Latin Reward

Rio again

2009-01-17T09:04:00.000-08:00

We flew back to Rio for the last three days to relax and enjoy ourselves prior to our return. We stayed in Ipanema, which is a great place for beaches, sights and walking about. Certainly where I would go for a first visit to Rio. (Ipanema or Leblon. Copacabana is nice and central - but run-down, everywhere else wouldn't give you that beach experience). We sat at the pool atop the hotel and I went bright red. Which was just a bit annoying. T was not in the least sympathetic, which was fair enough.

Corcavado

We went back to the handbag shop T had spotted earlier and bought me a pair of shoes and no handbag. Go figure. Other than that we relaxed. Which was nice.

Our hotel couldn't put us up for the third night (actually, they might have been able to, but the reception staff were so useless that we gave up asking - their loss and, as it turned out, our gain) so we had a scout around for somewhere else to go. I spotted a nice looking place on Laterooms and so we went. It was fantastic. It's up in Santa Theresa (where the tram goes to), so is probably not suitable for a first visit - as the main attractions and the beaches aren't all that close. However, it was lovely and quiet and there was a superb local bar just at the end of the street.

We got upon our last day and took the bus to town. We escaped the bus with our lives and wandered to the cathedral (it was the closest bit of shade to shelter us from the midday sun)

Inside the cathedral

After wandering briefly and posting some stuff home, we had lunch. Opposite or table in the square was a sign which was representative of many that we had seen all over Brazil on this trip. It is some kind of message of hope for the forthcoming Obama presidency in the USA. In Salvador, we saw T-Shirts with a picture of Barack on it and the slogan "Yes We Can" underneath. It's really interesting to observe how the event seems to have had impacts (and positive ones at that) all over the world (or, at least, the bits of it I know about). What a contrast to the experiences I had back in November 2004 when I was in a very despondent Chapel Hill, North Carolina after W had re-claimed the presidency.

Obama-mania

We left Rio on a BA flight at 23:25, homeward bound. Another adventure was coming to a close.

Recife

2009-01-17T08:56:00.001-08:00

We had a straightforward flight to Recife and took a quick taxi ride to our hotel which was on Boa Viagem beach. We checked into our 70's themed room and took an instant dislike to the place. The beach outside was pleasant enough - in a Vila Velha kind of way - but wouldn't be relaxing in the slightest.

Busy beach

We decided to get a taxi across to Olinda (the other side of Recife) and had our dinner there. It was a poor man's cross between the bustle of Salvador and the architecture of Ouro Preto. We watched sunset over Recife;

Sunset over Recife

We ate our dinner and then took a taxi back to our hotel through the rank smelling streets of Recife. We decide to get out of Dodge.

This proved to be a little more problematic than we expected due to the fact that the woman at the GOL airlines desk insisted that we pay a small fortune to change our flights. I had a bit of a hissy fit (T got the brunt of it, for the heinous crime of wanting a cup of coffee) and then we decided to go back to the hotel. Rebook the flight and ignore the GOL woman. I redeemed myself somewhat with T by getting a refund for the flights we no longer needed.

We were heading back to Rio for the last three days - staying in a hotel that we had been to before on our last trip.

Goodbye Recife - we didn't give you much of a chance - but you blew it anyway.

Salvador - ii

2009-01-17T08:36:00.000-08:00

We liked Salvador. It's got a bit of an edge to it, but it's manageable. It felt to us a bit like Cartagena in Colombia, which we had loved during our last trip.

Salvador is a major, bustling city, but the central part has undergone a tourist-led revival. We were staying in the Pelorinho (the old bit in the middle) which was pretty much completely touristy.

Tourist telephones

We also saw some more Samba drummers. A bit more presentable that those in Buzios, but equally keen.

Oludum drummers

During the rest of our stay, we completed the laundry; got some stamps; visited an old convent - now a top class hotel; saw more funicular elevators; had sundowners on the roof of the hotel; ate in a lovely Italian restaurant and generally chilled.

We arose to get our flight to our last location - Recife.

Salvador - i

2009-01-08T05:34:00.000-08:00

We got a pre-paid taxi into Salvador and went straight to our hotel. I'd stayed in the same hotel in October 2007 after I'd sailed across from Tenerife on Bark Europa. I'd really liked Salvador and wanted to show it to T. I'd also really liked the hotel and it was the only one that we had pre-booked from the UK (apart from our first few nights in Rio).

I'm not the only person who likes the hotel "Casa do Amarelindo"; it's the #1 hotel in all of South America, according to Trip Advisor. T likes it too - it's a hit.

Our first afternoon was spent in the Cantina da Lua bar/cafe, which sits beside one of the main squares in the old town. It's a great way to get to see the vibe of this area, as the world passes you by as you sit watching it. We even saw a couple that we had met in Vitoria, but they had passed by us before we recognised them.

We did little but chill out on our first day.

Day two (Tuesday) saw us much more active. We located a lavanderia and dropped off our washing; went to the market to look at tat, look at the cellars and watch some Capoeira; wandered through the rather run down "cidade baixa";

Faded elegance

We got a funicular railway (inclined plane) back up to the tourist bit;

Top of the lift

We bought some anti-itching cream for our mossie bites and some shampoo for T; swam a bit; went to a condomble blessing ceremony (in the first slave-built church in Salvador);

Condomble

We had a pizza and some beers in a bar right next to a square where a band was playing and ... went to bed.

Belo Horizonte - again.

2009-01-08T04:41:00.000-08:00

We eventually set off from the hotel and got to the bus station in Ouro Preto to find out that the next bus was full and that we'd have to wait an hour and a half until we could leave. No problem, that's what books are for.

T, waiting for a bus

We got on the bus and had a reasonable journey back to BH (apart from the overheating alarm going off and us having to slow right down each time we started to go up a hill). We arrived at the bus station and went to get tickets for the bus to the airport (our hotel is near the airport - we have an early start). We'd missed one by five mins and didn't fancy hanging around BH bus depot for an hour for the next one. So we got a taxi to our hotel.

Our driver was rubbish. Capping off a really annoying journey, where I had to tell him where to go all the time (like I knew!) he then tried to stiff us into paying for him to go back too. This is quite a common tourist scam and we were foolish to not check with him when we got in that we'd just be paying the fare on the meter. (In our defence, we've not had a single driver try this on us all trip and so we kind of got a bit lax about it.) After making it clear to the bloke that we weren't born yesterday and a masterful stroke of command by T, demanding - and getting - our bags from the boot so that we weren't held hostage to his outrageous demands, we ended with a compromise that suited neither of us. He got an extra tenner from us, but that was nothing compared to what he demanded. He stayed around the hotel lobby bemoaning to anyone who would listen (precisely nobody) for a bit, then drove off.

We checked in.

The room was OK, just. The road outside was busy and noisy; the hot water wasn't; the food was about 90% salt; the "Games Room" had a concrete floor and was directly above our room and the corridors seemed to echo and magnify any sound. Including people leaving at 4:00 am.

And it rained all night.

The road, rained upon

We got a reasonably priced cab to the airport and boarded our flight to Salvador. Even the possibility of seeing Brasilia from the air was ruled out by the appalling weather we had. We weren't in the best of moods as we arrived at Salvador airport and collected our luggage.

Unfinished Business, finished

2009-01-04T05:58:00.001-08:00

What were you doing back in Belo Horizonte I hear you all ask. Surely it wasn't just a nerdy need to travel for 13 hours on a train, was it?

No, it wasn't. We had unfinished business in Ouro Preto and, by golly, we were back here to take care of it.

We organised a transfer from BH to Ouro Preto and arranged to stay in the Grande Hotel. It's an Oscar Niemeyer designed concrete square box, the only 'modern' building in Ouro Preto, which has been a conservation area for many years (hence the capital of Minas Gerais being moved to the newtown of Belo Horizonte)

To get a view of the town, we stayed in a suite (which isn't as expensive as it sounds) and we have a lovely two-level apartment with a sitting area and balcony downstairs, a wooden spiral staircase and a mezzanine, bathroom and bedroom upstairs. It is very nice and light and airy. As seems to be the style in Minas Gerais, it is decorated in the seventies, but, somehow, this works. The bathroom is worse than in the Ouro Minas, the bed is OK, the windows don't fit properly but none of that matters. It just feels nice to be in. Hats off to Oscar.

Ouro Preto from our balcony

Anyway, staying in Oscar's house wasn't what we came here for. We had business to attend to. Whilst we were on our tour here a couple of weeks ago, T had spotted a ring that she liked. She'd decided against buying it, mainly because the rest of the people in our tour group were standing around as she was looking at it and trying to decide. Of course, as soon as we were on the minibus heading back to Belo Horizonte, she decided that she really did like it. So we decided to come back. The nerdy train thing was just a Brucie bonus.

After looking at the ring, going for a beer, looking at the ring again, deciding on buying it and then going back for another beer, I was sent to pick it up and pay for it. This I did whilst T sat chatting to a couple of English lasses that we met in the bar. The only English people we've met so far.

Business ... finished

We stayed in the bar until we could hardly stand then stumbled back to the hotel. I managed to fall down one of the hundreds of pot holes and scraped the skin off my knee. Nurse T cleaned it up for me, bless. Apparently I was a bit of a handful and insisted on sitting on the balcony when we got back. T finally steered me into bed where I lay comatose and snoring, apparently. I woke up feeling fine and T feels rough after a practically sleepless night. I've negotiated a late check-out and, as I type this, T is catching up on her badly needed zzzz.

Later this afternoon we'll be getting the bus back to BH and staying in a hotel near the airport, ready for our morning flight to Salvador via Brasilia.

The only ....

2009-01-04T05:42:00.000-08:00

The Ouro Minas Palace Hotel is on the outskirts of Belo Horizonte and is a 25-ish storey tower block across the road from a shopping centre. Every piece of hotel branding has (in Portuguese) "Ouro Minas, the only 5 star hotel in Belo Horizonte" emblazoned on it. I reckon that somebody opening another 5 star hotel in BH would probably bankrupt this one, as the rebranding bill alone would cost thousands.

To say the least, we were disappointed. This is, by quite a way, the most expensive hotel on our travels and it simply wasn't worth it. The rooms are dated, the bathroom was probably bleeding edge in 1979, but really showed its' age. The staff were excellent and the common areas were OK, if a little underlit. We had something to eat (as the toasty on the train didn't really keep the wolf from the door) which was perfectly nice.

View up the tower

Breakfast was not included (which is really unusual) and wasn't worth the 8 quid each that we were charged. On the train, we were debating whether to stay there three nights or not. We didn't.

Choo choo train

2009-01-04T05:09:00.001-08:00

We got up early to catch our train to Belo Horizonte. After a brief scare, we got a taxi and were zoomed to the train station. Boarding was quite straightforward and we managed to stow our luggage safely and take our seats as the train boomed its' hooter and we set off at a crawl.

Our train

We dozed for the first couple of hours as we headed due North to get to the river that was to be our companion for the majority of the journey.

Rio Doce

At about ten o'clock I walked to the buffet car to try to buy some food. They were most apologetic, as the ovens were fully used heating up some food that we must have slept through the ordering process of.

I returned empty handed. Luckily we had bought some cereal bars and water from a petrol station the night before, so we didn't starve.

Our entertainment for the trip was both external with the amazing scenery and internal with the comings and goings of various passengers and the antics of kids, one cute little girl in the seat in front of us was great value when she wasn't asleep. I'm sure her milk was laced with cachaca, as every time she was fed, she fell straight asleep. She was very well behaved for nearly all the thirteen (13) hours of the trip.

The train was reasonably comfortable (we were in Executivo class - I didn't see what the cheap seats were like). We were the only non-Brazilians in our coach (and, probably, on the whole train) it was great fun and we didn't resort to books or ipods for the whole trip. (except for T doing a sudoku all by herself).

After another aborted attempt to get food, I finally got the impenetrable opening hours of the kitchen right and got us a couple of Misto Quente (cheese and ham toasties). They were edible. Just.

As we drew into the station in the dark we were back on full arrival alert (transportation hubs are usually busy, bustle-y affairs where being alert is quite important) and T secured a taxi from the jostling throng as we got our taxi to the splurge that was the Ouro Minas hotel, the only 5 star hotel in Belo Horizonte, as they keep on and on .. and on about.

New Year

2009-01-03T03:22:00.001-08:00

Well, New Year Brazil style. We weren't sure what to expect, so we made sure we had quite a big lunch in case getting food later proved to be tricky. That was a good move.

We wandered out at about 8pm to see what the score was and found the place completely deserted. Not a single shop, bar or restaurant was open. Going back to the hotel, we asked the people there whether this was normal and the reply was in the affirmative. The next beach along would be a bit busier, we were told. After a brief siesta we toddled off to see what "a bit busier" meant.

It meant that there were a reasonable number of people (not thronging crowds, but a steady stream of people) walking to the centre of the beach area to watch the fireworks that would be going off at midnight. We walked all the way up to the centre, bought a beer from the ubiquitous bloke with a polystyrene box and walked back to our hotel where our complimentary little bottle of fizz was chilling in the fridge.

We went to the roof of the hotel and were slowly joined by other guests. There were probably thirty of us up there at midnight. As midnight fell, we were treated to several firework displays. The Iate clube (that's Yacht club to me and you); Ilha do Frado; Ilha do Boi (2); Praia do Camburi and Vila Velha. The last two were by far the biggest and were obscured by geography. The Ilha do Frado one went on for about 45 mins and then started again at 1am. It was pretty.

There was a song sung at midnight, not Auld Lang Syne, and there were muted "Happy New Year"s (Feliz Anno Novo). The two guys next to me shook my hand, but that was about it. I'm sure that the beach party was in full swing, but we were taken by surprise as to quite how quiet the night was.

Just after 1am we left the folks on the roof (who knows, maybe they were waiting for us to leave to start the party proper!) and went to bed. A quiet New Year by any standard.

On New Year's day we moved back to the Comfort hotel and checked into a lovely no smoking room with a lovely view of the beach. T couldn't sleep properly due to the smell of smoke. The ash tray in this room didn't have a no smoking sign!

2008 approaches the end

2008-12-31T12:07:00.000-08:00

We are still here in Vitoria, at the small roomed but nice Bristol hotel. When we returned to our room after a stroll around town (no favelas this time) we found a quarter bottle of fizz and a couple of champers glasses.

Now that's good service. T pointed out that it was "Surprise and Delight". Which rather amused me. On my "Customer Journey" that is staying at the Bristol hotel, it's a nice thing.

I am not being brainwashed.

We are about to discover what new year Brazil style actually is. Expect an update when I'm capable.

Happy New Year

Vitoria - still

2008-12-30T01:44:00.000-08:00

We have mostly been a chillin' for the last few days. We are staying over at the beaches in Vitoria and found a nice room in a lovely hotel, so we've camped here for a bit. We did investigate going up the coast, but it all looks a bit too complicated and they don't have any of those nice buses we had in Argentina. There is also the matter of some unfinished business (of which, more later).

So, we have decide to stay here for New Year. We have to move from this hotel, as it is fully booked for the celebrations (and, no doubt, seriously expensive too) and so we decided to check in to the Radisson on the beach opposite. It looks new and is reasonably priced, so we walked in there to book a room.

Apparently they can't book rooms at the desk, so we have to send an email. After two emails and no reply, we were seriously questioning how good a hotel this was going to be.

Anyway, whilst I'm on the subject, we needed to do our laundry. After wandering around town on a Saturday looking for a lavanderia, we finally gave up, as they all seemed to be closed. This caused a small problem, as I was out of clean T-Shirts.

To remedy this, we went to the shopping centre to see what we could find. We wandered into a shop called "TACO", which, whilst sounding like a fast food joint from Mexico, looked an awful lot like GAP. I walked in and was spotted straight away and asked if I needed help. Given my total inability to convey "No thanks, I'm just looking" in Portuguese, I was immediately discovered to be an Ingles speaker and the English speaking shop assistant was summoned to deal with me. The problem, it turned out, was that all the super-fatso T-Shirts had been sold in the run-up to Christmas and so the combined sales force of the whole shop was conscripted into searching for the last GG (Extra Large) T-Shirts in the shop.

I do not look good in Lime Green.

Finally picking a dark blue, a light blue and a white one, we paid for our purchases and said goodbye to Brazil GAP.

After a couple of lazy days, punctuated mostly by:

Drinking beer in to the sights and sounds of "Best of the 80's" videos (including such masterpieces as "Take on me" by a-ha; "Walk of Life" by Dire Straits; two interchangeable Erasure songs; "Another brick in the wall" by Pink Floyd ... you get the idea)
Eating moqueca (fish stew) a few times (tasty)
Swimming
Reading books
Taking the odd stroll past a favela

We decided that we had to have an active day on Monday.

First of all, we walked back to all the closed lavanderias to discover that it would take them a week to do our washing. Ooops. Luckily, in one of the shops, another customer told us about a laundromat. Off we toddled. We dropped off our washing with the nice lady at the laundromat and arranged to return 3 hours later. Bliss.

Wandering through the blistering hot streets of Vitoria meant that we needed to stop for water. After finding a nice cafe, we had water, Coke, cheesy balls, sausage bits and two of the sweetest, stickiest deserts in the world. Finally we turned up at the HSBC to see if they would change some travellers cheques for us.

Now, banks in Brazil (much like the rest of Latin America (and some parts of Europe)) seem to be semi-fortified affairs. In order to get into one, you have to nod politely at the chap with the shotgun, pass through a metal detector and then go through some set of doors that ensure only one person can enter at once and, perhaps more importantly, leave at once. Given this increased security, T stayed out in the lobby bit (where the ATMs are) underneath an A/C outlet, whilst I went in and asked if I could do a spot of Cambio.

I got to the front of the queue and asked in my best "Lonely Planet Brazilian Portuguese phrase book" foreign "Do you have a foreign exchange office?" There was a big smile from the lady behind the desk, who promptly stood up and scuttled off to the back of the bank. Moments later she reappeared behind me and asked me to follow her. I was ushered into the "HSBC Premier" area. It was at this point that it got a bit surreal.

I gesticulated to T (through the lightly frosted glass separating us in the Premier lounge from the proles) to come through. She couldn't miss this.

We ordered water (without gas) from the be-aproned waitress as we waited in the leather armchairs to be served. Eventually I was summoned into an inner sanctum to effect our transaction. Luckily I had T's "first direct" card on me, so we were identified as bona fide HBSC customers. The woman dealing with me had to telephone up to find out what to do and, between the three of us, we managed to navigate the endless computer screens to provide me with some cash in exchange for my traveller's cheques. We stayed a while to split up the cash between us in the safety of this little exception from reality. At one point she came back to swap the piece of paper I had signed for another one - for what reason I have no idea. Smiling and waving goodbye to our new friends, we once more ventured into the sauna that is outside and took a photo - just in case we forgot about it. Behind the bank is the favela we wandered past on Sunday.

