Some more photos.

A see through butterfly! Saw this on the bus journey from Sao Paulo to Parati.


For those who think that we haven't been slumming it enough on our travels. Our room here in Parati is a 9 dormer in a tiny room! You can just about see my bed at the top right and Kat's is at the bottom left.

Sushi wushi in Sao Paulo.

Unfortunately our only photo of Sao Paulo is some kind of carnival cow in the bus station when we were leaving. We decided to walk around with as little as possible which meant no camera and only loose change. It was a nice feeling actually walking around without being worried as much about something being stolen.

We hadn't really expected to much in Sao Paulo other than wander around the Japanese area and each as much Asian food as we could. We did manage that on the first day but ended up doing much more on the second day than we could have hoped for. The japanese area really was very nice and had a real feel of Asia about it (I imagined, I've never been) but, to try and save on the remaining funds, we stumped for some sushi from a supermarket. It was ermmm ok, not great and unfortunately reminded me of those packets of sushi you get in Sainsbury's and thelike. Sounding like the complete food snob, it just doesn't compare to the real deal.

So the next day, on the tip of the hostel owner Mr Wong, we headed to the tallest building in Sao Paulo where you're allowed 5 minutes at the top to admire the view. What happened the rest of the day ended up being a complete surprise in the nicest way. Having got a bit lost we were asking the local Police for directions when a nice lady came up to us out of nowhere and said she'd take us there just after she'd taken her shoes back to a shop. So off we went following our new tour guide. Inbetween Kat's Spanish and her tiny bit of English we managed to communicate well enough and talked about this and that on the way. The building is now owned by Santander bank and basically looks like a small version of the empire state building, by which it was apparently inspired. At reception we showed some identification and up we went. The view at the top really was impressive and the sheer size of the city quickly became apparent. The sprawling mess of buildings and roads just carries on far into the horizon and actually at one point carries on through a mountain valley until you cannot see any further. This place is huge!!

Our 5 minutes were up and back down we went. It was lunchtime and our new friend said she'd take us to her friend's restaraunt/cafe in what was the Arabic area. So what followed over the next few hours was a nice little tour of the centre of Sao Paulo, including an amazing food market filled with the most colourful and lucious looking fruits I've seen. There were fishmongers with huge salmon and butchers with little piglets (dead of course). Basically any kind of food you'd want, I'm sure you could have found it.

Our time came to say goodbye and both me and Kat were a bit stumped when the lady started crying as we were saying our farewells. We're still not sure exactly why but hopefully it was for the right reasons! We were incredibly lucky to be able to have a Sao Paulo citizen show us around and there was no way that we would have seen so much without her.

Also, this week the rugby game between Wales and France actually was on. So after our day out we returned to the hostel to watch the game, this time with Brasilian portugese commentary. This made it a bit to watch Wales play so dismally in the first half as I couldn't understand what they were saying. I'm also not sure that they understood what they were watching as one thing I did understand them mentioning was the Football world cup sometime in the 2nd half. Either they were bored, or thought that the competition would be an absolute walk over for the South American teams considering this weird version of football that France had started playing.

A 6hour bus journey from Sao Paulo and now we're in a nice place called Parati which reminds us a lot of Jericoacoara where we stayed in the north back in November. It's kind of like Jeri but a bit bigger and with paved roads. The unfortunate thing is that it's been raining for basically the last 5 days, or whenever we left Iguazu. It's been non stop! We've even bought an umbrella!

We're staying here until Wednesday before heading to Rio for our final week. We have 2 objectives for our remaining time in Brasil

1. Get a tan (we're getting worried with all this rain though).
2. Not to get mugged (we've been really either very lucky or very careful so far and still have everything we started off with).

Iguazu Waterfalls.

One of the rare moments I managed to get a butterfly to stay still. Some sweet words of kindness did the trick.

Jurassic Park isn´t it!?

To give a sense of scale, that thing in the water is a huge powerboat maybe 20ft long.

The clouds are a coming.

I was right. It was whisky again, and this time the waitress just poured and poured until I had half a glass (yes proper glass) tumbler of the stuff. I had quite a pleasent night´s sleep as you can imagine.

