those interested in a quick round-up this covers the whole first leg of the trip, all the way from Quito (Sep 2004), to Rio in January 2005.
Our South American Oddysey, starting with Ecuador
We landed in Quito (Ecuador's capital) on the 27th September 2004 and got straight into Spanish lessons in our first and excellent base, The Secret Garden, with our highly competent teacher, Narda. After 10 days of pretty intense learning and getting into the whole travel thing, we were heading on our way for a week in the magical
Galapagos Islands which was a blast - $1000 well spent. After that we had our first madcap bus journeys while we explored some of Ecuador on the way down to Peru - our first main stop in Peru being the town of Trujillo (Tru-he-ly-oh) on the northern Pacific coast (see below).
Peru...
Visiting the fascinating
ancient pre-inca ruins of the Huacas del sol y de la Luna (Temples of the Sun and Moon) (near Trujillo) was our second top 12 highlight, followed
by the incredible
Inca Trail culminating on the fourth day with sunrise over the fairytale
Macchu Picchu (click link for Inca Trail to see) - it's every bit as good as you'd imagine (if the weather's right!)
Bolivia...
After all that excitement there was no stopping us - we explored Peru a little more (the lovely town of Arequipa) before crossing into Bolivia at the beautiful and mystical
Lake Titicaca where we did some hiking and boating. High up on the Isla del Sol we witnessed the most enchanting sunset.
Our next stop was La Paz, Bolivia's de facto capital, which we used as our base to climb the impressive 6088m-high
Huayna Potosi mountain - our first time walking on a glaciar in crampons at night, in a blizzard -
FUN! After that we decided we needed more punishment so headed to the mosquito-infested
jungle and pampas at Rurrenabaque to see some wildlife and experience the Amazon basin first-hand - the accompanying flights there and back were spectacular, descending from high up in the Andes into the hot, sweaty jungle.
So some more Boliv-sploration via the town of Sucre led us to the
mines at Potosi (where we mucked around with sticks of dynamite) before heading to
the highlight of the continent (for us) -
our tour across the Salar de Uyuni.
Argentina...
After a short, quick whip through Chile and the very modern city of Santiago we found ourselves at the bottom of the world -
beautiful Patagonia and the most southerly land before you reach Antarctica
Tierra del Fuego (The Land of fire).
After a Christmas stint in Uruguay we returned to sleek and stylish
Buenos Aires for some New Year celebrations.
After that we explored the wine-growing region of Argentina (Mendoza) and then headed to the gargantuan
Iguazu Falls - probably our number two highlight, before finishing in marvelous, every-bit-as-good-as-they-say
Rio de Janeiro.
We flew out shortly after my birthday, on the 31st Jan - missing out the 1st of February with some international dateline shenanigans - to land plop back in the middle of a very British world: New Zealand. Read about all of those adventures very soon!
Some stats and silly stuff! (as at 6th April 2005)
* We have now been below the Equator since October 3rd 2004, where we jumped over it back and forth a few times and made water do strange things
* Highest altitude attained (without the help of a plane) - 5670m. Crampons and ice axe needed!
* Total time away so far: 192 days - over 10%!o(MISSING)f our total time has been on some form of transport (anyone want to calculate our average speed?)
* Time spent on buses, 169hrs - over a week
* Time spent on planes, 55hrs in 16 flights (ish)
* New skills learnt - Spanish, glaciar-walking, Scuba-diving, sea-kayaking, basic diesel engine maintenance, van restoration, GPS navigation, advanced haggling
* Time spent on boats/ships, 7 days
* Time lived in a van, 52 days - only 2 nights in the middle were in a bed in a house, and 1 night in a tent - the whole rest was in the van
* Southernmost point - city of Ushuaia, Argentina (~52degs South)
* Northernmost point since landing in Quito, the Equator
* Times crossed international dateline - once, westwards meaning we 'lost' a whole day
* Easternmost point whilst travelling, Rio de Janeiro (~40degs West)
* Westernmost point - Perth Australia (116degs East), meaning that we're now more than 2/3rds the way around the world
You've had the highlights, now what were the lowlights?
There've been very few 'bad' points, but here's the 3 that spring to mind:
Bus journeys in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia - these countries have rather a loose definition of a road, and their definition of a seat on a bus usually includes space for children to sleep under that seat or in the aisle. The roads are also often very very windy - looking down into a huge valley contemplating death was one of my favourite passtimes whilst on buses in Ecuador!
Getting Delhi belly - or Peruvian poopies. We've all had it when the food and the water's a little different from the usual that we're used to - and no trip to South America would be complete without it. It's part of the fun, really - as long as you don't get any
serious parasties....
Attempted robberies happened to us twice in La Paz by some very poorly organised and/or not very determined people - they'll try and distract you and then snatch from or pickpocket you. Nothing too nasty but annoys the hell out of you all the same. Just don't fall for any of their tactics (of which there are many...) and you'll be fine. And for what it's worth, I reckon Rio's as safe as anywhere else - in fact the whole of South America is. Just don't do anything too stoopid!
Sarah also wanted me to mention the mosquito bites we received in the jungle - those babies can really itch, especially when you've got 500 all over you! We received them all from super-mossies that could easily bite you through a t-shirt. We had to wear a t-shirt and jumper to stay safe: the trick is to cover up EVERY gap and use plenty of 100%!D(MISSING)EET, that does the trick.
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Martina
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Great Info
Hi, Thanks for putting up all this good info. I am planning a trip with my boyfriend at the moment and genuine advice from travellers is great!