Premier, no less

We then hailed a taxi and asked him to take us to the train station. We wanted to see if we could get back to Belo Horizonte by train in the new year. After the usual near death experience that is riding in a taxi in Latin America, we had a near perfect (i.e. no resorting to wild gesticulations) exchange with the staff at the station and purchased to Executivo class tickets on the 2nd Jan. Feeling pleased with ourselves, we once again imitated crash test dummies as we were transported to pick up our washing and then to a bar for a well earned cold one and chips.

Jobs - done

Due to the lack of taxis, we started to walk back to the hotel and passed a nice looking hotel, right beside the Iate club. We popped in and were welcomed by Danielle and shown the rooms. They were small but have fantastic views and the hotel is right in the centre of everything. As the Radisson was quite so useless, we dumped that idea and booked in for a couple of nights. The only issue is that it might be a bit noisy, but, on New Year's eve - that's par for the course.

Back to our hotel, which has become alot less of a haven now that more people have arrived. We went to bed without our tea.

OLPC

2008-12-26T18:52:00.000-08:00

Shameless plug.

OLPC has recently announced the G1G1 program in the UK.

I have just pre-ordered one on Amazon.

http://laptop.org/en/

If you think it's a cool idea, you can order one too.

P.

Don't Smoke

2008-12-26T13:39:00.000-08:00

But if you must, this no smoking sign acts as a handy ash tray.

And, whilst we are on the subject, some of the traffic lights over here have four lights, Green (no surprise there), Amber (Orange/Yellow, whatever), Red and, oh, yes another Red. As one red light seems to mean "Keep going if you aren't actually going to hit anything (probably)" then maybe two red lights means something like "Even if the road is clear, STOP, please".

Ilha do Boi

2008-12-26T13:17:00.000-08:00

We checked out of the comfortable but basic Comfort hotel and moved operations to the Hotel Ilha do Boi. It is situated on a peninsula in the bay off the beaches of Vitoria. It's another 1970's affair - but this time has been kept modern and is just great. For a very reasonable rate we have a room with a view of the bay and the city and use of various amenities including the circular swimming pool. The sun is on and off and the coastal breeze keeps everything at an acceptable temperature.

Vitoria, Espirito Santo

We have extended our stay to four nights and are contemplating staying in Vitoria for New Year. It seems to be a nice place and most of the visitors are Brazilian and not European or American. That means that the locals have to suffer more of our appalling Portuguese, but that's not a major problem for us.

Our room got a new LCD TV today. The TV that we don't turn on today is more modern that the one we didn't turn on yesterday.

We have also firmed up our plans for the end of the trip. We are going to do more flying that we had hoped, but this is more due to the bus timetable not fitting our exacting requirements than anything else. It's a shame, but there you go. Our last two stops will be Salvador and Recife. We won't be stopping in Rio on the way back (except at the airport).

Feliz Natal

2008-12-25T03:15:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas

Beach Christmas

I don't think it's going to snow today.

I might be wrong.

Colonial towns

2008-12-25T02:53:00.001-08:00

We rose early to join our tour. We were joined by a Brazilian couple who hailed from the south of the country. This meant we were going to an additional town on our tour. After an hour of high speed mini-bus driving we arrived at the town of Conhongas where there are a set of sculptures by a ex-slave who had no hands and was nicknamed 'little cripple'. Apparently he was very important in the furthering of the artistic style. His name is Antonio Francisco Lisboa, or Aleijadinho. He was certainly prolific.

Church, old

After Conhongas, we went to the pretty town on Mariana. Unfortunately, the church was closed, so it was a whistle stop tour.

P and T overlooking Mariana

From Mariana we went to Ouro Preto. Ouro Preto used to be the capital of the state of Minas Gerais until Belo Horizonte was created. It is a pretty, busy town built on a steep hill. There are alot of tourists and churches here. After a while, old churches,inside and out, start looking pretty similar.

Church, also old

A few interesting things we noticed were:

The extra set of ornate doors inside the churches
The separation of slaves from the free people was enforced for the congregation
The sheer quantity of images of Christ suffering on the cross
The nativity scenes in each church, with baby Jesus missing of course. He gets dropped in at midnight
The quantity of gold, naturally

After getting back to the hotel, we got our executive limousine (the same bus we had been in all day) to the airport to fly to Vitoria. The flight was quick and uneventful. The hotel in Vitoria is clean and, apart from the sauna/fridge option of the A/C unit, absolutley fine.

Belo Horizonte

2008-12-25T02:30:00.000-08:00

We got up and booked a tour of the city. Within 1/2 an hour we had at our disposal: a guide, an interpreter and a driver. We then did a whistle stop tour of Belo Horizonte, including such sights as Oscar Neimeyer buildings ...

Building by Oscar

The second biggest covered football stadium in the world (after the Maracana in Rio)

Large

We saw the dressing rooms, the warm-up areas and the chapel. It was great. We then went to see the church by the lake (another Niemeyer creation).

Symbolism

We liked our tour so much that we booked the same trio for a day trip the next day to Ouro Preto.

Lunch was in our first Kilo restaurant. These are common in Brazil and are basically a buffet of all sorts of things that you pay for by weight. The food was fresh and very tasty. We had to share a table ... very un-British.

We decided to see when we could catch the train to Vitoria. Everyone seems to say it is an amazing journey. 12 hours by train or 45 mins by plane. In the end we had no choice ... the train was fully booked until the end of the year. With that plan scuppered, we headed back to the hotel for a swim. In the rain.

Swimming in the rain

After chatting to our new friend for a while, we went to the other side of town for a yummy dinner. Back late for an unsettled night's sleep, after negotiating a late check-out that let us have a quick break between our tour and leaving for the airport.

Buzios to BH: +13 hours -30 years

2008-12-23T02:09:00.000-08:00

Our last day in Buzios was a quiet affair, as befits a Sunday I suppose. The morning was taken up with admin. T was most patient, which was nice. We did more detailed investigation into our proposed trip to Vitoria and decided against it; as the main aim of the trip (to go on the train from Virtoria to Belo Horizonte) would be extremely difficult to achieve. Instead, we decided to go straight to BH (via Rio). After much umming and ahhing about where to stay in BH, we looked at laterooms.com and found that the best hotel in town (according to our guide book) was going for a song. The Internet is a wonderful thing. T is happy.

After a good few hours of admin, we rewarded ourselves with lunch (very late lunch) on the local beach. We had a mixed kebab for two. It was OK. Whilst we were there, the whole beach cleared as it got quite chilly (in Brazil). The restaurant was so busy trying to close that they didn't even bother offering us pudding.

Back to the room for a siesta. T has a new book that she likes. Which means she is worryingly quiet for hours on end. I've even had to do a deal with her so that she'll stop reading for a bit so that we can go out for our tea.

Up bright and early to catch the bus, we had a bit of a rather dodgy breakfast and then got a taxi to the bus stop. After buying our tickets to Rio, we then were chatted to by a nice Brazillian lady who ennumerated her family in Rio at the least provocation.

After a quick stop along the way (where we noted but did not purchase Dulce de Leche) we arived in Rio and went to buy tickets to Belo Horizonte (BH). I waited in one queue whilst T went to another company. She came back to tell me that there were 2 tickets left on the next bus. We did some admirable South American queueing (i.e. We have already spoken to the person behind the counter once - this gives us the automatic right to ignore the queue upon our return) and got the tickets.

May I recommend to you that you don't sit at the back of an Executivo bus, next to the toilet - and next to the chiller (which is pumping out heat) - and on top of the engine, unless you feel like a mobile sauna. Luckily, this was only a 6 1/2 hour bus ride. Never mind - our palacial suite for next to nothing was awaiting in BH.

Perhaps I can digress for a moment, a momentito, if I may.... Reading and interpreting guidebooks is no mean feat. You have to kind of get into the style of the writer to try to read between the lines when interpreting an entry on a town or a hotel or anyhting really. This is complicated by the fact that the guide books have different audiences and styles; so the interpretation has to be modified by the book you read. The whole process is further complicated by the use of multiple authors within a single guidebook. Thus you end up with anomalies. Sometimes something sounds fine and dandy and you toddle off, then wonder what kind of space dust the writer must have been on when they wrote the entry.

Fodors: "The rooftop pool and bar are the best in town"
Lonely Planet: "Don't miss the rooftop bar and pool, one of the best in the city"
Reality: This can be the only rooftop pool and bar - if not, I don't want to see the rest. To be fair, the pool area is nice-ish, if a bit pokey. The bar staff are great, but the food (club sandwich) was inedible. The bar hasn't been redecorated since the Bay City Rollers were number one

Fodors: "Cons: Rooms lack character"
Reality: This is a grossly unfair comment. These rooms ooze character. The problem is that the character that the rooms ooze is Starsky and Hutch circa 1976. Actually, Huggy Bear circa 1976 might be more appropriate.

Of course, it is possible that our bus might actually have been a time machine. Come to think of it - I haven't seen any mobile phones yet. Hmmm.

And it's noisy in our room.

We may not be staying here for Christmas after all. Watch this space.

Buzios

2008-12-21T07:40:00.001-08:00

We arrived in Buzios without much of a clue as to where we would be going. People were asking the bus driver to stop here, there and everywhere - we just sat on the bus waiting to be told that we had to get off.

After getting off, after being told to, we stood round waiting for a taxi; the one we got would have been a bit shabby in Bolivia - never mind what is billed as an upmarket resort for the rich and famous. Nevertheless it fulfilled the dual taxi functions of knowing where we wanted to go and getting us there in one piece.

Pousada Hibiscus Bungalow is just by a nice beach (Joao Fernandez) and is a bit of a walk into town. This suits us just fine. Our room is a tad closer to nature than we might like, but it's no Tortugal - where geckos used to pop their heads out of the thatch in the ceiling to see who was staying for the night.

We wandered into town and sat down at a shop overlooking the harbour and ordered our first ciaparinhas of the trip. They were nice, but astoundingly alcoholic. We then decided to ask for a fish, as there was a barbecue lit beside us. We were brought four fish to look at, one was recommended - we chose it. Much faffage ensued as the barbecue was re-kindled and the fish, salad and chips were prepared. It was a most amusing sight. Sated - we returned to the pousada with the aid of a rickety collectivo (to be honest, that's a bit tautological) to sleep the sleep of the just. Again.

Saturday morning and the sun shone. The view is lovely.

View - lovely

We did some admin and then set off, with our washing, into town. After dropping the washing off, we went in search of a way to our next destination.

Washing - tick

It looks like we need to go from Buzios to Cabo Frio to Campos to Vitoria. It will be an adventure

After meeting the oldest woman in Buzios (apart from her mother, who is 99), we toddled off for lunch, eventually settling for the Bar do Ze. We shared a ceviche to start and then, to the accompaniment of a Torrontes (from the vineyard in Mendoza that we had stayed in last year) and Gotan project (French/Argentine tango band we had just been to see in London a few days before departing on our travels) we had a lovely steak (me) and Red Snapper with Banana (T). Fantastico.

We walked back to the pousada for a swim and a brief siesta prior to setting off back into town to collect our clean washing (one of life of the road's little pleasures). We stopped for a drink at a chill-out bar and then headed home as everything seemed to be packing up for the night.

Deciding that walking all that way was a bit thirst-inducing, we decided to stop at a bar beside a square for a drop of refreshment. Where we bumped into Alan, a chap we had been chatting to whilst swimming earlier that day. He convinced us to go and see a Samba band practising in the main square a bit later. We had pizza and went to see the band.

Drummage

This was now 11 pm and there were people of all ages (including a couple of cute toddlers that stole the show) both watching and taking part. It was fantastic. The power of the drumming at that close a distance was quite astounding.

With our ear drums still ringing, we wandered back to bed, saying goodbye to Alan who was off in search of a party. We slept soundly once more.

Busy Buzi Bus

2008-12-20T04:37:00.000-08:00

The dying embers of my birthday saw us calibrating our pedometers on Copacabana beach, stopping for a night-cap at a kiosk and then heading for some shut-eye.

We got up late on Thursday and went down to the dungeon for free brekkie. Then we decided to see what the whole H Stern thing was about. Pretty crap really. But it got us to Ipanema, ticked a box and enabled us to buy T the most expensive Havaianas in the world.

We went back to our favourite Rio bookshop for lunch and I bought a book about Buenos Aires (a novel about it actually).

We walked along Ipanema beach in the rain and stopped for a beer. Then we went back to the tourist trap that is the bar that the guys wrote "The Girl from Ipanema" in.

We walked back to Copacabana and I crashed out. For 14 hours.

On Friday we got up to get the bus to Buzios. It was busy. The Busy Buzi Bus.

Friday night was spent on the quayside in Ossos, watching the comedy that was our meal being prepared and the dancing that was the cruise liners manoeuvring in the bay. We got a collectivo home.

Back in Rio - Xmas and New Year 2008/9

2008-12-17T15:05:00.000-08:00

Rio - damp
So, here I am once more ...
(oops, shouldn't really start quoting Marillion lyrics should I - it'll show how old I am.)

Did I mention it was my birthday?

So, T and I are back in South America. This time for a month. And only in Brazil.
We had a lovely flight time (11:40am) from Heathrow and, after depositing the car in the extortionately expensive car park, arrived in plenty of time to have a Gordon Ramsey breakfast - nice food - appalling service - shocking price, before getting onto the plane and sitting on the tarmac for the best part of an hour.

The entertainment was good enough. Hancock, Ghost Town, Mummy 3 and Trans Siberia. Time passed and we landed.

Arrived at the Marriott (those points do add up) and went straight to bed, pausing only to open my "Happy Birthday Fiance" card (did I mention it was my birthday? - what about the fact that T and I are engaged (which happened 10 months ago)).
Anyway. We awoke to poor weather.

Our spirits were not dampened. After wandering about - failing to get cash - getting a SIM card for the phone and getting wet, we sat at a kiosk on Copacabana beach and had a beer. It's my birthday. We had a beer. On the beach.

T spotted a nice looking restaurant in the guide book and so we toddled off to Porcao. It's a Brazilian BBQ joint. An all you can eat affair. With a cloud enshrouded Sugar Loaf mountain as a backdrop.

T helping to celebrate my birthday - what a trooper

We waddled back for a siesta.

(There's still a bit of my birthday left).

3,577 steps so far today.

Homeward Bound

2007-07-29T04:19:00.001-07:00

So, the adventure comes to an end on an aeroplane across the Atlantic. The flight isn't too full, so we have three middle seats between the two of us. T is, as usual, having a nice nap whilst I type up the last of the blog.

Pretty soon we'll arrive at Gatwick and the next task will be to try to eat all the foods that we have been missing (and compiling lists thereof) without being sick!

Hasta la vista, America.

Austin

2007-07-29T04:18:00.003-07:00

We decided to spend our last few days in Texas (Our Trans-Atlantic flight was ex-Houston). Originally we were due to go to San Antonio, but it appears that the weather is appalling there, so we cancelled the reservation and indended to head up to Austin.

As our plane arrived at 4pm, we didn't book a hotel in Austin.

Unfortunatley, US Airways managed to lose our luggage in Charlotte and so we had to hang around the airport for 4 hours. We did get to see some of David Beckham's first match in LA (Chelski won 1-0). We watched it in the same bar that we had had our dinner in on our way out - it was a real deja vu moment.

I managed to remember the way to the bit of Austin I knew (I had spent 6 weeks there in 2003) and we checked into the Holiday Inn at 2am.

Austin is nice. We did a few things:

Shopping
Visiting the lake
Touring Austin on the duck (T only)
Doing lunch with the people I had worked with all that time ago (P only)
Drinking beer on 6th street
More shopping
Eating food (BBQ at Rudys was a hit)
Playing pool and shuffleboard

Eventually, we set off for Houston and stopped by a Waffle House to experience one. T approved. Apart from forgetting to refill the tank, we had an uneventful journey and arrived in plenty of time for our last hop.

Boston

2007-07-29T04:18:00.001-07:00

We were up before the crack of dawn to check in. I had been especially selected for super security screening. We had a puff machine - which was funky. That's the second time I've be singled out on an internal US flight to Boston. Hmm.

The flight was fine and our luggage arrived safely. T commented (somewhat prematurely, I felt) that we hadn't lost our luggage once on our travels. It was true - then.

We took the T (T, the Boston train, not the travelling companion) to Davis square and waited for ages to get a taxi. Eventually we got to my friend Cindy's house (O.K. Cindy, Tim, Fiona and Bean's house) and let ourselves in.

Cindy and Tim hosted us excellently. And Maria came over to have a holiday photo exchange. We managed to bore everybody to sleep. One of our tasks before we go visiting must be to pare down the pix.

We did go into town. We touristed: Lunch at the Bull and Finch (now called the Cheers bar) and lots of walking around. And a beer at the top of the Prudential tower.

Boston, from above

Some of our time was helping look after Fiona. I'm not sure T would get her Girl Guide parenting badge - if this picture is anything to go by. (actually, she would)

T and Fiona

We hired a car and went up to Salem and Rockport, which was nice.

We also went whale watching, it was really enjoyable and we saw lots of whales. Mostly whale tails. The guides were very good though.

Diving

Our car was from New Hampshire. I had to take a picture of the license plate.

Live free or die

We lived free.

After a magnificent breakfast, we were dropped off at the airport and goodbyes were said. Thanks Cindy and Tim.

Miami

2007-07-29T04:17:00.002-07:00

We stayed a night in Miami because we pretty much had to. As our flight to Boston needed a 5am check-in, we decided to stay at the airport. It was OK, if noisy (from people banging doors, not planes taking off).

After initially deciding to get an early night, we changed our minds and headed into town for a cocktail and some food. Which was a good decision.

We had drinkies at a very nice hotel (the Raleigh) on the beach.

Miami Vista

And then we went down to SoBe (South Beach) to 'Mangoes' - an institution. It was fun. Many mojitos were taken. Dancing was watched.

As we left to go back to the hotel, Brazilians were thronging the streets. They had just beaten Argentina 3-0 in the Copa America final.

And so to bed - early to rise.

Bye Bye South America

2007-07-29T04:17:00.001-07:00

So, the Latin American part of the tour is over. We have 10 days in the USA to help acclimatise to English; food; being able to put bog roll in the toilet; that kind of thing.

Apart from endless security checks, going to Miami was a breeze. We were in Business class (the only ticket they had left, and not that much more anyway). Which was OK, but not super-good. We did drink fizzy wine though.

Cartagena and the Beach

2007-07-29T04:16:00.000-07:00

Cartagena is a very pretty place - we took a horse drawn trip around it and T took some pictures

Balconies abound

Another horse pulled up next to us.

Horsey horsey

We also took a three day trip to the beach north of Cartagena, we did little but read, watch TV and Swim. It was very relaxing and the food was exquisite.

Breakfast table

Our last evening in Cartagena was spent wandering around.

