How the (South) West was won

Montanita

2007-05-09T12:08:00.000-03:00

I could not have picked a better place to end my trip. By a happy coincidence, I happened to meet many friends I had made in my travels on the beaches of this tiny little fishing village on the coast of Ecuador. For several days I partied hard durring the night, and recovered durring the day by lying down on the beach and taking in the sun. Frankly, it was rather uneventful, but more fun than I could have hoped for. It was nice seeing all these people again, and gave me a perfect opportunity to say goodbye to them all.

I have now returned to rainy old Britain, where I was treated to a downpour almost instantly after crossing the boarder into Wales (relyable Wales, you always know what weather you will get there...). Next step in the plan: get a job, earn some more money, and get right back out there to see the world. Watch this space.

Galapagos Islands

2007-04-27T18:59:00.000-03:00

This was definately the highlight of my trip. What a fantastic experience. Everything was total luxury, the boat was nicer than just about any other hostel I have stayed at, the food was wonderful, and most of all the animals were fascinating, and not in any way afraid of humans.

Regretably, words can not do justice to the experience, so I shall upload some images soon, which I hope will be able to help people understand how amazing the whole thing was. I have taken so many pictures, however, that I will have to wait until I get home to upload them. That will be in a couple of weeks, so not that long to wait...

I am in Guyaquil right now, Equador's biggest city, and frankly, I do not particularly like it. It is just another concrete jungle, and so far it seems to be more expensive than Puerto Ayora in the Galapagos. I will be making my way to Montañita soon where I will be resting on the beach until my return to Europe.

Quito

2007-04-20T22:35:00.000-03:00

I arrived in Quito from Bogota by taking a plane to Pasto and then taking a bus to the boarder. What I had not realised was that the bus left me just at the boarder and had me cross it on foot. Oh dear...

It should not normally be a problem, but I arrived at the boarder at night, and everything always seems slightly more dodgey when the sun has gone down. Especially when you have all of your belongings on your back. There was no problem getting my passport stamped on the Colombian side (they were probably glad to get another gringo out of the country), but then there was about 100 metres of no man's land to have to cross with people trying to sell things, and they were the ones that scared me. I really could not imagine what I could have done if I had gotten mugged in no man's land, and someone stole my passport. How do you explain this to the immigration?

Thankfully none of this happened, and I eventually made it safely to the hostel in Quito that I had been recommended by several people. The reason it is so popular? They have free rum and coke nights on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. How could I miss out on such a fabulous offer? I am only human, after all. I arrived on a Monday night, just in time to take advantage of the rum, and started the downward spiral that would end up in what I thought was a terrible, unfixable mistake.

On tuesday, I went out and booked my flight for the Galapagos, which has been a dream since the beginning of the trip, so I was rather pleased with myself, but kept going and organised some Spanish lessons for 1 pound 50 and hour, and thought that if I kept doing things, there would be nothing else left to do for the rest of my time in Quito.

Skip to Thursday (morning after rum and coke), and a group of us decided to go to the basilica because it is possible to abseil down. For some reason it seemed like a great idea, and I went along with them despite my fear of heights and the fact that I have never abseiled in my life. The "guide" was not all that helpful either. I was looking for some last minute advice as he was telling me to climb over the edge, and all he could tell me was "hold on to the rope". Since there is nothing else to hold on to, I thought that it was pretty obvious and resented him for it, but once I got going, I realised that there really was not much else to tell me. It is a pretty simple process.

The mitad del mundo (centre of the world) is a museum just outside of the city where you basically just go and see the equator. At first it looks like nothing more than just a red line randomly painted on the ground, but there are a few experiments that they do to prove to you that you are actually at latitude 0.

Firstly, they show water draining, which was my favorite, because the water just goes straight down, rather than in a spiral. I had never seen such a thing. They them moved the same kitchen sink about a metre to the south side, and the water spun anti-clockwise. When they moved it a metre to the north side, the water drained clockwise. Fabulous.

The second experiment was to have us put our arms up and have the tour guide try and lower them. Being a woman of rather small stature, she failed rather dismally, but when we moved to the line, she managed to do it no problems with one had. Take that Damien's ego!

The final experiment consisted of trying to balance an egg on a nail head. This one sounded completely impossible to me, but when I saw the guide do it, it seriously brought my hopes up. It only took me a couple goes to get it, and frankly I could not believe it. They gave me a certificate, which looked really tacky, saying that I had in-fact balanced an egg on a nail head. No surprise that it was lost within hours of reception.

The rest of my time in Quito was just spent killing time between Spanish lessons before my flight on Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning... What a silly mistake I made when booking for that date. The rum and coke started flowing on Monday night, and I had to join in the festivities. The plan was to stay up all night, and catch my flight in the morning, but what happened was that when I got to the airport, I was really tired. How did that happen? Basically, I waited around, and by the time I stood up, someone told me the gate had already closed, and I could not get on the flight. This was one hell of a scary moment, because I thought that it was $400 out the window, but luckily flights to the Galapagos are very flexible, so I just changed it to the next available flight.

I have finally made it to the dream islands, and I will start a boat tour on Sunday. I can not wait.

Taganga

2007-04-03T13:32:00.000-03:00

From San Gil, there were five of us taking a bus to get to Santa Marta. Only 16 hours, and a night bus, which means most of it would be spent sleeping. Perfect.

We wake up in the morning on a stationary bus in the middle of nowhere. No one seems to know how long we have been still, or for what reason. This nice little country road had a multiple car pile-up - not surprising considering how people drive here - and the police had just stopped all traffic from coming through.

This gave us a 5 hour delay, and to save time, the bus steward had the brilliant idea of skipping over the stop in the city of Santa Marta, making everyone who was going there get off. We were litterally in the middle of a desert, and no one in the group really understood what was going on, or how we were expected to get to our destination, but we followed the man anyway. He hailed over a colectivo (public bus), and paid for our fare into town. What we had not realised was that this bus did not go to Santa Marta.

On the colectivo, there was a nice man selling something, but it was difficult to understand exactly what it was. He was talking for a while, though, and I paid little to no attention to him, as per usual with these people. It seems like I was the only one, though, because he made a killing selling what seemed to be nail files. I could not even begin to estimate how many he sold, but some people were buying two. The things you see in South America...

The bus once again stops, and the man asks for people going to Santa Marta to get off and take a taxi. This was confusing us even further, but we were off the bus, and it had driven away before we had a chance to realise what was going on. The nailfile salesman had also gotten off, and realised that we had been done over completely by the Colombian bus system, and kindly took it upon himself to help out a bunch of dazed and confused tourists. He started talking to all the taxis and negotiated a good price for us to go not to Santa Marta, like the bus was supposed to, but Taganga, where we wanted to go in the first place.

Taganga is a beautiful little village in the outskirts of Santa Marta where absolutely nothing ever happens. Exactly how a village on the Caribbean coast should be. Palm trees, fishing boats, and people serving fresh fruit juices on the beach. What more could anyone want?

I spent several days there doing nothing durring the day, and partying hard durring the night. The Caribbean is not famous for its rum for nothing, I can tell you that. Some of the best rum I have ever tasted costing us next to nothing.

After many nights on the trot like this, my friend and I woke up at about 1pm, and went in search of the taxi rank. We needed to get into Santa Marta to get to the nearest cash machine (what is it with towns in South America not having cash machines). On to get a taxi, we must have looked pretty lost, because a police man walks up to us and starts talking to us. Normally, with the questions he was asking, we would have been able to understand him no problem, but our brains were feeling rather fragile, so we had to get him to repeat everything several times.

Neither one of us really knew what was going on. Having a cop come up to you normally means that there is a problem, so when he pronounced the word "vamos" (let's go), we really started to worry. What have we done? What does he think we've done? Are we getting arrested?

He takes us to the police station where he talks to his boss for a bit, and then he takes us to the taxi rank where he and his other two policeman friends get into a taxi with us. So at this point, we had told them that we were going to Santa Marta to take money out, and the only sensible reason we could think of why they would be with us was that they wanted some kind of bribe for whatever reason they could come up with.

We were slowly waking up, and the more we talked to them, the more it seemed like they just wanted to take us into town so that we would not get mugged after taking money from the ATM. Suddenly the situation became amusing. We now have a police escort to the bank. This will be my first, and probably my last time.

Once we successfully took money out, they followed us into the restaurant we went to, and sat down in the chair next to us. Apparently, they were joining us for lunch, also. They were acting all chummy, and talked to us about music, and sports, and whatever else young men talk about, only they were dressed in full police uniform, and were carrying guns. One of them actually put his gun on the table before sitting down. Seemed kind of dangerous, but whatever.

Then came the time to pay for the bill, and - surprise, surprise - we were expected to pay for their lunch. This is when it became apparent why they had followed us in the first place. Difficult to say no to a Colombian policeman with a gun, though. That's probably why neither one of us tried.

The whole day was spent with them following us to the beach, and constantly asking us if we wanted a beer or something to drink, knowing full well that if we got one for ourselves, they would be able to get one on us. We kept using the excuse that we had had enough the night before, and that we did not want to drink again today, but they kept persisting, which became really annoying after a while, and that is when we decided to leave.

I am now back in Bogota, where I am making a quick stop before heading off to Equador. Colombia was nice, but everywhere I went was just more of the same. I am ready to see something new. Bring on the Galapagos!

San Gil

2007-03-28T19:41:00.000-03:00

San Gil is a pretty little town who's main attraction is adventure sports. We stayed at a cool hostel run by and Australian backpacker. He was a nice guy, and told us about the town and he also seemed to know just about everything about Colombia. I learned quite a bit when I was there. He told us where the best places to eat were, as well as organising our hydrospeed and caving adventures.

Every day we would go to the market and take advantage of the fact that Colombia is the country with the biggest selection of fruit grown withing its boarder. At the markets you can go to have fresh fruit salads and some fresh fruit smoothies made right in front of you all for about 75p. A wonderful way to start any day if you ask me.

Hydrospeed

Hydrospeed - a small polyurethane floatation board, designed for descending rapids. The user rides the hydrospeed in a prone, semi-swimming position. The upper body rests on the board and the legs hang free in the water.

Going head first into some rapids. What a terrifying concept, and yet something that sounds like a lot of fun. The safety equipment consists of little more than a helmet and a life vest. Not much, but enough, I suppose. The crash course was short, but informative. It was more or less just to tell us how to hold on to the borad and to never let go of it. Pretty straighforward stuff.

Five minutes later and we were thrown into the river. To our advantage the weather was beautiful and the temperature quite high, so jumping into col water was somewhat refreshing.

We got to the first rapid almost immediately. It was exhilerating getting sucked down into the water and having my head poking through long enough to gasp for air before getting sucked right back down. Much like the swirlies often talked about in American movies and TV shows. For those not aware, a swirly is the act of repeatedly shoving someones head in a toilet while deploying the flush.

For maybe ten minutes the rapids kept on coming and there was very little time to breath between each submersion. There came a point when my hydrospeed and I were fully submerged for a while; shortly followed by a feeling that I might have to let go of the board, or I might die. That feeling went away rather quickly when I finally came up for air and saw that that was the last rapid for a long time. The river was as calm as a swimming pool after that until the end of the experience.

We arrived on shore in the city park which consists of a forest full of trees which looked like something found in Peter Jackson's Middle Earth. A magical setting.

Caving

Our final day in San Gil was spent wandering around in complete darkness with flash lights straped to our helmets. It was difficult at first to navigate my way around, as I was reduced to complete tunnel vision, but I was surprised at how quickly I became used to it.

There are several different sections to the cave. The first one was called the Cathedral. Simply an large opening after having to get on our knees due to a small tunnel leading to it. In there we saw some bats, and then turned our lights off and sat in the dark in complete silence. I don't think I have ever had all my senses completely shut off like that before. As we were sitting there, a bat flew right past my ear. The guide told us not to move because their radar system allows them to know where you are, but they get it wrong if you move.

The next section, the mud, was by far the most amusing. The whole point of this was get dirty. Frankly, I thought this would be the worst part of the whole thing, but I loved every second of it. I took my shoes off for this, and I am rather glad I did. We crawled for a couple of metres completely flat on the ground, and then ended up in a puddle of mud that went all the way up my knee. I do not know who started it, but we ended up having a mud fight. It went everywhere and would take days to wash off completely.

At this point, the guide was having so much fun that he suggested taking us to a part of the cave not usually seen by tourists. It would involve a difficult climb, but we all wanted to stay in there as long as we could.

We walked through the third section, which was supposed to be a river followed by a waterfall, but the river was almost completely dry. This is normally the place where people wash off all the mud, but we were not so lucky. Nevermind.

The climb was very difficult, it involved sending the tallest in the group up first by giving him some footholds with our hands. Once he was up, he would hoist everyone else up. Not exactly safety first, I would have rather had a rope or something, but no one got hurt and that is the main thing.