The landscape had changed completely from Salta to proper tropical jungle. The mud on the sides of the roads are a deep orange and the nearby tress and grass a lucious green. Either side of the road is what seems to me like just jungle. So dense and full of different types of plants. I wouldn´t want to walking in it that´s for sure. If it´s even possible.

The main attraction of this town are the nearby waterfalls, of which a famous person once commented ´Poor Niagra´upon seeing them accroding to our guide book. A half an hour bus from the bus station in town and we were at the gates of the park. The price for entrance seemed a bit steep at 85pesos (around 15pounds), especially when Argentinians pay 15pesos, but we stumped up and off we went.

Nothing could have prepared us for the sheer beauty and sound of the waterfalls. It was like stepping onto the film set of Jurassic Park just without the dinasaurs. Absolutely incredible. The sound of being up close to a huge wall of water was mesmerising and coupled with being covered in the mist and water spray it was a real `experience´, maaaaan. The cool spray was a nice relief from the humidity too. I mentioned the humidity in the last post in Salta, well that was nothing. Here you were literally covered in sweat no matter what you did.

Aswell as the waterfalls, what really impressed was the wildlife that you could see. More so the butterflies. I´ve never seen so many different types of butterflies in one place. (Except for ´Pili Palas´on Anglesey maybe!). They were of all colours, bright reds and black, vivid yellows and some had the most amazing patterns. They came in all sizes too. The only trouble was getting a photo. For such beautiful insects they make awful models. As soon as you got your camera out and focused, wham, they´re off flying around all over the place again.

So a great day in the waterfalls park. Worth even the 85pesos I´d say in the end. We caught the bus back into town and back to our hostel.

This has been our cheapest hostel so far at only 2.50 (pounds!) a night each so we have been impressed that the place isn´t a complete dirty hole. What makes the place almost unbearable is the woman who runs the place. She has to be the most incompitent hostel owner in the whole of Argentina. To give you an idea, we were greeted to our ´breakfast´this morning by a plastic cup from the top of a flask sitting on top of a plastic saucer surrounded by the toasted crusts of a tiny baguette. All of this on a table that had been wiped with the dirtiest rag imagineable. Good Morning dear guests!

We´d met a nice older couple from Devon, Rob and Jo, who´d been there a night longer than us and after here an argument from our bed this morning between them and the lady they obviously couldn´t hack it any longer. Accompanying our lovely breakfast this morning was a note saying ´We couldn´t bear it any loner, have a nice trip´.

It´s one more night for us also before heading off to Sao Paolo. This also sadly means the end of our visit to Argentina. I think we´d both agree that Argentina has been our favourite country of the trip. It is a great great country, but unfortunately also has deep deep problems that are really holding the country back from progessing. Politics is still completely corrupt (President Kerchner was on trial a few weeks ago for stealing money), the bureaucracy of getting the simplest things done is unbelieveable, there´s no loose change AT ALL which means you get small change in the form of sweets and there doesnt´t seem to be a seriousness in anything. In spite of this the people are, on the whole, extremely kind and generous and our time in Buenos Aires especially was without doubt one of the highlights of the trip.

So, Brasil here we come. A nice little factoid for you is that the city of Sao Paolo has the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan. Around 1million I think. Avid readers might rememeber our love of the Sushi in Buenos Aires so we´ve decided to stay in ´Japan ´Town in Sao Paolo. There must be even better Sushi there!!! Adios!

Sunny sunny Salta

Well what a nice place Salta is. I think we were both expecting some kind of tourist town as it´s a big stop off point for backpackers on the way up to Bolivia. It´s actually really really nice. We were recommended a hostel by new found friends in Bolivia and it´s turned out to be exactly what we wanted. A quiet and calm hostel right in the middle of town over the road from a big green park. We had a bit of a walk around town yesterday and the difference in the heat between here and Bolivia, only 6 hours up the road, is really something. It´s so humid here, completely different to the dry heat of Bolivia.

We haven´t done much really. Being back in Argentina we just had to indulge in another Bife de Chorizo steak which was as it should be, amazingly tender and delicious. That might possibly be our last one before we head home now. I was also dead keen to watch some rugby last night only to make my annual blunder of forgetting about the rest weekends. All sat down in front of the tv, asking someone to change channel only to be told `It´s next Friday!'. A bit too keen.

