Blogs from South America - page 5367

We spent 2 days visiting the Falklands. West point and Stanley. There were loads of birds on the West, Albatross and cara cara and loads of rock hopper penguins. We walked a couple of miles on grass (oh joy to be on land!!) spent an hour or so birdwatching - amazing! Then headed back to someones house for tea and cakes. The island reminded me of Wales (except the penguins..)Was very lovely. The second day we went to Stanley-the capital of the Falklands, It's the smallest and most remote capital city in the world. It was soo British, they spend pounds, drink pints and eat fish & chips... Imagine mine and Lo´s excitement when we went into the supermarket and saw all the stuff from home... chewits, curly wurlys, crunchies, horlicks, marmite etc etc... Very exciting! ... read more

We left the tranquility of the beautiful National Park, and made the 3 hour journey to Asuncion. Once again the heat was turned up, baking hot. We arrived at the Asuncion Palace hotel, which is nice and comfortable, and a welcome break from camping for the last week. Dumped all the laundry off, and had a look around the CIty. The City is very different from what I expected. Quieter, and very relaxed during the day. There are nice shops, and typically some Spanish colonial type buildings in the main Plaza. In the evening we gathered for our usual meal together, again a nice change to eating out after camping, and had a few drinks in town, which was fairly quiet. Then home to a nice comfortable bed. Its Valentines day today! Spent the day shopping, ... read more

Morning time, off to Salta…a 4-way group this time altho’ Raf annd I move further ahead as we go…..day starts with 100 kms of ripio, then nice asphalto and all of it in deserted roads, fantastic scenery, mountain range to the left like scrunched up old carpet, slabs of bare rock in parts, green fuzz over the rest, clouds hanging around the peaks, off to the right, bare rock in spectacular reds and browns, cactus plants and scrubby thorn bushes, pretty inhospitable but beautiful. Every few kms a washout, as we would say back home, sometimes concreted slipway but others just a broad expanse of gravely mud and waterways, approach with caution, drop back to first, grind it thru’, slip and slide but the old 1150 does the job, look to the end, be the bike, ... read more

Well, here I am! Santiago. Hmmm. Well, after Bs As, it´s got a lot to live up to. I actually feel homesick for Bs As, something I´ve never felt about anywhere before really. And so far, I´m not sure this place has what it takes. It seems much more low key, and, well, boring. And whereas Bs As sometimes had a strange Englishness in a way that reminded me of London, from the architecture down to the British style red cast iron phone and post boxes, Santiago has a strange Englishness that reminds me of Birmingham. Lots of big grey 60s tower blocks in other words. I´m living in quite an upmarket modern area (in fact Pinochet lives just around the corner), but it lacks any style or soul. The family I´m staying with are nice, ... read more

So, Kyle and I finally made it after an incredibly long bus ride! but here we are in ecuador. we stayed last night at a hostal called the magic bean. it was really nice. the people here in the city of quito are really nice and willing to help. we are taking advantage of their kindness as much as we can without becoming neive. when some street kids asked us for money and we said no, they had a water balloon or something thrown at us yesterday but it missed and hit the ground and only splashed us on the feet...we went and washed it off cause who knows what it really was. we just laughed it off pretty much. but so far out experiance here has been really really good and we are looking forward ... read more