Villa de Leyva

2007-03-21T11:20:00.000-03:00

We met a Colombian school teacher in our hostel who was writing a book on the Muisca civilization, the natives of Colombia before the European invasion. He told us that there is a site just outside of town where the Muiscas had planted some rocks in the ground (something in the same vein as stone henge) that would line up perfectly with the sunrise durring the equinox. As luck would have it the equinox was the very next day, so plans were made to wake up at 4:30 the next day to go to this site and witness this extra-ordinary bianual event.

I always hate having to get up before the sun rise, and this time was no different. We had left the hostel by 5, and we walked for about one hour to the site. When we arrived, the place was closed, and did not open until 9 o'clock. Entirely unacceptable! How could they commit such a crime to close this site at the one time when that makes it special? We were having none of it, and so went searching for a place to climb over the barb wire fence.

Once all nine of us had climbed over, we finally got a good look at the set up of the stones. The sun had not come out yet, but it seemed like full day light. Comparing it to stone henge would be rather unfair to the British monument, because, quite frankly, this was unimpressive. It was litterally just a bunch of rocks in the ground, but we sat and waited for the sun to rise. When it finally did is when the rock formations transformed as they were perfectly in line with the sun. What an exquisite sight it was.

The rest of the day was spent sitting around the town square sipping fresh fruit juices. Colombia is apparently the country with the biggest selection of fruit grown within the country, so they are all extremely tastey. On top of that, Villa de Leyva was considerably warmer than Bogota, which means we were all in shorts again. Hooray!

The town was being used for the filming of a TV mini-series based on the story of Zorro, so they had repainted part of the town square to make it look older. They had also set up a fake market as a set for one of the scenes. It was fun to watch everyone in period costume walking around town. Frankly, I could have spent days just sitting in the square drinking juice and watching things happen. The atmosphere was very enjoyable.

Despite that, the next day we went out on a hike to see some waterfalls where we got caught in the rain without raincoats. The weather was so beautiful when we left that no one even thought it could ever rain. So we all ended up getting really wet, but it was still pretty hot, so it just ended up being rather fun.

In the afternoon, we caught a bus over to San Gil where we would experience some adventure sports.

Catedral de Sal

2007-03-16T17:24:00.000-03:00

Eight of us set out from the Platypus hostel armed with clever instructions on how to get to the salt cathedral neatly printed on a nice little slip of paper provided to us by the hostel. Very clear and consice directions indicating that two buses need to be taken in order to get to the town of Zapaquiri.

It just so happens that the bus stop next to the hostel was closed on this particular day, so we were facing an extra 11 block walk to the next one. How fun. It must however be stated that this was the only problem encountered on the way there thanks to the clever instructions on how to get to the salt cathedral neatly printed on a nice little slip of paper provided to us by the hostel.

Entrance is half price on Wednesdays, and being the good back-packers we are, we just can not say no to such an excellent bargain such as this one. We managed to save oyurselves a whole pound fifty! Something I would not even have batted an eye-lid over back home, but it makes a huge difference here.

The tour of the salt mine was in English, but frankly there is not much to be saif about a salt mine, so had the tour been in any other language I would not have missed much.

We walked through the tunnels for about 5 minutes before finally getting to the cathedral. Along the way were some statues representing the stages of the cross. All of this was neatly lit using fluorenscent lighting, but I could not figure out how they have done it becuase there were no cables anywhere. How does an electrician hide his work in a salt mine? Surely not plaster. Maybe that would have been a good question for the guide...

Despite this cool lighting - or maybe because of it - I was unable to take any pictures. Everything came out completely black. I suppose this is what I have to expect from the cheapest camera available at ASDA. This was the straw that broke the camel's back. I have put up with this pathetic excuse of a camera for long enough, and decided that I needed a new one. That crap cost me pictures of a beautiful sight.

The cathedral itself was very impressive. One of the biggest rooms I have even been in. It definately made me feel very insignificant stepping in such an enormous space. The first thing that came to mins was how excellent a cenue it would make. The acoustics were unbelievable, and I am sure it would have been possible to fit thousands of people. Everyone agreed.

The journey back to the hostel was far less simple than the one to the cathedral. The clever instructions on how to get to the salt cathedral neatly printed on a nice little slip of paper provided to us by the hostel forgot to tell us how to get back. It should not have been very difficult. Just take the same buses in the opposite direction. The only problem is that the bus lines going in the opposite direction are given completely different numbers and none of the bus drivers could agree on which bus we needed to take. We eventually just jumped on one even though the driver assured us that it would not take us to the right place. Good thing we paid no attention to him because we ended up exactly where we wanted.

Bogotà

2007-03-16T16:31:00.000-03:00

2640 Metres above sea-level.

... and that is why, despite being right next to the equator, it is rather chilly here. I must say, I was rather quick to adopt the shorts and sandals, but they shall now remain a distant memory for there are very few warm places I plan on going to. The winter clothes have come out from the dark depths of my bag (where I had hoped they would stay a bit longer) to keep me from being cold up here in the mountains for the next few months.

Mind you, my threshold for cold is probably not what it used to be. It seems to have evolved over the last months, which is why I feel I must clarify when I say "cold". Durring the day, we can expect temperatures reaching up to 20 degrees, and down to maybe about 10 at night. Hardly a freezing Brittish winter,but I really got used to 35 degrees with humidity. Nonetheless, I have not let the brisk temperatures keep me from exploring this beautiful city.

I have been staying in a hostel that I have been told is in one of the safest places in the country, which is nice to know, but I am still not going to take and chances. The hostel is a building marked with nothing more than a painting of a duck-billed platypus next to the door. I think this was done initially so people would not know it was a hostel - an extra security measure, which is always welcom - but it now seems that all of Bogotà knows of it.

The "cold" is also high-lighted by the missing window panes. This can make for some pretty chilly nights, followed by mornings with cold showers. The hostel boasts hot water, but I have yet to witness it. One of the employees told us there was a trick to getting hot water from a tap with only one working knob, so we asked him to show us how.

On the way to the nearest bathroom, he was modestly telling us that Bogota had one of the best irrigation systems in the world, no less. Still, I was ready to listen to any old non-sense provided he could show me how to have a hot shower.

He got the water flowing by turning the knob very slowly. His hand went under the current to test the tempurature. The contact with the flow brought a smile to his face, and he informs us that the water is now hot. The trick was simply to turn the knob slowly.

The news pleased me greatly nd made me want to dest it for myself. I was distraught when the ice streaming from the shower burned my fingers, but he seemed so pleased with himself for having been able to provide "hot" water that I could not bring myself to tell him that I might die from hypothermia if I were to stand under there.

Apparently this is something I will have to get used to, especially if I make it to Bolivia. Hot water is rarely available, even in the higher altitudes due to the crippling poverty of the country. Not exactly a pleasant prospect, but I am sure I will get used to it.

When walking around the city, the first thing I noticed was a beautiful building on top of a mountain peak over-looking the city with a cable-car leading up to it. This church of Monerate is visible from almost everywhere in the city, and would serve as my North Star whenever I got lost, because it was even illuminated at night. Obviously, I had to go visit it, and did so on my first day in the city.

Once at the top, there is a view of the city, which is frankly not very nice. I was shocked to see that the city is rather ugly from above, when it is so beautiful in the streets. The view is much nicer on the other side of the mountain of a forest in a valley. The church itself is very beautiful, and I got there just when they started having a mass. I find these deadly boring when I can understand what they are saying, so I did not stay very long to witness this.

There are also many museums in the Bogotà. I have visited a few, ranging from really nice, to so boring that I left before seeing most of it. The gold museum, which I was told was "un-missable", was definately missable. I stayed there no more than five mintues, before leaving (thank god it was free). The police museum (which also sounded like it should have been a total flop) turned out to be one of the best experiences I have had in Bogotà.

I showed up to the museum, and door-man asked me where I was from, if I speak Spanish, how I had heard of the museum, etc. I explained to him that I had heard very good things about the museum, and he asked me to sit down, while he went to fetch me an English speaking guide. The guide was a 19 year old currently serving his military service. It was really interesting talking to him about Colombia while we walked around the museum. I am glad I am not Colombian, though, becuase he is now having a "restful" time as they work him 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Normally, he works 15-17 hours per day.

At the end of the tour, he took me to see his major, who is the officer with the most years of service in all of Colombia. Apparently the major had requested to talk to me, which I made me feel somewhat nervous, but he was so friendly that I quickly felt at ease. He told me how he loved to meet people from foreign countries, especially the French, seeing as it was a Frenchman who was responsable for setting up the police in Colombia. When he was done complimenting me for being French, he gave me a chocolate, and sent me on my way with an enormous smile. I love this country.

Leticia

2007-03-12T16:47:00.000-03:00

I did not do much in Leticia, and did not think I would need to make an entry for this rather dull city, but something happened to me hours before I was supposed to leave. Something that I thought I had done everything in my power to avoid, and therefore did not even conceive the possibility of it becoming a problem.

As I have metioned, the boarder between Tabatinga (Brazil) and Leticia (Colombia) is pretty non-existant. When leaing Brazil (i.e. walking down the street), you have to go to the Policia Fedral, for them to stamp your passport. This means you have officially left Brazil, and you are either going to Colombia, or Peru. This much, I knew, and got out of the way when I first arrived in Tabatinga on Friday.

A few days later, when trying to get a plane to Bogota, I went to get my passport stamped. The man refused to give me a stamp, saying that I had left Brazil serveral days before, and that I had been in Colombia illegally for that time. I found this a bit strange, seeing as Rotem had had her passport stamped just that morning (by a different guy). I kept askin him what I was to do now, and each time he just kept telling me that I had been in the country illegally for several days. Not only was I stressing out, because he was telling me this, but I was getting seriously annoyed by the fact that he would not tell me what he expected me to do about it.

I can not be sure, but I think I saw him rub his thumb over the tip of his index an middle finger in the international "money" sign. I only saw him do it once, and it was very quick, and possibly a part of my imagination, but it seemed for a moment that he was looking for a bribe. I know that I am not tactful enough to be able to do such a thing discretely, so I just kept on asking him what he wanted me to do about the whole situation.

Eventually, he told me to go back to Tabatinga, and ask the Policia Federal for a new stamp with today's date. This made me slightly nervous, as I had no idea how long it would take the Brazilians to do what I asked of them.

When I went to have my first stamp on Friday, we met a woman in a similar predicament who had been told that she would have to pay a fine, and wait in the office until said fine was determined. She had been there several hours already, and this poor woman's story came back to me when I was in the taxi on my way back to Brazil, because there was only one hour left before my flight to Bogota.

I ran out of the taxi into the office, and started yelling at the poor "boarder" patrol-man trying to explain my situation in Spanish, completely fogetting that this was Brazil, and that he might not understand a word I am saying. He did not. It took maybe five minutes of me yelling at him before he understood what I wanted, and he re-stamped my passport, for the sole reason of getting me out of there, I think. I impressed myself with how easily my Spanish flowed despite the stress I was under. I managed to confuse someone using a foreign language.

When I got back to the Leticia Airport, I shoved my passport in the imigration guy's face, and smiled as he was forced to give me the damned stamp that I deserved. All this with about 40 minutes before the flight, and enough time to go have lunch. Success! For now...

I know now, that I could have ended up like that woman, being stuck at the Policia Federal for hours, and not missed my flight. It turns out that President Bush was in Bogota for the day, and everything was closed. Including the airport. We left several hours late, and landed in Cali, where we waited another hour or so before going directly to Bogota, like it said on the ticket I was sold. Despite all these delays, other than a bread roll with some butter, they did not feed us on the plane. By the time we got in, it was about 9:30, and we were starving, but Bush's visit had meant that EVERYTHING was closed.

Our luck turned at about 11 o'clock, when we found what must have been the only place in the whole city serving food. A hot dog has never been more welcome on my plate, and never tasted so good.

Amazon River Cruise

2007-03-10T12:54:00.000-03:00

It took some negotiation to get 40 Reais knocked off the price of the ticket. This is pretty standard procedure for Brazil. There is what they call the ¨Gringo Price¨, which is always open for negociations, so we thought nothing of it when we finally managed to get the salesman to reduce his price. He told us that he would meet us at our hostel to take us to the ship at 2 o´clock (Brazilian time. Roughly translates to 2:30). We just thought he was being nice and helping his latest clients make it safely to their destination. How wrong we were.

It turns out that the discount we managed to get was not marked down from the ¨Gringo Price¨, we had simply bargained hard enough for the salesman to sell us the ticket tax-free. This is blatantly illegal, so we could not get on the ship at the dock just like everyone else. Instead, we waited until the ship had left, and took a speed boat out to a clandestine meeting somewhere alond the Amazon.

