South American travels

Take 2 - i spent and hour updating this a few days ago while in Copacabana (and NO i havent been able to rid my brain of that freaking song for over 2 weeks now!)and managed to lose it - it was heartbreaking, i ended up starting drinking at 12pm that day.

Anyway, lets see how well I can recall the last month. After doing the extremely hard and draining 4 day Salar De Uyuni trip (and after the second worst bus trip in the world from Uyuni to Potosi - i spent most of the bumpy, dusty and freezing trip leaning over Annelie throwing up out ther window)it was to the Silver mines for us. When we eventually arrived in Potosi - which is incedentally the highest city in the world - we took a day to do a bit of recuperation from the Salar trip and because it was so god damn high we could not breath too good. The following day we went on the mine tour - i have really started appreciating my life alot more after seeing the conditions these miners (and generally through Boliva) live and work in. Most die of lung cancer or some other lung related disease by the time they are around 40. There are even little kids around 12 working in the mine which is really sad to see as they will never make it out of there. It was a tough 4/5 hours, we got given a hat and torch and in we went. The shafts are really small and i had a wheelbarrow crash into my leg with 2 tons of stones in it because i couldnt get out of the way, i still have a bruise. We climbed up 90 degree shafts with dust and rocks falling on us, crawled through tiny spaces - not for the claustrophobic or asmatic. The moners all have massive balls of coca leave in their cheeks, it helps numb the pain, work for longer and keeps the hunger at bay. It was a tough but worthwhile experience, it nice to see how the people live and work rather than just pass through a city taking in the sights.

After Potosi it was another great bus to La Paz, as luck would have it we arived a day before the Footy World cup and 2 days before La Paz and Bolivias largest festival - The religious festival of Gran Poder.We found an English pub called Olivers Travels (Oliver was just another traveler passing through La Paz. fell in love with it and now has one of the most successful pubs in the city. Its a great place if you are missing some gringo company)had our first proper coffee since leavinbg Argentina as well as a bacon and egg sandwich - i was in heaven! La Paz proved to be and interesting pit stop in our travels, after having a hard few weeks travelling we were ready to let our hair down. Out came the high heels and Paris and Nicole set off to paint the town red - which we did in style! We met some very interesting if crazy characters along the way, saw a huge amount of llama foetuses ( they were more than foetuses though, some must have been a few weeks old they were so big), enjoyed the festivities that surrounded the festival and did a bit of shopping for the first time which was good fun. The heels were probably not such a good idea as La Paz is the highesy capital city in the world and set in a crater so the streets are extremely steep and slippery, not good for heels. We also met up with people we had met way back in our first week in Buenos Aires which was weird, its been amazing how many times we have mewt up with people we have met half way across the continent, it feels like meeting up with lifelong friends when we see them again even though you only met a few weeks earlier, i think its probably because you go through so much in such a short time,when you see each other you cant get the words out fast enough and a familiar face is always comforting.

After having partied for a full 3 days we were in a slightly "fragile" state when we had to make our way to the airport (flight was obviously delayed by 4 hours), for a flight to Rurrenebaque fort a bit of Jungle action....3 days in the the jungle from high heels and parties in La Paz, it was just what we needed. It was so good to be at a respectable altitude after been over 3500 metres (mostly at around 4000m)for the last 3 weeks.

We had the most awesome guide for the trip, Louis, proper proper Indian from the jungle, his family still lives deep in the jungle somehwere. Rambo of the jungle if there ever was one. He caught us a massive cobra while anaconda hunting, caught an Alligator (the former he kindly wrapped around my neck when i wasn't watching and the latter he put on my head). He has 2 necklaces around his neck made from the teeth of the Puma he killed with a bow and arrow (no guns for him, that would be cheating)He speaks perfect English, very bright guy, must be as we found out from a local that he does a little more than just jungle and Pampas tours but a bit of Drug and Weapons smuggling too.....we do attract them. We went swimming with Pink dolphins which was cool, had i known how close the thousands of aligators were to where i was swimming i may not have as hasty to take a dip. But at least i can say i have swum with Pirana´s, aligators and pink dolphins now...

From Rurrenebaque we took the oldest bus i have ever seen the 24 hours to Copacabana (great, now the songs back in my head), it was in this hunk of junk that we went down the worlds most dangerous road, i do feel lucky to be alive i have to admit. We made it to "that place" in tiume to go watch some more football - i have to say, i have never watched this much footie in my life. I actually know whats going on now and am starting to make some informed comments which impresses the guys hugely :-)Where better than South America to watch the Football Mundial!?

