Blogs from South America - page 5661

Saturday - Arrival at La Paz So, we quickly found a taxi and crossed to the touristy bit of La Paz to find a hostal we'd been recommended - El Solario on Murillo and Santa Cruz. Basic, but with in-house internet (on which I am writing now) and only 50Bs - about 3pounds20 a night, we thought it was a good base. A very nice coincidence was to bump into two people we'd met along the way, Dominic and Catherine - two friends travelling together before getting jobs. Dominic wanted to book onto the trip up Huayna Potosi too so we found a good agency and signed up to leave on Monday morning for the 3-day trip which included an afternoon of training on a glacier using the equipment - namely crampons (metal spikes for walking ... read more

I bet, reader, that you probably dont know a huge amount about Uruguay... It is a relatively small, but affluent country on the Atlantic coast, nestled in between Brazil and Argentina. It´s mainly agricultural, and produces huge amounts of wheat and beef.. Fray Bentos is actually the name of a cow town here! It was also a banking and touism centre for rich argentinians, until the Argy currency crashed a few years back. Still, it is pleasant, without being spectacular, and with good roads, clean hotels, and great food all costing not a lot, a really nice place to travel through. We arrived on a windy morning on an overnight bus from southern Brazil, at a place called Punta Del Este. Now this place, basically is the Monte Carlo of south america.. A mixture of high ... read more

Wednesday afternoon we caught a bus though to Nazca. By the way, "we" now consisted of Paul and Rebecca as well as Ross. Paul and Bec are from England, while Ross is from Scotland. We were all heading in the same direction so it made sense to stick together. We got in about 4pm, and again there were people everywhere trying to take us to their hostel or sell us plane flights over the Nasca Lines. We managed to get away from them with all our money and bags and walked down to the hostel that we had chosen from our (usually) trusty Lonely Planet guides. Once we had dumped our stuff in the rooms, a guy known as Rastaman (I guess it's the Peruvian dreadlocks) took us around in a car to get our bus ... read more

Rapa Nui, Rapa Nui! That's how the song goes that is playing constantly on this cool little island in the middle of the Pacific. The song is playing in the airport when you land and get off the plane onto the tarmac and people are waiting to put flowers around your neck, it's playing in your taxi, it's playing in the restaurant, in the hotel...it's a good song, really, and catchy...yeah, really catchy. Anyways, we had an awesome time here, starting with appropriating a room, it was easy enough, as there are booths of all the hotels and hostels right next to the baggage claim, and whichever place you pick out gives you a ride, also. First of all, the place we stayed, Cabanas Vaianny was great, we had our own bathroom and breakfast, and we ... read more

It's felt like ages since I last wrote but I guess that's just because so much has been happening. Right now we are in Nasca waiting for our overnight bus tonight to Arequipa, so I have a bit of a chance to write. I´m sorry if this is the first journal that you´ve got or you don´t get this one. I´m just adding addresses as I am able. We spent 2 whole days in Lima, mainly in a seaside suburb called Miraflores. It's pretty flash by local standards, but most tourists stay there because it's much safer than the rest of the city. There were some really nice parks, with beautiful flower beds and lush green grass, but I don't think you're allowed on it. By the end of the 2 days we had a pretty ... read more