South America Blog

Bolivian wine

2010-02-08T11:23:00.000-08:00

Bolivia is not really the first place that pops into your head when thinking of fine wines but they do have a huge number of vineyards and being Bolivia everything is cheap. After Christmas and new year the three of us (me, claire and vic) popped down (only 12hrs or so) to a city called Tarija in the south of Bolivia with the main purpose of drinking lots of lovely wine.

From Tarija - Bolivia

We went on a vineyard "tour". I use the word tour cautiously as when we turned up and enquired about a tour someone just gestured towards the back and told us we could have a look around on our own. Definitely my kind of tour.

From Tarija - Bolivia

After wandering about the place a bit we found another vineyard where the don (yes that was his title in the village) made us drink a metre (or maybe 2) of wine.

From Tarija - Bolivia

This involved (as you can see) a hosepipe and a bottle of something that when it was first opened was probably a nice wine. However we think as there are not so many tourists at this time of year the bottle had been open for a very long time and tasted more like something you would put on a salad, still, free booze is free booze.
We also managed to find some nice countryside

From Tarija - Bolivia

which led to a lovely set of waterfalls

From Tarija - Bolivia

Oh, whilst I think of it I have noticed that in the majority of photos with Vic or Claire they always have cigarettes. Just to reassure parents they don´t smoke all the time but they do get sick of me taking photos (especially Claire) so when they stop for a cigarette break I use the oportunity of a stationary distracted subject and sneak a few snaps.

Last photo from this section is of a huge crazy cactus flower. They are about a metre long and stand on a stem at least 5 metres high in the middle of an aloevera type cactus. The locals chop them down but we have no idea why, maybe a medicine. If anyone knows what the hell it is then post a comment

From Tarija - Bolivia

So, after Tarija we said goodbye to Vic and ploughed down to Patagonia, a place called Bariloche

The landscape around Bariloche is so staggeringly beautiful that your eyes can actually dry out due to absence of blinking and general cartoonish wide eyeishness. (Sorry to the non English readers of this blog, "eyeishness" is not a real word but it´s my blog and I can make up as many words as I please).

here is a sneak preview...

From Tarija - Bolivia

We will be back in a few weeks so I shall try and cram in a few more postings as and when.

Ho Ho (Evo)

2010-01-20T08:16:00.000-08:00

The odd/crap/cryptic title depending on how generous you are feeling shows that this post is about being back in Bolivia at Christmas (the president of Bolivia is called Evo Morales which rhymes with the classic Santa phrase, clever eh). Morales is the first (I think) indigenous president of a Latin American country and boy does he like propaganda "graffiti" style. It is impossible to travel around Bolivia without seeing Evo signs everywhere. Here´s one of my favourites with the even more common sight of a local converted American school bus (usually on it´s last legs)

From Christmas and Sucre

Whilst I´m on the peculiarities of Bolivia here of photo of a fairly typical Taxi taken from inside. Note the subtle conversion of left hand drive where the steering column is just pulled out and stuffed onto the other side meaning the driver has no idea how fast he is going. One similar taxi we took way back in Paraguay was so badly converted you could see the engine block through the hole!

From Christmas and Sucre

So Christmas (and in fact new year) in Bolivia. An odd experience mainly because is was hot and humid which is more confusing at Christmas time than you might think. Despite the oddness it was great. We got to see Vic and Alan again and ended up drinking champagne in a swimming pool all night. Can´t ask for more than that!
We arrived separately from Vic and Alan half a day before them in a tiny town called Buena Vista. In typical fashion none of us had done much research on the place and we had nowhere booked. Alan had a vague thought that the place was "good" for Christmas and that there might be some sort of street party. That it seemed was the extent of our research.
On arrival it initially appeared that almost everything was closed and the nearest thing to party preparations was a stray dog scratching itself and a rather odd pet rabbit hopping down the street (oops, no photo). Initial hostel searches were also a bit down heartening. One was a bit scabby, the other was fine but as the owners were having their own family celebrations we were told we could stay but could not use communal areas and had to stay in our room all the time so as not to disturb their party, charming.
All turned out well in the end. We found a small cheap cabin and Vic and Alan stayed in a hotel with a swimming pool, guess which we spent most time in.
We all had a nice exchange of presents... (warning, the following photo contains a dangerously high level of cheesy smiles, do not view if you feel even slightly sick)

From Christmas and Sucre

...and then got down to some traditional Christmas drinking. Alan suggested a few times the idea of going to the pool. He was initially met with indifferent responses until two things happened. Firstly we all got a bit drunk, secondly Alan expanded his suggestion to include the drinking of champagne whilst in the pool. All eyebrows rose and soon we were as you see us below...

From Christmas and Sucre

...and rapidly after that we looked like this...

From Christmas and Sucre

then I got a bit creative with the new camera and made everyone jump around a lot

From Christmas and Sucre

Finally I would like to include one more "captioned photo", just because it makes me laugh (sorry Alan)

From Christmas and Sucre

It´s Christmas time and Rambo has just remembered he forgot to put the Turkey in the oven

Ok, that´s all for now, next posting will occur whenever it occurs and certainly not a second before that.

EDIT: thanks for the comments, the memorial service was a tad premature Alec. Congratulations to you and Dominika again (in case I don´t go on facebook) I look forward to seeing you all (bump included) when we get back.
Needless to say I look forward to seeing everyone when we get back, please start arranging gigantic parties right now.

2010-01-12T06:56:00.000-08:00

ok now calm down, this is technically a new post but it´s more of a pre post posting. A kind of heads up that within my head the wisps of a new posting are forming, probably about Christmas as we have lots of photos involving warmth, swimming pools and champagne!
Come to think of it, I´m not sure if anyone is actually still checking this site, it has been a while. I also have no idea if this still appears on facebook or if it ever did. I could check I suppose but deep down I know I probably won´t.
Anyway, soon We will be in Bariloche (Patagonia) where I will knuckle down and write something with more substance/photos and less waffle (well a bit less).
Love and kisses to all in the world

Guatemala

2009-10-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

OK, so hello everyone, thanks for following “our” blog. I haven’t found my special time rather this is a sort of gift to Chief and Claire after all the shit they have been….so here goes….Guatemala………
(i hope this all works)

(just to give our locations, I am now back in Sucre, Bolivia doing some volunteer work -more on this once I reach a special place - and chief and Claire are in Nicaragua, and from what I hear being very well looked after by fellow travellers and locals at their hostel which is very good news!).

