Blogs from South America - page 5339

Hello Everyone! Carnival, spelled Carnaval in Portuguese, has ended which is a little sad, but at the same time is probably best for our bodies, we need some rest! We started our celebrations on Friday, Feb. 24th, and didn’t stop until about 4:00pm Wednesday, Mar. 1st. We did get some sleep in between, but I am sure we won’t be getting up as earlier as we have been. Fortunately, we had no problems with thievery, well someone did make off with a small, very small bottle of our sun block (which by the way is very expensive here!), but other than that no problems at all! We witnessed one or two people getting billy-clubbed by the police, here if you cause problems it’s a beating first, questions later, but other than that it was a great, ... read more

Determined to escape the desert, we travelled into the Canete valley and to the town of Lunuhana. The taxi dropped us off in Imperial, a district of Cañete, amid a swarm of market traders. Seconds later, a colectivo materialised. Colectivos are a cheap way of getting around: they consist of a man, a van and a lad who hangs out of the side door screaming the destinations at passers by. Lunahuana´was our destination, 30km up the valley, and I don't think it was possible to cover those 30km any faster. Tyres squealing, taking the racing line the whole way, the canyon walls flashing by alarmingly close at times, we clung on and exchanged nervous glances. At one point we saw dazed, bleeding passengers standing on the road, their collectivo having left the road in spectacular fashion, ... read more

Pucon is the first taste of good weather I've had in a long time. but donning a pair of shorts was not the entire reason for travelling here: the plan was to climb the 2847 metre Volcan Villarica - an active Volcano on the town's doorstep. The ascent can only be done with an accredited guide, so we signed up with one in town and we were fully kitted up with boots, gaitors, waterproofs and best-of-all an ice axe!!! As I said to Chris, my motivation for doing even the most menial of tasks would be huge if only I was able to complete them using an ice-axe!! I don't know why but it just feels really good to be wielding one of the beasts!! The ascent initially sounded quite daunting, 1400 metres straight up the ... read more

We've been on the road now for about 3 months, more or less, and the whole time we've been up in the mountains (except for the Galapagos excursion, which was something of a holiday within a holiday). Many moons ago my good friend Pete had also travelled these parts, and the one recommendation that I remembered was that we should go to Rurrenabaque, or Rurre as it's more often called. Having spent so much time up in the clouds we were looking forward to getting down to jungle level, and seeing some of the teeming wildlife that we'd heard and read much about. The journey there was, well, different. We'd biked down from La Paz to Coroico and from there caught a bus bound for Rurre. It was claimed that this bus had toilets and fully ... read more

Day 23- Saturday 25th February The Facts: Disemabarking at 7am Ushuaia Flight to El Calafate The longer version After disembarking the rush was on to find someone to post all our new jackets and fleeces (supplied as part of the trip) back to Australia. The Correo (Post) was open on, but they only do International Parcels Mon-Fri during selected hours, even though the customs sectio which is needed for this was open! We could only locate a DHL Office (not outlet for postage), and OCA who delivered freight only within Argentina! So we managed to stuff all the goodies in our bags and board a flight to El Calafate. Now, here was another interesting Taxi Ride- 135km.hr, 4 people, 4 full backbacks and no seatbelts. The taxi could not go any faster if it tried! And ... read more

About The Pictures I spent most of Monday, the 27th, walking around Santiago taking pictures. Somehow, I managed to stumbled across an impromptu military parade, a movie shoot, and a crazy guy dressed in a maid´s outfit. I missed some good shots on the movie set because I left my zoom lense at home and couldn´t get close enough. The only story I HAVE to tell regarding the pictures is about the crazy dude at the bottom. In Santiago, there is a magazine called "The Clinic," which is a lot like "The Onion" in the US. Sometime ago, The Clinic had an article called "The 100 Least Influential People in Chile." Guess who was number 1? This guy. So, when I ran into him, he saw me taking pictures of the military parade, and asked ... read more