We even had to get on using the back door through all the food storage. I was surprised to see live chickens trapped in wood boxes, but I suppose that is the best way to keep meat fresh for 6 or 7 days. It was really impressive to see the amount of supplies that were on this deck. What I had not realised at this point was that we would be making some stops along the way, and that this food would be unloaded and left in some villages that exist on the bank of the river.

People had told me that the food on the shop would be little more than sustainance, but I really enjoyed it. Rice, beans and pasta - what appears to be the main staples of the Brazilian diet - start to wear a bit thin after several weeks (this is also what we ate in the jungle), but at least it all tasted very nice.

The passenger deck was also a sight to behold. There were only a couple of cabins that were rediculously overpriced, so everyone else hung a hammoc on the deck. It is pretty crazy, but it looks really cool. I can not believe how many people they managed to fit on the deck. Someone told me that the ship could house 300, and that it was almost full (but not quite). We were all sleeping on top of eachother.

In fact, eating and sleeping seemed to be the main activites on the ship. The meal times were very early and difficult to adapt to. On the first morning, I missed breakfast by getting up at 8 o´clock, not realising that it ended at 7:30. Not that it mattered much, since lunch was served at 10:45. Even with these early meal times, I could never get used to dinner being at 5. Especially not after having spent so much time on this continent where people do not eat before 9 pm.

It felt like the entire trip was just a perpetual challenge to try and find something to do between eating and sleeping. I did manage it well enough that when the trip was over, I looked back, thinking I could have lasted a few more days.

1) Learning Hebrew - this entertained me for the first couple of days, but it soon reminded me, once again, just how much I hate learning languages. I only got as far as learning the alphabet before I decided to give up for ever. The problem was that they have two completely different scripts. One for print, the other for writing by hand, and I could not be bothered to learn both. Hebrew will always have to remain a mystery to me.

2) Making Bracelets - as luck would have it, there was a very nice French couple (Jean and Candice) in the hammocs next to ours that tought just about everyone on the ship how to make bracelets using string, like the ones you find being sold on the streets everywhere in South America.

3) Reading - I think I managed to pick up the lamest book in the world from the book exchange in the hostel back in Manaus. There were only two books available - hardly a mind blowing selevtion, but still should have been enough. One was about how great a person Jesus Christ is, and the other a romance novel. Sadly enough, I saw the romance novel as the lesser of two evils, but seeing as how boring it was, I might have been better off with the religious propoganda.

4) Cachaça - liquor was contraband on the ship, but it was not difficult to sneak on board durring one of the many ¨30 minute¨ that could last up to 7 hours while they unloaded the cargo. This also gave us some time to walk around the little villages that exist along the river. In the evening, we got back and made ourselves caprinhas in the cabin of the Belgian couple (Max and Julie).

5) Cards - as many times before, playing cards have come to the rescue and provided several hours of fun in what could otherwise have been a case of absolute boredom. We all learned how to play new games, and I was really glad to be able to play La Beulotte, a french game, which I had not played in several years. The Belgians had bought a game called Backpacker, wherein you must go around the world and bring home as many pictures of different places as possible, but were not able to fully understand the instructions, as they were only printed in Enlgish. I was comissioned to translate, so that we could try this game out, and it turned out to be one of my favorite things to do on the ship.

6) Stare into space - Sadly, it did come to this a few times. It was nice to watch the river bank with all the trees, but that became tiresome sooner than it should. The pink river-dolphins came out to play only once, but that was enough enough for me. They really are quite pink, although they do have many dark spots, and they could only be seen once they came up to the surface because the water was so opaque. In Manaus, and when we went in the jungle, the water was black (from sediment that it picks up. It really is all natural) but furter along, it turned to what they call white, but is really more of a beige. Seeing the two collide is really cool, because there is the black water becomes white almost instantly, creating a visible boarder between where one ends and the other begins. I have never seen anything like it.

Arriving in Tabatinga, we had to be sure not to forget to get our passports stamped saying that we were leaving Brazil. The problem is that there is no boarded between Tabatinga and Leticia (which is in Colombia). They really are one and the same. Forgetting to have your passport stamped would result in a hefty fine if I tried leaving Colombia, so it is something that should definately not be forgotten.

I am now in Leticia where I shall take a plane to Bogota, the capital city of Colombia. The ticket price is somewhat higher than I had anticipated, but it is still the cheapest way out of Leticia that is still pretty safe. The cheaper option (i.e. a slow boat to Peru, or Equador) has a nasty habbit of being attacked by the rebel forces of Colombia, or so I was told. Rather regrettably I have been forced to rule out this possibility. It seems that staying alive is slightly more important that saving 50 pounds. Who would have thought it?

Amazon Trek

2007-03-03T12:17:00.000-03:00

We left our hostel at 5:30 am to take a bus to a village 180 km outside of Manaus. From there we went on a motor boat along the Urubu river - a tributary of the Amazon. I have not been on the Amazon yet, but this tributary is bigger than the Thames, so I can not wait to see just how big the biggest river in the world is.

Arrival at the base camp was quite nice. There were some wood huts on the bank of the river where we were finally treated to breakfast with lots of fresh fruit native to the Amazon. Some of them were pretty crazy. My favorite one, which the guide said was called plum, tasted like an Orange and a Mango mixed together.

After breakfast we took a row boat to go see the flood planes of the Urubu River. Right now is the rainy season - there are only two seasons here: rainy and dry - so the water level is very high. We were canoeing around tree-tops that the guide (Frank) told us were normally three or four metres high.

It seemed like they wanted to fatten us up because the canoe trip lasted only about one hour, but they were already serving us lunch. Not that I am complaining, because the food was really nice.

All of the days events were a bit too much for me to handle becuase I needed a siesta. I was falling asleep when my new travelling partner, Rotem, let out this scream that woke me up. A massive spider had just landed on her hest and frightened her. Apparently I was really funny when I woke up, trying to figure out what was going on, so she started laughing at me. She still laughs about it now, so I really must have looked stupid.

My lovely siesta was cut short by an alarm clock in the bag of the Norwegian couple on the expedition (heretofor refered to as the Norways). The timing worked out pretty well, though because it was time to go fishing for piranas. We stayed out on the river watching the sun set and desperately trying to catch fish for dinner. It is too bad wood is not edible because all I seemed to be able to catch was branches. It was quite lucky that Rotem managed to catch two, because no one else did, and it meant that we had some fish to eat for dinner.

The first night in the jungle was really loud. Base camp was right next to the river, so there were many frogs making alot of noise. After a while, I managed to tune it out - even find it relaxing - but at first, it was really annoying. The hammocs were really comfortable, which was nice, because they would be our beds for the duration of the expedition of five days and four nights.

The rain woke us all up early the next morning and made us miss the early morning bird-watching session. By the time we ate breakfast, the rain had cleared, so we went hiking in the Amazon Rainforest.

Everything was going fine when suddenly, about 5 minutes in, I felt a really sharp pain in the back of my neck. A wasp, the guide said, but it was like no other wasp sting, I have ever had. It burned for about ten minutes. It really felt like the back of my neck was on fire, but it would fade away and occasionally come back. It left no mark or anything of the sort, and did not itch, it just burned a lot. I never even saw the little bugger, but everyone described it as a really big black wasp. I would go on to get stung three more times by this pesky bug; twice as much as the rest of the group put together.

A bit further into the forest, and we saw a monkey jumping from tree-top to tree-top. We put our bags down and went off the path to get a closer look. Unfortunately, it was really high up and difficult to see - much like all the animals we saw durring the expedition. Still I got to see a monkey, which was one of my goals for the trip.

The monkey eventually disappeared into the forest and out of my life forever, but on the way back to our bags, Frank discovered a Liana Vine and proceded to chop it up. These vines run into the ground and have water flowing through them which you can drink. The water tastes quite sweet compared to the mineral water we were carrying. It was strange to see water come from the vine, because it is not hollow. It looks like a normal chunk of wood, but water flows out of it.

We reached the camp early in the afternoon. The first thing Frank said whem we got there was that the roof was leakig and we needed to fix it, but we would have lunch first (yay!).

While Frank was cooking lunch, we started removing the old palm leaves from the roof to save some time. Many of them were rotten, and difficult to lift because they would break very easily. We also discovered a snake in amongst them, which we were told was poisonous, and can jump to attack its prey. The Norways tried killing it, but they did not want to use the machete like Frank was saying because they wanted to skin it. Instead they tried drowning it, but that would last several hours, much to everyone´s surprise.

When we went out looing for new palm leaves to make a new roof, it started raining really heavily. I was wearing my rain coat, but the water still managed to find its way through, because I was soaking wet when it ended. Everything I had brought with me was wet, and so it would stay for the rest of my time in the forest. Thanks to Mr. Murphey and his sodding law, the sun was out and shining only minutes after we had finished building the roof. How typical.

It is really impressive how dark it got at night in the middle of the forest. I have never been anywhere as dark as this. I really could not see my hand placed right in front of my face. When I have said that in past, there was always a little bit of light somewhere in the distance, but there was absolutely nothing here. It also gets quite cold. I woke up many times because I had only brought one shirt, which I was hoping would dry, so I was sleeping topless under my blanket.

Day two in the forest was just as wet as the first. It was rather unpleasant having to put on wet clothes in the morning, but I hardly had any choice. It would not have made much difference if I had had dry clothes, because after five mintues of walking around, they would have been soaked from sweat. It is unbelievable the amounts I sweat just from walking in the forest. My hair was wet like when I walk out of the shower, but from sweat. It is disgusting, but all part of the experience.

We would leave all our bags at the camp, and walk around in a circuit, so all we had to do was bring our water bottles. I did not have a small bag with me, so Frank (aka Macgyver) took his machete to a tree, and started hacking away at it. Everyone was rather puzzled for a while, until he took the thin strands of wood he had chopped up, and started wrapping it around my bottle of water. Two straps went around the bottom of the bottle for support, while one was left to go around my neck, like a bag. It was really cool, but it only lasted until the end of the day.

We walked around for hours sometimes following a trail, sometimes going off the trail. It was weird seeing Frank opperate, because when we were on the trail, he would break branches and leave marks on the trees as if to be able find his way back, but when we went off the trail, he would stop doing so. It seemed to me as though going off the trail is when such tricks are necessary, but he never seemed to be lost, so he obviously knew what he was doing.

The following day, we had to leave the forest and go back to base camp. It was really funny how quickly it all went, because it really does not sound like it was much fun when I tell about it now. I would have liked to stay a couple more days in the forest, if I could.

Once we got back to base camp, and had lunch, we went to visit a family that lives in the middle of the Amazon. We were told that they live off their farm, and they sell fruits and such which they grow there, but when they started selling us beer, it became quite clear that they also make much money selling tourists like us alcohol. I still had a really good time talking to them, and having a few drinks before we went crocodile hunting.

We left of the canoe in the dark to try and find some caimans, but the moon was really bright on this night. We were supposed to sneak up on them in the dark, and use our flash lights to see them, because their eyes reflect light like a cats, but there was so much light coming from the moon, that they could see us coming and would run away before we could get a chance to see them, let alone catch them.

The next day we got up early to try and do the bird-watching which we had failed to do on the first day. We went out on the river, and although we did not see many birds, it was very relaxing, so it really did not matter.

I am now back in Manaus, where I shall be taking a boat along the Amazon to Tabatinga. From there I hope to go to Leticia, which is in Colombia. Sagy has told me of a cheap diving course there, which I would definately like to do before going to the Galapagos Islands.

Carnaval

2007-02-24T19:10:00.000-03:00

I was warned that carnaval in Salvador would be a crazy event. It is officially the biggest party in the world having recently taken over Rio´s carnaval. Over 2 million people come from all over the world to dance in the streets of Salvador for 6 consecutive days. At first I thought that I could do it standing on my head, but I learned my lesson.

The reason I decided to come to Salvador instead of Rio is that carnaval in Rio is more of a show where you watch the parade while standing on the side of the road; whereas the on in Salvador lets you take part in the parade, making you a part of the carnaval and not just a spectator.

There are t-shirts for sale that act as a ticket into the different blocos parading around the city. A bloco is a cordoned-off area in the street where people dance to the music being blasted out by the trio electricos that follow them. The trios are massive busses fitted with enormous sound systems carrying two bands that play music for the entire circuit. Those who want to take part in the blocos have to be able to afford it, however, as the t-shirts do not come cheap.

Those who can not afford it end up in the streets and become "popcorn". Depending on the parade circuit you are watching, this can range from a very amazing experience, to something almost regretable. There are three main circuits around the city: one in Barra which goes along the beach into Oninda; one in Campo Grande right in the centre of the city; and one in Pelourihno, the old city. I went to them all on different days and I can easily say that my favorite was Barra. This is mostly because it was the biggest, safest, and least crowded - thanks to the beach - one.

