Blogs from South America - page 5459

My last night in Lima coincided with the final world cup qualifier for Germany 2006, played in Sydney between Australia and Uruguay. I watched the first game in Huacachina with a Uruguayan girl I met on an earlier tour, it was great fun and a predictable result. Of course I was extremely gracious to her in defeat. The return game started at 4:00am local time, and by coincidence there were up to ten Australians at the hostel in Lima. The place was absolutely jumping around 7:00am when Australia slotted home the winning penalty, as we started hopping about like mad kangaroos to celebrate a terrific achievement for Australian football. Congratulations to the mighty Socceroos and all the best for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Apologies for the free plug regarding our football team, but the ... read more

My bad luck with transport continued, no your not re-reading the Nazca entry. I left Nazca on the 1am Cruz Del Sur coach to Cusco, it departed nearer 2am. Woke up at 6am to find the coach had broken down somewhere on an Andean Mountain road and I’m also starting to feel the altitude. The locals decide to sit it out on the next bend in the road! I whipped out the GPS to find our location, to my disappointment distance traveled in the 4odd hours was 78miles! distance to go 185miles. shit. Replacement bus finally arrives at 11am, they then decide to torture me by playing videos of the latest and greatest Julio Iglesias wannabes for the next few hours. The views of the Andean mountains valleys and sheer drops did make up for some ... read more

After being picked up in our bus from our hotel, we set off to the beginning of the 42km trek along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. The bus trip was just over an hour. We picked up some stock of food and walking sticks from the local shops. Also we were told to buy some cocoa leaves, which when you mash them together and hold in the side of your mouth will give you enough protein to keep going (tastes horrible) and is supposedly used to make cocaine. Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 day by day info to come!... read more

WOW! Thanks, ali, for the advice about the @ symbol! i don´t know how i would ever get that. I wish i had more time here, Its really not enough to spend only a week in a country, I barely scratched the surface. Yesterday, we met some guys on the plane on their way to peru, that were travelling for over a year. They made it through on $20 a day. Anyway, forgot where i left off in colombia, and i´m actually in argentina right now! backtracking... We ended up going to Villa De Levya about 3 hours (or supposedly 3 hours) from Bogota. Its a small preserved town, complete with gauchos and hard bargaining local artisans. We scoffed at the $120 a driver at the hotel wanted to charge us for a ride there and ... read more

So, I made it!! Everything went like clockwork until I hit Ecuador. Turns out that we had a slight mix up with arrival times. Not to worry though I spent the night in the airport....where knew it was safe and early the next morning I made friends with a guy....rather flamboyant I mught add but he was increddibly helpful. He was awaiting for a friend to arrive but once he visited with his friend he and his brother (who drives a private luxury taxi) got me to the bus station and on the right bus. So, now i have a place to stay in the city and a private car at my disposal! Once i got to Montinata I hiked down the baeach (1KM) with my packs(which are way too full)....and by the way cheryl I ... read more