Blogs from South America - page 5353

Btw. if you click on the image to the right you see a satellite map of the place which you can zoom in and out. To quote Lonely Planet the Iguazu falls are not your average "isn’t gravity nice" type of waterfalls. This one is bigger, better and wider than all the waterfalls I've seen so far combined. Apparently there are close to 300 falls with up to 80 meters height spread out over 2km. As one tourist brochure claims 1.2 million liters of water run over the falls ever second. The waterfalls (the river to be exact) are also the border between Argentina and Brazil which gives both sides the opportunity to extract money out of your pocket. The Argentinean side gives you access to more waterfalls and has more walks (most of the close ... read more

Pas mal de changement depuis la derniere fois puisque samedi matin g en effet demenage pour aller vivre dans l appart avec les Australiens. La je fais connaissance avec tout le monde et je rencontre Kylee, une charmante fille de 28 ans habitant Sydney.(la photo suivra bientot). On est tout le groupe dans deux appart different en attendant lundi de demenager dans un plus grand appart. Ma soiree etait deja organise puisque je devais aller au concert des Rolling Stones avec certains de l auberge de jeunesse et Kylee devait aller a une soiree samba avec le reste des Australiens. Ni une ni deux j attaque mon plan "charme" et reussie a la convaincre de venir avec moi au concert (Mick Jagger prenant lui aussi une place importante dans sa decision je dois l avouer). Avant ... read more

After leaving El Calafate I spent three very enjoyable days cycling around Lago Argentino and Lago Viedma whilst listening to the White Stripes to get ot El Chalten. A pleasing combination of beautiful lakes, jagged ice capped mountains and funky rock. At the end of the first day I turned off the road and asked to camp in Estancia Irene. I was greeted by the extremely hospitable Juan Carlos. He not only offered me a room for the night but also gave me an extremely generous helping of cordero (chunks of lamb), with his own home made bread and a potato omlette that he had prepared earlier in the day and he also whipped out of the cupboard under his stove. After I had very gratefully devoured this we had about 15 minutes of basic Spanish ... read more

See some movies associated with this blog When we arrived in San Pedro de Atacama we were surprised by how small it was. It is so famous,and so many people tell you how nice it is that somehow we expected something quite different. OK, the background scenery is amazing, a succession of enormous snowed capped peaks (with several volcanoes amongst them) which look straight from a postcard, but we didn't find the village in itself to be anything special. For starters it has just one cashpoint machine, attached to a bank that only opens for 2 or 3 hours on a Thursday afternoon, and with so many tourists needing money for accommodation, food and excursions, apparently it dries up quickly. Naturally with our luck it was out of order when we arrived. With only about £5 ... read more

"Brasil, Brasil" - its carnaval time and those patriotic Brazilians were in full on party mode when we arrived in Rio in a huge storm. Well most of them were, we stopped at the Riotur desk in the airport for tourist information and the Carioca on duty got out a map, circled the Sugar Loaf, the Corcavado (Christ statue) and said - "well there isnt really much to do here except for the beaches" - hold on a minute, isnt the world´s biggest party due to start in just a couple of days.....? Well that´s Brazil for you - full of contradictions and myths. We were spending a couple of days in Rio where Julie and Dave would join us from the UK and then on to Salvador for the biggest street Carnaval in the world ... read more