On the first night a big group of 11 of us decided to go to Barra because we were told that it was the best one. It took three taxis to get us there, so inevitably, we were seperated before actually getting there. After the many efforts to keep the group together to leave Pelourinho, it seems that we might as well not have bothered. I ended up with an English and a Swiss guy. It was nice to be in a smaller group because we could roam around free without having to wait for a million people to do nothing of any importance.

This was the nice when I decided to tru the "50 cent test" I had devised to see how good the pick pockets were. I placed 50 cents in my pocket to see if I could feel it being taken from me, and credit to whoever took it, because I felt absolutely nothing. I think they really deserved that money for being so good at what they do.

On the next day I met my friends in the afternoon where we all discussed the night before. We all agreed that it was great, but nothing as wild as we had expected. The conclusion to this dilema was that it was the first night, and it would get wilder once people had warmed up to the idea of carnval.

the great time we all had in Barra on the first night made us all want to go there again for the second night. This time we had made more friends, so we were a group of about 18. We had found out where the buses were leaving from now, so that was agreed to be the best mode of transportation for such a large group.

After walking around for a while, we stumbled on to a hall with many food and drinks stlls that had a perfect view of the parade, but was far enough away that all of us could sit down and enjoy eachothers company for a while. This hill would become the meeting point for the group until the end of carnaval. When we finally got bored of the hill, we went out on the street again to follow one of the blocos. I got lost with another Swiss guy in the masses and got seperated from the group. It all worked out, though, because we ended up meeting some really nice Brazilians who were quite alot of fun.

Day three was time to try something different. Barra was excellent, but there was so much more to see that it would have been a shame not to do it all and since Pelourinho was litterally on our doorstep, it was the obvious choice.

The parades pass through Pelourinho are durring the day, but at night there are many stages set up with bands playing all different types of music. We found one stage for samba, one for reggae and one with some dance music. All of them were really, so we stayed a long time watching each one. On the way home we got side-tracked by a beer stand. How dare they be so tempting! By this point there were opnly three of us left standing and for some reason the converstation turned into a heated political debate. Probably the last thing I would have expected to happen at carnaval.

Night four was the leat enjoyable of them all. I had bought myself a t-shirt to get into a bloco for three night. On this night I would have to go to Campo Grande on my own - not realising how different this circuit is to the other two I had experience up to that point.

Campo Grande is right in the centre of the city, which means that there is not much space for the "popcorn". Imagine having to fit several thousand people people in an area the width of a side walk. This is a pick-pocket´s wet dream. Also, with this many people trying to steal things from your pockets and alcohol flowing like a river, a fight starts about every 5 minutes. To try and protect the people there to have a good time, the government have brought in the MILITARY POLICE, no less. Basilcally there are soldiers dressed in desert storm gear roaming the streets blatantly abusing their power and intimidating people. Once girl was having fun waving her beer around and some spilled on the policeman that happened to be walking past. There was no way she could have known he was there, because he was behind her, but he still grabbed the beer out of her hand, emptied it on her, and finished by slapping her around the face a couple times.

As much of a deterent to any kind of real crime that is to me, it did not seem to bother the hundreds of pick-pockets after whatever I had in my pockets. It was crazy the number of times I felt foreign hands going in my pockets. I had been warned only to take money and to put it in my socks and I am glad to have heeded that advice.

It took two hours of walking through that party from hell before I finally made it to my bloco where I would be safe from grabby hands for the following 4 hours.

The bands playing in my bloco were not very fun. They kept playing the same songs over and over again. The American guys I met in teh bloco and I managed to count one song being played 13 times. It was probably more, but we were not always paying attention.

After the bloco I went back and played cards with Sagy and other people from my hostel. It was nice to have my first rest since the whole thing began. Going to bed at 5am made this my earliest night of the whole carnaval, by far.

My second night of bloco I would not have to do on my own, which was nice because the bloco was again in Campo Grande. Two Canadian friends came with me to keep me company. After a few drinks someone decided to have a competition to see how many people we could kiss in the bloco. All I will say is that the girl won by so much that even she lost count.

On the final day, I was supposed to go once again to a bloco in Campo Grande, but I thought it would be much nicer to spend it with my friends, so I gave my shirt away to someone in the street. I´m sure it made his day and possibly even his whole carnaval.

We started the night by making Caiprinhas in the hostel. The cachaça was gone before we knew it, and off we went to Barra and the hill. Fat Boy Slim was playing on one of the tios, so everyone wanted to wait until he passed to jump in front of the bloco and enjoy the show as popcorn.

The group somehow managed to to disperse even though we pretty much stayed in the same place. By the time Fat Boy Slim arrived, I was with only three other people. We followed the trio for a while, but there were far too many people to have fun there, so we waited for it to pass. Behind the bloco, there were more of our friends waiting for us. One of them, a Puerto Rican, had heard of the competition we were having the night before and he wanted us to have one of our own.

We ended up stayin out past the end of the parade (again drinking at one fo those stalls on the side of the road - damn them!). By the time we got back to our hostel it was about 10 am and breakfast had already started, so we had something to eat before crashing.

Overall, carnaval was excellent, but there were a few things I really did not like about it. Obviously, the pick-pockets and fights were unpleasant, but the music left alot to be desired as well, which I found most surprising. They kept playing the same exact songs over and over again (if I hear CA-CHA-ÇA one more time, I´ll have to kill someone). Finally, I did not like the way there were very few toillets, forcing people to relieve themselves in the street. The smell was pretty bad by the end. This could have been worse, though, becuase it rained every day very hard for about half an hour at a time, so this washed most of it away. I can not begin to imagine how bad it gets on a year when there is no rain at all.

My favorite thing by far was the number of people selling food and drink on the side of the road. It was impossible to miss them, there were so many, which cut down on not only waiting times, but also time spent searching for food or drink. The good was also really nice. I am usually pretty skeptical about buying meat from someone in the street, but here it was really good. Also, the grilled cheese on a stick. MMM... grilled cheese on a stick! I had so many of them, I´m surprised they did not make me sick.

I am now in Manaus on the other side of the country, right in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest. On Monday, I shall go on a 5 day trek in the jungle with a guide. This should be amazing. Then on saturday, I shall be taking a boat along the Amazon into Colombia.

Salvador de Bahia

2007-02-19T12:05:00.000-03:00

I think the guy who told me that the bus ride would be 26 hours to get to Salvador must have been smoking a bit too much crack, because it really took over 30 hours. Again, they insisted on showing movies dubbed and subtitled in Portuguese, and ignored my requests to change at least one of the two to a language I can understand.

I arrived quite late in Salvador, and so I was thinking that maybe tourist information would be closed. That would have been a serious problem seeing as I did not have the good sense of booking a place before arriving. Thankfully, though, the desk was open, and the guy working there was infinitely more helpful than the one in Rio (mind you, that is not too difficult to do). He seemed to know the answer to all of my questions, and when I asked him where the bus stop was, he left his post to come show me himself.

The hostel I found - where they say they speak English, French and Italian - is right in the middle of the old city. The receptionist was a bit strange/rude and I am not fully convinced at this point that he can speak Portuguese let alone any of the ones listed above. Still, though, it was late, and they have cheap beds available.

As I was cooking myslef dinner a group walked in and as we started talking, I realised that the girl was from Belgium, so she speaks French, one of the guys was Swiss, so he speaks German. If an Argentinan had walked in at that point, I could have used all four of my languages in about 5 minutes.

The next day, I went walking around trying to explore the city, and randomly bumped into Sagy of all people. It was nice to see him again. We both booked a place here in the same hostel for Carnaval several months ago. This happening only several days before Carnaval, eveyone was starting to make their way here.

Just walking around the city, it is possible to see just how excited everyone is about carnaval. There are many rehearsals in the streets where the bands are practicing. The music is more or less only drums with not other instruments and they sometimes march down the street blocking the traffic. No one seems to care, though. The atmosphere durring the day is great.

At night everything changes. It is not safe to walk alone after dark. Many people had told me this, but stupidly, I decided to do it anyway. I left my friends at their hostel about 200 metres from where I was staying and walked home at about 4 am.

As I was walking up the hill in the pouring rain, I suddenly felt and arm going around my neck. At first I thought it was one of my friends playing a joke, but when I looked over and saw an unfamiliar face, I knew something was wrong. I was not sure what was happening, but my initial reaction was to try to break free from the head-lock I was in. I really thought I was going to be able to break free when, again out of nowhere, four or five more guys showed up. Some of them went straight for my pockets, while others tried to restrain me. At that point it occurred to me that they might be armed and that I might get seriously harmed if I kept struggling.

Once they had torn my pockets and stolen my wallet - containing just under 10 poundes and no bank cards - they ran away leaving me in the rain with nothing more than a few bruises. I suppose it is all part of the South American experience, so in a way I´m pretty happy that it happened, because they did not get much, and I was not seriously hurt.

Rio de Janeiro

2007-02-19T11:42:00.000-03:00

24 hours on a bus from Foz do Iguaçu to Rio de Janeiro. Yet another long journey with absolutely nothing to do, and for the first time with no one to talk to. Back in Argentina when I travelled on my oen, I could at least try to talk to people next to me in Spanish, but now in Brazil, it is a whole new language.

The bus was also not quite as nice as the ones in Argentina. Sure, there was air conditioning (thank god), and the seat leaned back pretty far - making it easier to get some sleep - but the service was not as good. For one, there is no food served on buses in Brazil despite how much more they charge for the tickets, so how ever much you spend on your ticket, you also need to factor in the price of food. Secondly, when they show a movie, the show it dubbed in Portuguese (fair enough, I am in Brazil), but they also add Portuguese subtitles. Even when I asked for at least subtitles to be changed to a language I can understand, they did nothing to help me out. It is quite strange that this happens because all the Brazilians I have met so far are very friendly.

The one thing that did impress me about the bus service was the punctuality. I was told the ride would last 24 hours and it really did; 24 hours and zero minutes.

Stepping off the bus and into the oven that is Rio de Janeiro, I picked up my bag and asked where the tourist information des was. After asking several different people and being sent to all corners of the massive bus station, someone finally showed me where it was.

The guy behind the desk could speak English - one step up from alot of South American countries - but this was the only good thing the tourist information of Rio de Janeiro could offer me. I had made reservations at a hostel in Copacobana, but made the silly mistake of not writing down the address. Seeing as it is an HI histel (a big worldwide chain of hostels) I did not think it would be a problem. Apparently, I was wrong. The tourist information only knew of one hostel in the whole city - which they tried desperately to get me to go to - and had no idea of where my hostel was.He told me about where he thought it might be and how to get there, and since he was sending me to Copacobana, I thought I would at least take the bus he was telling me to get, and maybe ask someone once I got there.

As soon as I got off the bus, someone asked me if I was looking for the Che Lagarto hostel (which I was), so that was rather good luck.

Arriving in the morning gave me plenty of time to go up and see the Statue of Christ and go across town to the sugar loaf mountain in time to witness the sunset behind the city of Rio. Both were absolutely fantastic, and I was lucky enough to go see them on a day that was not too cloudy which I am told does not happen often at this time of year.

Having seen everything I wanted to see in Rio de Janeiro, I bought myself a bus ticket to Salvador leaving the next day at 4pm. I was told it would be 26 hours, and following my good experience on the last bus ride regarding Brazilians´accuracy for estimating bus times, I beleived him...

Foz do Iguaçu

2007-02-08T19:54:00.000-03:00

By the time I had arrived to Foz do Iguaçu and sorted everything out it was a little too late to go to the falls, so I decided to go explore the town a bit with some Irish guys I met at the hostel. We took the two necessary buses to get to the city and walked around trying to find a place to eat. We finally had to settle for a fast food place that only had burgers. The idea was to eat for cheap.

Being rather pleased with ourselves for finding such a cheap dinner, we decided that we should celebrate in the traditional Irish fashin: several beers (bought from the supermarket to stay in keeping with the thrifty philosophy of the night). All that was left was to get back to the hostel and celebrate. Never under-estimate the over-confidence of four men in the middle of the night in a foreign country where none of them speak the language needing to get back to a place they had only ever seen once in broad daylight. It did not take us long to realise that the first bus we took was taking us the wrong way, but still it was a long walk back to the main road.

Thankfully we did not make the same mistake the second time, but when we finally got to our stop, we discovered - to our dismay - that the second bus necessary to take us to our hostel had stopped running hours ago. it was only a 10-20 minute walk, but all the delays were enough to have made the beer go warm. What a disaster! No need to worry, though, we drank them, and somehow still managed to have a good time despite this.

The next day we got up early to go see the falls from the Brazilian side. The only difference between the two sides is that Brazil is slightly farther away offering a more panoramic view - which is nice for photos - and Argentina is a closer to the falls - which, for me, was a much nicer personal experience.

