TravelStream™ news feed for member bamberd on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/bamberd en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 27 May 2008 13:59:38 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211910000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211910000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211910000/tpod.html Tue, 27 May 2008 13:59:38 -0400 Danny and Vikki - Lovin life!

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Copacabana, Bolivia

Stayed here for 2 nights and did a tour of Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun). The Lake is pretty impressive in itself and the island was cool. We´re getting into Inca territory now so everything we do is based around Inca ruins etc. The town itself was pretty sparce and didn´t even have a cash point, hence our need to leave after 2 nights. It was pleasant enough though and we even got to watch the Hatton fight.

This was our last stop in Bolivia and we´ve enjoyed it. Not because it´s been comfortable really but it´s been interesting to say the least. With our final border crossing ahead of us we head to Peru and the land of the Inca´s.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211909400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211909400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211909400/tpod.html Tue, 27 May 2008 13:56:32 -0400 Danny and Vikki - Lovin life!

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

La Paz, Bolivia

We stayed here for a week but I´m not going to do a day by day run down of it because we pretty much just went out and had a good time. Most notably was the champions league win, a beauty of a day. Coudn´t have been more poetic with dick head Drogba being sent off and trusty old JT missing a penalty, sheer brilliance. Anyway, enough of that glory talk.

La Paz is the highest capital city in the world and is built in a valley. It´s very impressive to look at on you way in and out because it banks up the sides of the mountains and is surrounded by stunning scenery. As I said we just went out pretty much apart from one day when me, Sean, Tommy and Esther cycled down the worlds most dangerous road, 44km´s of down hill mountain biking with a 600meter drop on your left hand side. It was pretty scary. I was last out of the whole group to get down, even out of the girls! At least I bloody did though! The road is only 3 meters wide and is made of gravel as well, I might add. I enjoyed it in the end but not sure I´d do it again, people die on it all the time by just flying off the edge. Sadly I have no pictures because we stupidly took no camera´s but if you search the net you can see what it was like.

On a down note. On our first night we got playing pool with 2 Aussie lads, Vikki and Clare beat them actually. Anyway we went out and left them in the hostel bar only find out the next day that one of them had fallen off the balcony and died in our hostel. It was very very grim and it put a bit of a damper on the stay in La Paz. :o(
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211907840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211907840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211907840/tpod.html Tue, 27 May 2008 13:53:38 -0400 Danny and Vikki - Lovin life!

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Potosi, Bolivia

Postosi is the highest town in the world and is famous for it´s mine that is embedded in the mountainside. We stayed here for one night, then went to Uyuni to do the salt flats tour, then came back here for 3 more nights to do a mine tour. We did this so that we wouldnt be on the salt flats when the final day of the premiership´was being played and we could watch the game. I´ll just cover what we did in Potosi now though to save confusion.

The main reason for being here was to go and do a tour in the mines. It was probably one of the most shocking experiences of the trip so far. Aside from the altitude which makes it impossible to exert any amount of energy without getting out of breath and the cold from being so high up, the mines are dusty, cramped and old. After 2 hours in there we couldn´t wait to get out but the workers have to spend 8 hours a day in there, sometimes more. We helped some of them fill a basket of rock and I could hardly breath, it was horrible. Apparently working in there shortens life expentency by 10 years and they still use methods used 500 years ago when it opened and only get about 150 pounds a month in wages. It was a pretty shocking experience. As a gift you are told to get the miners drinks, dynamite and coca leaves, the latter of which they chew in the sides of their mouths all day for energy and to help with altitude but they don´t eat anything else all day.

Other than that Potosi was a nice place and the rest of the time spent wandering around and relaxing after the 4 days salt flat excursion was well recieved. I might add though that Bolivia is cold, poor and dirty, with terrible transport. All part of the fun I suppose though!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211907420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211907420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211907420/tpod.html Tue, 27 May 2008 13:51:47 -0400 Danny and Vikki - Lovin life!

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Sucre, Bolivia

Sucre was really nice and not what we expected at all. It was very like what I would imagine Florence to be like, with white buildings and red rooves. We only stayed here for one night but had 2 full days to explore the city. We pretty much just meandered around and ate and slept. We all started to notice the altitude a bit here and also the cold, coming from Brazil especially. This is also the start of the ever eternal hunt for heated accomodation and hot showers, things the Bolivians seem to cope very well without.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211910600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211910600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211910600/tpod.html Tue, 27 May 2008 13:50:59 -0400 Danny and Vikki - Lovin life!

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Cusco, Peru

We´re here now so we´ll let you know how it goes.......
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211910420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211910420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211910420/tpod.html Tue, 27 May 2008 13:50:00 -0400 Danny and Vikki - Lovin life!

