Iguazu Falls

Just had to post some photos of the Iguazu Waterfalls that border Brazil and Argentina. We went there a few days ago and it was incredible! There are loads of waterfalls all lined up next to each other with different levels and so much spray!!
We crossed over to Brazil and so saw the falls from both angles, and got soaked two days running! But it didnt matter because it was so hot (which is quite unexpected as its winter in South America now!)



My friend Lydia has also been travelling with us the last few days (she´s just arrived in South America) and its been lots of fun having someone else travelling with us too! Here´s a pic of Sally and Lydia infront of a colossal stream of water!!



Well this is the last official blog as we fly home tomorrow!!! can´t believe its over already - although at times when you´re lying in bed feeling sick it has seemed quite long!! Had an amazing trip anyways, and travelling with Sally has been a lot of fun!
Think there will be one more entry when I get back (of the out-takes!) so please have a look in a few days for the conclusion of Amy´s travel blog! (It will be worth it I promise I have lots of good material.....)

Bolivia

Sorry I´ve been so slack about blogging recently - there´s just been so much to try and fit in! Sally and I have been to Lake Titicaca (the highest lake in the world), stayed on the Isla del Sol (Sun Island) in the middle of the lake, visited La Paz, been to the Amazon Basin, Uyuni to see the incredible salt lakes and finally Tupiza where ´Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid´ was filmed!

I wanted to put up so many pictures but I´ve already been her half an hour trying to load this one - so you´ll have to wait a week and a bit until we´re home!

Here´s a photo of me in the jungle catching my first ever fish (a piranha!!)I was proud and sad at the same time as it then bit the guy trying to free it from my hook and so he killed it and fed it as bait!! V traumatic.



Right time for one more photo - this looks like snow but don´t be fooled - its actually salt! Bolivia has 12,000km of salt lakes, where they mine for salt and build houses and a hotel out of it!! We took the opportunity to get some cool pics!
(Sally and I are the people being held in the guy´s hand!)



So only 8 days left or something like that and then we´ll be back in sunny old England! Please dont let that put you off writing comments, we like reading them! and its nice to know that someone is actually looking at this apart from my mum and auntie!! (although thanks for your lovely comments you two!!) Hasta Luego xxx

Machu Picchu!

Finally here´s a picture of Machu Picchu! Us with our all male group!! Note Sally looks like she´s about to collapse!

This is when we arrived at 8am, we had to get up at 4 so that we could get there for sunrise and before the hoardes of people arrive on the train. It was definitely worth it - really amazing view and the trek was lots of fun as well. We got woken up every morning in our tent with a hot drink - more luxurious than home!!!

Llamas, Altitude Sickness and Guinea Pigs - you´ve guessed it we´re in Peru!

Well what to write? Sally and I, plus her mum for 10 days, have been relaxing in the sun in Huanchaco for the past week. Huanchaco is a small fishing village, located in Northern Peru. It´s been great - like a holiday within the holiday, as we finally got to laze around and read lots of books!

Here´s a photo of the village


And this is the infamous fishing boat (caballito - it literally means ´small horse´)that the locals use


We went to the Chan Chan ruins (the largest Adobe city ever built, its pre-Inca so v old and really well preserved!)


I´m loved worldwide!


After that nice holiday (definitely necessary as Sally and I have both been a bit sick recently) we had to say goodbye to Sally´s mum and travel to Cusco (where millions of tourists head to do the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu.)
It´s actually a pretty city/town, as my photography demonstrates, with cobbled steep streets - its over 3000 metres above sea level and Inca buildings


Credit to Sally for this one


Umm a few interesting facts - it´s really cold here at night we have been sleeping with 4 blankets! We´ve also both suffered from altitude sickness and have felt out of breath whilst climbing stairs (highlighted by the fact that we are easily overtaken by old Peruvian ladies). Oh and the reference to guinea pigs in the title is because in Peru ´Cuy´ or G.P is a popular dish!
Well gotta go and tuck into my cuy, xx

My official children´s home post

Some photos of the Salvation Army Children´s home that I volunteered at for three weeks - I better say now that it looks really lovely in the pictures, but don´t be fooled, it doesn´t have much money at all!!

The entrance (you can also see a kiosk where I frequented many an evening to buy chocolate and coca cola)


Yes that is the children´s home:


The patio bordering the home, where I spent a lot of time sitting, watching boys play ´bolitas´ (or marbles - it´s like the craze in Argentina and apparently Peru as well!) and making friendship bracelets for all the kids:


Me and some of the girls (note the bike which they taught me to ride - it was v traumatic):


Some of the younger boys (a brief moment when not fighting and actually appear to be getting on with each other)


The birthday party of the officer´s daughter (she was 15 which is a special birthday in Argentina) - it was actually like a wedding and lasted from 9.30pm until 6 in the morning!