Along the path in the forest we came across a family of some kind of wild animal. The Irish guys thought that it would be a great photo opportunity for their little stuffed leprechaun Larry. They set him down on the ground, and of course one the animals picked him up and dragged him away. Everyone watched in horror as Larry was being mauled by this beast. Would he ever be the same again? The monster quickly understood that Larry was not food and left him on the side of the trail with nothing more than a few bite marks and dirt stains.

Once we had taken all the pictures we could take of the magnificent falls, we made our way to the Itaipu dam. It is the largest hydro-electric plant in the world and we were told that they had a free tour. The tour was indeed free, but there was also and option of paying 20 reais for a tour which takes you inside the dam. Maybe I am missing the point slightly, but I want to see the biggest dam in the world from the outside. On the inside it would look like any other building. The free tour took us by bus to see the dam with a recording being played over the speaker system giving us and endless array of pointless facts, such as: ¨The construction iron and steel used at Itaipu would build 380 Eifel Towers.¨and ¨The rate of construction at Itaipu was equivalent to a 20 storey building everyon 55 minutes.¨

Iguazu

2007-02-05T09:42:00.000-03:00

The bus from Salta leaving at stupid o'clock, it seemed to me that the best way to deal with the situation was to stay up all night until that point, otherwise I would not be able to wake up. The other advantage was that I would probably sleep quite well on the bus, and any time I could spend unconcious would be a great help. It ended up taking about 28 hours because of delays, but we finally arrived in Puerto Iguazu. By the time we had sorted all of our stuff out, we still had the afternoon to go and visit the Argentinian side of the falls.

When we got there, the whole place was overrun by American pensioners on vacation constantly asking the guide which stop they need to get off at, despite the guide having told them hundreds of times only seconds before. This did detract from the the whole experience of the the falls at first. It seemed like an eternity crossing the long, narrow bridge before getting to the first waterfall. At times it felt like jumping off the bridge and swimming up the river would be a much faster option. Finally getting there really changed my mind, however. The falls were so beautiful that it made me forget about how annoying retired people on vacation in big groups can be.

After taking the train to the second set of falls, we started feeling some rain drops, but thought nothing of it. It was actually quite refreshing having some water fall on us in the heat. We had enough time to get to the second set of falls, really enjoy the view, and basque in the beauty before a grey cloud formed over our heads and let loose almost as much water as the falls themselves. We were already soaked down to the bone before we managed to take even the first step back towards the train. Tropical weather stikes again.

This morning, I took the bus from Puerto Iguazu (in Argentina) over to Foz do Iguaçu (in Brazil). Strangely enough, it is nothing more than a local bus, but it crosses the boarder. The bus eventually dropped me off in Foz do Iguaçu where I managed to find a tourist information desk, where remembered that all the time I have spent learning Spanish is now completely useless, because it is a foreign language here too. Nonetheless, the woman told me about a hostel, which is quite some way out of town, but right next to the falls themselves, which will be nice for tomorrow.

Purmamarca

2007-02-05T09:16:00.000-03:00

After Cafayate, the plan was to go to Purmamarca and spend in a night in Salta in between. On arrival in Salta we asked around to find out which bus company could take us directly to Purmamarca. The answer: none. They all told us that we could take a bus going to Humahuaca and that it could drop us off in the middle of nowhere, where we could then take a taxi to Purmamarca, or we could go to Jujuy and take a direct bus from there. Jujuy only being a couple of hours away from Salta, we figured that spending a night there or in Salta would be the same. With that decision, our day in Salta became a mere two hours. The tourist information desk told us about a cable car that takes you up to Cerro San Bernard where you have a nice view of the city. It was a very nice recommendation, and we ended up having lunch overlooking the city of Salta.

A couple of hours later, and we were in Jujuy. Although it is the capital city of the region of Jujuy, there is very little to do there. We walked around all afternoon in the markets looking at the junk that was for sale. I had given my laundry to the hostel, as they promised me it would be ready by 8 o'clock the next morning, and we had a bus at 10. Obviously, at 9 o'clock, it had not been done. They had lied to me, and I was left with no option but to put damp laundry in my bag.

Purmamarca was a really nice little town made up solely of mud huts. It was a fantastic little place that looked like it had not advanced in the last century. That is the way it looks on the surface, anyway. On closer inspection, the whole town is overrun by tourists, and shops selling the tackiest of the tacky souveniers. Still, the village is not the reason why we were there. We wanted to see the Salinas, and the Cerro de Siete Colores.

After finding a hostel, we went on the search for an excursion company that could take us to the Salinas. This is basically a desert that is made up of salt rather than sand. It is impossible to walk around there without sun glasses, because the light reflecting off the salt is blinding. Likewise, it is not recommended to walk around without sun screen. There are some locals who have set up stalls there making sculptures out of salt, and they are all wearing face masks and gloves despite the heat, because otherwise they would burn alive.

In the same afternoon, we went on a walk to see the Cerro de Siete Colores, which is a mountain with several different coloured rocks. Frankly, we never asked why there are different colours in the rocks, but it was amusing to see for the hour we spent on the trail.

The next day, we went back to Salta where we had plans to go directly to Iguazu on the other side of the continent. We were told that there was only one possible route, and that was a 26 hour ride leaving at 5:30 in the morning.

Cafayate

2007-01-30T16:55:00.000-03:00

We arrived on Sunday night in Cafayate, which is a really nice little town. It seems to be very touristic, but not many gringos. Either way, this means that places in hostels were quite few and far between. We did finally manage to find one with a double room for rather cheap, and located directly on the main square, so we jumped on the occasion. On our first night here, we randomly bumped into some people from the hostel back in Tucuman. We clearly weren't the only people who thought that city was a total waste of time.

In the morning, we were kicked out of the hostel, because other people had reserved, and the place was full, so we went walking around looking for another place to stay. The new place organised a couple of tours to see the sites around Cafayate, which are rather nice.

On Monday, we went to the Quebrada de Cafayate, which is a desert located just outside the town. We were told it was a going to be a trek, but really, it was just a bus ride. The guide would take us on a bus to one place, and then stop long enough for everyone to get out, take a few pictures. Frankly this was rather enjoyable, as there were a few stops where climbing on rocks was necessary in order to see everything. I had a really good time there.

One of the stops was called the amphitheater which is a sort of cave with really nice acoustics. Some local musicians have clearly picked up on this, as they were waiting for us when the bus pull up. As soon as we walked into the main part of the amphitheater, they started playing, and it sounded really nice.

This morning, we went on another trek to see the waterfalls of the Rio Colorado. Even though this was a more of a trek than the previous one, it still was not very taxing. The best part of it was all the rock climbing that was necessary. We had to go down really small tunnels and get into some pretty bizarre positions to get to see some of the waterfalls. The waterfalls themselves were not particularly nice, but I still had a really good time.

We got back in the afternoon, which gave us just enough time to try out some of the wineries of the area. The tours were far more interesting than the ones I had in Mendoza, as we actually got to see the grapes being unloaded from the trucks, and processed by the machines, as well as the wine being bottled. There were also some free wine samples at the end (which was my favorite part).

Tomorrow we plan on going to Salta as a stop off on our way to Jujuy. I am not sure how much there is to do in either of these places, but we will definately find something to keep us amused for a couple of days.

Tucuman

2007-01-30T16:30:00.000-03:00

I have decided to go up north and explore the final part of Argentina before heading to Brazil for Carnaval. I am now travelling with a friend I have made in Buenos Aires called Liya - a girl from Israel.

Our first stop was Tucuman, and although the city itself was a bit of a hole, the journey there was even worse. The bus ride was supposed to be 15 hours, which is quite reasonable for bus journeys in South America. There were several companies offering to go from Buenos Aires to Tucuman, so, of course, we chose the cheapest one. This time was no different from all the other times, as we got what we paid for.

It was difficult just taking the first step on to the bus because of the stench. Our conclusion was that some small animal had somehow made its way into the ventilation system moments before its death, and the carcass was then left there to ferment for several years.

Still, that was not the worst part of the ordeal. The bus had not been moving for more than five minutes before some really cheesey rock music started blasting out the speakers. It was just loud enough so that we could not hear eachother speaking. We promptly asked the steward to turn it down, which, to his credit, he did almost instantly. It seems however that the volume control on the stereo and the air conditioning were somehow linked on this bus, because as soon as the volume dropped, so did the temperature. Taking into consideration how hot it was outside, I completely forgot to take any kind of warm clothing with me, and had to deal with the cold for the entire 15 hours (actually due to delays, it lasted closer to 17).

Despite all of these distractions, I still managed to fall asleep at a reasonable time. I was sleeping exceptionally well until some genious decided that 5:30 in the morning is an excellent time to break out a guitar and start singing really loudly. It took me a while to figure out what was going on, but it all became clear when I heard Liya telling him to shut up. It was a pretty pointless effort, unfortunately, because we seemed to be the only people who thought that it was pretty inappropriate. Even the people sitting across the aisle from us with their toddler were enjoying it.

It was after 7 o'clock when he finally shut up and silence fell across the bus. Not for long, though because the old man sitting behind me started snoring really loud. Needless to say, I did not get much sleep that night.

Arriving in Tucuman, there was so much rain, that we could not possibly do anything even if we wanted to. Arriving at the hostel, we asked what there was to do, and the man answered us with a whole bunch of nothing. We were out of there the very next day.

The Curse of Buenos Aires

2007-01-22T13:55:00.000-03:00

I have now spent a week in Buenos Aires. Most of my time here has been spent partying and randomly meeting people I had met elsewhere durring my trip. It has been very nice, but I have now been sucked in to the city. There is something about Buenos Aires that makes you want to stay. I have met people in my hostel that have been here for six months, and as exessive as that sounds, I can really see how that could happen...

In other news, I was supposed to be meeting some friends here in order to move up to Iguazu. Complications have arrised which have prevented this from happening, however. One of the girls has had all of her stuff stolen. They were in Bariloche waiting for the bus to take them to Buenos Aires, when some guy came from behind her, and stole her bag containing her passport, visa, camera, etc. This poor girl is now stuck in Buenos Aires until she can get a replacement passport. She seems to think that it will take only a week, but I am slightly more pessimistic. Frankly, I am not sure if I can afford to wait here much longer. I do not want to end up like those girls who have been in Buenos Aires for 6 months.

My plans for the future are pretty unclear as of right now. I still want to go to Iguazu, but I might delay it for a week or two to reduce the amount of time I spend in Brazil. I keep hearing that it is very expensive up there, so the longer I delay it, the more money I will save.

Natali update:

I have received messages from many people about this poor girl, so for those who care, here's the latest. She managed to acquire a new passport with absolutely no problems, much to my surprise. The embassy wanted to give her what they call a passing permit, which would allow her to continue with her trip, but she would not be able to go to many countries. When they told her this she cried and cried until they finally caved and gave her a full passport. I'm surprised that worked, but good for her.

She is currently involved in a telephone battle with American Express to have her travellers cheques replaced. Apparently it takes them 72 hours to investigate the claim, and several weeks for the cheques to be replaced. Frankly I'm shocked and appalled by this. It also does not help that the people on the phone are infuriatingly unhelpful. Natali's english is not very good, so she has asked me to talk to them several times, and each time I have flashbacks of that bitch in Punta del Diablo. Only this time I have the capability to really lay it in to these people - so much so in fact, that one of them hung up on me.

Punta del Diablo

2007-01-15T12:40:00.000-03:00

I kept hearing all these great things about this place called Punta del Diablo. Everyone kept saying it was really nice and cheap. The guide book I read made it sound like a fantastic little village with a really nice beach and no tourists. I was expecting to have a really excellent couple of days here before making my way up to Iquazu. How silly of me...

Let me tell you about my nightmare:

When I got here, I found out that there is not even a bus terminal, let alone a tourist information desk. That was easily surmountable since the bus happened to stop in front of the police station. I asked the policeman for directions to the nearest hostel, which he kindly gave. This was the last friendly person I talked to in Punta del Diablo.

I found the hostel with relative ease, but they were out of room (so much for this not being a touristy area) so they pointed directions to the only other hostel - as if talking to me was something degrading to them. Needless to say the other hostel was full too, and was also manned by some very rude and unfriendly people.

I now had nowhere to stay, a heavy bag on my back and the sun shining down almost unbearable heat, but the worst was yet to come.

Most of the people who come here stay in cabañas. These are basically little shared houses and they quickly became my last resort to have a roof over my head for the night. These cabañas are normally a cheap alternative for people travelling in groups, but since I was on my own I was looking at a pretty expensive couple of days, that is, of course, if I could find one at all.

The first place I went to had no cabañas left, obviously, as this place is not very popular with tourists. Still with my heavy bag and the sun pounding on me, I walked around until I found another place that rents these cabañas. A place run by the rudest elderly couple I have ever had the misfortune to come across. The man (who seems to be the one who runs the business) never spoke, he only ever mumbled and never even took his cigarette out of his mouth to do so. Even when he saw I was struggling to understand what he was saying. After a considerable amount of time the woman finally decided to step in and translate what he was saying into some sort of coherent Spanish. They were telling me to come back in half an hour, as they might have something then.