So, Guatemala. James and I arrived to Guatemala about three weeks before Chief and Claire. We had a day and night in Ciudad de Guatemala, renowned for being ugly and dangerous. But we had a good time. From stories I’ve heard though, it can be very dangerous, and in fact when James and I wanted to head literally two minutes from our hostel to buy some cervesas two guys insisted that they accompany us should there be gangs hanging around outside. There is a massive problem with gangs in Guatemala, lots of young children, who live in shitty houses, in shitty neighbourhoods, bored and unable to go to school get drawn into the gang culture, unable to leave for fear of death to them or their family (hmmm, my posts are cheery). Once in, they have to pass an initiation test (not like quite like the initiation tests you hear of in the UK that involve drinking a dirty pint or nicking a road cone), which can include, for example, shooting the first women/boy you see! Pretty intense stuff. I would like to point out here that Guatemala is a beautiful beautiful country and by far the majority of people are friendly, smiley and welcoming.

From

graffiti on the walls in guetamala city

From there James and I headed to work on a horse and ostrich farm for about 10 days, it was a pretty interesting experience and an insight into the upper class of Guatemala. A massive finca (farm), owned by a wealthy, upper class italian/guatemalan called eleaza, an eccentric man whose family were italian aristocrats and who has connections with the mexican government, "friends" in the police and "friends" in the guatemalan government (yeh, Guatemala is pretty corrupt, as far as I understand it is common for people to hire hit men to sort out problems, you don’t go to the police, there is a slight feeling of anarchy in Guatemala). His “friends” give him gifts all the time (not sure what for, I think he may be slightly dodgy) for example the aforementioned ostriches and a gun (some big powerful gun, I’m not good with names) that he ended up selling for a fair bit of money. He bragged a lot about bribing his way out of paying taxes (as James pointed out, no wonder there are so many poor people in Guatemala when all the rich landowners/business men don’t pay their taxes. In fact the feeling at the farm was a bit weird, Eleaza lived in a massive, eccentric house at the top of the hill, at the weekend filled with fellow rich Guatemalans -including the presidents brother in law- drinking whisky and listening to classical or cheesy 80s music -bizarre mixture-, the interior was like stepping back in time to an old English house, big chandeliers, paintings of horses/fox hunting styles, and the head of a deer. At the bottom of the hill are where the workers live in “houses” that are being renovated and improved to make stables for the beloved horses! Some photos:

From ciudad de guatemala y la finca

The boys (Rambo and james) with their tools

From ciudad de guatemala y la finca

The stables we were constructing

From ciudad de guatemala y la finca

The children of one of the workers on the farm, absolutely adorable. The smallest boy could literally never stop laughing, at anything.

From ciudad de guatemala y la finca

The view from the farm. Can you see the volcano? On a clear day we could see three volcanoes, one of which occasionally erupted. Pretty cool.

From ciudad de guatemala y la finca

The workers outside our digs.

From ciudad de guatemala y la finca

Where the local workers lived, soon to be converted into stables. They got paid virtually nothing, and only had one day off every two weeks.

OK from there I headed to Antigua where I spent 10 days living with an absolutely, ridiculously lovely old Guatemalan lady in order to practice Spanish before the Jefe and Claire got there. Antigua is very beautiful, lots of colonial buildings (all painted either red/yellow or green) interspersed with old ruined buildings, all low rise and narrow cobbled streets, sunny and views over volcanoes. Each Sunday there would be processions throughout the city (yeh, Guatemala is by far the most religious country we’ve been to so far - catholic and evangelical). Strange robed religious folk would lead the procession (remember the smurfs??? That is their style) followed by mary standing proud on a float, winding their way through the city….photos are better:

From volcan pacay y la antigua

The main church in Antigua

From volcan pacay y la antigua

Weird smurf people carrying Mary to the church (above)

From volcan pacay y la antigua

Preparing grass/flower rugs for the procession - a process that takes all day only to be immediately messed up by approaching weird smurf people.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/nBn_MpZXYpEz6iiVVMDgqQ?authkey=Gv1sRgCLK168j_rqDEWg&feat=directlink

From volcan pacay y la antigua

My absolutely adorable homestay lady Juanita and her daughter. Chief and Claire came to stay with her aswell for a few days.

From Antigua you can climb volcan pacaya, a volcano that is still active, pretty stunning views from the top, like another world. We climbed above the clouds looking out over two other volcanoes that emerged from the sea of clouds like unexplored islands, with distinct rays of sunlight beaming through. As night drew in a thunderstorm started over the other volcanoes, it was strange to be at the same altitude as the lightening. Proper fork lightening aswell.. Also fairly disconcerting walking over rocks and being able to see lava flowing beneath, it was so hot that air was filled with the smell of burning leg hair.

From volcan pacay y la antigua

Clouds making their way down the valley towards Guatemala city, and volcan agua and volcan fuego

From volcan pacay y la antigua

Below the rocks, below me you can see and feel lava flowing.

OK, so from Antigua the group reformed, Claire, chief and I headed to lago Atitlan and met up with james there (whilst I had been studiously practicing Spanish james had been spending the last couple of weeks doing yoga and reading his book etc with gorgeous views over the lake). We spent a week at Lago Atitlan, a pretty sweet, incredibly relaxed week. I think we spent on average 6 or 7 hours a day in a hammock, this time interspersed with swimming, rock jumping (Claire has no fear!) or kayaking in the beautiful clear lake. The views are even better from the lake, surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. It was here that Claire had her 30th birthday, drinking beers by the lake during the day followed by a messy night out in San Pedro. A memorable place to have your birthday.

From lago atitlan and the western highlands

Claire on her birthday, surrounded by balloons and sitting in a hammock! Oohh, james is about to leave his hammock, that was probably my call to swoop in and nick it. Chief looks like he’s in a painting.

From lago atitlan and the western highlands

The afternoon of Claire’s birthday

From lago atitlan and the western highlands

The evening of Claire's birthday

To give you an idea of how beautiful lago atitlan is, i have nicked the following photos from james (cheers lad).

From nicked from james

Right, doing well so far…..so, from lago Atitlan up to the western highlands, after a week of sitting in a hammock we craved some cultural indulgence……so we took numerous chicken buses up to a small town called Nebaj (old American school buses -often still with stickers saying God loves America inside -, deemed unsafe for America and reborn with their own, (more interesting) colourful Guatemalan character). Driving through small rural villages (at least 3 churches to each village), beautiful pine covered hills and everywhere you looked there were corn fields (hence the invention of a very thrilling and tactile game we made up, ingeniously called “corn”, I wont go into the rules here as they’re very complex). So Nebaj is one of three mayan villages in the area. So the majority of people who live here are…..mayan, many people don’t speak Spanish. All the women still dress in traditional, colourful skirts and flamboyant blouses. The older men all in cowboy hats carrying machetes (in fact, age doesn’t come into it, I think you can get your first machete at about 5 years old). The younger girls all wear traditional dress as well but the younger boys style seemed to be ripped jeans and t-shirts with metallica slogans or pictures of bruce willis. We had a day trip out to Chajul, smaller than nebaj and much more rural with an absolutely wonderfully colourful vibrant market with Mayan women selling all sorts, soap, toys, handicrafts, textiles, deep fried tacos, Bruce Willis t-shirts. Chief and I had a go on the old arcade machines (remember puzzle bubble?) much to the entertainment of all the young boys who beat us ridiculously easily.

