Blogs from South America - page 5359

Southern Patagonia may well have been the perfect place for us… coupled with the beautiful scenery of endless lakes, tiny islands and snow-capped mountains we really were in penguin heaven. We couldn’t turn a corner without catching sight of more penguin paraphernalia - they even used giant cuddly penguins as mannequins in shop windows! But alas, we had to participate in some non-animal related things too (honestly we’re not hiding out in London zoo!) Patagonia is trekkers' heaven so we thought we'd better give it a go too, our first taste was in the Tierra del Fuego National Park (in Argentina), which, naturally, is abundant with lakes, islands and mountains. Our walk was round one of the lakes, through woods and past some fantastic scenery. Our plan was to reach the beaver colony (they have beavers ... read more

Hola, Wow what a fantastic....while. I think the last time I wrote was in Cuenca, so I will pick it up from there. From Cuenca Tessa and I booted it to Guyaquil, Ecuador's largest and most "feo" (ugly) city. A port city, Guyaquil really didn't have much to look at except concrete and black-smoke, not to mention the polluted brownish-green water. However, always one to try to make the best of any situation, Tessa and I took a nice walk along the reconstructed waterfront, which did have some fun things to take a look at. Stopping for dinner, it started to pour rain and, shoeless and in normal clothes, Tessa and I rain around a pedestrian area with some local kids (who were happily and comfortably wearing garbage bags to help, somewhat hopelessly, with the pouring ... read more

So, what have we been up to since our last blog? Stayed in a place called Florianopolic - on the isla de Santa Catarina. Rented a quality apartment for the same price as a hostel which was pretty cool. Florianopolis was lovely... however we had one or two encounters - one of which i´ll leave til we get home!! Considering its such a touristy place we were surprised that so few people spoke English but figured we´re all pretty streetwise so ventured out on our own to a beach a bit further away. Well our sense of direction is obviously shot to sh*t as we plodded around in the boiling hot sun unable to find any water! So we ventured home - another mission - to our beach at praia de ingleses. The next day we ... read more

As we (especially Ran, my flight partner) wanted to 'lizrom' and make as little plans as possible, we did a reservation only for the first night. What we didn´t know, was that on the following day there was going to be a free concert by the Rolling Stones in Rio, so all the hostels / hotels / pausads were overbooked. After some time we finally managed to find a really lousy apartment, and the owner made us pay for 2 nights. We rented it with a couple of israeli girls, and Tom from England, who has been traveling for 2 years. The best thing that I can tell about the appartmnet is the interesting stories Tom has told me. At evening we tried our luck and went to the concert. Besides us, 1.2 million people also ... read more

We spent a night on a hacienda in the regeon of Buenous Aires, but about an hour out of the city. Our first revelation once on the road was that Argentina has very nice long distance busses! We only stayed one night in the area, the hacienda (or ranch) experience was nice, but not meant for staying more than one night. Realising how nice the buses were (and how quiet the towns were, after Buenous Aires) we decided to take an over night bus up to the north of Argentina towards the Iguazu Falls region.... read more