I don't thing that I have ever had to wait so long for 30 minutes to be up. I realised that this was probably my last chance to have a place for the night. It did seem that my luch was changing, however, because when I walked back into the office, they now had a place - nothing more than a shack with a toillet (but no toillet seat) and no shower - for me. Seeing this as my only opportunity, I grabbed it with both hands and told them I would take it for two nights.

I was asked to pay up front for both nights at 500 pesos a night (10 pounds). Quite expensive for South America, but it won't ruin me. Nonetheless, I did not have that kind of cash on me, so I asked where the nearest cash point was. Their answer is what will make me hate this place forever. there are no banks in Punta del Diablo. But not to worry, they were telling me, they accept Argentinian pessos. Thanks to this I had just enough in the two currencies to pay for the two nights, but this left me more or less pennyless and with no way to take money out.

Back I went to the police station to ask them how to get money, and if it was at all possible. I pointed to a kiosk where they sell bus tickets to the nearest town, an hour and a half away, which is where you need to go if you want to get some cash. Thankfully I had enough money to pay for the bus ride, but I had to wait until the morning for the next bus. I dread to think what would have happened to me if I did not have enough money to pay for the bus.

Thankfully my bad luck was at an end the next day. I woke up, got the bus, went to Chuy, took money out, and suddenly felt much better. I could actually enjoy my lunch; something which did not happen durring the meal the night before.

Chuy itself was a pretty nice little town just on the boarder with Brazil. Comhow this allows it to have shops on the main street selling duty free goods. When you take into account how cheap everything is here, it's amazing that they can have discounts on anything. It was really tempting to just buy everything, but I don't have any space in my bag as it is, so buying more stuff would be pretty silly.

On arrive back at Punta del Diablo, it became clear that it was this place that was giving me bad luck. Possible a curse cast by the devil, I don't know. The town had experienced a power outage in my abscence which fried the computer screen of the bus company. It didn't helpt that bitch behind the counter was ruder than ever.

Our conversation went something like this:
Me: Can I go to Monevideo tomorrow?

Bitch: I don't know. (She turns away making me think that she will ask someone. Eventually she turns around glaring at me as if to say "Why are you still here?")

Me: When will you know?

Bitch: I don't know.

Me: Why don't you know?

Bitch: My screen doesn't work.

Me: When will it work?

Bitch: I don't know

If my Spanish were a little better I would really have liked to give her some serious shit, but instead I walked away furious.

Not knowing what to do, I went to eat dinner, whish probably the best decision I had made since deciding to go to Punta del Diablo, because I met a really nice French couple that explained to me that I could buy a ticket on the bus, completely bypassing my friend the bitch.

On my last day in this aptly named hell hose, I went for a walk around and realised that it is actually a very nice place. What a shame that this string of unfortunate events made it impossible for me to enjoy myself. The beaches are very beautiful, and the fact that all the buildings are no more than two stories tall makes it very cute.

I'm back in Montevideo now, on my way up to Gualegauychu, a small village in the north of Argentina that starts carnival celebrations now. To get there I will have to go back down to Buenos Aires, which is in the completely opposite direction, because Gualegauychu is inaccessable from Uruguay, despite it being just on the boarder. This is because of the river that separates the two countries.

Montevideo

2007-01-09T11:10:00.000-03:00

I arrived here in Montevideo yesterday morning, and encountered my first problem in Uruguay. The cash machine would not let me take money out for some reason. I tried both cards and nothing worked. There was no need to panic, though, as I still have some traveller's cheques, but I'd like to save those for as long as I can. Still trying to save as much money as possible, I decided that I would have to forgo the luxury of getting a taxi, or even a bus, from the main station and walk to the hostel. It did not look very far on the map, but it ended up taking me about an hour and a half walking in the blistering heat with my big bag. Another problem that I had not thought of was that since I had no Uruguayan money, I could not buy any water on the way either. Needless to say, when I finally got to the hostel - which is located right in the centre of town - I no longer cared what the receptionist had to tell me about the price of a room, or what I got for that price (so much for me trying to be thrifty). I was just waiting for him to point me to the kitchen so I could get water, and the bathroom so I could take a shower.

Once I had all my stuff sorted out, and I felt normal again, I went for a walk around the old city. I was told that there is a lot of touristic stuff to do there, but I think the receptionist is on crack because there is one cathedral and one museum. Obviously, this took me about an hour. There are however a few plazas scattered around the old city. This is where I spent most of my day yesterday, sitting in the sun, listening to some music, and reading about Brazil trying to plan the rest of my trip.

In the evening I met some American guys at the hostel who currently live in Salvador (where I plan on being for the carnival). They told me all about their experience of the event, and gave me a few tips on how to not get robbed (e.g. don't take anything of value with you). We sat on the beach having dinner, watching the sun set and talking about Carnaval.

So after a day of being here, I feel like I've done everying there is to do. I'm probably going to end up at the beach again today, but I don't know how much longer I will stay. I was supposed to meet some friends here, but they're stuck in Buenos Aires (the most difficult place in the world to have to leave). They said they would try to be here by the end of the week, but frankly I don't know if I want to stay that long. I hear there are some much nicer beaches in Punto Esta, so I will probably spend a few days there before making my way up to Iguazu.

Sabbath

2007-01-07T15:15:00.000-03:00

On Saturday, I was invited to Bedchabad (I´m not sure if I spelled it correctly). It is a foundation set up by Israel to give the jewish community around the world the possibility to take part in ceremonies and rituals which are important to them. The sabbath is one such thing.

So off I went with five Israelis to this big dinner, and it was quite an experience. We got there, and started talking to people. I got to break out the few words I know in Hebrew. I think I confused the rabbi with that, because when I introduced myself in Hebrew, he kept speaking to me in what seemed to me to be gibberish. Everyone else understood, though, and they kindly explained to the rabbi that I don´t really speak Hebrew.

Once we were sat down, a few songs were sung. I tried to join in, but I still haven´t learned to read in Hebrew, so I just hummed a bit like I was told to do. Then everyone went to wash their hands. There is strictly no talking between the time when you wash your hands and when you start eating. I´m sure I was explained the significance of this, but I can´t remember which is a shame.

The meal itself was very nice. It was my first kosher meal, and frankly, I could not taste the difference between it and the food I normally eat, except for the meat being overcooked for my taste. To be kosher, you must not have the blood of the animal in your mouth, so a rare steak is completely out of the question. Good thing for me, I´m not jewish, so I don´t have to be kosher.

I wanted to take pictures of the whole thing, but that too was not impossible. On the sabbath, you are not allowed to use electricity. This includes the batteries in my camera. It would have been nice to have some picutres, but I was not about to insult my hosts in such a way. Shame.

Cordoba

2007-01-04T14:57:00.000-03:00

I have been in Cordoba for about a week now, and I´m having a great time here. I got here for new year's eve, because I was told that the people here really know how to party. They were right. The only thing I found really weird was that the club did not open until about 1 am. That means we were partying in the hostel at midnight. Once the place did open, however, it was totally worth the wait. It was in a field with three tents all playing different kinds of music, and there were so many people there. It was really nice being outside until the sun came up at 6 am. I would have liked to stay longer, but some people had already passed out in the field at that point, and the bouncers were kicking us out. So despite that, I still had a fantastic time.

The next couple of days were spent walking around the city with people desperately trying to find somewhere that will sell us food. Everything was closed, so it was more difficult than it might sound. The only places we could even hope to find were fast food restaurants. I´m sick and tired of eating burgers and pizzas. I'm currently on a diet that consists almost entirely of vegetables, because of this.

Yesterday I went to visit Ernesto "Che" Guevara's house. He lived in a village about an hour away by bus. I think I was expecting a bit too much from this, though. People told me about it, and I got really excited, but I don't know why. It really is nothing more than a house with some pictures in it. It was still nice, but over very quickly.

Today I went sky diving for my first time. I've been wanting to do this since the new year, but the weather has been a bit cloudy, so it hasn´t been possible so far. Last night, I was sure the weather would be bad this morning, because it was a really cloudy night. Accepting this theory as fact, I decided it would be a really good idea to go out last night. I didn´t get back until about 6 am, and this morning I was woken up by some friends at about 9:30. Needless to say I was quite tired, amongst other things, but I went anyway.

We were the first people to arrive, so we didn´t have to wait for everyone else to finish before going, which was nice. I was picked to go first, which did not bother me nearly as much as I expect it should have. In fact at no point durring the whole experience was I scared. I kept wondering why I wasn't because I'm usually pretty scared of heights and here I was jumping out of a plane. I suppose I just felt really safe because everyone looked really professional. They gave us a crash course in the positions we need to know for when we are in the air, and then they strap you up, put you on the smallest plane on the planet, and push you off.

There were four of us on the plane. The pilot, the instructor, the guy who tapes the fall, and me. It was so cool to see everything for miles, being above the clouds, and not being supported by anything. There is, however, a really strong pressure on your chest from the wind which I should have expected, really.

When we landed, I was an adrenalin high. It was so much fun, but being the first person to go, I was surrounded by people barely able to keep their eyes open from the night before, so no one wanted to talk to me. That was a bit annoying.

I think it's about time for me to move on again. I think I want to head towards Uruguay because I hear that it's quite cheap and there are some really nice beaches there.

Rafting

2006-12-29T13:18:00.000-03:00

Yesterday was really interesting. We went rafting at the Rios Andes. It's a level three river, which is pretty much average. They are graded out of five, and people I have talked to all seem to agree that anything below two is pretty boring. Frankly I don't think I would have wanted to try something higher than a three on my first time. It was scary enough as it was.

We got there pretty early in the morning, and they gave us some wet suits a rain coat, a life vest and a helmet. All this equipment was really uncomfortable when you take into account that it was 30 degrees, plus it made us all look like retarded space monkeys. Once we were all kitted out, we were given an explanation of what to do in case we fall out of the raft. I suppose it´s pretty safe, as there were two guys in kayaks following us and ready to pick us up if we fell out. We were then given a short training session on how to row, and the commands that the guide would yell out. There were pretty much only three commands: forward, backward and get inside. Forward means you have to row forwards, backward that you row backward, and get inside that you have to get inside the raft. This sounds strange, but you don´t sit in the boat, you sit on its side.

Once we finally got to start, it was really nice to have the wet suit that made us so hot before. The water was freezing cold, and a slightly worrying brown colour. The guide explained to us that this is because there was a flood three days ago, and the water level had risen a whole metre in that amount of time. This worked in our favour, as the river was quite tame before. There were quite a few rapids, but not enough so that we were rowing the entire time. This was really nice actually, as I was really tired by the end. I don´t think I could have managed to do much more. Afterward we hung out by the pool for most of the day.

Today, I head off to Cordoba where I will be spending new year's eve. Sagy is going to see some bridge somewhere. We've decided to split up for a while, and meet again some time in Brazil.

Mendoza

2006-12-27T12:39:00.000-03:00

We left Bariloch a few days ago with some friends we picked up. We were to arrive on christmas eve in Mendoza and for some reason we could not see anything wrong with that. Basically we got here and everything was closed. People in Argentina celebrate christmas a day before with a big dinner, so finding a place to eat involved much walking around the city. Only one place was open, and frankly it was pretty disgusting.

Christmas day was pretty horrible in that litterally everything was closed. This was one wasted day just doing nothing interesting. Our plans to do a secret santa were foiled by lazy people not working on national holidays. Damn them!

Yesterday was quite alot of fun, though. Mendoza is right in the heart of the Argentinian wine country. There are many wineries that all produce a variety of very good wine and someone came up with a genious idea of doing a tour of these on bikes. Needless to say, the scorching heat didn´t exactly help the countless number of glasses of wine we had.

Chocolate Factory

2006-12-20T10:56:00.000-03:00

Bariloche is famous for it's chocolate, and with very good reason. There are tens of chocolate shops along the main street. I almost wonder how they all manage to stay in business, but then I taste their chocolate, and it all makes sense. There is one shop which is so big, it is pretty much a supermarket that sells nothing but chocolate and ice cream (another local specialty, which is also delicious). This same company has a factory in town which is open to the public. Frankly, when I heard this, I was imagining something along the lines of a guided tour where they tell you all about the chocolate making process, and ending with some free samples. What we got was somewhat disappointing. It was free entrance, which is always nice, but we soon understood why. All you do is walk into a room with some glass walls behind which you watch people working. We were hoping that this would take up an afternoon after the Spanish lesson, but it only lasted a couple of minutes. Following our disappointment, we decided to go in search of another chocolate factory that someone told us about. This place is a little out of town, but we walked there anyway only to find that it is still under construction.

