Hannah's travels

Boliviar y baños naturales

hcgardner — Wed, 4 Aug 2010 00:49:00 GMT

So bolivia is very very different to argentina and brazil!! nowhere near as developed, you can tell it is the poorest country in south america and yet at the same time there are some really beautiful bits too!! The first place we went in bolivia was Santa Cruz, a pretty little town with nice markets and some amazing cake shops!! Our hostal also had a pet toucan called simon who would happily perch on your arm which was pretty cool! Also went to a zoo here which was more of a sad experience as the jaguars, oceltots and pumas were all kept in tiny cages smaller than what you´d see in dog kennels!! but probably our only chance to see them out here as we had no such luck in the pantanal in brazil (though did see howler monkeys, capybara- giant guinea pig things, caiman, piranha and lots of parrots!)

Next stop in bolivia was sucre. Our stay here was made up of an odd combination of nights out in kareoke bars singing oasis and savage garden, a trip to see some dinosaur footprints and a 10mile hike through some mountains (the andes?) and along the river bed, pretty hard work walking back up in the heat and altitude though!!

WE then went to potosi, the highest city in the world i think, we were going to do the tour of the working silver potosi but emily got ill so we couldnt, maybe a good thing as ive heard theyre pretty dangerous and not a particularly nice thing to see!

Next was the salt flats tour from uyuni! 3 days in the most barren landscape i have ever seen, miles and miles of salt as far as the eye can see with a few mountains in the distance! almost looked polar-esque! also saw active volcanoes, geisers and weird shaped volcanic rocks! pretty cool but after 3days squashed up in a jeep with 5 tourists, the guide and his son, freezing freezing temps at the highest point we got-4,800m, and way way too much baños naturales as our guide put it (peeiing behind whatever rock we could find) i was quite glad to get back to civilisation!!

Since then we have been in La Paz, at a awesome hostel, wild rovers, comfy beds, great food, hot showers and a fun bar= bliss!! Also did death road yesterday on mountain bike, about 3hours of fast downhill riding on rocky roads that fell away to nothing below! absolutely beautiful scenary if you dred take your eyes off the road! I only almost fell 3 or 4 times so it was fine! Afterwards our guide told us since the new road was built and cyclists were the main users of the old death road 15years ago about 28 people have died, and before this when there were cars using it regularly about 20 people a month died on here! pretty scary im glad he told us after the ride!

Currently in rurrenbaque about to go to the amazon basin jungle tomorrow, cannot wait!!!

adios for now xx

end of argentina and Brazil

hcgardner — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:40:00 GMT

So since the last post we have travelled miles and miles, after buenos aires was iguazu falls, they were AMAZING!!! really really beautiful, masses of butterflies that would just come and land on you and unfortunately got eaten a bit by mosquitoes too!! we then headed over the border to foz do iguazu to see the 'panoramic view of the falls' also gorgeous. quite interesting crossing the border the local bus we were on couldnt be bothered waiting for the 3 foreign girls on the bus so went asnd left us while we got our passports checked leaving us in the middle of nowhere at border control haha! when we got to brazil we has been told at the bus station there were lockers as we wern~t staying the night but when we asked at tourist info lockers translated to pay R$3 to leave your bag in a shop and 'trust them' so we risked it and luckily when we returned our bags were still there!!

Had a nice 15 hour bus journey up to a brazilian island called Florianopolis. Possibly the best hostel EVER! ! went for a wonder to a gorgeous beach that day and then had a massive BBQ at the hostel before heading into town with a few others from the hostel. Hayley attracted a fair bit of attention from a particularly slimy looking street vendor selling beer who thought she looked like madonna haha! next day had a go at sandboarding, fell over a hell of a lot but by the end of it could go the whole sand dune and manage to stay on my feet woop!!

Then had a 18 hour bus journey to rio where a brazilian navy man befriended us as we needed to ring our hostel and our phones didnt work. then spent the remainder of the journey with him teaching us portugese pronounciation -so difficult! When we got off the bus though he realised his games console had been nicked, just reminding us how on guard we need to be :S

Spent the past couple of days in rio, first hostel was awful so relocated after the first night to a much better one then spent the days on copacobana and ipanema beach and also went to see the christ the redeemer statue..all amazing!!

currently in campo grande after a flight over today ready to head into the wilderness of the pantanal where we will be piranha fishing trekking going on horseback and jeep safari and staying in a lodge miles from civilisation

hopefully update again soon if i survive it :P

soy inglesa, no hablar espanol!

hcgardner — Sat, 3 Jul 2010 18:00:00 GMT

Hi all,

so this is the first blog entry! i have been in Buenos Aires since Wednesday now and am having great fun!! The city is amazing with some great buildings and sites but also seems to have its fair share of problems too, such as seeing kids sleeping in the streets, and about half the cars having massive dents or smashes in them. The latter is not suprising after a few taxi rides- the argentinians are crazy drivers, there is no speed limit and nobody stays in their lanes, instead its just a fun game of weaving in and out of one another!

So far have tried a bit of the local food which is pretty damn good, including argentinian steak and pastries filled with the locally popular 'dolche de leche'! Having a few problems with the language, turns out i cant remember much of GCSE spanish, the best people get is me telling them im english and dont speak spanish, luckily we have grace with us who's spanish is now amazing!

We have visited 'La Boca' where all the houses are painted in different coloured bright paints and we got a bit of a dance/photo pose with an argentinian dancer in a cafe, good fun :P! Followed by a night out in some bars in Buenos Aires with some of graces friends here, once again a bit of a language barrier but they all tried their best to speak english to us! Last night was the argentinian tango show, and OH MY GOD can they dance, it was truly amazing.

Spent this morning in a park in the city watching Argentina Vs. Germany, actually got suprisingly into it, face paints and all (i know i'm a traitor to my own country but hey :P) shame they didnt win! :( Then had a wander round the market in the sunshine, all the locals seemed to find it amusing we had argentinian flags on our faces despite obviously being foreign, most seem to appreciate the enthusiasm though!!

thats all for now!

Adios! xxx