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Puno, Peru

We literally stayed here one night (had a good chinese meal) and then got a tour bus to Cusco, taking in a few stops along the way to soak up some of the local culture.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211908800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211908800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211908800/tpod.html Tue, 27 May 2008 13:30:02 -0400 Danny and Vikki - Lovin life!

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Uyuni, Bolivia

You go to Uyuni to tour the salt flats and around, that´s it. The salt flats are amazing and are the highest salt flats in the world. I´ll let the pictures do the talking for this one (I should have found a way to get them up despite the lead loss). It was like living on mars for 3 nights! We got a 4 wheel drive togther with driver and cook and set off to explore this vast landscape. We stayed in a hostel made of salt, and two hostels like prison cells, all were freezing at night with no heating and -15C temperatures outside. We saw geezers (not the London kind), coloured lakes, flamingo´s, red landscape, white landscape and not many other people. It was a really good experience.
We also got back to watch the United be crowned deserved champions, despite a power cut in the town and us missing the first half.

The bus journey to Uyuni by the way was the worst yet, it was only 7 hours but stank of onions. It also broke down but that seems to be the norm for Bolivia as we have yet to go on anything that hasn´t broke down. They also don´t like tread on their tyres very much but do like to drive on the edge of cliffs. It´s feels as safe as houses.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211906940/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211906940/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211906940/tpod.html Tue, 27 May 2008 12:56:07 -0400 Danny and Vikki - Lovin life!

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Santa Cruz, Bolivia

Santa Cruz is Bolivia´s richest city so god help us for the rest of the country becasue it´s a hole! Had a good time here though. Stayed in a hostel called Jodanga which was an Oasis in the midst of the roughest coucil estate you can think of. They had a 2 year old party while were there and we met our new travelling partners, who we are still with to this day and are as follows; Clare and Sean from Dirty Leeds, Tommy and Esther (again), making six of us all together. We didn´t stay in Santa Cruz long mainly coz there´s not much there but glad we went. Despite appearances it´s not nearly that rough and the people all seemed pleasant enough but with a lot planned for Bolivia we headed off south to Sucre.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211906400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211906400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1211906400/tpod.html Tue, 27 May 2008 12:48:18 -0400 Danny and Vikki - Lovin life!

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Sao Paulo, State of Piaui, Brazil

Sorry for the big delay kids but been in backward Bolivia for a while and it´s not got the best internet so not had chance. The next few entries might be short and sweet because I´m sat in a cold internet cafe in Cusco and got a lot to get through, so apologies in advance if it´s a bit shit.

OK, from Slavador we were heading to Bolivia by plane but had to transfer at Sao Paulo. Due to bad weather we were delayed and missed our transfer so had to stay a night in Sao Paulo. Bit shit! We had to pay for a hotel and starve for a while because we had no Brazilian money left. We did get a flight for the next day though for free which was cool.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1209156780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1209156780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bamberd/danandvik2007/1209156780/tpod.html Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:49:39 -0400 Danny and Vikki - Lovin life!

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Salvador, State of Bahia, Brazil

As with pretty much all of Brazil, Salvador has been great too. I'm sat writing this in a hostel there after spending the day on the beach, again and going to see a turtle sanctuary.

The town is spilt into 2 main areas, The Pelourihno or the Old Town and the new areas of Barra, Vitoria and Campo Grande. We're staying in The Pelourihno which is just a hive of live music, dance and bahian culture. The streets are cobbled and the area has a real ancient feel to it and nearly every night of the week there's something musical happening. Since we've been here we've been to watch live Samba, live Reggae, a history of Bahian dance show (at which I got dragged on stage and had to dance and did very well at, I might add), watched a live show in the square and been to a very musical church.
It's been a bit of a hidden gem has Salvador. You find not many people travel north of Rio because it gets harder to get back accross to the rest of the continent but that kind of adds to the vibe beacause you're mixing with the locals a lot more and you can get a feel of a place a lot better.
We have ventured to other parts of town as well, like the shopping centre, the cinema and the beach, as you might expect. And we've tried some hiddeous sandwich thing they sell on the streets that contains shrimp and god only knows what else. We also met a crazy local guy who lives in Holland now but is back to visit his family for a holidayand funnily enough he's a long time Capoiera teacher and in a drunk state gave Vikki some long awaited lessons on the beach, she was quite a natural. What I also love is that for 20p you can buy ice cold coconut water straight from the fruit on almost every corner and it's be-a-utiful!

We had planned not to stay here for a full week but due to the situation with our money could not make it to Morro da Sao Paulo (an island off the coast) as planned and so have been chilling here for a bit.

That's pretty much it for now folks. Sorry for the delay but we've been having a great time in Brazil and all of South America for that matter, it's such and interesting place to come and visit. I'm gonna struggle adding pictures from now on as well because I've lost the lead from the camera that does it but I'll see what I can manage.

Bolivia next whcih promises to be different but just as cool!
]]>