From lago atitlan and the western highlands

Market on the way to Nebaj

From nicked from james

Jefe on the arcade games, just before he was embarrassingly beaten by a 12 year boy at puzzle bubble.

From lago atitlan and the western highlands

Men in cowboy hats outside the church in the main plaza, Nebaj

To Lanquin next and the best hostel so far - El Retiro - set in lush, green surroundings, wooden huts with hammocks, a hostel cow that thought it was a dog and a river at the bottom of the garden acting as a water taxi to the restaurant that had 2 happy hours every evening. From here we did a day tour to Samuc Champey, absolutely incredible. The tour began with caving, entering a cave from behind a waterfall, candles lit (no torches) into water up to our chests. As we got further into the cave the water got deeper and we had to swim, holding the candles above our heads. At one point we had to clamber behind a waterfall inside the cave and then climb up the wall beside it. A completely different experience. (Claire has a great video from this so I wont say to much). The main attraction here are these beautiful turquoise blue, natural swimming holes, created by a massive waterfall which runs bellow the swimming holes and over the top. They’re round in shape and each connected to the other by small waterfalls. It was so much fun diving from one to the other, the whole place was like a fairytale.

From lanquin and tikal

The swimming pools

So our final stop in Guatemala was Flores, the main town you stay in to get to Tikal. Tikal, an incredibly impressive ancient mayan city, perfect to explore. The first evening we were there we had the ancient main plaza practically to ourselves. Throughout the city temples appeared from the jungle's canopy, like pyramids but with flat tops. Apparently each new King had to have a bigger, better, taller temple than the previous ruler. They really were quite captivating. The following morning we sat at the top of one of the temple (imaginatively called Temple 4) to have breakfast, looking out over the jungle canopy which stretches on for miles and dotted with peaks from other temples, all this to the sound of howler monkeys waking up and trooping through the jungle.

From nicked from james

Thanks james for that photo, the ferry that our micro van took on the way to flores. Microvans are the second form of transport (a favourite of chief and james), they can kind of comfortably sit about 15 people, the most we counted on one was 32 (including two on the roof and a vomiting child beside James).

From lanquin and tikal

The guys in flores beside a Bimbo van, “bimbo” the main brand of food in central america, replaced “fanny” the main brand for south america (fanny tuna, fanny marmalade, fanny salsa, all sorts).

From lanquin and tikal

Chief with a pretty amusing expression on his face from the top of mmmm.... temple 6 i think

From lanquin and tikal

The view from our breakfast spot

From lanquin and tikal

The main temple (temple 1!) in the main plaza.

And to finish off, a photo of us on our dive boat in Utilla, Honduras, we has such a great week there before going our different ways and the diving was absolutely incredible. About half an hour after this photos was taken we were swimming with eagle rays.

From lanquin and tikal

So there we go, thanks for reading. A few shout outs aswell......Tom and Jac hope it's all going well for you over there in Moscow, from facebook i gather you're embrassing the vodka culture. I hope I get back in time to visit you there. Liz, if you want, there is room for you on my uncomfortable, rock hard, single bed if you fancy a visit to Bolivia. I'm expecting a yellow mummy comment! To all those that i;ve been shit at emailing, apologies, i do still think about you a lot and hope you are all well. Right, Chief and Claire, once you've finished on your epic diving trips around central america get your asses back down to bolivia!!!

Vic

xxxx

10 out of 10 for effort, 1 out of 10 for photo linking ability ;)

things

2009-10-14T16:18:00.001-07:00

well it´s been a while since I last wrote anything and I won´t go into details why but basically it´s all about stuff.
I had lots of stuff, then over a period of months people kept stealing my stuff. Now I have less stuff* and this has made me sad.
So, no more postings for a while as I really just cannot be bothered anymore.

*stuff currently relates to...
My money
My wallet
Mine and Claires Cash cards
My towel
My bullet
MY (many many bad expletives deleted) CAMERA
My camera card with some lovely lightning photos on it
My bolivian bag (a gift from Rob)
My passport (although that was many months ago and has now been replaced)
My sanity
My spirit

I will post again when I have resolved the last two items

General update

2009-09-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a bit over a week but in my defence we have been in Honduras and for those who don`t keep up to date with the news things are a "bit iffy" att the moment. The deposed president has returned and is currently hiding in the Brazilian embassy. This caused a quite irritating curfew and a few protests. Thankfully we were in the Bay Islands where the nearest thing to a crisis situation is the bakery running out of orange cake. Even so we came back from a dive (Oh yeah I can dive now) and were told we had 1 hour to get back home and stay there for 26 hours. This involved a complex combination of rapid beer drinking, food purchasing and irritation at the bakery running out of orange cake. Bad day. Anyway we have now managed to leave Honduras before the army/general population kills their ex-president (most people really don`t seem to like him and actually want him to be dragged out and shot!).

I am going to start a draft of a costa Rica post (there`s lots of photos so it may take a while) and may even finish it today so keep an eye out.

congrats to Jeff and Jack on reaching the combined age of 31! Obviously Jeff has taken the lions share of the years but that in no way detracts from Jacks mighty age of 1.
congratulations too to Tim on getting married (pass on my regards Jeff, I don`t think Tim reads this).
Well done to Alec on being chartered,although Iam not too sure what that actually means but it sounds damn good.
Finally well done to Jeff and Emma on now having walls on their house (for those of you who are currently scratching their heads at that look here --> www.jeffandemmashouse.blogspot.com
Big love to all

A proper post about the lost city in Colombia

2009-09-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

Right, action! Time to actually get off my metaphorical arse and write something. Continuing chronologically the next big trip was the lost city in the north of Colombia deep into the jungle.

this was a 5 day trek there and back including one very special night staying within the city itself.

Accomodation was basic. Along the trail there were places to sling hammocks with mosquito nets and facilities for the guides to cook us food.

From Lost City (Columbia)

The trail started off simply enough with heavy muddy uphill climbs and steep muddy downhill slides. Later on we discovered there was a river in our way. Well the same river 9 times to be precise but more on that later. First for those who don`t yet know I have a beard (old news I know) but did anyone know I now have a bandana! (Thanks by the way Rob) Currently for jungle use only but as I plan on not cutting my hair for a whole year the bandana may become more permanent.

From Lost City (Columbia)

Not the best photo I know but I rarely let my camera out of my hands.