So this morning we had a bit of a walk around again. Saw a pink Cathedral with really impressive architecture inside, treated ourselves to a little Alfajore biscuit and now we´re about to have lunch with a french couple who were on the Jeep trip with us but delayed a day coming down to Salta by the same stomach bug. It´s a strange one, I´m still not a 100% and Kat doesn´t seem to have been affected at all.

At 3.15pm it´s another bus ride to Puerto Iguazu waterfalls right at the most easterly point of Argentina (I think). It´s a 24hour one again and of course it´s Champagne and Whisky again after dinner, `We´ll take the drinks in the drawing room tonight please Jeeves'.

One week in Bolivia.

Around 9.30am in the morning after 2 hours in a queue to get out of Argentina.

How about that for a road?

There were Lamma´s everywhere.

One of the many mineral lagoons in the around the Salt Flats. This one had a dormant volcano behind it.

Was it Kat letting off wind or the geysers that smelt of Sulphur?

Apparently this was once a tree. I´m still not convinced but it´s beautiful nontheless.

As the Salt Flats are so huge, there´s next to nothing on the horizon at some places. Hence some classic perspective photos. In this case, pocket size me for Kat on her Birthday. Pity that my feet have gone missing. The sun was so strong on the salt flat that I managed to get burnt through my t-shirt. Altitude was around 3000m.

A bit of a surprise on the way home, 10minutes from town. The cliff´s fallen on the road! A quick reverse and a detour by Alfredo and we were back on track.

I finished the last post thinking that things were going to get very interesting as we entered Bolivia. Well, I weren´t wrong. It took 2 hours to clear Argentinian immigration to get out of the country followed by a meer 5 minutes wait to get into Bolivia. We were in, and as soon as you crossed the border it was obvious that this was a very different place indeed. The women dressed in the traditional Bolivian gear (bowler hats and all), the feeling of slight chaos and a strange smell that Kat told me was the ´Bolivian smell´, a strange mix of cocoa leaves, sweat and that kind of muggy smokey smell you get the morning after a wood fire when you´re camping.

We needed to get to Tupiza so this was going to be our first intoduction with Bolivian buses. It cant have been more different to the last bus where we enjoyed champagne and whisky and the comfort that we´d been used to. As only 3% of Bolivian roads are paved the buses are jacked up with high suspension and off road tires and the general idea is to get as many people in as possible. So you end up with passenger in the isle standing and sitting trying to hold on as the bus rocks back and forth on dirt tracks. It´s also not guaranteed that the driver will be awake or sober so it feels like a bit of gamble at every turn. To sum up Bolivian public transport, we heard through a French tourist at the hostel that the train drivers were on strike due to a fellow driver being caught over the limit while driving and being sacked. Now they weren´t striking because of unfair dissmissal, they were striking because they thought they SHOULD be able drink while driving the trains!

So eventually we made it Tupiza in one piece. We booked a 4 day jeep tour of the Salar de Uyuni (Salt flats) so the next morning we were off. There´s too much to tell on here but what followed was 4 days of amazing otherwordly sights, the worst headaches in our lives due to altitude (kat was sick one night due to the pain were we slept at 4500m), nosebleeds, cocoa leaf teas, a bunch of great people, and a fantastic guide and cook in Alfredo and Marlena. It was truly an amazing trip but after consistent 5am starts (although I admit that all we did was sit in the jeep all day) we were shattered when we returned to Tupiza to our hostel.

The next day I fell ill, along with others from the group, with a strange stomach bug which put me in bed for most of the day where I was cared for by a lovely nurse called Kat. Still recovering 3 days after, together with a lack of time and not feeling great about travelling on Bolivian buses (especially at night) has meant that we´ve had a change in plan. We´ve decided that it wasn´t worth the huge distance up to La Paz for the sake of 2 days in the capital before a massive 35hour ish journey on the buses back along the same route to Argentina. So, we´ve headed back to Argentina early and are now in Salta (again, 5 minutes to get out of Bolivia, 2 hours into Argentina). It´s a shame that we didn´t manage a visit to La Paz but I think we´ve been pretty lucky so far with doing everything we wanted so you win some you lose some. It´ll have to be next time!