It´s really interesting hearing about Sally´s time at the children´s home in Peru because in some ways I can identify with it and in other ways my experience was very different. My children´s home was much smaller, and being run by the Salvation Army, not the state, meant that they could take only 20 children rather than packing as many children in as possible. And it was really obvious that the kids had a lot of respect for the officers who ran it (who were brilliant), but at the same time it´s sad to think that they will be moved on to another appointment sometime and then the kids will have to get used to new people and potentially big changes could be made to the home. I was also surprised that the kids went home at the weekend to stay with someone in their family, and that the main reason for them being there was because their parent couldn´t look after them as they worked during the day. (there were other reasons too). Hmm it was definitely an interesting experience and I learnt a lot - realised that things are very different in Europe though!

Well anyway there´s some of my thoughts...better go!
x

Sally´s figured out how to use the blog!

Hola from Ayacucho, high up in the Peruvian Andes! I´m coming to the end of the three week project staying in a house with local and international volunteers and working with over 40 boys in the local orphanage. Ayacucho means ´The Soul´s Home´in Quechua, the indiginous language and the town is really pretty and colourful with lots of traditional markets and panpipe music. It´s bizarre that (cold!) water and electricity comes and goes to our house but we can pick up Wi-fi in the bedroom! On our days off we´ve been on some amazing trips into the mountains, really off the beaten track.

Working with the boys has been fun but hard work! Due to their backgrounds and huge number they are often completely out of control. Quite a few of our activities have decended in chaos and trips out involve trying to stop them running in front of trucks and climbing onto the roofs of three storey buildings! On the other hand, in smaller numbers they can be very sweet and always want to play. I´ve also enjoyed taking few older boys for english classes every morning. They find it hard but are keen to learn so they can get jobs when they leave the home.

It´s been great getting to know a place and people for more than a couple of days but I´m really looking foward to hitting the gringo trail again with Monica. (he he only kidding - in fact Amy´s hair usually looks great! Sorry if she´s had to use the blog as an outlet for her hair anxieties, but I had to ban her from describing it´s problems to me after about a week!)

Lots of Love, Chao, Sally x

Quilmes - home to the Salvation Army children´s home and the biggest brewery in South America

Hopefully this picture has worked and you´re seeing a pretty picture of some beer bottles with Quilmes written on them - if not google ´Quilmes cerveza´ and you will!

This is only going to be a quick post, (I´m mainly doing this for you Sophie to say that my blog is a lot better than Greys Anatomy!)and will properly update when I can charge my camera battery (note to anyone travelling South America don´t be so stupid as to forget to take an adaptor)in a week.

My volunteering at the Salvation Army Children´s home is going well - the officers working there are really lovely, and there is another volunteer who is German and speaks English which is a huge relief! My spanish skills have really been tested (and mostly failed) as noone else speaks english and I´ve had to rely a lot on the international language of....pointing and exaggerated gestures! No I find that I understand a lot of what they´re saying and can pretty much follow a conversation, but am so bad at communicating what I want to say!

Umm meant to write more but got carried away looking for the beer picture and now got to go - sorry! more soon x

Uruguay

Just spent a great week travelling along the Uruguayan coast! We´ve witnesssed an all time low in cheapness - due to the foot and mouth crisis a few years ago their economy (which previously had been strong) crashed, and so it´s really cheap for travellers. Lots of Argentinians go there on holiday - it´s a bit like France for us, you just hop on a ferry and in an hour you´re lazying in the sun!

We went to a few different places in Uruguay, so here are a few of the best snaps!

For Semana Criolla (aka easter week/week of turism as its known in Uruguay!) we followed the locals to a rodeo fayre thing. It was cool and quite scary as the gauchos (cowboys) tied unbroken horses heads down and then tried to stay on for the longest time. Here are some gauchos for you!



Another highlight for us was Montevideo (the capital to those not familiar with South America). We were expecting just another city, but it really surprised us - there was a relaxed vibe and good food!
Strolling through a park one day we came across some impromptu park performers:



There was lots of time for relaxing


And a few strange sights

Yes you´ve seen right - this artwork is called ´Los Dedos´ which literally means the fingers!

And finally the intrepid travellers on Easter Sunday after our egg hunt!


Well this is the last entry before Sally and I leave for our separate voluntary adventures for three weeks - she´s off to Ayacucho in Peru and I´m venturing out to the Buenos Airian suburbs. Don´t worry though Sally has promised to give at least one account of her time, and I´ll update when I know what I´m actually doing there!