So anyway, that river. It was big. Not Amazon or Nile big but considering we had to wade through it back and forth nine times with our packs above our heads it felt pretty damn big. Some parts were well above my waist with a current easily strong enough to sweep you off your feet if it wasn`t for a very stable and helpful guide. It also contained a few friendly creatures like this coral snake (it is poisonous but not aggressive)

From Lost City (Columbia)

The big advantage of all these river crossings is that you can cool off and after the first one I was just jumping into pools fully clothed as being wet and cool is far better than being wet (from sweat), smelly and hot. Claire as you can imagine had a lot more finesse when getting into the water.

From Diving in the lost city

On day 3 of 5 we crossed the river for the 9th time and arrived at the bottom of the city steps. The river was obviously annoyed at the fact that it had not been able to sweep any of us or our belongings away had decided to remove the bottom few steps causing us all the rather awkwardly clamber up the muddy slopes.
I`m not sure how many steps there were, I lost count at 1300 ( yes I really did count that many) but it was enough to make my legs wish I had left them behind in a warm hammock

From Lost City (Columbia)

At the top we stayed in a little shack hidden in the jungle.

From Lost City (Columbia)

(Look at the left hand side of the photo at the small white blob)

From Lost City (Columbia)

Here it is close up.
Apart from our group of 11ish there were no other tourists in the whole city and we only shared the place with a platoon of soldiers and well over a million large and very hungry mosquitos. Staying in the city meant we got to see both a sunset...

From Lost City (Columbia)

and a sunrise...

From Lost City (Columbia)

I just realised I have been using the word "city" alot. although the site was a city, and a large none at that, most of it is still hidden under the jungle and the excavated part is actually quite small consisting of mainly terraces and steps. As it was almost utterly empty it really did feel "lost" especially in the evening when I went for a wander with James (everyone else was too knackered).

From Lost City (Columbia)

Oh, one last important point was thanks to the friendly and very very bored soldiers I got to pose with a galil rifle which was most fun (see the moronic grin on my face) and even buy a genuine bullet as a keepsake.

From Lost City (Columbia)

Well, that`s it for now. Thanks for all the comments it lets me know that despite my chronic laziness people are still keeping an eye on things. I will try and make the next post sooner rather than later, feel free to moan en mass if you don`t hear anything in a weeks time.

coming up next (from me) will be a picture heavy Costa rica summary. There is a small (sub-atomic small) chance that someone else will write a post first, possibly about Guatamala which is where we are now. So there`s something to look forward to.

just for Rob...

2009-09-17T15:39:00.000-07:00

In Guatemala, too hot, Tikal (Mayan Ruins) well nice, might learn to dive soon

Still Alive

2009-08-20T18:11:00.000-07:00

I can´t make a full posting now as my dinner will be ready soon, Red snapper!
Thought I´d make a quick post to say that I have uploaded lots more photos from the lost city in Columbia and a few national parks in Costa Rica. Posting to follow explaining what all the photos mean. The still alive title refers to the very large and dangerous Fer-de-lance snake that was killed about 10m away from us in Corcovado park. It was sitting in the pitch black between us and the outdoor toilet. See the photos
Oh and Jac, I have no idea what that fish was but it damn well put me off swimming. We found a few of them washed up on the beach. I was hoping you would know as it looks like the kind of thing they would eat for breakfast in Taiwan (possibly on a stick)

Link to photos
http://picasaweb.google.com/chiefster7

Speak to you all soon, obviously by speak I mean another posting

Laziness contiues...

2009-08-04T11:31:00.000-07:00

The next post I plan to make will hopefully be on the trek to the lost city in the north of Columbia. I wont give too much away but it is a stunning place and I even got to buy a real bullet and play with automatic weapons, now who wouldnt find that fun, eh?

This post however, is not about the lost city as I have been too lazy to upload any the photos. This is a sort of "2 hours until I get a bus and I'm bored" kind of posting combined with a light sprinkling of guilt over not writing anything often enough. As you may have already worked out I don't have a anything to say today so I'm just writing thoughts as they come into my head. I have recently had my mp3 player and knife stolen which is most annoying. I spent the best part of a day in a very bad mood and glared at anyone foolish enough to look directly at me.

I suppose I had better give anyone whose reading this a geographical update. We are currently in Costa Rica. Lovely place but damn expensive. Since the last real posting we have made our way up through Columbia with the lost city being the main highlight. From there we had to fly to Panama and briefly visited the canal which is actually remarkably dull. Its still an engineering marvel but watching a ship very very (very very) slowly go through just doesnt do it for me. There was a brief moment of entertainment as some poor sod employed by the canal has to constantly talk about it over a loudspeaker. Obviously he rapidly runs out of things to say and at one point resorted to slowly listing the cargo that the painstakingly slow boat "might" be carrying. He was also a big fan of endlessly quoting numbers that nobody really cared about.

Well thats about it for now. I'll try and upload the photos of the lost city soon.

kidnapping update!

2009-07-19T11:09:00.000-07:00

Just checking in to say nobody has been kidnapped yet, its just very very hot which predisposes me to do one of a short list of things, sweat, sigh and sit.
Here's Machu Picchu!

From Sacred Valley & Machu Picchu

You can see the other photos by clicking on the "rest of photos link". I thought I would put this one up because I spent about a hour sitting on the highest viewpoint of Machu Picchu for over an hour slowly watching the sun creep down that mountainside on the left until it just hit the city. In doing this I missed the the majority of the tour of the site and got a bit chilly. Still I think it was worth it.

After Machu Picchu we stayed in Cusco for a bit. Actually I stayed there for ages waiting for my damn passport. Vic took a huge bus journey to Bogota to meet Alan for a mini "holiday" within our travels. By huge I actually mean massive. 24hours to Lima then a brief overnight stay before 70hrs to Bogota. SEVENTY! that's 3 days. To me that is just too much. I asked Vic afterwards what is was like, I think the answer was "it was ok". I think I would have gone slightly mad.

I hear a rumour that Vic's "special time" might be approaching and could even result in an actual blog post! I won't be holding my breath in anticipation but you never know...

I think I'll make one post regarding our rapid move up from Peru through Ecuador and into Columbia (which is where we are now) which mainly involves beaches and boobies!
(Not in the way you are thinking- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-footed_Booby)

Peru...

2009-07-03T12:17:00.000-07:00

Still it seems nobody else is going to make a post so I shall tell you about Peru mainly in picture form and hopefully without wandering off the subject.

