Blogs from South America - page 17

IIhabela, Brazil is a small jungle island. We arranged for a tour of the island which included a visit to a waterfall but the guide was only available in Spanish or Portuguese so Costa asked us to take another excursion where they could provide an English-speaking guide. We agreed. We were told we would be taking a jeep tour through the jungle, to wear lots of bug spray due to mosquitos and then we would be transferred to a beach where we would board a Schooner (a long pirate-like boat) back to the port. I will preface this excursion by saying that I was interested in this excursion last year many months ago but it said we had to swim from the Schooner to the beach and Kamie didn’t want to do that. This time, the ... read more

Blog 4 – Travelling solo So Chris had gone off on his cruise and I was in Buenos Aires and the heat continued. I packed up my stuff and left it at reception as it was time to move to a different part of the city. I spent the morning walking around, first up to the magnificent Plaza de Mayo with the square where the Peron's made their speeches. Then into a fabulous art nouveau style cafe before a walk down Defensa soaking up the atmosphere of the San Telmo Sunday market. I went into the food market and it was too hot to cope with, I did see a bit of street tango but it was so busy. On any other occasion I would have done more but the heat and humidity are killers. I ... read more

We are in waters of the South Atlantic somewhere north of Uruguay. I am no longer sleep deprived. It feels nice. I woke-up this morning and watched the sunrise on our balcony. It felt amazing. I got ready to have breakfast at 7:30am and went to kiss Kamie goodbye and he decided breakfast sounded good to him, too. We both had steaming hot omelets. They gave us “toast” but it was not toasted – just bread with strawberry jam and orange marmalade. We sparked an entertaining discussion with several of the employees about coffee. I ordered a regular coffee with some milk. Then I put ice in it. This intrigued them and they approached me and started asking questions. They told me it would be normal for the Italians onboard to drink 10 espressos a day. ... read more

It’s been over 48 hours since I wrote a blog post but it feels like 4 or 5 days. We are on the ship. I will back-up and tell everything we’ve went through to get here. It’s A LOT. For starters, let’s back-up to the night we spent in Miami because Kamie has a funny tale to tell… he was outside smoking and the hotel airport shuttle drove-up and the driver proceeded to back into a lady’s car. The driver pulled-up and stayed in the shuttle van… she came outside… he still didn’t get out..… so Kamie told on him! The shuttle driver denied it! There was a shouting matching in Spanish between the shuttle bus driver and the lady (everyone in this area of Miami speaks Spanish as their primary language). She didn’t have too ... read more

Ha ezt olvasod, akkor az azt jelenti, hogy haza is értünk, mert az utolsó pár napot az Isztambul-Budapest járaton írom éppen… Reggel időben megjött a taxi értünk, bár az utunk nem volt egyszerű, mivel itt kétféle sofőrrel utaztunk eddig, vagy agresszív és tolja neki, dudál, előz vagy a szarul vezető bizonytalan típus, hát ennek sikerült a kettőt ötvöznie, szarul vezetett, de legalább mindezt gyorsan és agresszíven tette. Ja, ráadásul az a típus amelyik úgy beszél a mellette ülővel, márpedig ez végig beszélte az utat az anyós ülésen utazó ismerőseivel, hogy amikor beszél, még rá is néz. Inkább aludtunk is, mert éreztük, hogy nincsen ráhatásunk, hogy élve kiérjünk a reptérre. Legalább korán kiértünk. Végül élve. Jött a következő izgalom a csomagok feladása. Harmadiknak álltunk a sorban, az előttünk lévő, helyi nénit és távol-keleti fiatal srácot is elküldték ... read more