Bolivia was really a great place to visit but is by no means an easy place to visit and travel in. Nothing is easy and you really do feel like a gringo or tourist wherever you are. However, with more time it is somewhere that I´m sure has a lot more to offer than even the fantastic time we had.

Now that we´re back where communication and access to email is easier, doesn´t take 15mins to load a page and that we´ve only 3 WEEKS left, I´m hoping to post a bit more regularly. It´s the home run now.

Tandem tourists in Mendoza

Not much to report on really. We arrived in Mendoza at 5.30am at the bus station and that felt rather dodgy for both of us. Not a nice place to be at that time in the morning. Thankfully we got to the hostel non problemo and hit the sack straight away. The heat hit though, well maybe more the humidity compared to Santiago. Really really stuffy.

The main attraction in Mendoza are the many Wine Bodegas (Vineyards). The way to do it is by bike so the next day off we went with some new friends, one French a Belgian and a nice little Israeli to find 'Mr Hugo' who rented the bikes. Having never been on one before we decided to opt for the tandem. It took a while to get used to but after that it was a lot of fun. The hardest part is getting going so there was a wide berth given by everyone else whenever we started off.

We visited a nice olive oil producer, tasting some really nice olives, before having a tour of a wine bodega with some 'testing' of wines at the end. Cycling back seemed a bit easier than the way there.......

After a bit of cycling coupled with intense heat, humidity and wine the next day was a bit of a washout so we hung around the hostel playing a new card game called 'Yaneef' with the Israelis. As there was a pool in the back of the hostel too it was a really nice way to spend the day.

It was by far the best hostel we´ve stayed in so far with a good atmosphere and good people too so we were a bit sad to leave but we had another bus to catch. What a bus it was though. Huge seats, Star Trek the film on the video, spaghetti bolognese for dinner with an 'aperetif' of champagne and whisky! On a bus!

S0 13 hours on the bus and now we´re in Tucuman and the humidity has got worse. It´s hard to find the energy to do anything during the day. The hostel owner told Kat that the heat coupled with the humidity gives a 'thermal' heat of 45C, not sure if it´s that bad but it´s definitely warm.

It´s a nice place Tucuman. We had a walk around last night, were dissapointed by a light and sound show which was rubbish and had a beer in the square.

Tonight it´s off again to the border town with Bolivia. Things will start to get a bit interesting from here on I imagine.

No photos this time sorry. Computer at this hostel isn´t happy with the prospect. I´ll update this post next time.

Goodbye Chile.

The big girl doll floating by on a boat.

'No mullet por favor!'

A bit of a change for us both at the beach.

A good luck sip of home brewed cherry liquour before some fishing.

Alfredo fishing. Better luck next time.

We're going to miss the infinity pool at the house a lot. What an amazing view.

Our time in Santiago and Chile is now at an end. We're off on a short (only 7 hours!) bus ride over the Andes to Mendoza tonight at 8.

To be honest, we've had a very quiet week in Santiago. Hard to believe but it's very nice to have a bit of time to completely relax (relax from the burden of travelling I hear you say!?) in one place for a while. We've had long days by the pool watching the building work and a few jaunts into town to see a few things and get a few bits and bobs.

We were lucky enough to catch the big giant girl doll who walks on a crane come through on our first day back. It was a pretty impressive sight seeing this huge doll walking through the park before gliding by on a boat and the atmosphere was like a music festival. Lots of cheering and such like when she was going past. Apparently 1million people went to see her over the 3 days of her visit.

We've been quite lucky so far in terms of not getting our bits stolen, but our closest shave by far came when walking back from seeing the doll. We were walking in a big crowd when Kat suddenly heared a ripping sound, instantly looking down at her bag she saw that a 30cm ish hole had been cut into the back. Quick as anything she grabbed her bag and immediately walked out of the crowd to a quieter area. Both our hearts were racing at this point, petrified that the camera, with ALL our photos was gone. Thankfully, no doubt due to the quick reactions of Kat, everything was still there. I didn't hear the initial cut at all and I'm sure that had Kat not been so quick everything would have been gone. For the remainder of the journey home I carried the camera tightly in my hand and the first we thing we did when we got back was put all the photos on to a DVD. We don't want to go through that feeling again! Losing wallets with cards and cash we could deal with but losing all our photos from the trip would have been truly devastating.