First port of call was Arequipa. Large town with a "guardian volcano" called El Misti. Some of our group thought it would be fun to walk up it. I thought it would be more fun to lie in a hammock with a cocktail and look at it from afar (I'm sure I was right). Anyway, no photos from me but watch this general space for stuff from Vic and Claire.
"Near" Arequipa is a huge canyon over 1km deep called Colca canyon or something like that. I use quotes around the word near to indicate that although the tourist board consider 5-6hrs near, we didn't.
Here's Dickie (he's an Antarctican) looking down into the canyon

From Arequipa

unfortunately it's so huge that photos don't do it justice so here's a horse to make up for the mediocre previous picture

From Arequipa

At the bottom of the canyon are a number of hostels with palm trees and swimming pools. Day 2 (night time)Very nice to relax and look up at the stars

From Arequipa

So that was Arequipa, I should have taken more photos but I felt a bit lazy.
Next stop was Cusco. Cusco was the capital of the Incan empire and so has lots of Incan stuff and Spanish Colonial stuff (buildings, statues, runins etc..). This makes it a very beautiful city. It is also the biggest tourist hotspot in South America due to the nearby Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu. This means lots of fat tourists and the various "tourist traps" that locals invariably lay when rich people are around.
It was around about this time that my passport and cashcard got stolen which meant I spent a good few weeks waiting for a replacement in Cusco. I did spend most of this time doing very little/drinking beer (sorry mum) but we did sandwich in a 5 day trek down a big valley (not the classic Inca trail, that's way too expensive) ending up at the magnificant Machu Picchu.
Day 1
8hrs walking, mostly flat, valley looks pretty. Easy day (but long)

From Sacred Valley & Machu Picchu

Day 2
Climbing the high pass. Views of nearby mountains are fantastic with a view of a receding glacier. 4600m high is starting to seem normal. We possibly need to get out of the andes at some point soon

From Sacred Valley & Machu Picchu

Our guide told us that as recently as 5yrs ago the ice was up to the gravel lip you can see in the photo. Damn global warming, we should all listen to Al Gore more.
Day 2 (night time)
personal views regarding global warming have changed as the temperature in our tent starts dropping below zero. Phrases such as damn the glacier and damn Al Gore are springing to mind (the previous sentence has been edited to be "mum" friendly. Instead of the word "damn" a variety of more colourful and unrepeatable words were used).
Although it's cold the stars are lovely

From Sacred Valley & Machu Picchu

Day 3
downhill though the mist and into the jungle!

From Sacred Valley & Machu Picchu

Hmmm, has it been long enough since the last horse photo to have another one?

From Sacred Valley & Machu Picchu

Day 4
ducks, train track walking, coffee picking. We ended up at a fairly nasty tourist village called Aguas Caliente ready for the last push to Machu Pichu

From Sacred Valley & Machu Picchu

Day 5
Yay finally at the ruins. Lets save it for another day though, this post is already a bit photo heavy.

Bolivia part 3

2009-06-02T11:23:00.000-07:00

Our final stop in Bolivia was of course Lake Titicaca. It's not really a place you can miss out. The lake is spread over both Bolivia and Peru. We only visited the Bolivia side. We stayed at the lovely (if a bit touristy and expensive) Copacabana. I can almost hear some of you singing that terrible Barry Manilow song. Well it's not that Copacabana. He was singing about a club in New York which I presume was named after the more famous Copacabana beach in Rio.
The town is right on the shores of the lake which is so huge (up to 190km long!) it's very hard to forget it's not the sea until you remember that you`re 3.8km above the sea and well inland. Luckily for us we arrived just before a huge fiesta (party) in the town to celebrate something or other. Rob has probably remembered so maybe check his blog for some more details. There seems to be a fiesta almost every damn day in every city in South America which you might think sounds nice but sometimes you just want a lie in and as every fiesta seems to involve large amounts of fireworks (well just loud bangs tbh) it can get quite noisy. In fact as I wrote that previous sentence three loud bangers went off down the street. The fiesta here (Cusco, Peru) has been going on intermittently for the past three days and shows no sign of stopping.
Anyway I'm once again rambling, back to the fiesta in Copacabana. Here's a few photos...

From Lake Titicaca & Copacabana

Most of the dancers were wearing heavy costumes and/or masks and they danced all day and drank heavily from morning to evening. If anyone has ever seen a marathon where they have those little stands handing out water to the runners, imagine that only with beer. Lots and lots of beer. After the first day I think we went to bed at about 11pm as our hostel owner wanted to close up. The dancing had stopped but a random street party complete with live band and guess what, more beer was still in full swing until god knows what time. when we got up the next day, everything was still going on with more parades, more bands, more dancers and more beer. I think they must have been working in shifts as the whole thing seemed to go on continuously for 3 days and nights!
As you can imagine we got a bit fiestaed out (is that a real word?) and escaped up a nearby hill to get a view of the town and the lake.

From Lake Titicaca & Copacabana

Shame about the graffiti, I blame years of 3 day beer fueled parties.

From the frantic expensive hustle of Copacabana we took a boat to Isla del Sol. This is the largest of the lakes islands and is full of Inca ruins. The Inca`s believed the north of the island was where the sun was born (or something like that). Despite my very limited knowledge of Inca culture and religion I think they quite liked the sun so I would guess the island was a big deal to them. I really should learn more about the places I visit.
The island was such a contrast to the town. Most of it is lovely hills and paths with the odd sleepy little village. We stayed in the north of the island in a "basic"* hostel right on the beach and then walked the length of it the next day, getting a boat back the following evening.

(* the word basic has different meaning depending on where you are. In England for example it might mean you only get a continental breakfast and no bacon, or maybe that there isn't a view from the room. In South America however basic can mean any or all of the following...
1. No bed, just a mattress on the floor
2. Tin roof with built in ventilation (holes)
3. Outdoor toilet
4. No toilet seat
5. No toilet flush
6. No door on the outdoor toilet!
7. Obviously no bathroom
8. Cockroaches
The Isla del sol room managed to tick points 1-7 and thankfully not 8)

Despite the above it was actually really nice to stay in such a peaceful area and as it cost a shade under 1 pound per night you can't complain. This was the view from the room

From Lake Titicaca & Copacabana

Fantastic sunsets as well (I get slightly obsessed with sunsets).

From Lake Titicaca & Copacabana

After returning to Copacabana (I think the fiesta had finally finished by that point) we took a bus into Peru which is where I am right now. More on that another time, hopefully from Claire or Vic as the first bit involves climbing another damn volcano which I didn't do. Volcano climbing seems to be more than a little masochistic (especially when it`s over 5800m high!) and besides volcanoes are pretty to look at and if your climbing up one you can't really see it clearly.
Anyway, bye for now.

Bolivia part 2 (see previous post to explain the delay)

2009-05-29T12:18:00.001-07:00

First the salt flat tour of Uyuni! Well actually first was the town of Uyuni where we stayed for a few days before the tour as Vic had picked up a bit of a bug.
The best thing about Uyuni is the fact that by walking in any one direction you can get out of it within 10 minutes.
I don't mean this as a criticism of the town (although is wasn`t particularly interesting) but as it was built on a huge plain (sans salt but near the salt) when you got to the edge the town just abruptly ended meaning you were suddenly nowhere, which can be quite pleasant and is lovely for sunset photos like this...