Elegant delapidation

The old walls are quite a sight.

Through the wall

And so to bed. (via Cafe del Mar, without bumping into friends this time, and a nice pizza on the square)

Isla del Piratas

2007-07-09T08:25:00.001-07:00

Partially because our hotel was full, but mostly because it was a place to go to - we decided to go to the Islas del Rosario. Our hotel recommended Isla del Piratas, which was pretty expensive, but we decided to go for it anyway.

Up at the crack of dawn (obviously they didn't know we were now on holiday) we went to the rather haphazard dock to get our boat.

After much faffage, we were on our way. Cartagena is in a natural harbour, protected by islands - it's quite cool. The Spanish build fortresses to guard the main entrance.

Fort guarding entrance

We checked into our hotel and then had to get put in the right room. It was right on the beach and we were constantly barraged by people trying to sell us crabs; lobsters; snorkelling trips; bangles; stuff. Some of them did it from boats passing by.

Hotel balcony and street vendors

T made herself at home.

Hammock explorer Wiseman

The location and the scenery were quite amazing.

Caribbean island

Unfortunately, the local wildlife was quite ferocious and the room was a bit too rustic to keep them out. After a sleepless night, bitten to within an inch of our lives, we decided to return back to town (and A/C) the next day. It was an expensive and unpleasant trip. Which was a shame - as it could have been so nice.

Upon return to town, we checked into a nice (but also very expensive) hotel with a rooftop pool. After observing 3 Colombians showing off their iPhones, we were informed that the bar couldn't serve us any beer. Apparently there was an election the next day and so there is no alcohol allowed to be sold the night before or the day itself. Bizarre.

Cartagena

2007-07-09T08:21:00.000-07:00

Cartagena is nice. We like it. We are staying in the old town which is very picturesque, safe and interesting. There is another area nearby which is the 'beach' area which we haven't been to yet - but it is full of tall buildings and chain hotels. Here in the old town, things are much more relaxed.

We haven't seen much evidence of large numbers of foreign (i.e. non South American) tourists here - which is quite nice too.

Cartagena has its fair share of pretty squares with churches too.

Square, Cartagena

After strolling around town, we decided to head to Cafe del Mar for sundowners. We were the first there, but by the time sunset arrived, there were about 40 people in all. We had a Mojito each. It was pretty.

Sunset, Cafe del Mar, Cartagena

After sunset, T had an "Oh, My, God!" moment as she spotted some people she knew from London-town. Emma and Simon were duly joined and we had a couple more mojitos to celebrate.

T, Simon and Emma

A lovely evening which involved a meal; some strolling; going to a cash machine; lots of nattering ; some mojitos; some beer and, half a bottle of rum; was had by all.

We did not get up early the next day. We are On Holiday

We are investigating going to Panama by boat, but T isn't very keen at all - after Captain Eric.

BTW - it is hot and humid. A/C in the room is a must.

End of the road

2007-07-04T09:50:00.000-07:00

So, we got up in time for our flight (at 11:30am - what a reasonable time it was too) and flew from Quito to Bogota and thence to Cartagena.

Bogota airport is quite the most surreal one I've been to. Amongst the many bizarre events, was the rather curious sight of people flying with plastic bags stuffed to the gunnels with Dunkin Donuts (sic).

Doughnuts - by the gross

We finally arrived in the sweltering heat of Cartagena (pronounced "cart-a-hen-yer") and checked into our lovely hotel with soft beds, air conditioning and a pool.

We cracked open a couple of beers and declared the travelling to be over and that we were now, officially on holiday.

So far, on holiday has been: have a nice meal; have a nice sleep; lie in bed reading books.

Quito

2007-07-04T09:30:00.001-07:00

We awoke, stiff and tired and went for breakfast. We then decided to do some admin: laundry; book exchanges and lunch soon passed and we were at leisure to become tourists.

We took a taxi to the old part of town which, whilst interesting, was yet another old part of a South American city with lots of churches, squares and white buildings.

We took the walking tour recommended in the Lonely Planet as far as the (rather disappointing, if old) ice cream shop and then decided on a change of tack.

Church in square in Quito

T reluctantly agreed to come with me up the new Teleferico (cable car - T hates cable cars) to have a view over the city. It was OK.

Quito from above

After a slightly unpleasant return trip (the two lads in the car with us were restless and T had to resort to glowering at them to get them to stop moving about) we alighted in the amusement arcade where I beat T at driving games and she beat me at Dolphin Derby (and won herself a stuffed toy to boot). We got a cheap bus back down to town, which stopped outside the laundrette. Which was closed.

After waiting for an hour or so in the Cafe next door, the lass came out of the laundry and gave us our clothes. We retired to our rock (in a nicer room, but still a rock) for another restless night.

Journey to the centre of the earth

2007-07-04T08:32:00.001-07:00

So, we arrived in Quito and spent our first night savouring the cheap rates at the Marriott. T had an early night and I went down to the bar for a burger and to read my book. We had a great night's sleep and were ready to face the day.

After discovering that the hotel's rates were going to increase dramatically for Sunday night, we decided to check out and look for somewhere else. We spotted Hotel Vieja Cuba on Trip advisor and so got in a taxi to it.

About 1 minute later our taxi driver pulled up outside the new hotel. We booked the last room for two nights and then got the driver to go back and pick up our bags.

Once we'd deposited our bags in our new (and significantly cheaper) accommodation, we asked our driver to take us to the Equator.

We drove for about 45 mins and were taken to a spectacular view over a volcanic crater (which was now green and fields and had people living on it). Then he took us to the Museum (Inti something) where they have some 'ethnic' displays (including a shrunken head)

Head, shrunken and rotating

There was the real equator (as defined by GPS - no less. Of course, after carting the thing around for the last 5 months, I forgot to take my GPS to prove it. Doh!)

World's apart

Finally, there were some 'experiments' that were supposed to demonstrate the power of the Equator. (Total and utter rubbish). However, I did balance an egg; and get a certificate for so doing.

Balanced

After the unofficial (but amusing) visitor centre, we went to the less amusing but much more touristy official centre. About 240m away from the real equator.

Offical (but wrong)

After all that middle of the road adventure, we decided to go for a Thai meal. At the most central, slowest (and possibly worst) Thai restaurant in the world.

We then retired to the igneous rock that they called a bed for a fitful night's sleep.

Next stop

2007-06-30T18:28:00.000-07:00

We awoke to blessed silence; a comfortable bed and lashings of hot water. After getting up and breakfasted we went out in search of travel agents.

After finding one closed (for the weekend) and another closed (for good) we went down town; to find more closed. Deciding that we were not going to get anywhere in Guayaquil (at least until Monday) we then had to decide what to do. Staying in Guayaquil didn't seem too promising; going to Cuenca (our original plan) didn't seem to be easy (or, at least, the staff at the Sheraton couldn't work it out); going to Quito by bus was out of the question; going to the Galapagos on spec seemed to be unwise. We then decided that, as we were a free 3 minute drive from the airport, we would go to the airport and see what was on offer.

Looking at the departure boards, two options seemed in order.

Where to go

Quito
San Jose (Costa Rica)

Quito allowed us to pursue the Galapagos dream on Monday and then, perhaps, continue to Cartagena as planned. San Jose meant going back to parts of Central America that we had jumped over in our haste to escape Honduras (post passim).

We tossed for it - Heads, Quito; Tails, San Jose.

Heads it is

We got a 30 quid flight to Quito and that's where we are now. Not sure what we are going to do next.

Onwards to Ecuador

2007-06-30T08:20:00.000-07:00

Our hotel room turned out to be the noisiest room in the world. Doorbells; shouting staff; cockerels and the A/C unit were silent whispers compared to the cacophony that started at about 6:00 am when the dolled-up cars in the car park right under our window all decided to rev their engines up to see if they worked.

Pit stop

Ears ringing, we decided to take a mini-van from Piura to Tumbes (in the far north of Peru - near Ecuador) and went at the speed of light. The lorry we passed, obviously had just gone a bit too fast.

Oops

We arrived in Tumbes about 5 mins before the next bus to Guayaquil (the biggest city in Ecuador). The bus was to take 5 hours, so we would arrive in town at about 7:00pm - not ideal, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

The border between Ecuador and Peru in Aguas Verdes (where we crossed) is, according to the book, the worst border crossing in South America. I can see why. Most borders are short, straight roads with a big flag at one end on a building and another big flagged building at the other. With helpful signs like "Peru - depart" and "Ecuador - arrival" on them. Not so this one. Both of the buildings (the Ecuador one in particular) are reasonably nondescript and are not exactly close to each other.

Allegedly, taxis agree to take you across, but then dump you in the middle of a market and hand you over to some 'guide' who then charges 5 bucks each to show you where the border post is. etc...

We avoided all this by using an International company - CIFA. So we were taken from Tumbes to the Peru border to the Ecuador border and then on - so far so good.

What then happened is that our bus turned into some local bus, stopping every 10 minutes to let people on and off. It ended up taking seven and a half hours.

Light relief was obtained by the people who get on and off these buses at random times who try to extract money from you in various ways. Small, barefooted kids look at you doe-eyed; vendors offer all sorts of food, drink and ice-cream; people with sob stories and, the creme de la creme - some bloke selling powders that rid you of worms ("PARASITO", according to his papers). Priceless.

Eventually we turned into some dark back-alley in Guayaquil and stumbled along to find a taxi. After a journey like that, we decided to splash out on a Sheraton, cheap if you just walk-in. Even the live band playing outside our room didn't keep us awake.

Trujillo

2007-06-30T08:15:00.001-07:00

Our bus rolled into Trujillo right on time. We hadn't decided exactly what we wished to do, however we wanted to push up north asap (but didn't really fancy another overnight bus). As we gathered our thoughts in the bus office, we were approached (as always) by a whole raft of taxi drivers offering to take us anywhere we wanted. One spoke reasonable English, seemed to know what he was talking about and was very polite. We asked him to take us to the next bus station to find out about times and tickets up to Piura, Mancora or Tumbes.

We were too early for the first company, but El Dorado was open. We booked tickets for the 12:45pm bus and thus had 5 hours to kill. We negotiated (a bit) with our driver, who would take us where we wanted until then for 70 Soles (about 12 quid).

And that's how we met Celio Eduardo Rodan. He was in the guidebook, mentioned by name as "Helpful and Informative Taxi Driver" (which he was). Since the publication of the book he had added "Official Tour Guide" to his list of titles. He suggested that we get breakfast first (as the sites were all shut) and took us to a nice breakfast place. He also suggested that we went to the Temples of the Sun and Moon and not just Chan-Chan. Top chap.

The Temple of the Sun wasn't really visit-able, but the temple of the Moon was. It was very interesting and was in the middle of being excavated. Some of the friezes on the walls were quite impressive.

Temple of the Moon

Celio seemed to know everyone, and he certainly knew a lot about the temple. It was very enlightening. As we were leaving, hordes of tiny (but very polite) schoolchildren descended upon the site. It's nice to see that the local government deem it important to show the kids their ancestral heritage.

Entrance to the Temple

From there we went to Chan-Chan. It was vast. I didn't think it was as interesting as the Temple of the Moon, so I'm glad we followed Celio's advice. Again, he seemed to know everyone and was informative about what we were seeing. We also saw a Peruvian native (hairless and very ugly) dog.

Chan-Chan

Celio then took us to get some munchies for our trip and then on to the bus station. This time we had our fingerprints taken before being allowed on the bus.

On arrival into Piura, we checked into the Portales hotel on the square. We got the last room; had some food; watched Argentina stuff the USA 4-1 in the Copa America and retired.

Lima

2007-06-30T08:10:00.000-07:00

We left Cuzco by plane. After paying the airtport tax (which all seems like such a dodgy operation to me) our flight was full and slightly delayed, but uneventful.

We arrived in Lima and prepaid our cab. We had decided to spend some of the budget surplus we had made by not booking the right dates in Aguas Calientes by staying in a posh place in Lima. We stayed in the Hotel COuntry Club Lima. Very Nice. Fizzy pop on checkin!

Checking-in, Wiseman style

We did almost nothing except read, eat and sleep on the first day. It was lovely.

Also, by some miracle, the computer screen, which had gone so wrong in the Bolivian Altiplano - seemed to have magically fixed itself. Amazing.

The self-fixing computer

Day two in Lima found us unwilling to brave the sights, so we decided instead to go to the posh shopping complex in Miraflores.

We had a USofA day. Burger King; Shrek 3; 10 pin bowling and then KFC to steel us for our overnight bus trip north to Trujillo. It was heaven.

I bought some Peruvian music and we headed to the Marriott (across the street) to get a posh taxi to pick up our luggage and take us to the bus.

We had booked our favourite sets with Liz (from Cuzco) and, after dodging some ladies of the night and working out how to check in to the bus (video cameras, bag searches - the works) we set off.

We had our usual seats, however they appeared to be slightly differently configured, as my legs barely had room to turn. Ho Hum. The bus did have wi-fi though - how bizarre.

On the bus

2007-06-27T23:20:00.000-07:00

We are on the bus from Lima to Trujillo. I am writing this entry on my palm pilot, via wi-fi.
On the bus!

Inti Raymi

2007-06-25T10:29:00.000-07:00

We set off to Cuzco by taxi. We were stopped at one point. The taxi driver had his taxi licence but not his plates (or something). After a few minutes the police let him carry on. I didn't see any cash change hands - but you never know.

Back to the hotel in time to go to Inti Raymi. Whatever that is. We got a very expensive (5 times the normal price) taxi to take us to the bottom of a huge (not as huge as Machu Picchu - but huge enough) hill.

We then, hardy altitude adapted people that we are, walked up said hill to "Sexy-Woman". We joined the throngs of locals (the majority of the tourists were on the other side of the arena in 70 dollar a-pop seats).

We saw some people with Cuzco flags.

Not Brighton Gay Pride

And we same lots more pagentry.

More Pagentry

Where we were standing was so far away (and behind a slight rise in the field) that we couldn't really see anything. Eventually the locals got frustrated by being disenfranchised from their ceremony in favour of the rich tourists that they broke through the line (bit of plastic tape) and ran forward about 50 yards to get a reasonable view.

Trampled underfoot

Another charge of another 50 yards and the police decide to draw the line. By this time, we could pretty much see what was going on. Without much context - it was a little dull.

We wandered back down the hill and to a Gringo haunt (the Crossed Keys) for beer and a burger. The ceremony up the hill was being televised. So we got to see the llama's heart after all.

After bumping into people we had met on the Navimag ferry in Chile, we had a good slug of beer or twelve and retired home slightly woozy.

I woke up this morning with a sore head, which I blamed (unsuccessfully) on the altitude.

It is now 1pm and T is still in bed, relaxing and reading her book. I have been blogging. We must get lunch soon.

Urubamba

2007-06-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

So, after doing everything there is to do in Aguas Calientes (actually, that's not true - we didn't go to the hot springs) we decided to leave a day early. I woke up at the crack of 5:30 and went down to the ticket office to change the tickets.

2 hours later, T came to find me - still in the queue. One fella behind the counter and 40 odd people (up at that time) wanting tickets.

Luckily we got the tickets changed and were on the first train out of Dodge.

We went to Ollantaytambo and got a taxi to Urubamba.

We stayed in a lovely quiet place, just outside town.

Blogging in nature

Transport is by tuc-tuc. Which made T homesick for Brighton.

tuc tuc

We went to a restaurant that was mentioned in the Lonely Planet. It was lovely. The chef/owner who was from Lima, via the USA, was very enthusiastic. The food was exquisite.

Back to our hotel to catch up on stuff.

Bell Tower

Chill out and get some sleep.

Pretty courtyard

Ahhh.

A couple of things - the "Grazia" post

2007-06-24T08:17:00.002-07:00

So, as we were standing in one of the queues to get into MP, a rumour started that Cameron Diaz was there. I'll be honest, I thought it was probably a wind up. But, as we waited for the sun to rise, more and more people were talking about it, some claiming 1st hand sightings.

Anyway, after sunrise we let the mobs move into the ruins proper and then ambled down ourselves. We stopped at a corner of a walkway and looked down on the ruins for a bit.

Then, coming down the path towards us was a bloke with a big furry microphone (o.k. the microphone isn't big and furry, the windshield is - but the effect is the same). I nudged T and we sat in awe and wonderment as the mighty one herself passed by - within inches. With about 5 people in the official camera crew, about 5 more paps (with impressively large camera lenses) and then hordes of people.

Natch, we got our own pics.

Papped!

We then spent the best part of the next hour watching the site from the same position, seeing the ripples of people scrumming around to get a glimpse of the mighty one and taking their own pics.

At one point one of the film crew appears to get grumpy and shouted "Look! people - ruins". It would have had more effect if he himself hadn't been more interested in CD than MP. Plonker.

The scrums

Later on, we spotted the paps with their laptops out, presumably sending their ill gotten gains back to their agencies.

Contented Paps

Later still, we passed the same group of paps, who had asked some joe-public to take a picture of them as a group - I wish I'd got a picture of that.

In unrelated (yeah, right) news, there is an internet vote going on at the moment to choose the new 7 wonders of the world. Some group (or a bloke) has set himself up as a company and is running an online poll to select 7 (from a shortlist of 21) wonders. All marketing hype if you ask me.

MP - as one of the 21, is pushing hard - you can't move in Aguas Calientes for posters about it.

You can even vote online at the site itself.

Rigging a vote

The 21 competitors are:

The Acropolis Greece
Hagia Sophia Turkey
The Kremlin/St. Basil's Russia
The Colosseum Italy
Neuschwanstein Castle Germany
The Eiffel Tower France
Stonehenge United Kingdom
The Alhambra Spain
The Great Wall of China China
Kiyomizu Temple Japan
The Sydney Opera House Austrailia
Angkor Cambodia
The Taj Mahal India
Timbuktu Mali
Petra Jordan
The Pyramids of Giza Egypt
The Statue of Christ Redeemer Brazil
The Easter Island Statues Chile
Machu Picchu Peru
Chichen Itza Mexico
The Statue of Liberty U.S.A

I have been to 10 of the 21. Sorry MP - you aren't one of my top 7. It's only 14th century, you know.

Not just _any_ center (sic)

If you want (and the site isn't down for "scheduled maintenance") you can vote. I don't think I'll bother though.

Machu Picchu

2007-06-24T08:17:00.001-07:00

So, bleary eyed, we stumbled out of bed and down the train tracks (a.k.a. the main street) to the bus stop. Which was mobbed. I reckon that there must have bee 6-700 people all wanting to beat the crowds and get the first bus up. Luckily the first bus was actually 21 buses, so nobody was left stranded.

We got into the site and headed uphill (along with 698 other people - and the 200 or so a day that walk there - they must be really annoyed to see the mobs of geriatrics arriving by bus).