It seemed that luck was not on our side that day, until we noticed that right next door to this factory in the making was a gigantic slide. This might sound childish (probably because it is), but we both really wanted to go. There is a chairlift that takes you up the hill where a really nice viewpoint of Bariloche and its lake can be found. From there they equipped us with a sled and sent us down the hill at a really fast pace. It didn't last very long, but it was definitely worth it.

La Montaña

2006-12-20T10:31:00.000-03:00

We've had a couple of days of Spanish lessons and it's only helped to remind me how much I hate learning languages. There is way too much memorising. I'm finding it very difficult (big surprise) mostly because the teacher only speaks to me in Castellano and as much as I know that that is the best way to learn a language, after the two hours are over, my brain is pretty much dead. Luckily the night life in Bariloche is quite nice, so there are plenty of good places to go and relax after a hard day studying.

Last night for example, we went to a truly excellent local bar. The atmosphere was something that I have never experienced before. There were two classical guitars on a stage which seemed as if just about anyone could pick up and play, as well as a microphone which anyone could use to sing. I got the impression that everyone in Argentina can either sing, play the guitar, or both really really well. There was a sort of band that played most of the night, but one of the members was the owner of the place, so he had to go and serve drinks every so often. During the times he was on stage, there seemed to be an exchange of insults between him and the audience. I failed to understand most of it, but they were apparently all very funny, because everyone would laugh after each one. This really was some cultural experience.

El Bolson

2006-12-17T13:03:00.000-03:00

El Bolson is a small hippy town just south of Bariloche. We were told that there are some good parties there, as well as a nice market on Saturdays. Our first night there was spent in an Israeli hostel. It was really strange because everything was in Hebrew, and everyone would come up to me speaking Hebrew and being surprised that I'm not from the same country as them. They were all very friendly, though, and I had a pretty good time, as I was able to witness my first Hanuka. Some candles were lit, some doughnut type pastries were eaten, and wine was drunk. It was quite amusing.

The next day we went to the market, which was quite alot smaller than I was expecting, but we got to try some of the local beer made by the hippies. It was really nice, there were all kinds of different flavours. I had a raspberry beer, and Sagy had a strawberry one. It was really nice. The rest of the day was spent partying with the hippies. I had a relatively good time in El Bolson.

We are now back in Bariloche where we start our Spanish (or Castellano, which is what they speack here) lessons tomorrow. Hopefully it won't be too difficult.

Pucon

2006-12-17T12:51:00.000-03:00

We arrived in Pucon in Chile with the intention of going up to climb a volcano. The Wednesday on which we arrived was very grey and gloomy. We went to shop around for a good price on an excursion up to the volcano. Apparently it is necessary to have a guide with you. Frankly, that sounds fair because I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to mountain climbing. Unfortunately, everyone was telling us the same thing: the weather will be really bad for the next couple of days, so no one will be going up. We all agreed that we should probably wait a couple of days to see if the weather cleared up.

In the meantime, we needed to find something to occupy ourselves with. There really is very little to do in Pucon, other than climb the mountain. The only other thing that sounded amusing was the hot springs. We had been told that there was one spring where the let your bring your own drinks, so that's the one we went to on Thursday. It was actually a very enjoyable day. The weather was really nice, but we could not climb because the weather on the mountain made climbing too dangerous.

On Friday we were once again told that climbing would once again be impossible. We had had enough of the town by that point, so we decided to go down to El Bolson in stead.

Seven Lakes (Siete Lagos)

2006-12-17T12:37:00.000-03:00

On Tuesday we rented a car with a couple of Israelis that we met in our hostel. With four of us it made it worthwhile to do this, as a bus would have been more expensive. We also rented some camping equipment to try and save as much money as possible.

The first day in the car was really nice. We stopped several times to appreciate the lakes, and we played cards in the car between the nice views. We eventually arrived in San Martin de los Andes where we would end up spending the night. Frankly there is not much to do there, but we did manage to find one bar which was quite nice. I really like the 'going out' culture over here, because people don't start showing up at bars until 1 or 2 in the morning; even on Tuesday nights.

The next day, we woke up only to find that our tent had leaked through the night. Luckily it hadn't rained hard, so our stuff was not very wet, but it was a bit of a worry for the next few days. We were lucky that it did not rain again during the night for the duration of our camping.

After packing all of the stuff into the car, we set off for Pucon in Chile

Bariloche 2

2006-12-11T18:06:00.000-03:00

At this time of year in Argentina all the schools have finished, and all the graduates come to Bariloche to party. We´ve been joining them quite regularly. In fact we´ve done little else in our few days here. There are some very nice bars in the area, including a brewery with a very nice selection of beer.

Our plan is to rent a car and go to the Seven Lakes, and maybe even cross the boarder and go to Chile to see a volcano. We´re doing that tomorrow, and it will take a few days. There will be another two Israelis in the car, so that we can split the cost of the rental. We hear it´s amazing, so I am looking forward to it.

We have also booked some Spanish lessons for when we get back to Bariloche. It´s costing a bit of money, but frankly I think we need them in order to progress in the language.

Bariloche

2006-12-09T17:22:00.000-03:00

Here we are finally in Bariloche. It took us quite a while to get here, but it was a pretty enjoyable journey. We met a Russian girl on the bus from Rio Gallegos to Comodoro Rivadavia who was also headed for Bariloche. Our plan was to go watch a movie and maybe go to see the petroleum museum, seeing as Comodoro Rivadavia is not a touristic city. Once again our best laid plans were foiled. The movie theatre is closed on Thursdays, for some reason, and the petroleum museum is closed forever. The latter is far less surprising however, as I really can´t imagine that it is very interesting. Fortunately for us, the weather was exceptional, and there is a very nice beach. We stayed there pretty much all day watching the local children throw each other into the ocean fully clothed. None of us could understand why they did it, but they seemed to really enjoy it. It was a very enjoyable day.

It was only after another 14 hours on a bus that we arrived in Bariloche. Frankly, I was surprised at how cold it was. I honestly thought that we´d left the cold in Ushuaia, especially considering how hot it was in Comodoro Rivadavia. The cold here is not like in the UK, though. The sun is out, and the sky is very blue, so at least it´s not depressing which is nice because we plan on staying her for a couple of weeks maybe. We definitely want to get some Spanish lessons while we´re here. We´ve managed to learn enough to communicate, but we´d like to learn a bit of grammar as well so that we don´t sound like spastics. So one week here will be spent getting lessons and the following week will be for treks and maybe even some white water rafting. Neither one of us has ever done it, so it should be a great experience.

Ushuaia

2006-12-06T19:26:00.000-03:00

The bus ride to Ushuaia was rather interesting... we left Puerto Natales at 6:30 in the morning on a really squeaky bus. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep, but the squeaking made that impossible. Finally, when I thought that sleep was imminent, I was rudely awakened by the bus steward because we had to get off. We had to change bus in what can only be described as the middle of nowhere. We couldn´t see anything for miles, but somehow the buses knew to meet there. Frankly, we couldn´t figure out where.

Upon arrival in Ushuaia, we were quite hungry. We dropped off our bags at the hostel, and went out looking for a restaurant. We ended up finding an all you can eat meat place. ALL YOU CAN EAT!!! Plus, it only cost 30 pesos (6 pounds)! What an excellent place.

The next day, we went on a boat ride on the Beagle Canal. This is where you can see yet more sea lions, but most of all the last lighthouse at the bottom of the world. It´s nothing special, I suppose, but it´s an amusing landmark. It´s pretty much just a light house on a rock. It´s fully automated, so there isn´t even a person to wave to once you get there.

On the second day, we went to the Ushuaia National Park where we did a nice easy trek. It only took us about 4 hours, which is nice because then we had the rest of the day to do what we liked. It was also probably my favorite of the treks so far, as we got to see many more animals than on any of the previous ones. The whole park is not very well marked, though. We ended up walking along a road for an hour not being entirely sure if it was the right way. It got us to a bus, though, and that took us back to Ushuaia where we went to the aquarium. It was nice, because all the animals can be found in the Beagle Canal. In the evening we went to see a show called HMS Beagle. It was a really nice musical about Charles Darwin´s voyage to Tierra del Fuego. The entire auditorium (including the stage) was a life size scale model of the HMS Beagle. We both ended up learning a lot about Darwin´s life and his adventures in South America.

Right now we are on our way up north to Bariloche. We´ve had to make a stop in Rio Gallegos, the most pointless town in the world. It´s a hub town, so every traveller must stop by here at some point, but there really is absolutely nothing to do, so everyone avoids it like the plague. We had to stop off here once to get to El Chalten, but managed to get a bus out minutes after arriving. This time we got a bus out of here a couple hours later. We feared we might have to spend a night here, so this is relatively good news. Tomorrow we stop off in Commodore Rivadavia for about 12 hours where we´ll be able to get a bus to Bariloche. I´m sure we´ll find something to occupy ourselves whilst we´re there.

Torres del Paine

2006-12-02T14:00:00.000-03:00

The bus came to pick us up from the hostel at 7:30 on Monday morning. It´s a three hour ride to Torres del Paine. The entrance to the park costs 15000 Chilean Pesos. This extortionate price also includes a really bad map of the park, so it was all bad...

The first day was quite fun. It was pretty difficult, as it was quite hilly, and our bag was at its heaviest since we had not eaten any of the food yet. The weather wasn´t great on this day, and it was actually quite cold by the time we got to the camp site. We found a group of Israelis which we had met in Puerto Madrin, and played cards with them to make the time go by.

On the second day, we went to see the Torres del Paine peaks. They were very nice. We stayed there for a while just taking pictures. We actually got quite lucky, as the sky cleared up by the time we got there. Everyone says that there is very little point of doing this park when the weather is cloudy, and I can see why that is. But as nice as those peaks were, we had to move on to the next section of the park. We went back to the camp site, packed up all our stuff and moved on to the next camp site which was 24Km away. It took us about 8 hours to walk all the way, and we weren´t sure if we would make it before the sun went down. By the time we got there, not only was the sun still up, but we had enough time to pitch the tent, and start cooking before it got dark.

The third day was a bit of a disaster. It didn´t stop raining, so we took the cowards way out and stayed in the tent all day. In a stroke of genius, we had brought some playing cards with us. This kept us occupied for the rest of the day. It was quite nice to relax for a bit, as the previous day was very demanding.

By the fourth day the weather had cleared up, and we went up to the French Valley. It was quite nice. It´s the only place in the world where the formation of the mountain is made up of one layer sedimentary, one layer of granite, and then another layer of sedimentary rock on top. Frankly, neither one of us knows what that means, but it sounds impressive. This was again another easy day. The whole trek lasted maybe 5 hours, and we didn´t have most of our equipment with us, as we left it in the camp site.

On the fifth day we decided to go home, as we'd had enough of the whole camping thing, and the only thing left to do was to go see yet another glacier. Plus we only had rice left to eat, and we were getting mighty sick of it.

It was really nice getting back yesterday and having a shower, some meat, and a drink. All of them were well deserved, I think.

Puerto Natales

2006-12-02T13:18:00.000-03:00

We arrived in Puerto Natales late on Saturday. Luckily we had made a reservation at a hostel. The only problem was that we had to find it in the dark in a place we´d never seen before. Some pretty dodgey looking people were trying to get us into a taxi, but we were having none of it. They kept telling us that this hostel was miles out of town, and that it would take a long time to walk there. The truth is that it was only a few blocks away, and only tooks us about 5 minuts to walk to.

Once we were settled in at out hostel, we decided to try and check out the night life of this little village. We walked around for a while looking for even one bar. Eventually we stumbled on to some Austrian girls who were in the same situation as us... looking for a drink, but failing to find one. We eventually found one of the two bars in this place, and it turned out to be quite nice. It was an amusing night, because we were speaking german. Something I hadn´t done in a long time.

The next day we had to rent some camping equipment for our treking experience in Torres del Paine. We had a pretty hard time finding anywhere open, as it was a Sunday. There were a couple, but it took us all day to find a reasonably priced one.

We also had to buy some food for what would be a 5 day expedition. Seeing as neither one of us had ever done anything like this before, we didn´t really know what kind of food to take. We bought three kilos of rice, 1.5 kilos of pasta, and lots of canned foods. Basically, there was far too much rice, and the canned stuff was really heavy to have to carry.

El Chalten

2006-11-25T10:03:00.000-03:00

We headed up to El Chalten a couple of days ago. We should have realised on the bus there that it was going to be a hole. Most of the 4 hour ride was on dirt roads. When we finally got there, it was pitch black, so finding our hostel was a bit of a pain. El Chalten is a village whose population is pretty much solely made up of tourists going on treks in the mountains. Most of the few buildings there are either hostels, restaurants, or shops selling over priced crap with "El Chalten" written on it.