We took a boat ride to the Isla del Sol where we laboured up the 240 steps at an altitude of 4000 metres, onlly to find that we didnt have enough time to actually get to the Inca ruins on the Island, bloody stairs! Im not too upset though, i am going on a 4 day inca trail tomorrow and then travelling through Peru - there will be no shortage of Ruins Im sure, in Cusco at the momento and there are ruins here and massive walls still standing made from the biggest rocks i have ever seen. They are put together so perfectly that you could not slip a cion in between the them, with no cement, its unbelievable.

From "that place" we took the most amusing mini bus ride with some English guys we met watching England play Sweden to the border and then on into Peru.A bottle of Whiskey and wine and 3 hours later we arrived in Puno in as slightly inebriated manner (especially Miss Annelie, i now understand why she said she shouldnt mix wine and whiskey!)We arrived in Puno at around 9pm and took our drunk butts for some food, Annelie had Guinea Pig, you could see its little jaws and had some tin foil round its little legs, the poor thing.Early the next day we started our tour of the floating reed islands of Lake Titikaka which was really interesting, then further into the lake (3 hours on the boat to be exact - its a mother of a Lake)to the Island of Amantani (meaning Love) where we spent the night with a family there. It was an amazing experience to be able to see how the people of the island live, still very tradtinoally, there is not running water, electricity and obviously no heating. The doors came up to my waist as did the people (will post pics when able), little Potatoe people. The food was not great, dried potatoe, black potatoes, worm looking potatoe - any type of potatoe you got it. Its all that grows on the island it seems. In the evening we were dressed up by our "mother" in tradtional Kechuyan (spelling is horribly wrong) dress and had a traditional evening of dancing to folklore music played by the men. It was a great experience that humbles one yet again and makes you very gratefull for what you have (a flushing loo being at the top of the list with heating in close second).

The next day was to the island of Taquile, not tequila as our guide pointed out gleefully, andf back to Puno where we had a fantastic meal and then a terrible bus to Cusco, where i am writing from now.

As luck would have it again, its the biggest festival of the year here - Inti Rama (winter soltice festival. There are feiestas all through june but today is the culmination of all of them so its fantastic to be here to experience it, there are massive colourful processions going through the streets, fireworks, music and dancing (as well as some very drunk people!). Cusco is really such a beautiful city, nothing like I was expecting, it blew me away with its unbelievable churches, cathedrals and buildings in general - the Inca walls dont hurt either.

We are off to do the 4 days Inca Trail mañana which is really exciting, its definitely one of the things i have been looking forward to most on this trip. Ill write all about it apon my return.

I havent seen any comments people, come now, this is a very one sided relationship we are having here!

Rxxx

Yup, we thought we were roughing it in Argentina, in reality we were just on Holiday there. We did eventually make it out of Chile and travelled 30 hours up to the north of argentina to Salta. Exhausted when we arrived!

The next 2 days are a bit of a blur consisting of Red wine, a terrible club call El Salon and a Taxi driver smoking something that was not in way close to legal while driving us to the club.We had an average of 2 hours of sleep a night if that and i blame this mainly on the 2 Irish Lads we met in the Hostal Terra Occulta where we were staying. When we arrived at 3pm (yes afternoon) the one, Keane, was just getting into bed from the night before and his friend P short for Peter who was in another room came out to say hello - not such a good idea in his state, i cant understand the Irish at the best of times but one who has not been to bed for over 24 hours is beyond by capabilities!

A surprise visiter was Laurence the Quebecan we met in Mendoza a few weeks earlier added to our 4 strong team and we headed out. If you are ever in Salta, do not, i reapeat, DO NOT, go to El Salon...what a terrible club with music that is impossible to dance to. It may have been because it was a Sunday (our last experience of going out on a Sunday night was the Gay/bisexual place in Mendoza previously mentioned) that is was so bad, who knows? Anyway, the following day was abit of a write obviously and that evening i went and had dinner with the Quebecans and got my French up to speed (sort of), Annelie and the Irish boys and Mike - the canadian we picked up in Bariloche who decided he would prefer to travel with us - arrived at around 2am and we drank more wine only to get to bed around 6am. Unlucky for me, this was the day i had to jump of a mountain - with a parachute obviously - in laymans terms, Paragliding. It was pretty God damned scary running for a cliff face with this massive parachute thing pulling you backwards but was amazing all the same. the wind picked up while we were up ther and i did get a little nervous when it started wipping the Chute around the place and the thermals started taking us higher and higher, adrenaline overload!!

