TravelStream™ news feed for member bouhaus on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/bouhaus en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:05:15 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bouhaus/1/1231806660/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bouhaus/1/1231806660/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bouhaus/1/1231806660/tpod.html Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:05:15 -0500 That island somewhere west of Africa

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Rio de Janeiro, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Arrived in sweltering Rio and immediately set about organising a posi. The place we eventually found ended up rather great, being a fully furnished apartment just off Copacabana. We found this place after being referred by the doorman to a lady who rents the place out for an Italian couple (while we waiting in the lobby of an apartment referred to us by the tourist office). Being short notice we were also able to negotiate a better deal considering the place would have been empty anyway for the next couple of days.

First day we slept in a bit before heading off to the 'Christ the redeemer' statue for some great views and pics of the city. The remainder of our stay at Rio was just to chill on the beach, drink some capahrinha's and shop. The beaches here are amaizing, 4.5km long at least 300m wide with hundreds of volleyball and soccer fields demarkated and thousands of suntanned bodies scattered throughout the length of the beach. All I can say is "You gotta see it for yourself!"
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Santiago, Chile

Caught a bus into town and started walking towards the listed accommodation sites we had on our map. Every where was full eventually we were referred to the now cliche ¨lady around the corner¨ who still had space. Her place was huge (more than 36 rooms). She could have charged us anything and we would have taken it due to pure exhausion. It ended up rather reasonable and actually included our first egg for breakfast as part of the usual bland South American stale bread and coffee type breakfast. This day was spent booking tickets to Valparaiso, having a hearty meal and catching some zzzzz´s
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Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

On arrival we did our usual technique of finding accommodation which is to decide on something on the other side of town and on our way there enquire at any hostel / hotel we come across. On not being able to assist us, one of the hostels referred us to a lady around the corner. We eventually found her looked our new huge apartment which we managed to get at a fraction of the cost of our destination hotel - you can´t organise luck like that!

Great town, the old part of Colonia, used to be used by smugglers. There were festivities every day, beach, ice creams and more old buildings for Wendz.
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Lima, Peru

Not wanting to sit around in Lima airport for 6 hours waiting for our midnight connection to Santiago, we took a stroll outside the perimeter of the airport and negotiated a favorable rate into town with an unofficial taxi. Along the way we hatched a plan with our taxi driver, Martin, that we use his services and knowledge of the city for the next 5 hours for a fixed fee. This would not only make our getting around the city a little easier, but also make his day a little more interesting! Since his English was not too bad this ended up to be a rather good move.

First a trip into the Plaza de Armas, we checked out the Cathedrals and Parliament buildings and walked around the square. Then off to the city park and flower market, where they have huge arrangements already made for funerals, weddings, anniversaries etc...

Then off the beach for a sunset walk and views, then up the hill to Miraflores (the playground for the wealthy Limanians). This is definitely the place to stay if in Lima, packed with markets, clubs and restaurants. We settled on a light meal at an Arabian cafe with our driver before heading back to the airport.

We eventually checked in close to 1 am and decided to just stay awake for the duration of our flight. Two timezones and 3.5 hours later we arrived in Santiago.
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Valparaiso, Chile

What luck! We arrive in Valparaiso (which is a UNESCO world heritage site), just when the Dakar rally was coming into town. This is the first time that the Dakar has been in South America! You can´t buy luck like that. After being hounded at the bus station with sleeping options, we headed off with a lady to look at her accommodation - we could have leopard crawled faster. Her place was promptly rejected and we headed off to one of the other options, much better.

One the first night we checked out the old town which was beautiful and full of arty types. The town has many steep hills with funicular cars which run up them, most of which are over 100 years old. We met a local graphic designer and tested out his recommendation for dinner.

Day two involved Vina del Mar, which is a beach town and we bronzed ourselves, though Wendz overdid it somewhat and ended up looking like a lobster. The parks here are amazing and you can people watch for hours, they have kids on bikes, skateboarders, break dancers, couples and older folk watching over them.

Off to see the Dakar cars, there are even some of the team guys staying in our hotel, they were amused at the flood of questions from Wendy. We stopped at a seafood place for locals and were confronted with a menu which we did not understand in the least. The lady next to us, asked what we wanted and we said Fish & Chips, what we got was a massive plate of food, piled high with fish, eggs, chips and onions, cardiac ward here we come, especially after I mistook the olive oil for vinegar! We had a lovely couple next to us from Santiago and they bought us each a Pisco Sour (Pisco, lemon juice, sugar and egg white). The local drunk, who did not want to be outdone then ordered us another round of drinks. So we left for the Dakar rather mellow. There were cars and trucks everywhere with masses of people vying for the best vantage spots, it was incredible to experience that.

We left back to Santiago after waking early to see the Dakar cars off, nothing like a dawn walk to make to pass out on a bus.
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Cusco, Peru

We had another great idea to have the train drop us off at the first stop on the way back and for us to make our own way back to Cusco on the local buses, collectivos etc... and stop along the Inka ruin sites along the way.
Thousands of stairs, hundreds of calories, tens of blisters and a couple of ruins later we have seen all we want to see regarding the Inkas. The last ruin we ended up walking a large portion of it in the rain (thank goodness for a last minute decision to buy some ponchos before we left). We caught one of the last chicken buses back to Cusco just in time to attend a local performance of the various Peruvian dances.
For supper I was rather keen on trying the local delicacy of ´¨Guinea Pig¨, but for some reason none of the restaurants had any in stock, oh well... Alpaca is just as exotic!