As MP (I can't be bothered trying to remember how many 'c's are in each bit of Machu Picchu) is on the top of a hill, but a hill that is lower than those around it, it is actually very light before the sun gets visible.

It is pretty though.

The site before sunrise

Finally the sun came. Now, I'm not sure what I expected, but it was really quite a disappointment. It just got brighter (and, to be fair, warmer). Not the dramatic sights and sounds of Tikal Temple IV (post passim). Anyway, once the sun had come up, people started moving around and the place felt less busy.

Here comes the sun

MP is pretty. The three things that mark it out are:

The setting - it's spectacular
The size - it's pretty big
The intactness (word?) of the buildings

A Building (reasonably intact)

After five hours (we did alot of sitting down and soaking up the place) we headed back to the entrance.

The Site again - in sunshine this time

We then had a nice, but very expensive, lunch and went back down on the bus (walking down was discussed, but not very seriously). Back at the hotel, we slept the sleep of the just until it was time for tea.

Hot Water

2007-06-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

Agua(s) Calientes is alot lower than where we have been for the last three weeks or so, therefore, within seconds of arriving in town I had been bitten by some bastard flying thing. To be fair, it was the only bite either of us got the whole time; it must have been some special VIP welcome.

Anyway, after shivering through our posh journey (56USD instead of 16USD for the not posh, but couldn't possibly be any colder journey!) and savouring our complimentary breakfast - oh yes, that cold chicken sandwich showed those cheapskates on the scum train, we rolled into town.

Vistadome!

At the station we went to the sign for our 'splash-out' hotel. They had a list of people that they were expecting and we were not on it.

After a bit of faffage they decided to let us get to reception, where they gave us cold towels (just to cool everyone down another degree or two, I guess) and took our passports. When I finally got access to the internet (amazingly, they had no Wi-Fi) I realised that we were exactly one month early for our reservation. T and I were really quite relieved, as we were coming to the conclusion that we wouldn't be getting value for our pennies. We trudged into town ...

Agua Calientes

After hard bargaining, we settled into a reasonable hotel and wandered into town to work out what to do for the next three days.

Machu Picchu, Pizza and bugger all else, seems to be the town's motto.

Food (pizza) of Agua Calientes

We bought our tickets for the site (which have doubled in price since the 2007 Lonely Planet was published!) and the bus up the (bloody big) hill.

We then went for a wander down the road to see the museum - it was O.K. but the walk did provide us with our first sighting of the main attraction.

First sight

Our first night's meal was at Indio Feliz, which was lovely. Quiche Lorraine to die for.

An early night to catch the bus at 5:30am to get there for sunrise and avoid the crowds.

Cusco/Cuzco

2007-06-23T16:11:00.000-07:00

We were met at the bus stop by Arturo (at 2:00 am - nice chap) and taken to our hotel. Within seconds we were asleep.

Up in the morning, we were recommended to go on a half day city tour and we also booked a hotel for our third night in Aguas Calientes (the town right next to Machu Picchu). We had decided to splash out most of our hard won budget surplus staying in a v.posh hotel, but they could only fit us in for the two nights.

A taxi into Cuzco and we went to buy (overpriced, but there you go) Lonely Planet Guides for Peru and Ecuador. We found neither anywhere in Bolivia. Every other shop in Cuzco seems to sell them.

We then found out about travel to Lima and on up the coast and settled down to digest the information and some coffee overlooking the main square in Cuzco.

Practising in the square

Next stop, the city tour. Quite reasonable for 10USD, until you added the 25USD admission costs to the attractions we needed to visit. Hmmm.

We visited an old Inca site that had been turned into a Christian site and then turned into a museum. It was quite interesting except that the number of different guides all trying to make their voices heard over the others made it very difficult to work out what was going on.

Inca brickwork

They did have some flags up, the one on the left is the flag of Cuzco (either that or it is the biggest gay city in the world). The one on the right is the Amaraya flag (which I got when I was in Bolivia).

Indigenous flaggery

We then had to cough up three quid to visit the cathedral. Hmm. Then we went up to a place that sounds like 'Sexy-Woman' to see some walls (and llamas) and then to a fountain and then to a shop selling alpaca wool items. Our guide was crap and the whole thing was a waste of time. But there you go.

Wobbly wall

Up at 5:00am to take the posh train to Aguas Calientes and to check into our posh hotel. Woo Hooo.

Puno by name

2007-06-23T15:17:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Puno - which, rather unfortunately, seemed to be in the middle of a sewer renovation project right besides the bus station. Poo-ey!

We had looked on TripAdvisor for a hotel in Puno and one had shone out from the top of the pile. We had sent them a reservation request, but had no reply. We decided that we would just take a taxi there and hope they had space.

Our taxi driver, after first trying to sell us various tours around town, informed us that the whole town would be on strike the next day and, therefore, there would be no train to Cuzco! He then offered to take us to a bus company to get a bus out of town that night - before the blockade began.

We declined his offer, partially because we wanted to verify his story with the hotel and partly because I fancied being stuck in a town under an albeit self-imposed, siege.

We arrived at the hotel and the receptionist confirmed the taxi-driver's story. We had lunch and discussed our options. We decided to get the night bus to Cuzco (night buses in Peru are not recommended). The hotel rang up the bus company and sent somebody round to pick up our tickets. Bless. They also let us use their free Wi-Fi and complimentary Coca tea.

After all our options were sorted and a place in Cuzco booked (another gem from TripAdvisor) we went for a wander around town. It was a functional, but pretty place.

Puno main square

We had our first taste of the local beverage Inca Cola which is a bit like a fluorescent yellow Irn Bru. I will need to get a hangover to test how similar to Irn Bru it actually is.

Inca Cola

We then got a taxi to see the main attraction of the town. An iron ship called Yavari which, along with its sister ship, was fabricated in the UK then chopped up into bite (Mule) sized pieces and transported up the Andes. This took six years. Followed by another two to build the ships themselves.

Due to the attentions of an English ex-pat, the ship was rescued from scrap and is being restored. It now has a working engine and floats and can be sailed. The curator seemed to imply that nobody would insure it though.

Quite amazing.

Yavari

Back to the hotel and then to the, remarkably clean, bus station for our trip to Cuzco. It wasn't our Argentinian Cama Standard, but was O.K. The impromptu Chicken and Chips went down well.

We arrived in Cuzco in the wee hours of the morning.

To Peru

2007-06-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

With a heavy heart and heavier pockets (Bolivia, Slat Flats aside, is very cheap) we had our last meal in Copacabana and settled to sleep.

Last sunset on Titcaca

Up in the early morning (what is it with travelling and early mornings - why doesn't anybody schedule buses at a decent hour - 11:00am, for example?) This bus was full - so it was a good job we got to it early and bagged our seats. Some people weren't so lucky and had to sit on boxes in the aisle.

Packing them in

Upon arriving at the Bolivia/Peru border, we were assaulted by advertising for toilets. Quite bizarre. Perhaps Bolivia and Peru are trying to outdo each other in some kind of toilet race.

Advertising

Once past the border (and the dire warnings about the poor state of Peruvian counterfeit money) we ambled on to Puno - where we were to stay for the night before catching the train to Cuzco.

Isla del Sol

2007-06-18T13:33:00.001-07:00

To say that we have been lazy during our six days of R&R in Copacabana would be entirely fair if it hadn't been for the fact that we had a busy day visiting Isla del Sol (Sun Island).

Up at the crack of dawn for the 8:30 boat, we bought our tickets and sat, bleary eyed, in the boat. We had had the foresight to by a goodly amount of water and had been advised by my mate Mike to take some biscuits for the local kiddies. We took little packets of Oreos and Chocolate chip cookies.

Ferry, cross the Titicaca

The weather here is a bit tricky. During the day it is unbearably hot in the sun, but quite nippy out of it. At night it is cold, but nothing like as bad as the salt flats. Sitting in the boat for two hours during the crossing to Sun Island alternated between cold and boiling, depending if the sun was pointing at you. By the time we arrived (and the Chocolate chip cookie presents had been all but demolished), T had a stinking headache, so we stopped for a coca tea and a sandwich.

The scenery was beautiful and the tranquility (again, once the noisy tourists had departed) was something else.

Sun Island view

We roused ourselves after our impromptu breakfast to walk up to the ruins. To be honest, we didn;t actually see much in the way of ruins, even though we must have passed them. We did, however, do alot of walking uphill; sighting of pigs, llamas, sheep and mules and took in the breathtaking views.

Snowcapped Cordillera Real in the background

We returned to the boat for an hours passage to the south of the island. An opportunity to climb 1,000 Inca steps was rejected by us both, so we sat on the shore and waited.

Two small, cute and extremely grubby children approached us and offered to sell us trinkets. T succumbed and we are the proud owners of two trinkets, one red one purple. (I hope they stay in our possession longer than the pretty rock we bought at the mine in Potosi.) We saw this as an opportunity to pass on some Oreo cookies (the few remaining Chocolate chip ones were not for disposal), we got two small packets out and gave one to each. For the next half an hour we were then approached by all the small girls on the beach (and one of them tried twice). Suffice it to say that we gave away our stash and had some happy smiling faces as a reward.

Back to Copacabana on the boat and a nice enough meal in town - even if the restaurant had discovered the 'Slow Food' maxim of La Vispera in Samaipata and tried to copy it.

After all that strenuous effort, sleep came quickly.

Copacabana - Bolivia

2007-06-18T12:18:00.000-07:00

So, we set off for Copacabana, on the shores of lake Titicaca, early in the morning. Both Lake Titicaca and the town of Copacabana are important places in this part of South America.

Lake Titicaca is the spiritual home of the Incas and the Sun Island is the centre of their creation myth. Copacabana had been an important Inca site and was adopted (after being looted, of course) by the Spanish and Catholic church during colonial times. The church houses an idol, "The Virgin of Copacabana" which is an important pilgrimage site for Bolivia and Peru.

On the way to Copacbana we had to get off our bus and pay 50p to cross the lake (Copacabana sits on the end of a peninsular. The peninsular is owned by Bolivia, the land it is attached to is Peru, the only way to get to Copacabana from La Paz and stay in Bolivia is to cross the lake.) Meanwhile our bus was sent on a precarious looking barge. The separation of passengers from vehicles was in response to an accident some time ago, when one barge sank and some passengers were unable to escape. I have no doubt that the local economy, now having two revenue streams - plus a bunch of tourists waiting in limbo by food stalls for their slower bus - doesn't complain too much.

Bus crossing

The church in town is pretty impressive. It is huge and the whole of the end behind the altar is covered in gold plate (apart from the immediate vicinity of the idol, which is silver). In fact, there's so much stuff that some of it has to be kept outside.

External, extra crosses

One, rather curious, ability of the idol appears to be to bless new cars. Each day at noon, people with new (to them) cars queue up outside the church to get them blessed and then they buy gaudy paper decorations to cover their cars with and, for reasons that I'm not too clear upon, throw beer over them. In August, we are told, there are so many cars, mostly from Peru, that they have to park them down on the shoreline.

Get your car decorations here

Whilst the pilgrims are busy buying beer to throw over their cars (and buying trout to eat) they also seem to have taken to pedalo-ing. I'm not sure if the pedalos are blessed or not, but the people certainly seem to enjoy them. Even the Bolivia navy (yes, land-locked Bolivia does have a Navy - for the lake) has four or five - shaped like ducks for some bizarre reason.

Pedalo paradise

Altogether Copacabana and Lake Titicaca are quite special places. Away from the money changers and the tour touts at is amazingly tranquil and, therefore, we seem to have spent 5 nights in the Hotel Rosario del Lago.

Moonlit sunset

Tomorrow we depart for Peru (10 mins away) and Machu Pichu. T's main aim since we said we were going to S. America!

La Paz

2007-06-13T17:43:00.001-07:00

So, we lurched into La Paz at 6am and were read the riot act by the driver's assistant. Thieves are operating in this area; only use a radio taxi - the usual stuff. We got a taxi and went to the 5 star Radisson. at 50 quid a night it's a bargain. And they didn't bat an eyelid at two unwashed, scruffy layabouts trolling in at 6:30. Straight into a room. Straight into the bath. Ahhh.

We had a very lazy day. Washing and eating were the sole accomplishments. We ate early enough to have a magnificent view of the city.

La Paz from the restaurant

Day two and we headed down town. The guide book tells us which is the best bookshop in town. If you are looking for books published before I was born, they are correct. I bought a Zane Grey western. 20 years ago a friend of mine liked (or knew - I forget) a band called "The Zane Grey Incident" - that's the sole reason I bought it.

We walked a bit up the hills and down the dales. Had some Coca tea and decided that it was a bit busy and bustle-y for us. Our sole tourist effort was to visit the Coca Museum. Which was very interesting.

La Paz street

Back to the hotel to book our passage onwards. Tomorrow we leave at 7:30 am for Copacbana (Bolivia, not Rio).

Let's hope it's warm.

Bolivia Tour (iv)

2007-06-13T17:40:00.001-07:00

Our last day with JC and Pocho dawned in relative warmth. We got up for breakfast and then headed out to the golf course outside. JC had never played before, neither had Jose - the hotel manager. I was to teach them.

As you can see - the fairway leaves something to be desired.

The first tee

We played four holes and had great fun. Modesty prevents me saying who the victor was.

The players

On the way to Uyuni we stopped to see how the salt gets processed in small family run sheds. We also stopped at the handicraft market - I bought a pretty colourful flag that represents one of the various indigenous tribes.

JC then informed us that we could get a bus at 8pm instead of the train at 2:30am. I was a bit sad that we'd miss out on the train - but the timings for the bus were much better. He duly bought two tickets for us.

We had a happy, chatty lunch and then parted. It had been a great 5 days and we were sad to see them go.

We passed the time before the bus by visiting the train cemetery (after nearly being shot for walking into the army barracks by mistake).

Dead trains

It was a nice walk, marred only slightly by the rubbish strewn everywhere.

Dead bolier

When we got back to town, we went to the bus company to ask what time the bus got to La Paz. Lucky that we did, as they appeared to have overbooked our tickets. We were re-assigned our seats and went off for a nice pizza.

The bus trip was a bit annoying. For the bit where we had a good driver, the roads were rubbish. For the bit where the roads were tarmac, we had a rubbish driver. Hey-ho.

Bolivia Tour (iii)

2007-06-13T17:37:00.001-07:00

We were on the home stretch now, not long before we got some warmth. And we had the jewel in the crown left. The salt flats (Salar).

It is quite amazing. Like snow, but flat and stretching as far as the eye can see. Pictures can't do it justice.

On the salt

In the middle of the flat is a set of islands. One of them (fish island - because it looks like a fish) has been set up as a place to harbour tourists. We had lunch and then climbed to to top. It was very hard work. On the way down, we passed a cactus.

1203 year old cactus

We then went to look at some mummies. It was quite weird really, dead bodies, over a thousand years old, naturally mummified - just sitting in a cave, halfway up a hill overlooking to salt flats. T thought it a bit morbid - so no pics I'm afraid.

We then went to see some salt mining in progress. These piles are left to dry in the sun, then taken by truck to the processing places in the nearby town.

Salt mining

From there we went to the Palace of Salt.

Inside the palace of salt

Since arriving at altitude (five days now) we haven't had any alcohol. T decided that tonight was Hot Rum Toddy night. Two large glasses; one enforced shower; several games of pool and some yummy food (llama) later - she was poured into bed.

Bolivia Tour (ii)

2007-06-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

Our next tour day was quite quiet. A cold morning followed by a long drive. We saw some interesting things. First up was some thermal springs. I got in trouble for wandering off behind a cloud of steam - oops. Then to the Green Lake. It is pretty. Before that we were in the Dali Valley. The colours and shapes of the rocks are quite amazing.

Laguna Verde

There are no petrol stations around here. You need to carry all your juice with you. This is our driver, Pocho, filling the car up.

Fuel stop

We had lunch next to a thermal bath. I went for a dip - it was lovely. T decided against it on the grounds that it would be cold when you got out. It was.

Kicking back

The red lake was where the Flamingoes were. Or not. We saw a few, but probably more dead ones than alive. A shame really - but there you go. Given our luck seeing all the other animals, I guess we can survive without the flamingoes. Only problem was that T had been promised them and the whole trip was partially sold on the promise of flocks of pretty flamingoes. She put a very brave face on her disappointment.

Laguna Colorada

So, back to the freezer, which was, this time, a little warmer. At the hotel we were joined by a Spanish couple who couldn't believe the shower or heating choice. We sympathised like the seasoned professionals that we are.

After dinner we were treated to some local music performed by the local school. Villa Mar has a school of 93 kids up to the age of 11. There are 6 teachers and the kids need to go to Uyuni (4hrs away) for school after 11. The teachers looked more nervous than the kids. The son of the couple who ran the hotel sat in rapt attention, mouthing all the words to the songs. When he gets a bit older, I bet he'll be the star of the troupe.

Technology update

2007-06-13T17:24:00.000-07:00

Remember I mentioned the cold? Our first night in Villa Mar wa so cold that T and I watched a DVD to keep our minds occupied. When we went to bed, the laptop was OK. When we got up, it had a problem. I presume that the cold at night froze some dodgy LCD pixels:

Oops

It is getting better though - four days later:

Bad, but better

Bolivia Tour (i)

2007-06-13T17:06:00.000-07:00

Waking up in Uyuni was very cold. (Have you noticed that we keep using the 'c' word. Trust us - you just don't understand how bloody cold it is. Of course, the locals just say "come back next month, it's really cold then." Great. I don't care that it could be colder. It's absolute brass monkeys now.) T was very brave and showered.

After breakfast, we set off in the scorching sun (oh yes, cold at night bloody boiling in the day) for our jaunt South.

We stopped at a place called San Cristobal. Apparently some foreigners (USA, Australia and Canada) discovered massive Silver deposits below a village. So they negotiated with the government to allow them rights to mine and they negotiated with the villagers to move their town. So far they have spent one billion dollars (US, a thousand million) and not got a single bit of silver. They will have 15 years to get all they can out (with the Bolivian government getting 15%) and then all the tools and equipment revert to Bolivia. It's an extraordinary gamble in a country known for corruption at the highest levels.

We then moved on to our hotel in Villa Mar. It was warm outside and bloody cold inside. Of course, they have central heating, they just don't put it on (and, to be fair, it was pretty useless when they did put it on.) I'm not sure if they are saving money or if it simply doesn't occur to them that other, normal, people like to be warm.

Hotel(?) Villa Mar

We went for a walk in the afternoon to a canyon. Much of the landscape down there is covered with these canyons. They are amazing. Kids must love playing in them.

We saw some Andean Rabbits (ugly sods), to add to the Andean fox, Andean Ostrich and some other, white bird which was quite rare which we had already seen. We were lucky, apparently.

Canyon

Just beside the canyon was some painted rocks. Only about 300 years old - but interesting nonetheless.

