Blogs from South America - page 5454

We have just completed the 4x4 Salar trip from San Pedro to Uyuni in Bolivia and it certainly lived up to the very high expectations we had from numerous recommendations. Our journey started early in San Pedro but shortly after starting we came to an abrupt halt at the Chilean exit point with a long queue to get out of Chile (we didn´t think it so bad that people would queue to leave...). Once we finally got our passports stamped it was back into the bus for the hour journey to the Bolivian entry point. At over 4300m this border control was little more than a shed with a flag flying outside. We paid the entry fee which we are told is necessary but a complete scam to extract money from tourists - scam or not ... read more

Hi everyone, Wasn´t at the orphanage today. As it´s Friday, Vicki and I went to the prison to help take the kids out for the morning. Was the same routine as last time checking into the prison. Numerous security stamps and my passport was held until we were leaving. Vicki had Karina today (the little girl I had last week) and I had Daisy. Daisy is the eldest of the prison kids and is more commonly known as "Crazy Daisy", but she was great with me. We brought the kids back to the CCS house where Marisol had some DVDs for them to watch - Tom and Jerry etc. They started to get restless after a while, so we headed out to the local park. The only problem with the park is that there are lots ... read more

After leaving Paraguay, where you´d be hard-pushed to find a tourist anywhere, I then crossed on foot the noisy, bustling friendship bridge at the border and over to Brazil; the total opposite of its neighbour. Different language, different culture, marauding gangs of picture-hungry tourists and a much more expensive day-to-day cost of travelling than other Latin American countries. The first difference that gave me cause for concern was the language difference, I had heard from others that it would be OK to understand because of its similarities with Spanish... Then I heard them speak this Brazilian version of Portuguese. I thought it sounded like an unromantic, ugly version of some vile concoction of German, Hebrew and Spanish, after eight double whiskys. And the strangest thing is, I can understand one person speaking Portuguese almost perfectly, but ... read more

Estoy escribiendo el viaje, de aqui poco estara listo.... read more

Just out of Cucao this morning four young guys squeezed inside a small, white, hatchback pulled up next to us. The driver wound down his window and asked: "Do you speak English?" "Yea" "Was that the National Park back there?" "Yea" "What, just the beach and stuff?" "Yep, you can walk for 20kms North and South and it won´t change". I actually got this last on the authority of a British couple we´d had dinner with last night. I hadn´t walked it myself. "That´s a disappointment then" he said, wound up his window and drove off back to the highway. I sat there for a moment longer, digesting his last comment, and thought to myself yea, that´s a pretty good summary of Cucao and climbed back on the bike for the two and a half hour ... read more