From Uyuni

The tour itself was one of these all inclusive affairs where you are driven around, fed, watered etc.. The first port of call was a kind of train graveyard which had over the years become a gringo adventure playground. As at most of the places we visit Rob found the highest point in the surrounding area and perched. He really does like to perch.

From Uyuni

Next was the salt flats themselves. They are huge. If I could be bothered I would grab some random suspect statistic from wikipedia but you can all do that yourselves.
The salt is pure white making the whole area look like ice only much warmer. We stopped at a salt hostel for lunch and played around with "perspective" photos, something which I think everyone does there. Some people had even taken props like tiny dinosaurs (taking it a bit far if you ask me but that could just be jealousy)

From Uyuni

On the same evening we stayed on the edge of the flats and I think I got photo overload as the colours created by the sunset were stunning. Here's one of many. Oh and I feel I should mention that all the photos from Uyuni and beyond and unmodified (except for a polariser on the lens). I hope that increases jealousy levels a bit.

From Uyuni

The next day involved some evil 4000+m volcano. We had to get up a stupid O` clock (that's 4am) and climb very rapidly for 3 hours before breakfast. My body and my mind in fact both decided this was a very bad idea and after 3 hours I had a splitting headache and felt like I was going to pass out. The others carried on and I went to bed. If either of the girls ever writes a blog posting you might hear what the top was like, but I wouldn`t hold my breath.
Other things we saw (in list form as otherwise I tend to ramble)
-Cactus island with 1000 year old cacti
-A huge red lake (due to algae deposits)

From Uyuni

-Multiple Lava flow rock formations (the whole area is a ring of active and inactive volcanoes)
-A big (and famous) rock shaped like a tree. (guess what Rob did...)

From Uyuni

-Steam vents and boiling mud pools! In England there would be at least a 100m exclusion zone as you could easily fall into the mud and never return, not to mention new boiling vents of steam occasionally forming near your feet. In Bolivia however you can just casually walk through the whole thing with no regulation. Well actually after we had walked the length of the vents/pools we saw a small sign facing away from us saying don`t go beyond this point but it was a bit late then.

From Uyuni

The reason there so much steam is the same reason Claire is wearing such a big coat. It was sunrise at 5000m so it was damn cold.

Next La Paz the effective capitol of Bolivia.
La Paz is a large city nestled in a high valley. This makes it look very impressive from the top of the valley. unfortunately it's too big to appreciate the scale in one photo but you'll kind of get the idea

From La Paz

Most of our time in La Paz was spent learning Spanish and generally relaxing. The whole city seems to be one giant street market. You rarely need to enter a shop to actually buy something. Street sellers range from simple snacks and drinks all the way up to leather briefcases, whole pizzas cooked in portable ovens and even portable typewriters where someone sits and offers to do your taxes, on the street! Crazy place. We were staying in an area called the witches market where you could buy all sorts of odd looking things that I suspect used to be some form of animal or plant.

Note for Jeff and Emma- There is a tradition here that if you are building a new house you need to bury an aborted desiccated llama foetus in your foundations (no really!). As you can buy these freely in the market I seriously considered posting one back but decided that customs might kick up a fuss. Instead I thought you could just print out this picture and bury that. I thought that although a picture would be less luck than an actual foetus there were loads of them in the photo so that evens things out.

From La Paz

Ok, I`ve been at this a while now so I will continue in part three at a later date. Then we can finally move onto Peru.

Excuse post

2009-05-29T12:07:00.001-07:00

Sorry, sorry, sorry it been ages since I wrote anything however I have used the time wisely and constructed a comprehensive list of excuses. So in no particular order....

-I forgot
-I'm lazy and couldn't be bothered
-All the Internet places were too crap to upload my photos
-(probably only Brent will understand this)Too many Internet places get distressed when you alter their computers bios settings to allow the ubuntu linux distro installed on your external drive to boot thereby negating the need to use windows at all.
-Someone stole my wallet which both irritated and occupied me
-Someone stole my passport which... (see above)
-Someone stole my cashcard (also see above)
-General irritation over so much stuff being stolen causing me to want to drink beer rather than make blog postings

Well I suppose I'd better finish off that Bolivia thing.

2009-05-07T18:11:00.000-07:00

So, I know I was meant to finish the post about Bolivia today. Promises were made about volcanos and lovely photos. However I have to get up at 3 in the morning to take a 6 hour bus ride to a canyon and tbh I can`t be bothered to make a whole post today. Hopefully I will do the full post on saturday when we get back but no promises this time. There`s a small posibility that Vic may even make a posting at some point, but then there`s also a small posibility that we may see flying pigs in the canyon rather than the more usual condors.
Anyway. Here`s a picture of the steam vents at the salt flats to tide you over until one of us can be bothered to make a full posting.

From Uyuni

Bolivia Summary

2009-05-06T15:11:00.000-07:00

I have been patiently waiting for Vic to make this posting (or Claire to make it in English) for ages now. Well I say "patiently" but what I mean is I have been pestering them both constantly. Vic needs some special time (whatever that means) to write a blog posting so watch this space, or in fact the space above this.
Anyway, on to Bolivia which we have just left for the more expensive Peru.

We started a few weeks ago in Santa Cruz which seemed to be a big dirty old city (in a good way) with a strange plush touristy colonial centre. If you wandered just a few blocks away from the clean white central plaza you rapidly came across the "real" Santa Cruz with beggars, street vendors and general mayhem. No photos from here (other than the toucan one at the hostel) due to an argument my camera card had with a self installing worm (that’s like a computer virus).

Next we moved onto the sublime SamaiPata, a small town up in the mountains just high enough to have lovely weather all the time. The whole place is surrounded by a huge National park called Amboro (or something like that). We got to see some lovely waterfalls close up (see Claire’s videos) with nobody else around

From SamaiPata

Hiked up through a cloud forest with giant ferns and a fantastic view from the top

From SamaiPata

...and generally relaxed in the lovely climate.

From SamaiPata

We did finally manage to drag ourselves away and onto Sucre, the capital of Bolivia and where Vic will be working in October. Some strange American traveller had told us in Paraguay that Sucre was "OK but just for a few days" so we had low expectations. Fortunately (especially for Vic) Sucre is a lovely university town with a huge market selling just about every type of fruit and Veg you can imagine and plenty you have probably never heard of such as ice cream beans and banana passion fruit (neither of which are as nice as they sound)
Vic has more photos of Sucre but here’s one of us at the market

From Sucre

From Sucre we climbed (in a bus) up to 4100m to the highest city of its size in the world, Potosi. Just walking around in this place is very hard work and even a single flight of stairs can leave you out of breath for 15 minutes. Luckily the Bolivians have a solution to this, coca leaves! Yes those are the same leaves used to make cocaine but in their raw form that have a similar effect to a cup of tea. You create a wad of leaves and slowly suck on the juices. It’s meant to help with the altitude but tbh it didn’t seem to do too much and it smells and tastes awful.
The city of Potosi was built around a mine containing Silver and various other metals. There’s not much Silver in it now but at its peak it funded the majority of the Spanish empire and was one of the richest cities in the world. The main reason for visiting the city is to take a mine tour (which we did). The mine is still functioning so as you walk down the tunnels you occasionally have to dodge out of the way of a mine cart. Almost all the work is done by hand and it looks utterly knackering. Needless to say I didn’t take my huge camera down the mine so once again Vic has all the photos. Claire took some great videos (see earlier posts) of us in the mine and setting of a stick of dynamite afterwards.
As we left Potosi we saw a lady selling fresh milk which everyone except me had a shot of. The reason I declined was although I do like my milk fresh I prefer it to come from a bottle rather than directly out of a donkey!