Painted rocks

Back to the ranch to have goat for tea (it was llama the night before - I prefer llama). T was given the option of heating or shower. To her (and my) amazement, she chose the former.

Given the lack of light pollution, the low surrounding hills and the late rise of the moon - the night's sky was probably the most amazing I have ever seen.

Still bloody cold though.

Potosi

2007-06-13T16:32:00.000-07:00

We got in our taxi to go to Potosi and then started a tour of Sucre. It turned out that we had booked a shared taxi and not a private one. Never mind. As one rather short but wide (as the local ladies seem to be) lady tried to get in between T and I, we quickly asked to top up our fare with another 40Bs (2 and a half quid) to ensure that we could breathe for the next two hours or so. As they say in Bolivia - anything is possible.

After negotiating the busiest streets in South America (and forcing our driver to take us to the hotel and not just near the hotel, by the simple expedient of pretending not to understand him) we checked into the place we had booked and paid for - as recommended by the Travel Agent in Sucre.

It was weird. Apparently it was new. Nobody thought to tell the furniture that it was new. My bed was ancient. In the end we had to snuggle up in a single bed (presumably the Travel Agent thought we needed a twin room - having different surnames and all) for warmth and comfort.

Realising that the day after we arrived was a bank holiday, we went straight out after arriving and went to a Travel Agency recommended in the guide book. "Expensive but relatively luxurious" was the direct quote. Luckily Expensive in Bolivia; isn't.

We should have taken more note of the relatively though.

In our efforts to extract cash to pay for the trip, one of my cash cards was eaten by the machine. And we were due to leave town the next day. And it was 7:00pm. Oh, and don't forget the Bank Holiday.

Luckily, the owner of the Travel Agency seemed to have a hotline to the Bank Manager who duly appeared (suited and booted) 15 mins later and, after taking the requisite number of photocopies, duly returned my card. I haven't dared use it since.

Whilst this was happening, a nice chap wandered in and greeted us. It turned out that he would be our guide for the next 5 days. Juan Carlos - Or JC - Or King Of Spain. All in all, we thought we'd done rather well. Shame about the cold hotel - but at least we'd got on a trip that would end in enough time to get the train.

And they threw a mine tour in for free.

On leaving, we asked for a recommendation of somewhere to eat. "El Meson" was the reply. (Sure - we found out later - the guy owned it!) And Manuel served us - he was from Barcelona you know.

After a fitful night of (some) sleep, we awoke to go on our mine tour. JC was in reception waiting for us and we set off in a rickety old cab up to the mine.

Before we got there, we had to buy presents for the miners: Coca leaves (to chew on); Cigarettes (to smoke); 96% neat alcohol (to drink); Dynamite (to blow stuff up); Blasting caps (to help the dynamite) and a fuse (to give you enough time to be far away from the dynamite.) All in one neat tourist bundle for 20Bs (£1.25). Apparently this is the cheapest dynamite in the world. And they sell it to anyone. Including dumb brits who blow stuff up when drunk, apparently. (Mind you, selling narcotics; neat alcohol and dynamite in one tourist sized, low priced bundle is asking for trouble if you ask me.)

JC as Wile E Cayote

We were sold traditional mine stuff at the mine market by a traditional Bolivian.

Mine shop

We had to get kitted out to go down the mine. Boots, hats, overalls and a lamp. T was a little bit timid, and, to be fair, it was a bit cramped and dirty.

Mine Explorer Wiseman and friend

One of the problems was avoiding the trucks full of ore being hauled out of the mine. It looked very hard work. However, miners (and even the lowly humpers shown here) are very well paid for Bolivia. They are set up as a cooperative and they are, at least, no longer exploited in the ways they were of old. (Though that doesn't stop them dying of all sorts of horrible mine-related diseases).

Man hauling rocks out of the mine

We were glad to be out in daylight once more.

Back to town and a meal in "El Meson" (or El Deja Vu one might say) Followed by a four hour drive to Uyuni to stay in the coldest hotel so far.

relatively, remember.

Sucre

2007-06-13T16:09:00.000-07:00

**Warning - this post contains one out and out lie**

"The bus goes at 8:30 pm. Get there a bit early just in case."

That was our advice. We got there at 7:00. Standing by the road in the freezing cold, waiting for the bus. Only there wasn't a the bus. There we hundreds of them. And it didn't turn up until 9:45 - after we'd decided that one of the thirty that had passed us so far must have been ours. Did I mention that it was cold?

Light relief (if you want to call it that) was provided by the travelling threesome. One of them had fallen over with her rucksack on (running for the wrong bus, poor thing) and hit her head. One was trying to get everyone on the bus (which was still over an hour away) and one was calling a doctor to find out what to do.

Docs advice was to take the two hour taxi ride back to Santa Cruz (in the dark - I hope they made it) and not get on a 12 hour bus trip on to Sucre.

If only we'd have joined them.

Chilly bus stop

When the bus did arrive it was full apart from our two seats (so who knows where the three amigos were supposed to go). It was freezing cold (luckily, I had insisted on packing the sleeping bag - so at least we had a chance of keeping warm). The two lads in front of us were periodically opening the window to smoke a joint, managing to make it just a little bit more frozen that we thought possible. We were two very happy bunnies when we crawled into Sucre and, thanks to a lovely Tourist Poilicewoman (who gave us no less than three leaflets about the different ways that we were going to be robbed in Sucre) got a taxi to a hotel.

We then got out of that hotel (after a 60p breakfast) and went to another - which was lovely. Just below the Recoleta.

Pretty Sucre

Sucre centre is very pretty. The outskirts look pretty rough, but the tourist bit is nice. And we weren't robbed once - which was nice.

It was, however, cold. So we decided not to stay for long and booked ourselves a hotel and transfer to Potosi.

On our free morning, we went to see the dinosaur footprints. I'm not sure that the plastic dinosaur replicas added to the experience. Nor the rather steep entrance fee (on top of the bus cost). And it was a shame that they didn't explain how they were preserved or how they know what they are (T is still not convinced).

But, when in Sucre, visit the footprints. That's what the book says.

Dinosaur footprints

We also went to the ethnic artisan museum that explained the different traditional garbs and weaving of the indigenous population. It was way more interesting than the footprints. And T believed them. And we got free coca tea.

Back to the hotel for our taxi to Potosi.

El Fuerte

2007-06-13T15:50:00.000-07:00

After a lazy breakfast we (the five of us) were picked up by Frank to go on a trip to the local place to visit. It is called El Fuerte because the Spanish thought it was a fort. However, current thinking is that it was a place of high worship. Eric von Daniken claims it is an alien landing site - go figure.

The real shame isn't that some nutter made a mint out of stupid stories - it is that the soft sandstone is being worn away before your very eyes. No real effort at preservation and no-one seems to have taken impressions of the carvings. Many have already disappeared since records began.

El Fuerte

We had to walk around a bit here and it got a bit hot. At one point we stopped to look at a woodpecker only to discover that T and I had stepped on an ant nest. By the time we realised they were up our trousers and everywhere - yuck. It wasn't funny.

Stop laughing.

On the drive back down, we stopped to look at the rock face. T instantly spotted the face in the rock. Frank (our guide) had to point out the second one for us though. Can you spot it?

See the face(s)?

Our vehicle was a very old, but still workable, Toyota Land Cruiser. We have seen many of them here in Bolivia.

Toyota Land Cruiser

By common consent we decided to eat lunch together in a German/Hungarian restaurant. I had Goulash made with pork, T had the special of the day: Mexican beef. Many beers were sunk and Frank's girlfriend came to join us. It was a lovely day.

Hungarian Lunch

On the way beck to the hotel we stopped at a hostel to buy the bus tickets to Sucre. We had been advised (by real travellers) that one place sold them for 90 Bs (6 quid) and the other for 120 Bs (9 quid). So we went to the cheapest place. Of Course.

Silly us.

Samaipata

2007-06-13T15:37:00.001-07:00

We left Santa Cruz for a two hour taxi ride to Samaipata. This taxi cost us 100 Bolivianos - that's about 7 quid. After a while we noticed that the taxi wasn't conventional:

There is something wrong here

Apparently this is quite common. Bolivia gets cheap second hand Japanese cars and converts them for local use. Obviously only the important things get moved. On those sort of roads, the speedo is only of academic interest anyway.

We stayed in a lovely place just outside town. Our room was very expensive (15 quid a night) and had a real fire in it. Although it was quite chilly outside, we were nice and toasty in beside the fire.

We met a French photographer and a South African couple (ex Manchester) and had lovely evenings by the fire chatting.

Build a Fire

Samaipata isn't a big place.

Middle of nowhere

The place we stayed at also had a magnificent cafe. Only open until 6pm, but very fresh tasty food. I was somewhat taken aback one lunchtime when my toastie arrived!

The smallest toastie in the world

All in all, we liked Samaipata. We ended up spending three nights there.

Santa Cruz

2007-06-13T15:22:00.000-07:00

We were up at the crack of dawn (before the breakfast we had paid for!) and off to the airport for our around the world (Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia anyway) trip to Santa Cruz. We stopped at Sao Paulo (change planes); Asuncion (change planes) and Cochabamba before arriving at the airport in Santa Cruz. Amazingly, our luggage got there with us.

Santa Cruz was cold. It was unseasonably cold, but it was a taste of things to come. The reception guy at the hotel spoke excellent English and helped us in every way he could. We had a heater for our room.

Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz is an interesting city. It rapidly expanded on drugs money and, although that has mostly stopped or gone underground, the city has an air of wealth and sophistication that wasn't expected in Bolivia (and hasn't been seen elsewhere).

For the first time since Panama airport we saw electronic goods that would be at home on the UK high street.

We took the opportunity to get T's phone unlocked and both of us chips - for less than 7 quid.

By accident, we walked down the hairdresser's street. T pushed me in; sat me down and laughed at me, oh - and took pictures. The chap thought we were nuts. One haircut - two quid.

Anything for the weekend sir?

We had a set lunch in the cafe opposite the hotel. Four courses for a quid.

We did have a bit of fun at the post office. They decided to tell us what we needed, one thing at a time. I had quite a good rapport with the chap outside who sold brown paper; sellotape and all the other stuff we needed. That's our third box back home - I wonder how many will get there :-)

Rio revisited

2007-06-13T14:33:00.000-07:00

After much umming and ahhing, we decided to go on a Favela tour. I'm not sure what I expected from a Favela, but what we were shown (we saw 2 of about 750; Vila Canoas and Rocinha) was certainly not what I expected.

Vila Canoas was first, we were taken to a school and an Internet/Computer teaching room. The whole set-up was overseen by an Italian who had been the head of a big Brazilian company and he had got sponsorship from many (mostly European) sources. To assuage our guilt, some of our tour money also went to support the school.

Recently the government has changed their policy from trying to ignore or eradicate the Favelas to trying to bring them up to scratch. This one has sanitation, water, electricity, phones, street names, rubbish collection and lots of other things that one might expect in a 'normal' place. The biggest difference is that the 'streets' are very narrow and that they are built in a very three dimensional manner.

A 'street' in a favela

As you can see, the addition of power and telecommunications has been done in a rather haphazard manner.

Enough to give BT a headache

We then got back in the bus and went to Rocinha. It was one of the ones we had seen when we first got to Rio, as it was on the way to Barra de Tijuca. It was amazing. About 200 yards in and it was like you were transported to Guatemala. Run down shops, dirty streets and people everywhere. We were told that we were perfectly safe, but not to take pictures here and not to go there and that kind of thing. The drugs folks are in charge in there and they don't like tourists (or journalists or policemen) taking pictures of them at work.

We then ascended to the heights of Rocinha and got some amazing views.

Favela fills the valley

Rio is curious in that the poor people live on the hill and the rich live down below.

Rooftop with a view

All in all, it was interesting, not as scary as one is led to believe and not voyeuristic - just like the brochure promised.

Once back in town, we went for a nice lunch in a bookshop and bought some Brazilian music (which hasn't grown on me as much as the Tango stuff I got in Argentina has) and a couple of books.

We then went to book our flight to Bolivia and sat on Ipanema beach in the freezing cold waiting for them. On the way back to the travel agency we got diverted into the bar where the song "Girl from Ipanema" was written. The food was OK; the caipirinhas were good (apparently) and the argument on the table behind us was entertaining.

Early to bed - early to rise.

Ilha Grande

2007-06-13T14:01:00.001-07:00

In Paraty, T sent an email to one of her friends, Helen, who, apparently, was still in Brazil. Brazil is quite a big place (5th largest country in the world), so we were quite surprised to find out that she was 36 miles away from us on Ilha Grande. Of course, 36 miles means a two hour bus trip and a one hour boat trip - but 36 miles is pretty damned close.

After much email back and forward-age, we arrived on the quay to be met by Helen and a local chap who calls himself William Wallace (who knows, it might be his name). William made himself very popular by carrying T's bags up the hill (big, big hill). We then played dice and drank beer whilst the girls chatted 10 to the dozen.

William told us that he worked for the army as a protector of dignitaries and that he had lived in London and that he used to be a tour guide in the Pantanal and some other things too. A quick google search on "william wallace" "ilha grande" comes up with some other stories he has told. He appears to be a local character.

After a chilly night, we got up to go to the beach. It was worth it.

Say hello, Wave goodbye

After a day at the beach, a few caipirinhas are in order, before catching the boat back to town and flashing the boat.

Caipirinhas ahoy

As we decided to stay a third night and the island has no ATM and T wanted a bit of peace and quiet; I was dispatched to the town to get some cash. Whilst I was there I saw a church parade. It was quite interesting, but not worth a 3 hour round trip in itself.

Helen's House

At some point during the stay, the wind blew down the mirror in the bathroom and smashed it. That's 7 years bad luck for the wind then. I repaired it with sellotape.

Helen's ipod had been nicked in Rio, so we bought some blank CDs and I spent a happy couple of hours burning some new music for her, so as to give her something to listen to.

On the threshold

Helen finally got her peace and quiet back as we headed back to Rio. We got the quick trip back, which was much appreciated. We were dropped off where we liked but the hotel we chose wasn't up to scratch, so we checked into another (which turned out to be the main gay hotel, situated as it was on the cruising street - as I found out from the guide book later). T has been warned not to make any new gay best friends and, after Neto and Ben in Paraty, I thought this might have been a deliberate ploy, she swears it was completely accidental.

Paraty

2007-06-13T13:46:00.000-07:00

Tripadvisor states that the best hotel in Paraty is Bambu Bamboo. We decided to book it for a couple of nights. After a reasonably quiet bus ride to town (there were some small issues getting tickets, but nothing that we weren't capable of overcoming) we were deposited at the guest house. Neto and Ben welcomed us and offered beers, tea etc... Neto is Brazilian and Ben is from the Wirral, Bambu Bamboo is their retirement plan and they are doing a magnificent job of it. Even dodgy hot water and ongoing construction work (of Paraty's first Spa, dontcha know) didn't upset us.

Once it transpired that I knew how to turn a computer on - I was commissioned to work for beer.

Paraty itself was quite pretty. They were having a fiesta.

Portugese drainage in Paraty

The church at the bottom of town is one of the images of Brazil - apparently. The last couple of blocks seem to be deliberately flooded at high tide - quite bizarre - perhaps this is an olden-times sewage mechanism. Anyway, it isn't used for that now- it just looks a bit strange having buildings in flooded streets.

Pretty girl, pretty church, flooded street

We met a couple of Brits with their baby daughter and it turned out that they lived in Bolivia and loved the place. They made sure we knew all the sights to see and all the places to go. T did a bit of baby sitting whilst they relaxed and ate a pizza (and I fixed computers).

Apart from the unseasonably cold weather (the pool was freezing) we really enjoyed our time in Paraty and wholly support the Tripadvisor recommendation. We stayed an extra night.

Rio de Janeiro - tourist day three

2007-06-13T13:24:00.000-07:00

So, we awoke slightly the worse for wear and talked about the events of the previous evening. T gradually remembering that she had decided to stay in Rio for a month; get an apartment; learn Portuguese and take Samba classes. It would seem that I had fewer beer tokens than she had Caiparinha tokens, as I wisely decided to agree with her - until the morning.

Nursing sore heads, we decided to relax by taking the bus down town. Let's just say that the spirit of Ayrton Senna is alive and well and seems to be a pre-requisite for any aspiring Rio Bus driver. Going around the Botafogo bay at break-neck speeds, trying to control the amount of rear wheel drift whilst trying to overtake another bus is something that should be confined to video games. If The GTA (Grand Theft Auto) team ever to a Rio based game then the bus will be the fastest vehicle in the game.

We downed some black aspirin after getting off the bus and decided what to do next. T visited a church and then we went on the ferry to the city on the other side of the bay, got off, got on and came back. The views of Rio were OK (a bit cloudy) but there was nowhere to take any pictures from.

We then walked around the down town area a few times, spiralling in on our target - the street car to Santa Teresa. It was rickety and fun. The local lads obviously think that sitting down is for wooses and stood on the running board. One lad thought it was fun to jump off every now and then and run along - in flip-flops.

We alighted halfway down and had a traditional Brazilian meal in a lovely cafe.

Appetites sated, we decided to go for a drink on Copacabana beach. Barry Manilow was not in sight - but these three guys more than made up for it.

Serenaded on Copacabana

Whilst we slaked our thirsts, we watched a bunch of lads building a football pitch, which seemed to involve digging great lumps of iron into the sand. Sadly they didn't play for us.

Moving the Goalposts

Just to say we had, we stood on Copacabana Beach. Here is the proof.

Sandy feet

And so to bed (we got a taxi, the bus option wasn't really discussed.)

Rio de Janeiro - tourist day two

2007-06-13T05:44:00.000-07:00

A lazy morning was required, despite the room being quite musty, we settled in for a bit. We did do something useful - we got our washing done. Our most expensive laundry to date - nearly 11 quid. And, much to T's embarrasment, they insisted on counting each dirty item, so smalls we scattered over the counter - ugh.

We then set off for our football tour to the Maracana. We saw Botafogo playing Atletico - Botafogo won 2-1.

Maracana Stadium

After the match, the whole group of us (2 Brits, 4 Finns and a Swede) decided to go to a local Samba club. I'm not sure who knew where it was, but the minibus driver and tour guide almost made us sign in blood that we were OK being dropped off there and not back at the hotels. The place was very nice - we were the only locals and we found out that it was the 2 year anniversary of the opening.

Drinks were sold by token, so there was a little kiosk where you can get tokens and then present them to the bar. This concept is quite popular in Brazil, but is alot easier to order beer with than to specify a particular sandwich which you can't see or point at to the payment kiosk.

Beer Token

The band seemed to be a fluid group of people who sat down at a table for a bit - played a bit, drank alot and then let the next one in. The music was enjoyable - but I'm not sure I can remember any of it now. (might be due to the quantity of beer tokens I bought).