Chao! x

Photo Gallery

Yay I found some english people! Here are some photos, enjoy!



The Perito Moreno Glaciar! amazing huh?



Our tent! note Sally hiding behind the tree



I like this picture because it reminded us of the Lion King!



Spot the killer whale!



One of my favourite travelling pics!

Glaciers, camping and Killer Whales........

Well before I get started I apologise in advance as I can´t post any photos at the moment. My camera battery died and I´m on the hunt for an adaptor to borrow or buy, so hopefully I´ll be able to show you the amazing things I´ve seen really soon! You´ll just have to make do with reading about them.

Right well Sally and I have been covering a lot of distance these past two weeks. We´ve had a 30 hour+ bus journey down south in Argentina to El Calafate, which is home to the famous Perito Moreno Glacier. I´ve been looking forward to this for months and it didn´t disappoint. I would have posted a photo here (they´re incredible) but instead I´ll just say it looks like a massive pale bluey white meringue floating on a lake!! Sally went a bit crazy and used practically a whole roll of film, so there will be an abundance of pictures when she gets home!

We got a bit fed up with the touristyness of El Calafate (and the bad hostel with broken beds, bed bugs, mice and nails sticking out of the wooden bunks) so decided to stay a few nights in El Chalten - a small village in the middle of a national park. It was really beautiful, there were mountains and lakes all around. To make a change from the hostel we hired a tent and camped for two nights, which was lots of fun!! It also meant that in between our hike, numerous hot chocolates and good meals out we became adept at making use of all the facilities in public places - I was determined to avoid the latrine at all costs and Sally often carried her toothbrush around with her!

After all that excitement we got another long bus ride a few days ago to Puerto Madryn, which is warmer, busier and has the first beach we´ve seen since arriving in South America. Yesterday I saw (you won´t believe it)........

A KILLER WHALE! (I think it would have had more impact with the photo)

and lots of penguins, sea lions, sea elephants and an armadillo as we rented a car with some other travellers and drove to Peninsula Valdes which has amazing sea animal colonies. We were really lucky to see the Orca in the ocean, although apparently they often come right onto the beach to feed on unsuspecting sea lions!!

Yep so it´s been a busy time, and I´ve just realised that we´ve been gone a month already. Time´s whipping by. Next stop is back to Buenos Aires as we´re going to catch a ferry over to Uruguay. It´s also Semana Santa (easter week) which is a big deal over here we´ve heard, so hopefully we´ll see lots of processions and parades.
More updates soon! Hope my feeble descriptions gave you some sort of idea of what we´ve seen. X

Chilly in Chile

A week ago Sally and I crossed the frontier into Pucon, and are now in Valdivia, Chile! We have noticed many differences mostly in the size of people (Chileans are tiny - I am one of the tallest females here!) and that Chilean people are friendlier and definitely easier to understand.

Before I get into my Chile stories however, I have got to mention that in our last day in Argentina we went rafting (yes believe it I went white water rafting!!) Have not got any pictures yet, but let me just say I was terrified until the raft tipped and we all fell in and I realised two things - 1. there was no way I could drown in a life jacket and 2. I can wear my contact lenses in water and nothing happens!! (sophie its amazing actually being able to see in a river!)
Sally on the other hand got less fond of it as we went along as she was sort of trapped underneath the raft when it flipped. But apart from being mildly traumatised shes fine.

Right so onto Chile. Well heres a picture of the town (Pucon) that we stayed in.



Note the faint volcano in the background (that snowy mountain is actually one of the most active volcanoes in South America.)

Ok. And now understand that yesterday Sally and I climbed that volcano armed with ice picks, helmets and clamp ons that stick into the ice!



That is us at the top! It was honestly the most exhausting thing I have ever done in my life and I really didnt think that I was going to make it. It was incredibly steep and took about 4 hours to climb. Also we seemed to be in a very fit group and so were always the slowest ones - it was just me and Sally lagging behind with one of the guides!! Am proud of myself though!

Oh and here (by popular demand) is a photo of me with the worst hair I have ever had in my life - just after we had been rafting. (You will have to turn your heads as I dont know how to rotate the pic on these foreigh computers and zoom in but believe me I look rough.) So hope that makes you all smile.



Thanks for all the comments, its so nice hearing from you!!

Some photos!

Sorry for the wait here are my first snaps!

Here we are driving the Cama bus!


The many rows of graves in Recoleta cemetery:


The many cats wandering the cemetery :(



Me trying to sleep on the Cama bus (note the almost horizontal position of my chair!)


The view of Bariloche from what turned out to be our 5 hour hike!