The next day was our ¨´last day¨ in Cusco, so we did our rounds of local museums, markets and stocked up on some presents. Tomorrow we were out of here and into Lima for 2 days. We had supper and a couple of happy hours at an Irish Pub owned by the same guy who owns a lunch cafe that we really liked in town. A guy we met there recommended that we check in online as word was that the flight´s out the next day were rather overbooked.We went to bed late and got up early to ensure we don´t miss our flight.

We arrived at the airport to absolute chaos, due to a slight drizzle and some clouds, all the flights out and in were canceled. It turns out that there is no radar here and the planes have to go on sight, rather terrifying when you look at the surrounding mountains. So with thousands of people stranded, the day before most of the passengers due to start work the next day or catch connecting flights elsewhere tempers flared and the chanting began, though we have no idea what was being shouted. About 6 hours later we finally managed to get another boarding pass to leave in 2 day´s time, so that was our trip to Lima out the window!

We were now left with basically 2 decisions...1) Wait in Cusco for 2 days and fly to Santiago, Chile or 2) Get a refund on our flights and catch a bus down to Chile possibly via Bolivia. After much consideration we decided to wait it out as neither of us could stomach a 36 hour bus trip even if it was over a couple of days, besides we could just chill out for a while in Cusco. We would have also needed visas for Bolivia. It actually turned out quite good, as by now we knew Cusco inside out, even the hundreds of hawkers and beggars recognised us and stopped bothering us. To maximise on this portion of the trip we organised daily massages and found some really good restaurants. We also stocked up on fruit and fruit shakes from the local market, despite this not being advised by our travel book, we seemed to survive. The market was great, as there were almost no tourists there, which for the restaurants was a great thing, as I don´t think that foreigners would eat the meat, if they saw where it came from... there was a store, not a cold room, which had pig carcasses piled up about 2 metres high, open to the street... it looked like a serial killer had gone on a rampage!

The morning of our departure looked similar to the day the flights were canceled, so we told the hotel to keep our room for a couple of hours in case we come back. Luckily the flights left on schedule, we even managed to leave on an earlier flight, but our connection flight was only due to leave after midnight leaving us 6 hours to kill at the airport. We were due to land in Chile at around 06¨00, so all indications were that we were going to have a looooong day!
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Sao Paulo, Brazil

We finally arrived - Sao Paulo is a dreary looking city and we at once decide to get on the road the next day!
After getting ditched by some fellow SA comrades we took the easy path a grabbed a taxi into town. This city is huge almost a quarter of SA in one city. The country itself is just smaller than the USA, no way we are even going to touch most of it in one holiday!
Hotel is fine for one night but going to have to get used it! Grabbed a greazy pizza at about 11pm / sunset...and slept
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Machu Picchu, Sacred Valley, Peru

After an awesome, expensive train ride, we arrived in Aguas Calientes, at the foot of Machu Picchu. We thought we were organised in that we had some one collect us at the station when we arrived, only to find out that it involved having a girl walk us across the road and up the hill. Rather nice room with fantastic mountain views from our window. Unfortunately this town is the connection point for anyone going up to Machu Picchu, so as expected this town is VERY tourist orientated and prices at least double that of anywhere else in Peru. As usual Wendy had the day planned with a visit to the Machu Picchu Museum, Botanical Gardens and Hot Springs. The Museum was a bit disappointing considering their location. The visit to the springs was also rather "interesting" - I have heard that the smellier the baths are, the better they are for you, due to the sulphur content etc... but these baths just smelt like we were bathing in a large toilet bowl, definitely not something we would name a town after (Aguas Calientes = Water Hot).

Today was also New Year´s Eve and the town´s locals having been itching to let lose their arsenal of fireworks throughout the day - so we knew it was going to be big. The fireworks started at least 30 minutes before New Year´s for those that just could not wait any longer and ended about an hour after New Year´s. We found quite a nice pub and considering that most beers are sold by the litre proceeded to get rather mellow. We finally went to bed with about a 4 hours to go before our trip up to Machu Picchu.

Catching one of the first buses up to Machu Picchu on New Year´s day we managed to get some good pics before the masses arrived. Definitely a highlight was a exhausting climb up Wayna Picchu which overlooks Machu Picchu. Not much else to write about the day, which the the pictures can´t say for themselves.
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Cusco, Peru

Finally the land of the Inkas...

After some negotiating at the airport, we were offered a free taxi ride to check out a couple of establishments before making our final decision. We settled somewhere rather central and proceeded to explore this rather old city. We spent the next day exploring and preparing for our trip to Machu Picchu.
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Montevideo, Uruguay

Another 6 hour bus trip to Montevideo. Arriving at the bus station we set about trying to organize accommodation. Unfortunately charades don´t work too well over the phone, so with what sounded like a couple of Si Si we caught a local bus into town. We found our place aptly named ".....ideal", which we thought it was until the next morning when it felt like my be was moved somewhere between the highway and a bustling market.
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