Samba Band

T was adopted by a group of women who turned out to be four generations from the same family. They were having a whale of a time, and after the Nth Caiparinha token, so was T

You're my Best Mate

We managed to get back to the hotel, accompanied by our adopted Swede, without being murdered. A fun night was had by all.

Too busy to blog

2007-06-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry all, we have been quite poor in our blogging duties recently. You can expect full updates (with pix) sometime in about a week or so. However, this is a quick view of what you're waiting for ...

Another day in Rio - football and Samba
Paraty
Ilha Grande and a meeting
Back to Rio and a Favela
Flight to Bolivia
Santa Cruz
Samaipata and an alien landing site
Nightmare bus
Sucre and the dinosaurs
Potosi and the trip booking

And for the next week or so, we have ...

Mines
Uyuni
High lakes
Flamingoes
Salt Flats
Salt Hotels
Train
La Paz

Hasta Luego

Tourists in Rio

2007-05-24T15:07:00.000-07:00

We decided to be tourists in the city of Rio, so we booked ourselves some tours. Our first days tour was to Sugarloaf mountain and the Statue of Christ (Corcovado). We decided to pay a little extra and go in a small group rather than a bus. As it turned out, we had a private tour in an old American Jeep. It was cool.

Driving through the tunnels in the back of an open top Jeep with the traffic weaving in and around us was quite an experience.

First stop was Sugar Loaf mountain. Two cable cars to get to the top and some pretty astounding views when you get there.

View of a part of Rio

The thing about Rio that I didn't 'get' until I went there was that Rio is a collection of very distinct areas. These areas are created partially by human geography (like they are in many other cities, but mostly out of the physical geography as the imposing hills get in the way. The hills (of which, many have near vertical cliff-faces) are totally part of the city in the way that the parks are part of London.

Copacabana Beach, from Sugarloaf mountain

Each strip of sand is a beach to itself (or in the case of some, more than one beach) and the city has a goodly number of these beaches on the Atlantic coast in the Southern Area.

The lagoon, Ipanema and Leblon

After Sugar Loaf, we went up to the statue of Christ Redeemer on Corcavado. There is a funicular railway up the mountain which predates the statue (and was partially why the statue was put there in the first place) but we didn't go on it - instead we drove a good deal of the way up, parked and then got a collectivo. There was a reasonable Police presence, as the road up to the Statue seems to be a favourite place to relieve tourists of their belongings.

Can we be any more touristy?

The statue itself is more impressive from a distance, but the views from the hill are amazing. The weather was absolutley perfect - clouds came in just as we sat down for our coffee and pasties after taking our pics.

Back to the hotel for some well earned sleep.

Road to Rio

2007-05-24T14:37:00.000-07:00

We got up at a sensible time and trolled down to the bus station to pick up our bus to Rio. After helping to avoid a near disaster (some silly tourist standing in the way of a bus) we boarded the bus. The first thing that struck us was the other passengers. Gone was the Argentine reserve, in its place was the party spirit.

We stopped at a service station and got food and provisions. We saw Sao Paulo through sleepy eyes and finally arrived in the main bus station in Rio at a reasonable time (1pm).

Our Bus

Watching our possessions like hawks, we got a taxi to our hotel. As we passed through the streets of Rio at speeds approaching Earth Orbit escape velocity, we saw some of the sights we had only seen on TV or in magazines. Christ the Redeemer was clearly visible, rising above the streets.

We passed through endless tunnels and ended up at our hotel. The beach across the street was stunning. There were people surfing and playing volleyball - just like you might expect. There were a few too many blokes in Speedos for the common good though.

The Beach in Rio

Three in One

2007-05-18T14:58:00.000-07:00

After our trip to the Brazilian falls, we decided to return by public transport. So, we got a bus from the park to the center of Foz. One idea was to look around town and perhaps find a Portuguese phrase book (B.T.W. we have decided to go to Rio de Janeiro for a few days and see if we like Brazil.)

After seeing Foz through the bus windows, we decide that maybe we'd go to Paraguay instead. (Actually, I wanted to do this all along, but T wasn't desperate to and didn't see the point - women!) So, we found the bus to Paraguay and got onto it.

After ten minutes or so on the bus, we got in a big queue to cross the border over a pretty stunning bridge over the Parana river.

There seemed to be a new type of traffic on the road: the motorcycle taxi. Given the congestion and queues - this didn't seem such a bad option. If you don't value your life very much I suppose.

We got off the bus on this big, wide street and wandered around some shops. I still harboured some desires for a Nintendo DS lite and I still owed T a birthday present (nearly 3 months ago). She fancied an iPod.

Lots of haggling and stuff later, we knocked the DS on the head, but got a good deal on a 30G iPod. Unfortunately, my credit card didn't work with their system, so we had to go and get cash.

We left the arcade with the shop in it into a downpour. The streets were, basically, torrents of water and the rain was wetter that the waterfalls nearby.

After alot of searching and asking, we finally tracked down an ATM where I got out a million and a half Paraguayan ibbles (or whatever that are called). I hoped that was about 140 quid. We will see :-)

We found a bridge over the road/river on the way back and returned to the shop to pay for an iPod.

All we had to do now was get back to Argentina.

We wandered across the street (the rain was pretty light by this point) and the first bus said 'Argentina' on it. We hopped on and the driver made sure we knew we were going to Argentina. Many others got on with their Paraguayan purchases (Paraguay has no sales tax and seems to have stocks of things that simply aren't easily available in Argentina). Fluffy bedcovers seemed to be unusually popular. As were umbrellas - but only in batches of three for some reason. Perhaps there is a '3' related umbrella based superstition - who knows.

Although there is a bridge between Paraguay and Argentina, this bus went from Paraguay to Brazil to Argentina. Nobody was allowed to get off in Brazil (except the chap who was taken off by customs, much to the displeasure of his missus). Border controls were pretty much a formality. No entry stamps to Brazil and no sign whatsoever that Paraguay cared about anything.

Thus ended our three country trip. Brazil we are to explore more fully soon (as fully as one can explore a country that size in a couple of days) and Paraguay is, well, wet.

23

2007-05-18T14:54:00.000-07:00

On the buses that we take from place to place, they show films pretty much continually. Sometimes they are in English with Spanish subtitles; sometmes vice-versa and sometimes just Spanish. From memory, we have seen:

Some Spanish film in Spanish
Swordfish
Driver
You and your stupid mate
Deja Vu
23
A Night at the Museum
Catch a Fire

Sometimes the sound is piped over the PA, sometimes you need headphones. Anyway, the final film on the Santiago del Estero to Puerto Iguazu bus was 23. It's a dark film with Jim Carrey playing a serious role. I'm not going to spoil anything by saying that part of the plot revolves around some people feeling that they are being persecuted by the number 23 and feel hounded by it.

Well, I know how they feel. The very day after seeing the film, the couple below were sitting on the train at Iguazu falls right in front of us.

Polo 23

Then, our bus ticket ended in 23

Bus ticket 23

At this point I started to feel that the curse of 23 was transferred to me. The change I got from my next purchase has the following serial number ...

Banknote 23

9 9 3 0 3 2 1 2.

Now, if you add up all those digits, it comes to 29. But, clearly, as it is a two peso note, you then need to subtract 6 (four for the two twos in the serial number and two for the fact that it is a two peso note.)

29 minus 6 is ....

Scary.

And it doesn't stop there, oh no. Our room number at the hotel was ...

503.

O.K. maybe it did stop there.

Utter bollocks.

Iguazu Falls

2007-05-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

We have come up to Iguazu to see the falls. We arrived at the bus station (after copious quantities of ham and cheese sandwiches, naturally) early in the morning. I had hardly slept on the journey and so T was dispatched to fact find whilst I rested.

In the same way that Niagara falls is shared between the USA and Canada, Iguazu falls is shared between Brazil and Argentina. T had discovered that the bus would go to the park for 66p each; as had just missed one, we got a taxi instead.

Once in the park, we walked a fairly long way, then got a little train and then walked along a raised walkway for about 15 mins to arrive at a viewing platform at the top of one of the falls. It was quite funky, but both of us felt it was missing something. The problem being that all you could see when you looked down was spray. No sense of scale.

The butterflies were cool though.

We had planned on getting wet in a boat under the falls (a kind of Extreme Sports version of the Maid of the Mist) but time was pushing on and my lack of sleep meant that food was more important. We planned to come back the next day and went back to our hotel.

The next day was cloudy, so we decided to do the Brazilian side and hope that the weather improved. Again we took a taxi, this time over a border, to their Park. There was a cash machine, so I got out some Brazilian pennies and we went in.

On this side, there is no train - just a bus system. We got the bus and started to walk along the path. The views were spectacular:

A part of the falls

The thing that is amazing is the sheer scale. Niagara (our common point of experience) is pretty cool, as you can see the whole thing in one vista. Iguazu is a whole series of sets of falls, the volume of water and the number of different places it is continuously falling actually seems to make it less comprehensible. Some aerial pictures capture it, but the lasting impression is just 'big' (or, 'massive' to coin a term)

Five Musketeers

In the lower tier are two sets of falls, on the left are the three musketeers and on the right are the two musketeers. D'Artagnan misses out completely.

Under water

After getting thoroughly soaked (see below) there was an opportunity to take a picture right beside one of the cascades. Pretty stunning (and amazingly noisy).

It was wet down there

As we had got thoroughly wet already (and as the weather appeared to be getting worse, not better) we decided not to go back to the Argentinian side, but went to Paraguay instead. (a whole blog entry in itself)

On the Way to Iguazu

2007-05-16T14:52:00.000-07:00

From Mendoza to Puerto Iguazu is a 36 hour, two night, bus journey. We had already done an overnight, 19 hour journey from Bariloche to Mendoza, so (as long as we could book posh seats) we were happy to do that distance. However we felt that we should break the journey into two chunks.

Deciding where to stop by time; we elected to alight at 13:30, which meant a city called Santiago del Estero. It is Argentina's oldest city, has a copy of the Turin shroud and is a capital of its province. The best hotel in town is a four star affair, running at GBP34 per night for a double room.

And that's about all we knew about it.

We boarded the bus at the station at about 9:00 pm and T was out like a light. I dozed for a bit until getting to the land of nod in the early hours. We (in posh class, remember) were treated to breakfast.

Breakfast - Andesmar style

Breakfast is three different types of sandwich.

A sandwich
A vegetarian
A Milanese completo

This needs some explanation: A sandwich is, de facto, cheese and ham. (Tostado is toasted cheese and ham, but I digress). You can request completo (which adds lettuce and tomato) and you can ask for no ham. I say you can, but if you do, expect to have to repeat yourself a couple of times and then, as the panny drops, be asked if you are (hushed tones) vegetarian. It is not worth trying to explain that you are not vegetarian but are just sick of highly processed dead pig. Trust me.

A Milanese is breaded veal (or cow). A Milanese completo sandwich is a Milanese with cheese and ham, (No tomato and lettuce this time).

Therefore, our breakfast was three types of ham and cheese sandwich. Yummy.

Oh, and a biscuit with Dulce de Leche (posts passim) in it.

After our culinary treats, we dozed for a few more hours until we rolled into Santiago del Estero. After the usual scramble for bags, we tried to get a cab. We had to wait a good ten minutes before one arrived and took us to the hotel. About half-way there I realised that there was no meter and that we hand't asked how much it would cost. Stupid tourist makes schoolboy error I thought to myself - right until he asked for the princely sum of 33p for the journey. In a spirit of unparalleled genorosity, I gave him 50p.

Our hotel was OK. The pool wasn't and the checkouy time had been changed in an effort to extract an extra fiver from late sleepers, but we had a nice room with a balcony overlooking the square.

Santiago del Estero by day

Arriving on a Sunday, mid-afternnon, the place was pretty much dead. We ended up eating a very poor lunch in the hotel and having a siesta.

The town woke up at night, but we were too ensconced in bed to venture out further than the balcony for another picture.

Santiago del Estero by night

In the morning we packed and vacated without incurring the lazy-tax and I did some internetting whilst T pootled around town.

We then both went out to get some lunch. First stop was the market, just for a look. It reminded me of Bolton market. T was somewhat shocked to walk past some bizarre looking meat things hanging up. Bull penises. We were too suprised and embarrassed to take pictures.

A yummy (and cheap) lunch with a very nice waiter and a ridiculously cheap taxi later and we were back on the bus.

Which is where I am now. Listening to Gotan Project and typing up the blog.

We get into Puerto Iguazu in 12 hours. There may well be more sandwiches before then. Wish us luck.

Valparaiso

2007-05-16T14:45:00.000-07:00

Due west of Mendoza lies the old port town of Valparaiso. We discovered that it was a seven hour bus ride away and so decided to visit it for a couple of nights. I had heard about it, but wasn't really sure what it was all about. I knew that it was an old (and current) port and that it had lots of funicular elevators - I'm a sucker for that kind of thing. I also had heard that it was 'cool'.

So, with little thought of why we were going or what we expected to see when we got there, we set off on an early bus.

In addition to going to Valparaiso, we also had the treat of going through the Andes on a pass that is 2,800m above sea level.

We had mentioned to our guide on the wine trip that we were off to Valparaiso and she said that she goes there quite often (as do quite alot of Mendocians, apparently) and told us to get a taxi to Corre Conception - wherever that might be - and stay in the British hotel - or something. Armed with such detailled insider knowledge, we felt we could hardly fail.

The bus journey was astounding. Well, the pass part was. Two hours of flat Chilean countryside was bit tedious - but the pass. Wow.

The Argentine side of the pass is quite a long, shallow incline for a couple of hours. Pretty much accompanied the whole way by the river, which sits in a vertically-sided gorge about 30-40 feet deep. Also going through the same pass is the (sadly defunct) railway line. Usually it is on the opposite side of the gorge to the road, which allows one time and scope to really see and appreciate the engineering miracle that it must have been. Apparently there is talk of rebuilding it (a pretty major undertaking in some places by the looks of things). I hope they do - it would be a truly stunning journey.

The Border was reasonably well organised (we are becoming quite the experts on Latin American borders - our fumbling around in no-man's land between Belize and Guatemala seems a world away). Chile and Argentina seem to be in a different economic trading bloc (Argentina is in Mercosur, along with Brazil, Paraguay and others I forget - Chile is not) and, as Chile exports fruit, meat etc.. to Europe, the border is strict about the importation of fruit, honey, semen and seeds (i.e. it is forbidden). One Argentinian woman got caught trying to bring a big bag of fuit across - she got a bit upset - the border guard was a model of a polite, firm, patient official (really - no sarcasm). Not only did she have a bag of fruit in her checked luggage, she also had an orange (which was discovered and confiscated with a phlegmatic shrug) in her hand luggage. Amazing.

The Chilean side of the pass is breathtaking. I don't know the statistics, but the road must drop an astounding distance as a series of zig-zags clinging to the side of the hill. T made a bus-friend - a Chilean bloke who told us a bit about Chile and was the source of the Border processing information. He said that he had learned English from chatting on the Internet. His English was pretty good (much better than our Spanish, I am embarrassed to say). We stopped in Vina del Mar which is a Chlean beach tourism destination about 10 Km from Valparaiso, and dropped off all the other passengers. T and I arrived in Valparaiso, mid-afternoon.

We had discovered that the British hotel on Corre (hill) Conception was called Hotel Brighton. With that kind of Karma, it would have had to have cockroaches; a dog pound outside our room; a poo-pot and be underneath a Tango dance school for us not to stay there.

Hotel on a Hill

Hotel Brighton was a little, um, rustic. But it was cheap and it was authentic. Corre Conception is th Bohemian, arty Corre and it has a real chilled-out vibe to it.

At some point over the last couple of days I'd started to feel a bit cold-y and, by the time we hit Valparaiso, had become a pathetic creature, incapable of regulating my own temperature - great for marching up and down hills - not. So, I went to bed and T had a mooch about. Then we both went out for a brief stroll and used the Corre Conception elevator which was cool. I dragged myself up for a nice meal and we went to bed early.

The view in the morning was beautiful. The concrete high-rises sort of spoil the view, but, at the same time they do help one to realise that this is a living city and not a tourist attraction. The legislature of Chile meets here (in a "love it or hate it" architectured building) and it is the capital of the region as well as a financial centre and a working port, not to mention a serious Naval base.

Morning over the bay

We took a walking tour of the city. It started with the first elevator being out of order, which did not help my condition, but then proceeded to be quite interesting, if a little sketchy on detail. The woman giving the tour seemed do do alot of "Look at that House" pretty enough, to be sure, but not any historical context. Oh, and if I had a centavo for every time she told us to go to Vina del Mar (where she lived) ...

Painted Houses on Corre Conception

The afternoon (for me) was spent in bed again; T did some hanging around the hotel and environs.

Trudi, just outside Brighton

In the evening, we walked down the hill and found another elevator (we took 3 of the 15 that the town has to offer) which was well hidden and went up to a recommended Thai restaurant on Corre Bellavista. It was O.K. We sat outside even though it was probabaly a teency-weency bit too cold to do so sensibly.

An early night, up for the bus back the following morning.

The trip back was just as spectacular as before with two exceptions.

Argentine customs was a ridiculous charade. They certainly know how to make a border crossing painful.
T obviously got illness-envy and spent the whole trip trying to sleep off an awful migraine. (I was quite fine by now). Pobre Trudi.

We did little in Mendoza upon our return, just laundry; shopping; eating and last minute wine tasting before catching our bus, Iguazu bound.

Wine tasting

2007-05-14T07:43:00.000-07:00

We were picked up from our hotel in a minibus along with seven others and taken to a series of small wineries.

First up was one which got very good marks in some magazine or other and they seemed a bit pretentious about the whole thing to me. It was nice, new and clean; but when they started yabbering on about yield density and other things, I wondered if they really didn't just decide to do everthing as 'perfectly' as possible just to dare the wine community to say it ended up tasting crap (which it may or may not have done - I don't know).

Anyway - as it was our first stop - we were instructed in a way of tasting wine. We tasted a few. They tasted like wine.

There was one set of three bottles that supposedly had the same grapes; treated the same way; blended the same way etc etc, but from different places in the valley. The idea was that you can taste the difference in the terroir. Who knows?

Not me, that's for sure.

Ah, yes! Red Wine

(at 9.00am, whilst a little -ahem- delicate.)

We then went to another winery which wasn't even open properly. It was on a much larger scale and, as we were told, designed with typical Swiss attention to detail. Apparently the layout was a wine-makers dream. We walked past some fellas in one room and were told in hushed tones that he was one of the top winemakers in Argentina. Our guide knew his face from wine magazines. He was drinking wine - I bet he could taste some differences.

More tasting - this time with an amazing view to break up the monotony of trying to taste anything important about each of the different wines.

A view of the Andes

Come to think of it, endless pictures of the same thing (e.g. the Andes) and endless different types of the same thing (i.e. Red Wine) have alot in common - only of interest to a select few.

