Blogs from South America - page 5663

So, tuesday 9th we got to Arequipa at 5am and found a hostal then went to sleep for 2 hours. If you're ever tempted to get a night bus from Cusco to Arequipa, go via Juliaca - the road between the Cusco and Arequipa is the Worst Road In The World (Guinness book of records page 262). So, we needed to sleep for a couple of hours so did so and then went for breakfast in the main square and had a bit of a look around. As you can see from the pictures, the main square is really beautiful - a fairly busy place but not too busy (like the pretty but horrible Plaza de Armas in Cusco). Breakast was the best breakfast we'd had so far - for 12 Soles you get a really ... read more

Depois de uma viagem extremamente cansativa e estressante, aterrizei em Sampa pela primeira vez depois da minha mudança para a Ogrolandia......em férias.... muito estranho. Mas devo dizer que curti a minha cidade em um modo completamente diverso, como "guia turistico". Sempre amei São Paulo e a vida que levava ali, mas me surpreendi ao constatar o quanto. Pensei na paranoia em que vivia, o medo da "violencia"... Mas se eu nunca nem fui assaltada!!! Os problemas de segurança de São Paulo não são diferentes de Paris, Roma, Londres... bah!!!!! Não so' me senti mais segura, como so' vi sorrisos. Tive a mesma sensação de qualquer turista depois do primeiro dia no Brasil, quando passa o terrorismo psicologico que os proprios brasileiros fazem sobre o assunto: livre, leve e solta! Somos muuuuito exagerados e paranoicos com essa ... read more

A 46 hour bus journey took us from Potosi, in southern Bolivia, to Puerto Iguazu, in North Eastern Argentina. This involved 5 different bus journeys, and conditions noticeably improved once we crossed the border into Argentina.... The roads were paved, the buses were luxurious sleeper affairs, with free coffee and Hollywood films shown in English, and the food became noticeably more appetising... Eventually, after our gruelling journey, and in desperate need of a shower, we arrived at Puerto Iguazu, a pleasant, low rise town that sits on the junction of the Iguazu and Parana rivers, and is therefore bordered by both Paraguay and Brazil. But the main draw of the town are the waterfalls that decend the Iguazu river, 20 km away... Put quite simply, these falls are as an amazing sight I have ever witnessed... ... read more

Hi again, I´m just goint to recount a few things that happened while we were in Santiago. Just a short summary of October. If you managed to see our JourneyFile blog, please go straight to the next entries. It just makes me feel better to have some sort of starting point here. We arrived in Santiago on October 2nd and started our Spanish classes two days later. For five days a week, four hours a day we struggled and made our heads hurt for the rest of October. But it is paying off now. In between classes and on weekends we did manage to get out of the city a couple times. In Valparaiso for a weekend, which was like being transported to a small Italian coastal town. Steep, winding street that we didn´t mind getting ... read more

So, as the previous entry should state we arrived in Cusco really early and had an extra day here almost. We checked out a load of hostals and settled on the Marani on Carmen Alto (San Blas area) because it had a bath and a massive room. We could only stay one night but we took advantage of the bath and booked in for another 2 nights when they had free rooms again. It also had cable tv which was nice. Not much else to say for this day, just general admin stuff. Checking out Cusco So on Sarah´s birthday I gave her her card and she opened the one from her family which was nice, then we proceded to the new hostal and left for breakfast at a place which had been recommended to us ... read more