From Potosi

Right this posting is getting a bit long so I will continue it tomorrow.
Coming up next salt plains, Volcanoes and much more including lots of lovely photos you’ve probably already seen on Rob’s blog.

For mums: how to view other pictures and videos

2009-04-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

Just realised that mums (and others) might not know how to view the rest of the pictures or the videos.
For the videos, it's simple, the most recent ones are at the bottom of the blog page. Just click on the preview and it should play the video. The others are at http://www.youtube.com/retireddonkey

For the pictures, click on the pictures on the right hand side column, it'll send you to Chief's picasa album. Click on 'My Photos' and it will show you different albums. Click on the album and it'll show you the pictures in each album...
Et voila!

Mise a jour - le film nouveau est arrive!!

2009-04-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

Bonjour tout le monde!
Encore merci pour l'attention que vous nous portez et pour vous prouvez que nous n'avons pas completement oublie le blog voila un nouveau petit film tourne a Samaipata, un petit village entre Santa Cruz et Sucre, il ya a peu pres 3 semaines.
Dernierement nous avons passe quelques jours sur les lacs de sel d'Uyuni, un endroit absolument magnifique avec des paysages vraiment differents et des vues magiques. La encore il y aura des photos tres prochainement, mais j'ai bien peur que ca ne rende pas vraiment justice aux originaux. Mais bref, c'est bien pour ca qu'on voyage apres tout! C'etait donc un tour de 4 jours, en jeep, avec visites de la lagune rouge (qui est rouge a cause d'une algue), du volcan Tunupa (le sommet est a 5300 metres et nous avons grimpe jusqu'a 4900, comme le mont blanc!!!), des bains et bien entendu des lacs de sel, tous blancs, a perte de vue... On avait souvent l'impression d'etre sur une autre planete!
Avant ca nous etions a Potosi, la ville la plus haute du monde, une petite ville miniere tres pauvre maintenant. Visite obligatoire de Cerro Ricco, la montagne qui domine la ville et qui a pourvu l'empire espagnol de plus d'argent qui n'a su en faire. Les mines sont maintenant exploitees pour le plomb et l'argent toujours un peu mais les mineurs travaillent dans des conditions absolument choquantes. La encore, il y a un petit film, quand internet s'agacera un petit peu qui montre quelques mineurs au travail.
Nous sommes maintenant a La Paz (depuis hier) et nous n'avons pas trop eu l'occasion d'explorer mais comme on pense y rester 2 semaines et prendre des cours d'espagnol, y'a pas le feu comme y disent... mais ca a l'air d'etre une ville tres interessante. Bref, j'aurai plus a raconter dans quelques jours... en attendant grosses bises a tous et a bientot!

Claire

A Bit more from Paraguay..

2009-04-09T15:27:00.000-07:00

Well, after my previous anti Paraguay posting it seems the non denominational deities have struck me down with an ironic technological bug. All my photos from Paraguay have been wiped due to a poorly maintained hostel computer. I can't say I'm too gutted but it did make me realise there were some good things about Paraguay and I thought I should list them before we move on to Bolivia (I mean move on in the blogging sense as we have physically been and Bolivia for a bit now).
In no particular order...
1. Concepcion. A small city in Paraguay which was entertaininly "run down". Our taxi would have been refused entry to a scrapyard during a steel shortage, there were more potholes than road and more mosquitos than potholes. Depsite all that it had a strange charm.
2. Horse and Cart rides as a cheap taxi to the station. Again in Conception, see the video below.
3. The Grand Chaco Road. Well actually that was horrible but as it's also in the video below I thought I should mention it.
4. Asuncion. The capital of Paraguay and possibly the dullest town centre we have ever been to. Not too sure why that's in the list either.
5. Border Crossing to Bolivia. The only border crossing we have been able to walk through and take photos of. I've lost the photos but the whole structure seemed to be a small shack. That might be in the video as well.

This whole posting has in fact been a time wasting effort whilst I wait for this damn video of Claire's to upload. It's still not uploaded so.......
Here's a picture of me looking like a goon with the pet Toucan from the Santa Cruz hostel.

Most of the other photos from Santa Cruz were also lost, check out Vic's photos when she gets around to uploading them.

Damn this upload, I'll just put the video on later...
And here it is!!!

Quick update on a slow computer

2009-04-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

¡Hola amigos!
We haven´t forsaken the blog yet, you (i hope) will be glad to know but we have been staying at places with slow/non existant internet connections. Those more technically minded may remember dial up 28K modems (for those less technically minded that means about 2-3 hours wait time to upload one photo).

We have moved through Paraguay which I may talk about in another post, but may not as tbh it was a bit dull. I know that seems harsh and maybe if we had given it more of a chance we could have found lots of interesting stuff to see and do, however I have a sneaking suspicion that the country as a whole is just, well, a bit dull. I suspect the Paraguayan´s know this and therefore make it as difficult as possible to leave their country.

We first tried to get a boat north into Brazil but were told this was not possible as their was no immigration to stamp our passports. Excited as I was on taking 4 day mosquito infested cargo boat trip to illegally enter Brazil all the other killjoys in our group were not up for it (disclaimer: facts in the preceding sentance may have been altered to make the author look more daring). Next we tried to cross a lovely bit o land called the Chaco. I´m not sure how big the Chaco is but the bus takes 30hours to cross it, so I figure it pretty large. It consists of Dry open grasslands, dense evil looking thorny bushes, one road, drug smugglers (so we have been told by the ever paranoid guide books) and lots of germans. We stopped in one of the Germanesque towns half way. Apparently lots of German speakers left Russia and Canada as the governments there wouldn´t let them teach German and for some bizarre reason only known to themselves they settled in a hot dusty nowhere and built big spaced out dusty towns totally unsuited to the backpacker on foot. Having said that they were all friendly. After a 16hour wait for the one bus that left nowhereville (or lomo plata as it is officially called) we were back on the Chaco road for a relaxing 20 hour unairconditioned journey on unpaved roads to Santa Cruz, Bolivia which sounded (and in fact is, as I´m writing this retrospectivally) much better than Paraguay. We had also been reliably informed that the hostel we were staying at had a pet Toucan that would perch on your shoulder. I had tried to get a German Paraguayan to perch on my shoulder but they always said no and anyway, they´re not as colourful as Toucans
Expect some Bolivian Toucan action, waterfalls, jungles and much more soon(ish)

Un nouveau petit film! si internet s'agace un peu....