We had a lovely lunch (apart from the bored and pretty much useless staff) with five courses and a different wine with each. This time we were allowed one glass-ette of white.

After luncheon, our last stop was at a very small winery belonging to a local winemaker - Carmello Patti. Now he seemed to really enjoy what he was doing and also seemed to have a real affinity for his product. It was a really pleasant change from the previous sterile environments. He also had a kitten. Everyone except us bought wine from him. Maybe because it was the end of the tastings, or maybe it was his charm, but his wine did seem pretty popular.

Carmello and a bottle or two

We returned to Tapiz to get our bags

Pinot Noir

Finally, we went into Mendoza to recover before setting off early for Valparaiso.

Wine Country

2007-05-14T07:39:00.000-07:00

We spent a couple of quiet days at Club Tapiz. It is a small winery, just south of Mendoza, which has relocated operations and turned the old buildings into a 7 room hotel and very nice restaurant.

I had got quite annoyed with the laptop having periodically flaky WiFi connections, which I guessed were sometimes due to the US/UK differences in implementation (I've had this issue before). So I left lady T to recover in bed and went for an explore to the local Wal-Mart.

The hotel had an extensive wine cellar.

Wine Cellar - extensive

We had a little bit of a tasting session each night. I'm no wine buff, but we are planning on doing some more tastings soon and so I thought I'd try them out. They tasted like wine.

Once Madam had recovered sufficiently to be fit for public consumption, she spend a goodly number of hours in front of the fire in the lounge.

Relaxing in the lounge

We had a lovely meal in the restaurant and chatted to a journalist and a professional tango dancer (who also works as a data warehousing consultant).

Mendoza

2007-05-07T08:27:00.000-07:00

Tired and hungry, we bickered about where to eat as we wandered around Mendoza for a while. The problem is that we were starving and it was only breakfast time (11:30 am). All the non-breakfast places were either shut or (worse, apparently) empty. Eventually we spotted the Liverpool Pub, full of old men drinking coffee - but smart enough to say yes when we asked for food at such a ridiculous time.

Liverpool Pub

It was quite a pleasant change for the music to be the Beatles (what else could they play in the Liverpool pub? - Dead or Alive? Echo and the Bunnymen? Space? The La's? Scorpio Rising? Frankie goes to Hollywood? - I rest my case). Anyway, what was nice was that it was the Beatles and not the CD that seemed to plague us on the Cruce de Lagos of "Andean Beatles" i.e. Beatles songs murdered by the Pan Pipes. I half expected Awatinas to jump onto the ferry and start moaning about the PA at any moment (an especially bizarre moment from my student days).

After a nice lunch (including, due to a miscommunication, a bottle and not a glass of white wine) we took our leave and went off in search of tourism.

We weren't drawn in by the marketing of the first company we passed - for some reason:

Perhaps not aimed at the Brit market

After a siesta, we then popped into the nearest one to the hotel (which I had seen in some guidebook) and were sorted out with a lovely place to stay (which Tourist Information had said was fully booked - liars) and a wine tour.

More admin was achieved at the bus station, as we booked tickets to Valparaiso, back to Mendoza and then on to Iguazu. We have busy week to look forward to.

At this point I should mention that both of us suffered from Travellers tummy. It may have been the Liverpool pub, or perhaps the toilet on the bus - which has a sign on the door that says "In order to prevent Cholera, please use only in an emergency." Who knows. At least we had a nice room to be in to run to the loo from.

Overnight Adventure

2007-05-07T08:18:00.000-07:00

We arrived at the bus station at 12:30 for our 1pm departure. The bus was impressive.

Bus - impressive

We were downstairs in the posh bit.

Seats - posh

We had a really comfy trip. I didn't sleep solidly, but did manage to get a reasonable number of hours in. T fared better than I. It's really nice travelling in the bottom bit. There is a good deal of room and the seats recline pretty well.

We will do this again. Especially if we are going to soften the blow a bit by staying in a posh place the night after. For Mendoza we chose the Park Hyatt. Very nice. We got our money's worth though - checking in at 9:00am.

Bariloche

2007-05-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

We stayed a couple of days in Bariloche.

A lake, some mountains - get the picture?

Our first night witnessed the exit of United from the Champoins League. That didn't go down well (mind you, thanks to the unlikely help of Man City and Arsenal, we've just won the league - woo hoo). We did alot of admin tasks in town. We sent another parcel of unnecessary stuff home. This was a lot easier (and cheaper) than in Belize. We also booked an overnight coach trip to Mendoza.

We got our washing done, bought provisions for the trip (chocolate) and booked somewhere to stay in Mendoza.

Bariloche was O.K. but we preferred other places in Patagonia.

Cruce de Lagos

2007-05-07T07:28:00.000-07:00

We stayed in a nice place in Puerto Varas and had a very nice meal in the Merlin restaurant. I had cream of beer soup - which was very salty, otherwise it was excellent. Early to bed for the first day of a two day crossing from Chile to Argentina on the, apparently, famous Cruce de Lagos.

We were picked up in the morning and taken, along with a bus load of mostly Brazilians, to the boat on the Esmeralda lake.

Pretty Lago Esmeralda

A fairly relaxing trip on a lightly loaded boat, passing some interesting islands and a pretty waterfall, ended in the small town of Peulla. We were there at around about noon.

We had a forced stop at Peulla, as the 1st of May was the start of the winter timetable and so the 'in one day' option wasn't on.

Peulla is a bit of a tourist trap. There are two hotels; one is a hundred years old (and looks it) the other is one year old. We were in the newer one. The town contains lots of 'things to do'. We chose 'canopy'. The food and service were pretty poor. But the room and the location were quite amazing.

"Canopy" turned out to mean dangling from a bit of string at a great height above a stream. T had a practice a little closer to ground

Mountain explorer in waiting Wiseman

However, the sight of the stream a dizzying distance below proved a little too much, so T had a walk up a hill, across a rickety bridge and then back across the bridge and walked down again. I rolled down the wires a bit slower than strictly necessary and then was abseiled down the last tree at the end.

Going down

Interesting - but I'm not sure I'd bother doing it again.

In the morning, we started early for the second half of the trip. A short ride to the border and then a series of boats and buses were to take us to Bariloche in Argentina.

Basically it all turned a bit pear-shaped at this point. There was much waiting, faffing, carrying of bags (in Chile they had had the bright idea to put the bags in boxes and move the boxes around - in Argentina they moved all the bags by hand between three buses and two boats - madmen) and - worst of all - hanging about to wait for a group coming straight from Chile (so the winter/summer timetable thing was a lie).

Getting wet on Lago Frias

We sat on a boat in the pouring rain in the middle of a lake for two hours, then went to get the fast-track group and then sat on the boat in the pouring rain for another hour as we got near to Bariloche. Only when we'd tied up did it occur to our guides that they ought to tell us what to do next (to get another bus). However, they managed to give several sets of contradictory instructions and we just sat on the boat for another 1/2 hour as it got dark. We had no accomodation booked in Bariloche yet.

Eventually, we arrived in Bariloche and checked into the nearest hotel - which was fine. So ended the Cruce de Lagos, Badly organised. It is amazing to think that they do that every day.

Ferry Trip - Day 3 and Arrival

2007-05-03T13:46:00.000-07:00

Our last day had a bit less rain. I wouldn't go as far as to call it sunshine. However, we didn't really do much outside. I did see the tail of a whale disappearing, much to T's annoyance - as I'd only been looking for about 5 mins - her 1/2 hour in the rain was fruitless.

In the evening, we had "Bingo". It was a bit of fun. Apparently they sold 35 cards.

The first prize was given for getting one line.

T won

The second prize was given for getting two lines

T won

The third prize was given for getting three lines

T won and was banned from winning any more prizes.

The fourth prize was given for getting four lines

T didn't win (she was banned, remember), but was two numbers ahead of the winner (i.e. T would have won)

The fifth, and major, prize was for a full house.

T got a Bingo on the same number as the winner.

Then they started a new game for the losers (i.e. anyone who hadn't won a prize yet.) Everyone stood up and then sat down if their board had any of the called numbers on it.

After 4 (or 5) numbers, there was only one chap left. T, with the same board, had had no matches either. Basically, one board would have won (as far as we can establish) every prize had we not been banned.

What's the probability of that then? (yep, 1) O.K. but what's the liklihood? 75 numbers. Board as shown below.

Board yet?

Another night's sleep saw us arriving in Puerto Montt where we were disembarked by the cargo elevator and not the perfectly good stairs next to it, for some reason.

Moo

We got a transfer to Puerto Varas (15 km North and much, much prettier).

Ferry Trip - Day 2

2007-05-03T13:43:00.000-07:00

Day two started much like day one - moo, Spanish, "Wake Up". However, after discovering the bar in the boat, it appeared that I was a tad unwell and skipped breakfast.

The scenery was ... not.

The "view"

In the deepest part of the journey, we passed a ship that had managed to miss the deep bit and not sink. The captain pulled an insurance job and got a prison sentence for his trouble.

Shipwreck

A mostly uneventful day.

Ferry Trip - Day 1

2007-05-03T13:36:00.000-07:00

We woke to the lowing of cattle and the tinny voice of our guide announcing breakfast and the impending navigation of the narrowest part of the trip.

We are to go through the right hand channel here:

Camel? Needle?

We did get through and so did the cause of the lowing (but not much baaing - perhaps sheep prefer ferry journeys.)

Cargo, safely through narrow channel

We all know what a rainbow means ...

Yep - rain.

Rainbow

So, we spent most of the day in our suite.

Our palacial suite

I borrowed the film and we had our own private viewing. In the film, they showed Lago Frias on the Cruce de Lagos - we will be there in a few days.

Leaving Puerto Natales

2007-05-03T13:31:00.000-07:00

Our last day with the truck was mostly spent arguing about what to do with our last day with the truck. Ordering important tasks like shopping; returning the truck; eating; getting our luggage to the ferry terminal; filling up with diesel and going on a litle jaunt south which all vied for our attention. In the end we went south for a bit - got to a bridge and then turned around.

We went just over 100km (62 miles) and saw one turning; one 'town'; a statue of Jesus; a bridge; an old road; a posh hotel and a couple of army checkpoints. We also saw a shrine-y thing.

Bottle Shrines

We are not sure exactly what is going on here, as the guide-book seems to be more interested in being clever about the relative fortunes of the Chilean and Argentine tourist industries than actually saying what the shrines are, and, perhaps more importantly, why they are surrounded with Coke bottles.

We also saw the ferry arrive.

Our ferry, arriving

Once we had done our chores we found a nice Internet cafe and coffe shop.
Unfortunately their DHCP server wasn't handing out any addresses, so we just bought chocolate and books and moved on.

We had decided to eat in a pizza restaurant that had been recommended to us. It was full of people with English accents, ready to board a ferry. We had nice pizzas.

We went down to the ferry terminal at 9:00 and boarded our boat. Unfortunately, my Leatherman somehow didn't manage to stay in my bag from the ferry terminal to the cabin. It's annoying to have stuff pinched - but, as things go - touch wood - that's the first issue of this sort we have encountered in the three months (yes - we are half way through) so far.

We attended the welcome talk, but were too tired to stay up for the film. This was a real shame, as it was "The Motorcycle Diaries" which T has just read and which has footage of the Andean Lakes crossing that we are going on when we arrive in Puerto Montt.

A reasonable nights sleep was punctuated by the periodic noises of the crew lashing down the cargo in the hold. I think I know what it would feel like to be a mouse living in a Timpani.

Post #99 - the "Pooh Pot"

2007-04-25T20:02:00.000-07:00

Warning - do not read whilst eating

Ick.

Nothing to do with A.A.Milne, the "Pooh Pot" is someting that we've had to come to terms with everywhere on our travels except in 5 star western hotels and Buenos Aires.

I'd been to Mexico once before and seen signs in a couple of public toilets asking one not to put paper in the WC, but in the bin provided. I'd half assumed, but mostly hoped that they meant the hand-drying towels. They didn't.

It is the norm here to place all paper products in a little bin that is placed beside the toilet; thus only allowing strictly organic waste to be flushed away with the water.

This means that there is a little bin in each and every toilet that is full of used toilet paper.

I'll be honest, it took quite a while to actually start to do this. For the first few days I was strictly in denial. Somehow it seemed quite appropriate in Guatemala (it is, after all, a 3rd world country) and so I gradually overcame 40 years of indoctrination and started to go native. However, it doesn't feel right.

BsAs, which probably has a sewer system (like their railway system) designed by the British, offered a brief - and welcome - return to the natural order of things. But Argentinian hostels and Chile has brought us back to earth with a bump.

I hope our ferry is a Pooh Pot free zone.

Torres del Paine

2007-04-25T19:43:00.000-07:00

We got up and boarded the truck to drive to Torres del Paine National Park. It was a long drive there (2 hrs) and then an exorbitant entrance fee (15 quid each). Most of the road was dirt track. I'm glad we got a truck and not the Ford Sierra that was the alternative.

The weather wasn't the best, but it was, at least, dry. At one point we had to stop to let a herd of cattle pass. They were being driven by three blokes on horses and about a dozen dogs.

Cows

Once in the park, we drove up to Lago Grey and stopped to admire the view in numerous places.

Pretty Mountains and stuff

At Lago Grey we had luncheon at the hotel (which looked a bit more like Maplins holiday camp than a hotel charging 150 quid for a double chalet (room)). It did have a nice view of the glacier in the distance. And there was a convenient iceberg too.

We went for a walk and got pretty close to the iceberg. It was a bit chilly (geddit?)

An iceberg

T was stoic during the journey there and back. Only a couple of "Jesus!" and other, more graphic, expletives passed her lips as the Truck careered out of control towards the gully of the dirt track at a great rate of knots.

To be fair to the driver, the roads took a great deal of concentration and sometimes just took you where they wanted you to go, whatever you did. I may have been going a soupcon faster than strictly necessary at some points though.

One the way back, we stopped at the Milodon caves. The cave itself was massive, and pretty damned impressive.

For dinner, we decided to try the hotel again and it was very nice.

T went to bed early and I'm here typing up our last blog entries before setting off on the (Internet free) ferry trip.

Puero Natales

2007-04-24T18:10:00.000-07:00

We crossed into Chile without incicdent and descended into Puerto Natales. There are signs on the way in that inform you what there is to do.

Things to do in Puerto Natales

Go to a Hotel
Eat
Play cards
Use a telephone
Go to Hospital
Write a letter
Get petrol
Fly a plane
Wash your hands

However, the metropolis is clearly too diverse to be described by one sign, so another one pops up a bit down the road:

More things to do in Puerto Natales

Fish
Go to church
Go on a boat
Eat fish and get drunk on cheap Chilean wine
Ask a question
Take a photograph (of bizarre street signs, presumably)
See birds
Go to a museum
See a mountain

We are staying in a lovely hotel, just outside town and overlooking the bay. The weather isn't perfect (a bit chilly (geddit?) and windy) but the place is a wonder. It is so quiet and peaceful, we a sleeping brilliantly. The staff are amazingly helpful. Not only did they pick us up from the bus stop, they have helped us decide our itinerary (we are going to drive to the national park) and also helped track down "Chile Woman" who has been helping to organise the part of our trip once we get off the ferry. Wonderful.

Did I mention that we hired a car - OK - a truck. Or a truckio, as the locals don't call it. It's a monster.

Truckio

The first thing we did once we got the truck was to go 15km North to Puerto Prat, to take a picture of the town sign. For those with good eyesight, you actually get two for the price of one in the following picture (look right in the middle of the obvious one and see the back of the other one.)

Puerto Prat is not a big place.

Puerto Prat

Tomorrow we drive to Torres del Paine National Park.

For Sale

2007-04-24T09:27:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what the issue is, but Argentina has some very old and knackered cars on the roads (most of the really old ones are Peugeot and Citroen; France seems to have found a market for their cars in Argentina earlier than most). I'm not sure if there is a local equivalent of the M.O.T. test, but it certainly isn't enforced. Cars without silencers (mufflers, for my internation audience) are not as rare as one would like (esp. at 2 in the morning) and the fumes kicking out of the buses and lorries is a sight to turn even the most avid Global Warming denier into a fit of remorse, never mind the rest of us.

The sign in the back of this car says "For Sale" (in Spanish, obviously).

A good little runner

I don't know what the spanish for "One Lady Owner" is.

El Chalten

2007-04-24T08:56:00.000-07:00

We got up early to get the bus to El Chalten. The taxi dropped us off in plenty of time and we boarded a reasonably posh bus. The roads were a mixture of tarmac and shingle-y stuff. The trip took four hours and we arrived in time for luncheon.

After lunch we went on a short (2hr) walk to the local waterfall. It was pretty.

A waterfall reached

I was a little concrned about the threat of rain and so we hurried back (in the dry - hmm). The wind in the valley was something to behold. We had been warned about the wind in Patagonia, however this was our first experience of it. When it picked up the dust, the only thing to do was turn your back on it until the gust died down.

We returned to our hostel.

Our Hostel

And went out for something to eat. The restaurant we chose was OK, but seemed to not be doing most of the things we ordered from the menu.

Suitably refreshed and tired from the early mornings and outdoor activities - we went to bed.

T fell fast asleep and I read for a bit. The bathroom floor had been a bit wet when we got back, so I got up to check it - to find that it was starting to flood. I quickly grabbed our (only very slightly damp) stuff off the floor and went to reception to see what they could do about it.

They were very quick and moved us to another room with very little fuss. (Apart from the semi-slumbering T scaring the living daylights out of the nice man). Unfortunately, our new room was near the common room and was very noisy until about 1am and then from about 5am onwards. This time it was I who had difficulty sleeping - T slept the sleep of the just.

We had breakfast; got packed lunches and set off for another walk. This was a much longer affair. After about two hours up hill and down dale, we were rewarded with the sight of some pretty peaks.

Torre and friends

We sat and had our packed lunches with a lovely view.

Savouring the view

Upon returning to the hostel, we were assured that the flooding problem was fixed and we returned to our quiet location.

Food was Locro (me) and Pizza (T) in a nice little bistro. (You have to understand that El Chalten is tiny (pop. 317) and the tourist season is almost over - so finding a nice place wasn't as easy as it should have been.)

After rescheduling our return to 8am (instead of 6pm), we returned to the hostel. After learning our lesson from yesterday, we mad sure that none of our stuff was on the floor and went to bed.

Sure enough, the water did come back a bit (not as bad as the day before though) and we were assured that it was under control.

About an hour later, just as I was dropping off, our neighbours across the hall returned to find their room flooded. They were not quiet about it either. It took about an hour of shouting, talking loudly and other noises before they had finally moved into another room. (It had taken us about 5 mins - including waking T up). I did think about popping my head out to tell them to shut up, but felt that they were stressed enough and that there might be a language barrier preventing me telling them that we had the same problem last night and managed not to wake up half of Patagonia.