And Amy a la Motorcycle Diaries (without the bike)


Enjoy! Oh and mum I am using the camera - but what setting do I put it on for action shots??

Tropical thunderstorms to Cama coaches....

Well here is my first official entry! I´m sorry everyone but pictures will have to wait until next time because I left the lead in my room!

Anyways Sally and I arrived in Bariloche this morning on a 20 hour bus ride, after being in Buenos Aires since Sunday evening. It´s really nice to be in a new place, especially as this Argentinian town is like a mini-Switzerland - it´s got amazing chocolate,big lakes and mountains!! Not sure how long we´ll be here for but definitely 5 days, we´re going to do some trekking and Sally wants to do an adventurous activity! I´m yet to be persuaded into horse riding, cycling or kayaking!! Rafting is my favourite option at the moment.

Buenos Aires was cool - but I guess very much like any big city. We went to Recoleta where we saw Evita´s (aka Madonna in the ´Don´t Cry for me Argentina´ film) grave, which is a really touristy thing to do but we found slightly weird. The graveyard was bizarre with all these elaborate graves of wealthy families and it felt quite morbid taking pictures! (Saying that I took some, so will post up soon.)

We also saw a tango show in the basement of a restaurant, which was amazing. I´m really tempted to learn tango as there was lots of intricate leg twizzling, which I loved!

My favourite story about BA happened yesterday though, just before Sally and I were about to leave the hostel to catch our bus here. We thought it would be a good idea to pop to the supermarket two blocks away to buy some food for the journey before we checked out. So we get the food and then as we walked towards the entrance we noticed a tropical thunderstorm had suddenly started!! All of the local people were huddled under shelters and inside shops, but we decided we´d better just run for it because we were in a hurry. (well actually I thought we should) Hmmm this turned out to be a crazy idea because as soon as we stepped out we were completely soaked though!! The rain was pelting down in thick heavy drops (nothing like English drizzle) and as we were running people were whistling and cheering. It was humiliating. And then as we were wading through the collection of water by a kerb my flip flop got carried away!!! Luckily we could laugh about it!

That turned out to be just the beginning of the adventure as the local transport system was in chaos (the tube we´d carefully planned to get to the bus station was no longer running), so we tried a cab - they were all full as everyone in BA got there first, and eventually we looked for a bus to take us there. The last option was so confusing, as we were just wandering around asking people at bus stops!! But the people were all so helpful and at one point the man we asked didn´t know and so he yelled out to everyone waiting!!! All of the people at the bus stop were trying to direct and help us. By some miracle Sally eventually spotted the right bus and we jumped on!!!
Don´t think it was plain sailing from there though - when we got to the bus station after waiting an hour we discovered that we´d been given the wrong information and we´d missed our bus! But once again a really nice man who worked for the bus company took pity on us and sorted us out a new bus ride, where we were upgraded for no extra charge!!!! Then began the most luxurious coach journey I´ve ever had in my life - Cama bus is definitely the way to travel! English coaches do not compare. We had a chair that became a bed, two meals, a DVD player right infront of us and the whole downstairs to ourselves!! The coach drivers also liked us and so let us sit in the drivers seat (as you´ll see next time!)

Well thats enough to keep you going for a little while - I´m fine, still adjusting to living out of a backpack, having Monica-in-Barbados-style frizzy hair (with no straighteners!) and having to concentrate so hard to understand people - Argentinians have v different pronounciation! I love you all and really like reading your comments!

Well it's Bon Voyage for me as I'm leaving for Argentina tomorrow at 7.25am! With my well-prepared companion, Sally, we will be touring the untrodden lands of Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay (as well as the traveller's Holy Grail - Machu Picchu, it was on that Search programme last week just to jog your memories).

I can't post a detailed itinerary at the moment (as we don't know it) but we start and end in Buenos Aires! (But don't worry mum it's all very organised.)
However I can give you a preview of my new travel look:



Anyway I will try and write on here about my experiences every so often, so please post comments!! nice ones! And I have to just write a disclaimer now - if its really boring I'm sorry, but I guess my english degree didn't pay off.

(a note for my mum -
mum this is a blog. You can post comments by clicking on the button at the end of each of my posts. Everyone can read them. I will be very safe when travelling.)

Will Amy and her blog ever get it together???

Already I hate this blog - I couldn't log in today because I couldn't remember my username or password, so after a lot of messing about on the computer I've reset it and hopefully it will all work. Also I still haven't figured out how to get a profile picture so at the moment it looks empty and like I'm trying to hide my beauty.

Will me and my blog ever get it together before I leave the comfort of my home computer and have to face the confusing world of south american internet cafes???? duh duh duhhhhh

hgfhh