On the first day there, we went on a trek to the laguna de tores. We were told that it was flat, so we decided that it was a good idea to start with it and warm up for the bigger ones. It was really windy, which means it was annoying as we were sweating a lot from the walking. We were hot from the exercise, but the wind made us cold again. When we finally got to the laguna de tores, it was really cloudy, which means that we missed out on the nice view of the mountain range. The whole thing took us about 5 hours.

The second day, we went to laguna de los tres. This is a lake which is very high up in the mountains, and is frozen even at this time of year. You can pay a guide to take you across the lake, but it was really expensive for what is only a little more than what we did for free. This trek was quite difficult. It was pretty much 4 hours of up hill walking, the last hour of which is extremely steep. The pay off was really worth it, though. The clouds had cleared up by the time we got to the top, so we had a perfect view of mount Fitz Roy. Although, for some reason, my ankle started hurting at the top of the mountain. I´ve been limping ever since, much to the dismay of Sagy, who always wants me to go faster.

Yesterday we took the bus back from El Chalten to El Calafate, because we want to go to Torres del Paine in Chile and this is the only possible route. The bus ride back should have been quite painless, leaving at 1pm and arriving at about 5 or 6 in the evening leaving us plenty of time to buy necessary equipment for our trekking adventures in Chile. Our best laid plans were foiled by the bus breaking down in the middle of the desert. It took a mechanic a couple hours to get out there, and when he eventually told us that the bus could not be fixed, we all crammed in to the back of his van so he could take us to El Calafate. We met a Swiss couple with whom we played cards to pass the time. In the end, it was actually quite pleasant.

Today we´re moving again. We have to go to Puerto Natales in Chile, as it is the closest city to the Torres del Paine national park. We hope to do several days of trekking in the park, and camping along the way. This might be a problem with my bad ankle, but we´ll see about that if it still hurts tomorrow.

Perito Moreno and Upsala Glaciers

2006-11-21T14:21:00.000-03:00

Once we'd arrived in El Calafate, we spent a day looking around to find the best deal on an excursion to the glaciers. They all seemed pretty much the same, so we went for the cheapest one. Frankly, there is not much to tell. We just looked at a massive block of ice for a few days. The Perito Moreno glacier was quite cool, though. It moves about 2 metres per day, which means you can see entire chunks of it fall off quite regularly. Quite frankly though, there´s only so much time you can spend looking at a glacier before it becomes really boring.

To see the Upsala glacier, we took a boat out on to Lago Argentina (the largest lake in Argentina) and spent the entire day on the boat looking at glaciers. This would have been painfully boring had we not met a couple girls who were willing to play cards with us. I think they were the only people on the boat that were about our age. Everyone here in El Calafate is at least old enough to be out parents. It doesn´t seem to be much of an attraction for younger people like us.

The night life here leaves a lot to be desired as well. We went out last night to the only bar in the village. To be honest, it was quite nice. The only problem is that it was really expensive. El Calafate is mostly made up of tourists, and the prices reflect that very much. Someone told us that it is the most expensive town in all of Argentina, and although I don´t know if it is true, I definitely believe it.

This morning we went horse riding up to Lago Argentina. I think I uploaded a picture of it. The colour of the water is a beautiful turquoise because of the minerals in the glaciers. We had some awesome views of the lake from the horses. They took us up on a hill over looking it, and then through a field at the bottom on the way back. It was my first time on a horse, so it was a bit daunting, but once I realised that this was these were the tamest horses in the world, I loosened up, and really got into it. I was adventurous enough to try a gallop for a bit. Overall, it was a fantastic couple of hours. We then went back to the tour operator´s building and had mate. I´m becoming a bit of a mate fan...

Today we're setting off for El Chalten, which is an even smaller village overrun by even more tourists than El Calafate. Apparently there are some really nice treks to do there. Hopefully that's true. It´s part of the same national park, but it´s in the mountains. We met a woman last night who said she´d just come from there, and spent the last couple of days in the rain. We can only hope that this won´t happen to us.

Whales and Penguins

2006-11-16T21:52:00.000-03:00

It took us 18 hours by bus to get to Puerto Madrin. We arrived at about 6am, and had to find a hostel. Surprisingly, they were almost all fully booked, except for one. Of course, this was the worst hostel on the planet. It costs as much as the one in Buenos Aires, but has only one bathroom/toilet, there are no locks in the rooms, and no lockers anywhere. Also, at breakfast there is no milk, which is a total pain. I suppose it´s better than sleeping on the street, though.

We hadn´t realised how little there was to do here, if you don´t go on the guided tour of the peninsula. Basically, yesterday we just went to THE museum, which was really expensive, and beyond shit. There was absolutely nothing of interest there. In the evening we went to a bar which was recommended to us by one of the workers at the hostel in Buenos Aires. He used to work there, and told us that if we mentioned his name, and pretended like we were best friends they might give us some free drinks. Sadly it did not work.

Today, we went on the guided tour, which was really nice. It´s an entire day, and we went around the coast of the peninsula. There is some really interesting, and beautiful wildlife. The main attraction was a boat ride to go whale watching. We saw many whales, and some of them were only metres away from the boat. It was an amazing experience. I also really enjoyed the penguins. There isn´t really much to say about them, I just like penguins.

Tomorrow, we move on to somewhere better. We´re going to El Calafate, but to get there, we have to make a stop in Rio Gallegos. In total it will probably be over 20 hours on a bus. The buses here are alright, though. It´s pretty much like going business class on a plane. The seats stretch back so that you´re almost lying down. I really had no problem sleaping last time.

El Calafate is where we can see the exploding glaciers. Again, I haven´t asked many questions, but find the name very intriguing. I´m sure it´ll be something I will never forget.

Puerto Madrin

2006-11-13T20:29:00.000-03:00

After having spent the last week in Buenos Aires, we've decided that there's very little left for us to do, so we bought ourselves some bus tickets to Puerto Madrin. It's a bit further south, but still on the east coast of Argentina. It'll take us 18 hours to get there, but everyone says it's something quite remarkable. There are penguins and whales there, which you can get quite close to, apparently. Frankly I know very little about it, but it has been so highly recommended by everyone that I feel I must go. We leave tomorrow at 12:30, and arrive at 6:30 am the next day. The bus apparently has beds, so with any luck it'll be more comfortable than the place.

San Telmo Market and Boca Jr football match

2006-11-13T20:10:00.000-03:00

Everything is closed on Sundays in Buenos Aires, so I was scared there would be little to do, but I could not have been more wrong.

San Telmo (one of the districts) is completely closed to cars, and they have a massive market. It was no other market I had ever been to. Of course, there were many stalls selling old junk such as obsolete mobile telephones, type writers, and black and white TV sets; and there was a busker on just about every corner playing all types of different music, but what really made it stand out from all the other markets in the world was the number of people who had themed stalls. For example, there was a man dressed as Neptune and surrounded by women dressed as mermaids. There was a family dressed as Eskimos sitting around an igloo. We also saw Peter Pan, and Captain Hook, amongst others. And the most bizarre part about it was that they were not selling anything. I suppose they were there purely for atmosphere.

After the market, we were bussed over to Boca (one of the poorest districts) to watch the local football team in action. It was a very agitated atmosphere. The local fans were taunting the away team constantly, which helped me learn a few rude words in Spanish. The only part about it which I really could have done without was how the away fans were retaliating. Because of the way the stadium was set up, the away fans were directly above us, so they would spit (or at least I hope that's what it was) and drop things on us. In the end, Boca won 3-1, securing their place at the top of the league.

For dinner, we finally found a place that sold really nice Argentinian meat. I had the biggest steak I've ever had in my life, and we shared a bottle of wine, but that still only cost me 7 pounds!

Buenos Aires Zoo

2006-11-10T18:15:00.000-03:00

This morning, we woke up early, thinking that we had to vacate the room, and move to another hostel. We had gone looking last night for other hostels, but it was quite late (2am) and no one wanted to give us a reservation. I suppose it worked out quite well, though, because it turns out that we didn't have to change hostels. We now have a reservation for another three days here.

Once that was all sorted out, we went to the zoo. People had told us about how nice it was, so we decided to try it. Overall, I'd say it was ok. Nothing special, but a nice relaxing day. There were all the standard animals, such as lions, tigers, elephants, etc. but when you come in, there are otters, and wild birds roaming the area. It's quite nice to see that not all of the animals are being kept in captivity. For lunch, we bought something called a super pancho, which we thought was going to be an Argentinian dish. It turns out that it's nothing more than a hot dog.

Then we went to a mate bar to try our first mate (pronounced MAT eh). This is a traditional Argentinian drink, which is much like tea. It's quite nice... we both liked it, and will probably have more some other time.

The hostel has organised a BBQ for tonight, so we'll go to that, and maybe a club after. Tomorrow we'll probably start giving some thought to going to another city.

Pictures

2006-11-09T18:26:00.000-03:00

After uploading the picture of Eva Perron's mausaleum to the blog, I realised how much of a pain it was, so I'll just put all the pictures I take on this website:

http://s120.photobucket.com/albums/o188/anytimesoon1/

Feel free to go on there and check out all the pictures I take.

Buenos Aires

2006-11-09T18:04:00.000-03:00

It's really nice here. The city reminds me very much of Nice. The weather is really nice, and the people are friendly. The hostel where I'm currently staying is clean and modern looking, although quite expensive at 26 pesos per night (about 5 pounds). We're getting kicked out tomorrow because other people have bookings, so we'll have to find somewhere else to stay. This really isn't a problem because there are many other hostels in area.

We might stay here another few days and then move on to the next city. We still don't know where that will be, but we will start talking to other travellers and see what they recommend.

We found out that Creamfields is on saturday, so if we can get a ticket tomorrow we'll go there. Apparently there are many of these events in South America, so if we miss this one, there will be more.

Day 2

2006-11-09T17:53:00.000-03:00

WOW! This has been such a productive day. When I woke up, I still didn't know where Sagy was. Luckily, I had sent him an email telling thim the name of the hostel I was staying at, and the number of the room. This hostel (Portal del Sur) had a "city tour" which started at 11.00 am. We met at this hostel at 10.30, and chatted until the beginning of the tour. I found the name of this tour quite misleading, as we only visited the cemetary, and not the whole city. I took many pictures of this cemetary. The picture is of Eva Peron's Mausaleum

After that, we went to a modern art museum (which was shit), then to a japanese garden (which was about as japanese as I am), then to a planetarium (which was closed), and then enjoyed the sunshine late into the day.

Later in the evening, we went to dinner in a nice restaurant that served us a really nice steak. Followed by a nice bar hopping session.

Finally here!!!!

2006-11-08T00:14:00.000-03:00

Alright! So I left the house on Monday morning. It's now 1.30 am on wednesday, and I have finally arrived. The reason it's taken so long? Iberia is the worst airline in the world.

We were delayed at Heathrow for an hour and a half. This is annoying, but really it has to be expected. The problem was that when we got to Madrid, they would not let us on the connecting flight, because transferring our luggage would have taken too long (or something). Frankly I don't know why we weren't allowed on the flight. And that's where the problem lies. Once we had been told that we were staying in Madrid, Iberia kept sending us from one end of the airport to the other telling us that we would get a hotel room for the night, and be put on the next flight out. The only problem with that is that no one seemed to have the authority to give us the room. Iberia totally failed to let us know what was going on, where we had to go, what we had to do. Basically, we got fed up at about 2 am and made a fuss until we got a bus taking us to a hotel.

Now let me explain, when I say "we", I do not mean Sagy and me. There was a group of seven of us going from Heathrow to Buenos Aires, and we all got to know eachother, brought together with our hatred for Iberia.

So I'm now finally in Buenos Aires, and I have no idea where Sagy is. He was supposed to text me the address of the hostel he's staying at, but I somehow lost my phone in the whole Iberia fiasco which means that contact with anyone is not impossible. D'OH!

Right, so tomorrow I'll try and find some sandals, and meet up with Sagy, and then maybe the whole adventure can finally get started.

Leaving Tomorrow

2006-11-05T12:01:00.000-03:00

Alright... I leave for South America tomorrow. First stop: Buenos Aires, Argentina. It will be the beginning of a half year long voyage into the unknown.

So I depart from Heathrow at 18:50 GMT, and make my first stop in Madrid. Hopefully, this is where I'll meet Sagy, my travelling companion. We'll then take off from Madrid at 00:05 local time, and land in Buenos Aires at 08:20 local time. We're hoping that landing early in the morning will work in our favour, as we have nowhere to stay once we arrive, so this way we'll have plenty of time until night falls.

I still haven't learned a word of Spanish yet, so that might be a slight niggle. Sagy says he has a phrase book, and between us we speak four different languages, so it should be alright...

I was just finishing off packing my bag, but that was boring, so I decided to start this blog. I'll try and update as often as possible, but I'm not sure how much access to computers (and the internet) I'll have over the next 6 months, so keep checking in every once in a while.