Up early (this is not a good pattern we developed here) again and back to another hostel in El Calafate.

This one was nice and it did not flood. Chile tomorrow.

El Calafate - Trip 2 - Perito Moreno minitrekking

2007-04-19T16:09:00.001-07:00

Up early again (this time we did make breakfast) and then off to a different port (1 1/2 hours away) to get on a boat beside the Perito Mereno Glacier (the famous one - probably as it is the most accessible).

After alghting and heading to the ice, we had crampons strapped to our feet.We then set off onto the Glacier.

A Glacier to trek upon

T (Antarctic explorer Wiseman) and I had not done our shoes up tightly, so we were a bit uncomfortable until the first stop. This made us the slowest. Our guide then decided to promote T to "co-pilot", which meant she had to follow him.

Antarctic explorer Wiseman trekking on a Glacier

After tying shoelaces more tightly (schoolboy error) we were marching as fast as the best of them.

A bar with a unique location

In fact, towards the end of the trek, T was practically running - for some reason.

Filling the ice bucket

On this occasion, I had ice in my whisky. It wasn't a single malt, so I didn't worry too much.

After the drinkies, we returned to the boat and then were taken by coach to a lookout point, an hour there passed in no time at all.

Pictures cannot capture the scale of this thing, nor does it even try to recall this most impressive demonstration of the power of nature - so, I would recommend a visit in person.

And home to a well earned bath.

El Calafate - Trip 1 - All the Glaciers

2007-04-19T15:57:00.000-07:00

We got up early (but not early enough to get breakfast) and set off on the hour's drive to the port. It was raining. Picking up our boat, we headed of into lago Argentino in not very nice weather. We were taken to the Spegazzini Glacier, which we got quite close to. It was quite dramatic - the noise that is made when a chunk of ice falls off is quite astounding.

Spegazzini Glacier and ice flow

We then set off for the larger Upsala glacier, passing some pretty impressive icebergs on the way.

An impressive iceberg - on the way

Upsala is slightly different to the others, as the water undermines the face of the glacier and so the ice can break off in the big chunks of icebergs that we see dotted around lago Argentino.

Antarctic Explorer Wiseman in front of an iceberg

Finally, we were set down on land near another glacier-fed lake and walked for a bit (in the rain) to sit and eat our packed lunches with a view (but in the rain).

Lunch with a (damp) view

We then trudged back to the boat (in the rain) and returned to port and to the hotel. We had an early tea and wet to bed. We had to be up early in the morning.

It was nice to see the glaciers, but the whole mass herding of inconsiderate people thing spoiled it a little.

Golf

2007-04-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

We have arrived in El Calafate and it is quite a lovely town. Small, wide streets and unashamedly touristy (I am typing this blog in the bar of the hotel as a Tango show passes in the background).

T hasn't been feeling so well, so we have had a quiet day today. (Apparently I wasn't sympathetic enough yesterday. Mea Culpa). It has been nice doing little but organising the next week.

Tomorrow we are going to see glaciers by boat. On Thursday we are going to walk on one (A Glacier, not a Boat - gosh - pronouns can be _so_ imprecise). We are going North to El Chalten for the weekend. And we have booked our bus to Chile (don't know if it is Argentinian or not.)

Oh - and breking news - We are staying in a hostel in El Chalten.

The weather is cold, but dry, clear and crisp. Very nice indeed.

El Calafate

Our hotel has a golf course, so when T decided to relax in bed reading for the afternoon, I played Billy-no-mates on the course. It cost more to buy the balls than the green fees :-) And they lent me clubs for free.

The 'course' is actually 9 tees and three greens. All par 3. They gave me a 2 wood. Heaven only knows why - but I did use it to get from off the green to within an inch of the hole on one hole though :-)

Golf 'course'

Given that I hadn't hit a ball for 18 months I felt I didn't do too bad:

Only one duffed tee shot
Only 2 blobs (Stableford)
no three putts (putts off green don't count)
No holes in double figures
No lost balls
No lost tees

In the end - 11 Stableford points for my nominal 28 handicap.

And - another Spanisheo ...

Dropeo

Scorchio.

Finally, it seems like BsAs is being flooded - TV pictures of cars stranded in Pelermo on TV. Good job we left a week early.

Tomorrow we are up early for a big boat trip. Goodnight.

Ushuaia - Trip 3 - National Park

2007-04-17T18:53:00.000-07:00

Our final trip was to the Tierra del Fuego National Park. Again we were picked up early, but this time in a coach. After a trawl around town for some others, we then set off for the National Park. We passed the most Southerly golf course and arrived at the station for the Train at the End of the world. Where we took pictures ...

T at the Union Jack

The Union Jack is outside the toilets. I presume this is no accident, as the other flags there are Uruguay (Gents) and Brazil (Ladies). Ours lies between them.

We boarded the train and were treated to a narrative from the most plummy Ennglish accent this side of 1950. We were saved from boredom by the screaming child in our compartment - bless.

A train

After the train, we were taken to a few places in the park and wandered about a bit. The park contains the end of the 18,000 Km long Pan-American highway, an almost contiguous route from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. I guess I need to go to Alaska now :-)

T at the end of the Pan-American highway

The afternoon was spent at leisure (i.e. T had a massage) in the hotel.

You may have read between the lines that we have become hyper-sensitive to noise for some reason (sleep) and the fact that we seemed to have the cast to "Stomp" living above us (on a wooden floor) in our apartment didn't help. When we arrived in our lovely, 5 star, middle of nowhere, suite at the end of the world we had expectations of silence. As we settled in the peace and quiet we heard a dog, barking right outside our room. Here we go again - San Marcos La Laguna here we come.

To be fair - the dog never barked much after that 10 minute session and turned out to be quite cute.

Cute Perro

We guessed it had been barking at a sealion in the channel - as the following morning - much to our delight, we saw a sealion right in fornt of us as we sat down to breakfast. Quite a treat.

And that pretty much ends the trip to Ushuaia.

For those dedicated enough to read this far, Ushuaia is pronounced oos-why-ah.

Chilly (Argentinian) Plane

We had been amazingly lucky with the weather: The fantastic view on our arrival; no rain for any trips at all and some amazing views across the channel, however, our last day was quite inclement. It was a bit of a snow-storm. The planes had to be de-iced before take-off and we saw pretty much nothing but cotton wool as we departed.

Ushuaia was certainly an amazing place to visit. Off to El Calafate now.

Ushuaia - Trip 2 - Off-Road

2007-04-17T18:24:00.000-07:00

We were picked up from our hotel at the crack of dawn by Bismark - our driver/chef/guide/entertainer who then went to pick up the other six people that filled our Defender 110 (a newer version of my. now sold, Land-Rover). We were the 'English' group. 2 Brits, 2 from the USA, 1 New Zealander (who lives in Lavender Hill in London-town) and three Brazillians.

We were then taken across a pass that goes North-South over the Andes (the only one) and stopped at a pretty place.

P and T in front of picturesque lakes

Apparently, the English are Pirates. To be fair - it does seem that we played that role around the Latin Americas quite alot in olden times. However, I somehow doubt that it refers to Henry Morgan.

The English are pirates

We then went down into the valley, to a hotel that - we were informed - had the last toilets that we would see that day. And they sold coffee. We did both.

A picturesque lake

We then 4x4'd along very muddy tracks and along the shore (and sometimes in the edge) of a pretty lake. Our driver got out at one point and left the L-R steering itself in the deep ruts. It was probably more impressive for the less mechanically minded, as the car went left and right for a few hundred yards - apprently by itself whilst the drivers (we had 2 L-Rs in convoy) pretented to push from behind with their little fingers.

Our Land-Rover

We walked along the lakeside for 30 mins whilst they prepared our food (the best steak we have had so far) and we were treated to the sight of three foxes (who, presumably know that they get fed once a day.)

After returning to town, we ate in a nice bar where they were promoting Chandon 187 (a 1/4 bottle of fizz). Our demonstrably nutty waiter stated that Bismark was the maddest man he had ever met. I had burnt a CD of Hitch Hiker's Guide mp3 files for him - he had a penchant for quoting films and HHGTTG was one of his favourites. (No, that lot doesn't make sense - never mind).

Ushuaia - Trip 1 - Catamaran

2007-04-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

So, we move into a new phase of travel - on the tourist trail of Patagonia. We seem to be living an oxymoronic lifestyle. Shacking up each night at strictly top-notch accomodation and then railing against the mass tourism trip that we seem channelled towards. Sometimes we manage to grab a more out of the way excursion, sometimes we just shuffle along with the hordes, the main respite being that, as this is low season, the hordes are thinner (though no less annoying).

Our first trip was the mass-market of the catamaran trip on the Beagle Channel. We saw sea lions and birds...

Sealions and Cormorants

We saw a lighthouse...

Lighthouse

We took pretty pictures of each other...

Pretty T in front of a picturesque mountain

We took pretty pictures of ourselves...

P and T - on a boat

All the boats (there were five out at once - there were many more in harbour - presumably for high season) leave the harbour within 30 minutes of each other and perform a well choreographed (and twice daily run) dance around the four stops of interest.

Things I noticed:

Sealions smell of fish
Sealions piss at boats (OK one did - it was quite funny)
People cannot follow simple instructions (e.g. please be quiet near the animals)
People with big cameras are slightly more annoying than people with small cameras.
People with small or no cameras can still be pretty damned annoying.
People with video cameras are very annoying too.
I guess the last four points can be summed up by: people are, in general, quite annoying when they don't know or care about the other people that they are temporarily inhabiting a shared space with.
T and I, of course, did not annoy anyone, no - not us.

We returned to our hotel after booking more trips.

Oh, and we adopted a very friendly big black dog for a bit. He tried to come shopping with us. The staff of the shop shooed him out (we tried to stop him following us, but after a couple of minutes of Mr Bean-esque comedy - trying to run into the shop (which had automatic doors) without our tail - we just gave up and let him follow us in.)

Last days in Buenos Aires

2007-04-15T16:47:00.000-07:00

We decided to go on a trip to Colonia de Sacramento in Uruguay (which is just across the river from BsAs) and so went to the Buquebus shop to book the ferry, the hotel, the tour of the city, the hotel transfers and a voucher for lunch (no drinks). It was an excercise in losing time - but it did all get sorted out, did cost less than we expected and - in general - turned out pretty much as described.

We got a taxi down to the ferry terminal and got onto quite a small (no cars, perhaps 150 people) catamaran and were in Colonia in less than an hour.

After a bit of as kerfuffle, we got to our hotel to be greeted with "You were told that we have renovations going on next door weren't you?" - T wasn't best pleased. As it turned out it was OK - not good, but OK.

We then went for our lunch (no drinks) which was 'interesting'. And then we were taken on a tour of Colonia by a Uruguayan woman with the most amazing English intonation. T decided she must have studied Marjorie Dawes (Fat Fighters) of Little Britain fame.

Colonia port is the entry point for 70% of the tourists visiting Uruguay - you'd have thought they'd have made a better effort of it really.

Colonia has a bull ring - which was used 8 times before bull fighting was outlawed.

Colonia has an old town. A mixture of Portuguese and Spanish

Colonia has slightly more mosquitoes than BsAs - if that were possible.

We had a lovely dinner and retired for a peacful night's sleep. When we awoke it was raining (a bit) so we decided to stay in the hotel until our 4pm ferry. Reading books and just chilling.

At about midday, the most amazing rain shower came across the bay. At its height, you couldn't see more than about 20 yards for torrential rain. Buquebus called to say that our original ferry was cancelled and that we'd be picked up at five instead.

The ferry back was massive and packed with locals. very different to the one on the way out - but still a quick catamaran. We got a taxi back from the docks and went out for a final meal at a place we had enjoyed twice previously - unfortunately it was quite a disappointment.

Up in good time on Thursday for our check-out and departure for Ushuaia, we packed and breakfasted. Our landlady was prompt and so we had a bit of time to kill before getting the taxi to the airport. The flight to Ushuaia was notable because:

It was the first time I've ever had to pay for Excess baggage (and chose the wromg queue to pay it in too - grr)

We were accompanied by the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. Oh, those wacky German musicians.

The clouds opened up for us as we approached Ushuaia and we had the most spectacular view as we crossed the Andes (which go East-West down here) and flew over the Beagle channel, turned round and landed at the Airport - quite stunning.

Our hotel is amazing. T decided that we needed to upgrade to a channel view (the 'mountain' side isn't that inspiring. It has cost a little more - but we are in a Suite (Junior) with breathtaking views.

View from our room down the Beagle channel towards Ushuaia

View from our room across the Beagle channel to Chile

As Chile is so close, we now have the joke that just keeps on giving.

Is it Chilly out there? No, that's Argentina
What's it like out there? Chile
etc...

Oh how we laugh.

And the hotel has an in/out pool. most of it is inside, but some of it is outside. It's loveley and warm and quite fun to stand in warm water in the freezing cold.

Shameless stupidity

2007-04-09T20:17:00.000-07:00

Would you like to know John and Debbie's Japanese trip blog address?

John and Debbie in Japan

Ooops

Shameless plug

2007-04-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

One of the things we've seen as a mixed blessing on this extended trip is that we had more time than we had things we really wanted to see. This means that we spend some time seeing things we don't care about and some time doing absolutely bugger all.

My friends John and Debbie are currently in Japan. They have a fortnight's holiday. (O.K. John is staying out there afterwards for a bit - but that is work).

They are also doing a travel blog. Theirs is very different to ours:

John posts every day
They take many more pictures
John talks about food a little more than one might reasonably expect (although, in his defence, getting fed does start to take on much more importance when one is in a place where they don't understand "Fish and Chips"; "Yorkshire Pudding"; "Steak and Kidney Pie" or "A cup of Tea". Or, in our current situation "Fresh Milk". Argentina: Lots of dead cows - not much in the way of extract of live cow - go figure.)

But this is a superficial difference. Today I sat down and read the blog from start to now - it took an hour. The thing that I really loved was that here were a couple who clearly had a knowledge and admiration for a culture; but only a second hand view of it. They are taking something that they have an affinity for (John has spent three years learning Japanese) and going there to experience it first hand.

If (when) you have an hour to put aside to read a travel blog - go and have a read (don't dip in for 10 mins - it just won't seem interesting) and revel in your vicarious view of people discovering first hand, things that they wondered about from afar.

But don't come back to this blog and moan about style. John's been at the travel writing game longer than I.

Oh, and now for the funny bit: I read their blog up to today, which ended with dinner and so to bed. I was having breakfast - on the same day. Wierd. J & D had had Monday; I was yet to see what it would bring.

Murdering the English Language

2007-04-09T19:41:00.001-07:00

Yes, I do know how to spell peaceful. Yes, I do know the difference between to, too and two. But there is only so much proof reading one can be bothered to do before pressing Post.

And I don't want to bore people by correcting English grammar/spelling in posts and sending them out all over again.

Think of it as Art

Murdering the English Language

2007-04-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

Yes, I do know how to spell peaceful. Yes, I do know the difference between to, too and two. But there is only so much proof reading one can be bothered to do before pressing Post.

And I don't want to bore people by correcting English grammar/spelling in posts and sending them out all over again.

Think of it as Art

Plans

2007-04-09T19:27:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we are going to Colonia in Uruguay. It is supposed to be very nice and peacful. We are going on the fast ferry across the River and are staying in a nice hotel.

I have also just had an email from the Chilean ferry company telling us that the ferry has been cancelled. That rather screws up our Patagonian exit plans. Ho hum.

River vs Belgrano

2007-04-09T18:36:00.000-07:00

We went to the football. Rather than buy tickets and work out how to get there and all that tricky stuff, we went to a company, Tangol who organised a bus to/from the game; tickets for the game and a local who could speak English to explain the game, the teams, the ground and anything else you cared about. A bit more expensive, but worth it.

We were picked up in good time and taken to the stadium. I had done a little research to find out who was playing who; where they were in the league; where the teams were from and who was expected to win. I played top swot in the bus - T tried to hide. The guide filled us in on other stuff like the fact that River were doing rubbish; River had just been eliminated from the S.American cup (Copa Liberatadores) that week and that their manager was under pressure. Oh, and the hated rivals - Boca - were above them in the league.

We were in the ground early and saw the juniors of the respective clubs grind through a 0-0 draw.

What was quite amazing was the noise that the away fans (Cordoba, for that is where Belgrano hailed is a good 10 hour drive - yet the away support was not insignificant).

Away fans

The presence of drums made their noise quite impressive and gave them something to rally the singing around.

The home fans didn't bother turning up until just before kick-off, but there were an impressive number of them too.

Home Fans

There was also a pitch for the players to use

The Pitch

The game was quite good fun. River gave away a silly penalty with a handball from a corner (I still don't know why the defender stuck his hand up) about half way through the first half. River were the stronger side but did let the away team have a few too many breaks for comfort.

After half time nothing much changed (except Yellow boots for the away side, who had been booked in the first half, was substituted). After about 20 mins, both managers started a flurry of substitutions; a Belgrano player was sent off for a second yellow and River started pressing more and more.

Eventually the home team scored and the crowd went wild. River spent the last ten minutes (and an impressive amount of injury time) with ten men in the Belgrano half (and nearly paid the price - twice) - but a 1-1 draw was the final result. The rather well behaved American six-year old beside us, bemoaned the fact that he didn;t like draws - our guide manfully responded that he preferred to see two goals than just the one :-)

I know we didn't see a grudge match (Think Liverpool vs Portsmouth), but I was quite suprised that it wasn't as loud as it could have been. The crowd only really got going twice. Once just after kick-off and once after River scored. In their defence - the stadium is open-air and alot of the sound will not be being captured and reflected by the roof.

Next week River are playing Boca at Boca - That would be something to see, however we will be in Patagonia and the tickets were sold out months ago.

Waxing lyrical

2007-04-09T18:25:00.000-07:00

I loved the title I came up with for this post so much that I can't wait until T gets around to writing about the actual content :-)

Now, women and blokes have different things to worry about when going on extended trips. I need to worry about travel chargers; different electricity voltages and sockets; maps; GPS units, you know important stuff.

T needs to worry about hair cuts; hair colour; numbers of pairs of shorts; bras; access to Grazia magazine and leg waxing.

One of the things that is interesting about travelling abroad is that things that go together in shops at home, do not always go together in the same shops abroad. In Argentina, every beauty salon that T asked in didn't do waxing, and no, they didn't know anywhere nearby that did.

What they didn't mention (perhaps because it was to bleeding obvious to warrant a mention) was that there were whole shops dedicated to depilation. (One thing you do when abroad is learn posh English words for everyday things - as they usually come back to their Latin roots which then appear in the Latin languages).

Apparently the whole "Jessica" approach to waxing would go down very well in London. I will leave T to fill in the actual details in the fullness of time. Suffice it to say that I had a fifteen minute wait on the sofa in the lobby of a shop where I was the only bloke. I tried to look as foreign as possible.