2009-03-24T10:53:00.001-07:00

Nous sommes toujours au Paraguay pour le moment, au milieu du Chaco, un grand marecage en quelques sortes. Nous seront en Bolivie d'ici quelques jours, ou j'espere bien qu'on restera un petit mois...
Le petit film etait pris a Concepcion hier. Comme il faisait a peu pres 53 degres dehors et qu'on avait les gros sacs sur le dos on s'est dit que ce serait plus sympa de se faire un petit tour de ville sur une charette.
Concepcion etait vraiment etrange comme petite ville d'ailleurs. Il semblerait que les p'tits djeunz de la region font des tours de moto ou de scooter toute la soiree. Il font le tour du pate de maisons et encore et encore, sans jamais s'arreter. Etrange comportement, nous on s'est plutot pose pour boire des bieres et regarder des couchers de soleil. Et puis on a bien failli monter a bord d'un cargo pour aller au Bresil le long du Rio Paraguay mais un soucis de douane, ou plutot un manque de douanes a Concepcion voulait dire qu'on se ferait probablement arreter au Bresil, et apres 2 semaines de voyage on s'est dit que ca la foutrait mal quand meme.... Donc, le Chaco. Quelques videos de ca arriveront bientot, mais pour le moment on est dans une colonie Mennonite (des canadiens d'origine allemande, et oui, au Paraguay!). C'est plutot un tout petit village , mais il ya pas mal de reserves tout autour, donc peut etre qu'on verra des oiseaux interessants!
Donc voila pour les nouvelles. Encore merci pour les commentaires, le film precedent n'etait pas sense avoir du son (mes co-voyageurs sont plus a l'aise quand ils savent que leur voix n'est pas enregistree) et celui la en aura car je n'ai pas pu le monter avec le programme qu'Alex a apporte avec lui.
A tres bientot, bises a tous et a toutes.

Claire

Puerto Iguazu and waterfalls!

2009-03-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

After dreading the 18hr bus trip from Buenos Aires to this little town Puerto Iguazu I discovered that Argentine Bus´s seem to cater for people with legs of up 10ft long even in the cheapest class. They even show the latest blockbuster movies (I can recommend Benjamin Button, works better than valium as a sleeping aid). I had imagined hard wooden seats, no air-con and for some reason Chicken´s loose around the seats. I was a little bit disappointed about the chicken´s but you can´t have everything.
Anyway, we went up to this little town because just about everyone who has been to South America seems obsessed with these waterfalls. I kept hearing statements like "I nearly cried" or "they make Niagra falls look like a leaky tap". So with great anticipation we arrived. The whole place is very organized which isn´t always a bad thing but a little more of a "wilderness" feel would have been nice. Paved pathways leading to crowded viewing points with regular ice cream and fast food outlets kind of spoils the nature just a little bit. Despite it all the falls were most impressive, here´s a few photos...

From Iguazu Falls

From Cataratas del iguazu

From Iguazu Falls

Un petit film finallement!!!

2009-03-18T09:05:00.000-07:00

Bonjour a tous,
roulements de tambours, attention, le premier petit film de Buenos Aires est arrive!
disons que ce n'est pas si simple que ce de monter la chose et il semblerait que mes mains tremblent pas mal...
mais bon, j'espere que ca vous donnera une petite idee de la ville...
Pour le moment nous sommes toujours a Iguazu, petite ville tres tranquille. Nous avons decide de rester quelques jours de plus parce que c'est tout calme par ici et notre vie est tres stressante!!
merci pour les commentaires et oui on va arreter de visiter un pays par jour tres prochainement...

Bisous a tous,
Claire

¡HOLA CHICOS!

2009-03-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the delay in writing, thanks tom for your subtle (as always) request for some words from me. So the first two and a bit weeks have been pretty brilliant. Most of the time in Buenos Aires, a passionate city full of music, dancing and love (no rose tinted glasses honest). Most days/evenings have been spent sipping beer on the plaza whilst watching tango. Rob and I had a few days in Mendoza, the wine capital of Argentina, so you can imagine what happened there. We also had a great couple of days driving through the foothills of Los Andes, very magical and beautiful. We´re heading off to Iguazu falls tonight, I´m excited, it feels like the adventure for the four of us is about to begin. I heard you get tucans at iguazu falls, it´s all sweet. xx

2009-03-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

Coucou la gente!
premiere poste en francais sur ce blog. Desolee pour le manque de videos, j´ai quelques problemes de montage mais je devrai en avoir une dans 2 ou 3 jours...
Il y a eu un changement de plan aussi, nous n´allons plus en patagonie immediatement et irons plutot en novembre. Donc nous quittons Buenos Aires ce soir pour Iguazu (18 heures de bus) puis passons en Paraguay apres. Aucune des personnes que nous avons recontrees jusque la n´y est allee donc nous ne savons pas trop a quoi nous attendre, mais apparemment il y a plein de nazis qui s´y sont caches apres la seconde guerre mondiale. Cela dit je ne suis pas sure qu´on peut leur rendre visite comme ca...
Bref, a tres bientot avec des photos magnifiques d´Iguazu et des nouvelles du Paraguay!!

Bisous a tous...

2009-03-13T08:17:00.000-07:00

We have arrived! Vic and Rob have been here for ages but as Vic didn't have the blog login she hasn't posted anything yet. Tom, after I've posted this I'll go and light a fire under her so you don't feel forgotten anymore.
Currently staying in a nice little hostel in Buenos Aires called garden house (www.gardenhouse.com.ar). Taking it fairly easy and apart from already hearing multiple stories about stolen bags and even seeing someone elses being stolen (We didn't help, in fact I had no idea what was going on until about 5 mins afterwards) we have done very little.
Few photos from a rooftop BBQ at the hostel. As I expected the Steaks are big enough to fashion into a nice pair of sandals. Claire made it though the night without developing meat poisoning, although it will be a constant concern throughout the trip

From Buenos Aires

1st posting!

2009-02-23T12:10:00.001-08:00

As there's three of us all using the same blog, we'll type in different colours so it's easy to see who's posting.
The blog design is still a work in progress and the photos/videos links are not ours atm.
As we haven't actually told anyone about it yet I feel like I'm talking (I can't bring myself to say blogging) to myself. I should stop now

Chief's Colour

Vic's Colour

Claire's Colour