Hola skips!
In a border town called Tacna (Peru). They had an earthquake tremor here powerful enough to cut power for awhile, crumble a lot of houses in the slums and even ruin a few old and historic buildings. I could lie and say the 2km walk from the Chile border to the Peru border through "no man's land" in the heat with constant hassle of the touts was fun but it wasn't. Mind you I think I'm getting pretty fit and did meet a really nice NZ couple whom I´m about to have dinner with (if we can find a restaurant with power).
Thought I'd send you a quick one. A few answers to some common emails/questions first though:
1) VIEWING PICS: click the "Show all large thumbnails" link to bring up a new window with all the pics I've uploaded for this update. Then simply click on the 1st pic to make it full-size (full-screen) and scroll through them by selecting the "Next Image" link. I'm sure you'll work it out.
2) WEATHER: no it is not summer here. For the geographically challenged (just kidding) about 95% of South America is actually below the equator which means the southern hemisphere, which means winter and which means basically the same weather as Melb/Syd. But don't worry solarium lovers I will be in Mexico mid July.
Not to sound arrogant but have travelled quite a bit so some new records for me:
--> Longest bus trip ever, just over 30 hours (albeit in comfort)!
--> 1st ever attempted mugging (on my 1st day in BRAZIL)
--> 1st ever punch-on with local/beggar/thief (BRAZIL)
--> 1st time I've ever asked somebody (Portuguese) to switch to another language other than English (Espanol).
--> 1st time I've ever stayed in a town (really a village) actually so small it's not even in any of the guidebooks. Apart from a hotel/restaurant there were 3 stores in town; a supermarket, a petrol station and ... a MOBILE fone store!
Other random thoughts, observations and happenings:
* Was walking from the bus station to the hostel (eg. with a 12kg backpack & day-pack) and this guy was trying to sell me a 1 metre long wooden hall-stand! As he followed me for about 500m I tried to explain that I really didn't need one right now - he didn't believe me
* Found out the Vodafone voice-mail number is the same as the Brazilian Fire dept.
* Was watching the Chilean version of Big Brother on live TV and the hostel owner told us it was being filmed only 10 houses down from the hostel. So we went and checked it out only to see one of the people evicted in their underwear onto the street (was about 2C that night)
* We went to this pub which was a converted fire-station on the 2nd floor so to get down to the 1st floor (eg. for the toilets) you had to use the pole
* In La Serena (north-east Chile) went on a tour to the highest observatory/planetarium in the world (2500m up in the Andes), a UFO "hot zone" where there is apparently a secret US base (eg. like area51), a winery/distillery (decent red wine bottles for $1) and on the way home the tour guide took us to a completely solar-powered display village just outside of town. So just-in-case we each had a spare $75k we could have bought a 3-bedroom apartment.
* Brazil was absolutely nuts and great fun. Copacabana (Rio) was certainly the place to show off your great body & tan (of which I have neither) but was pretty fun as was Salvador with non-stop music/partying. However, never really felt safe there so it's good to be back to some normality and speaking Spanish even though it's so cold!
* In Belém (northern Brazil) there was a coffee shop on the main street called "Cofee on legs" which consisted of barely clad women serving coffee. Think I had a caffeine overdose.
Well that's about it for now. Met some really great people (catching up with a few of them on my way home), been to some pretty interesting places and seen some amazing landscapes. Feel free to checkout the pics since most of them tell the story better than I can.
Will be doing the 4-day Inca Trail (southern Peru amongst the Andes) soon which was always going to be the highlight of my entire trip and I'm sure it won't disappoint. Then it´s off to northern Peru to visit the birth of the Amazon, 2 weeks in Ecuador (Galapagos Islands) and relaxing in Mexico for 2 weeks on the beach. Enjoy!
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Tacna Hotels
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