I forgot to mention how the trip to the seaside with Kat's friend went. Of course, no surprises really, it was very very nice. Lots of fantastic food on the asado (bbq) and plenty of sun too. We also enjoyed a bit of fishing with Alfredo and his new rod, ahem. Although we came close to catching what felt and sounded like a huge fish, the line snapped right at the end. Next time Alfredo!

I had a haircut in Santiago, thankfully she didn't give me a mullet or a rat's tail as seems to be the fashion for the young latino lads. They look so bad! Kat was busy giving instructions throughout and I think she mentioned 'Classic English Schoolboy' once too. Well it worked, and I had a shampoo rinse at the end to boot. Wan't used to that.

Also in the news. Kat's been offered an interview for a place on a PGCE course of her first chouce when she returns. Very chuffed indeed.

We just watched Wales lose to England in the rugby too. Bit funny watching Rugby with Spanish commentary. We (Wales!) could have won in the end! Ah well, could have, should have. Atleast Liverpool won.

So that's it for now I think. We'll be sad to leave Chile, we've really had a great time and we'll certainly miss the home comforts and generous company of Hubert and Agathe. Merci beacoup!

Back to Argentina tonight then we should be in Bolivia towards the end of newxt week if all goes to plan. It's the long road back to Rio now although I cannot wait for some of the things we'll see along the way. Till next time!

Bariloche, flip flop trekking and a return to Chile.

Nice to meet you too.

The flip flop trekking hero! Look how strong she is!

Seeking repentence for the flip flops?

Definitely worth it.

As we'd heard, Bariloche turned out to be a bit of a tourist town. Although not a bad one at all. The surrounding scenery was really magnificent and the town itself had the feel of a Swiss Alpine resort to it. All new old wooden buildings. The town is also famous for its chocolate so we inevitably had to try a few from here and there.

As I'd mentioned in the last post, we'd been keen to do some kind of organised trip from here and the hostel had various organised activities available. We decided on doing a bit of kayaking in the end, we thought it would be fun in one of those double sea kayaks bombing around seeing waterfalls and the like.

'Pleasant' is the word we'd use to describe the kayaking I think. Turned out there wasn't a waterfall to see so it was just a matter of kayaking around the edge of the lake for a bit before turning back to shore for a coffee and a biscuit. We didn't exactly earn the coffee and biscuit but if they're 'free' then get as much of them as you can.

We had less time in Bariloche than we'd first anticipated as the bus for Santiago was leaving at 2.30pm the next day (we'd hoped for a evening bus), so it was up early on our last day for the 'must do' part of the town which is the view from one of the chair lift stations up in the mountains. Now you can either get a 10 minute chair lift up to the view (which costs 5 pound return) or you can walk it. Of course, with us two now being 'highly experienced ramblin' hikers' after our experience down south we opted for the walk. Kat was so confident that she went up in flipflops. Turned out that it wasn't that easy and it definitely got the heart pumping again and flipflops definitely weren't the ideal choice of footwear but Kat battled on in her pink dress passing descending walkers with all the gear with a cheerful 'Hola!'. This girl is unstoppable!

We reached the top and sure enough the view was worth it. Bright blue skies and the sight of the snow topped Andes miles away was magnificent. After snapping away with the camera and catching our breath, a bit of sweet talking from my lady got us a lift down on the chair lift for less than half price for the both of us. Flip flops going up the mountain might have been ok but going down would not be good. Most importantly though, we had a bus to catch!

So now we're back in the very kind company of Hubert and Agathe in Santiago. We had a little excursion with them to the beach yesterday and today we're heading back to the coast with Kat's friend from the newspaper. The plan is to stay in Santiago till Saturday before heading up north towards La Paz. The weeks are rolling by now, we'll be back in the UK before we can say 'Bloomin heck it's cold'.

Sorry for the delay in the posts too. Will give a little update before leaving Santiago.