Blogs from South America - page 5370

After my last entry, I asked again at the ticket counter if there were tickets to Valdivia open yet, in case of a cancellation. He said no, so I aksed if there were any tickets to Valdivia from Lanco, the town we were headed. He said yes, so we got one for 8pm, about an hour after we would be arriving in Lanco. This was sheer genius on my part as Lanco turned out to be a hole. I have no idea where we would have slept or even gotten tickets to Valdivia if we didn´t already have them. We arrived in Valdivia just in time to catch a beautiful pink sunset as we walked around looking for a home. We tried one from our book and it was full, but the woman walked us down ... read more

Here I am in Chile and it is raining. Except this detail, it is just great! I started the weekend in a bus for going from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas and consequently leaving Argentina (I'll be back!) for Chile. Saterday in a bus means no rugby, which is obviously better for the French team! Punta Arenas! There is nothing to say about this town except that it is on the Magellan straight and there is othing and nobody there...ok it was over the weekend (even the city museum is closed on Sunday) but there was a nice little market on the main square where I bought a hand knitted "bonnet" that still smell the sheep from where the wool is coming from. There is a paper here that had a title: What is beautiful is alive ... read more

Well unfortunately we were not able to get a cheap flight from Campo Grande to Salvador, and instead opted for 50 hours of buses. The first two, although long, went relatively well, especially since the one from Campo Grande to Brasilia I had no one sitting beside me. The last bus ride, however, from Brasilia to Salvador, was 24 hours of crap. Neither Jord nor I could manage to sleep between the crying babies, the psycho lady that I was sitting beside, and teh bus driver driving through corn fields. For the price of the rides you would think there would be a movie, but alas there was not even that to keep me occupied. I have now read 4 chapters of Harry Potter, and for the most part I understand what the hell is going ... read more

February 13th, 2006, Day 39 of our cruise of 105. Weather was perfect with sunny skies, light seas and balmy temperature, nice to get out! Slow day at sea, few activities and I missed the watercolor class at 1 because we were doing our morning walk- late because we got up after 10 Then read this afternoon ( 3 to 5) then walked again We then joined the “Secret Society” for “coffee” on deck 8 aft Quick shower 7:30 birthday party for Gerald (76) in a verandah suite( we play trivia every day at 11:45 with Anne and Gerald) Hi Brenda from England, nice to hear from you, safe trip to you, check my husband’s blog at http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=273494, he is Ides of March. Hello my children, love you Jock of March, Ides of Muscle and Pirate ... read more

I spent a couple of days in Cuzco. I did the tourist circuit... saw some museums, ruins, movies, clubs, etcetera. I hung out with more Canadians. This Chilean girl said I looked like Michael Moore, it hurt my feelings. On Saturday morning I left for Macchu Picchu. The country of Peru has perhaps one of the best schemes going on. They make it impossible to travel to one of the world´s most visited historical sites by road. It is only accessible by train, at which they can charge any price. We took a cab as close as we could to the site, then trained it to Aguas Calientes aka Macchu Picchu Pueblo. It´s a town that isn´t more than seventy years old because it was invented for tourism. ($1.33 internet, 3 drinks for $5, one night ... read more