We left that evening for the border town of La Quiaca (border with Bolivia)and this was offically on eof, if not the, worste bus rides of my life, and i have had a fair few. There was actually ice inside the window, i was trying to catch up on 3 days of lost sleep and came away with a wet cardigan (couldnt find my bloody travel pillow so had to try sleep on it). No Sleep and frozen we arrived at the border - it was then i think that we realised we were not in Kansas anymore. The people were much more indeginous and and they were not as friendly as further down south. An extremely painful and freezing walk down to the border (and out of Argentina) at 6am in the morning later, we found that Annelie was not allowed into Bolivia so we bid the Israelie and 2 Germans we met while complaining about the cold at the bus terminal, we ventured back into Aregntina to wait for the Bolivian consulate to open. Finally armed with a Visa a couple hours later and $30 less in the pocket than before. We ventures back across the border and finally into the Bolivian town of Villazon - dont go out of your way to visit unless you are using it as a crossing point. I think the fact that we had now had less than 5 hours sleep in 4 days and it was hot (surprisingly enough - Murphys Law i think, when you are hungover with no place to go - the sun will beat down on you with no mercy whatsoever)did not help the Paris and Nicole cause nothing,nada, f-all! The next bus (as we obviously missed the 9am one due to the Embassy milarky) was at 3pm - piping hot bus with no airconditioning, windows didnt open and there were some less than appetising smells radiating from some on the bus. Most of the bolivians and some lucky tourists had a bunch of coco leaves stuffed inside there mouths (made them look as though they had a golf ball in there)- this however did cause alot of spitting and coughing which was lovely. The fact i need the loo all the way was not good (bearing in mind that Tar roads have not quite taken off in Bolivia, you can imagine how comfortable that was.) This all sounds like i am complaining, im not at all, its all part of the experience and we have now eventually joined the world of the traveller rather then the holiday maker in Argentina.

From Tupiza we booked our 4 day Salar de Uyuni expedition which left on the morning of the 2nd May - our group consisted of Annelie, Mike (Canadian), Imri and Sowl (Israelies - diem for a dozen of them here, its unbelieveable), Gabriel (ironically enough he was the Quebecans i met through laurence on the fatefull night in Salta), the driver Marcus and cook Pelissa (i have no idea, it sounded something like that) and moi. So, 8 in the jeep, cook and driver in the front and 6 of us in the back (4 boys rememeber), pretty cramped! The jeep had no breaks so it was first gear all the way down all the gorges and mountains - pretty slow going - and the one window did not open either. So good start....:-) The first day was filled with views of Massive red and other multicoloured mountains, scary going with sheer cliff faces too close for comfort...really beautiful. The first nigh was spent in a tiny 500 strong village in a equivalent of a mud hut with one fairy light as the loght for the 6 man dorm room. Here is where the sleeping bag purchased from Ebay came into good use, as did the Peters Vodka (bought for 25 bolivianos about 1 quid in Tupiza)- it was around -5 degrees. The second day was filled with Laguna Verde and Blanco as well as volcano´s and more amazing scenery. We slept next to the Laguna Colorado (red lake) 4800 metres above sea level so pretty high! It was about -10 to -15 degrees that night, no hot (or even running water) and no heating obviously. When we left the following morning it was about -9 degrees, i have never experienced anything like that desert bone chilling cold in my life. I will write about the next couple days soon, my time is out on this PC.

xxx

Typically enough we missd the one bus that goes to Mendoza (back into Argentina) as it left at 8am this morning, consiering we only saw our beds at around 5am this morning, that was never going to happen and coupled with the fact that we didnt know that there was only one bus out of the country it was over for us.

Last night was amusing, we met up with Oscar, taking along the 2 boys we met in the hostel. One is Matt, a documetary maker rom LA/NYC who is a very cool laidback kinda guy, he hing out with us in the pouring rain yesterday without complaint and was also on the bus with us when it crashed. The other is Dan who arrived yesterday, a Pom with a very dry amusing sense of humour but alot more forward than most of the English boys i know. Very amusing... Anyway we started of at the coffe place we had originally met Oscar at after playing canaster and driking alot of cheap Chilean red wine, very very sweet - it so was not Cab Sauv or Merlot as stated on the bottles but we soldiered on. We then went down the road to a very bohemian vegetarian (i am asuming as we got disgusting soy on our pizza) restaurant and had some mulled wine and snacks then to a little bar where there was some very cool Chilean live music and we had our first Pisco Sours which were great, then onto Huevo, translation:EGG, which is the "happening" place here in Valparaiso, it has 4 levels all playing different music (some live bands). Danced to some Regaton and then rock n Rolled on the floor below with Dan - bizaar!

Hopefully off tomorrow, taking the 8am bus to Mendoza - there is a chance of snow in the Andes which means the bus will not leave which will really really annoy me, i am keen to get a move on now and get back to the cheaper Argentina...es muy importante as am broke already!

Quick update on adventures so far...
We made it to chile without too much fuss, they have the friendliest border guards in the world, annelie and i were "beautiful chicas´s" etc etc. We got to Pucon at aroud 8:30 and organised our volcano ascent for the following day.It was all quite hectic as the currency obvioulsy changed and we went from paying 20 pesos per night per room to 6000 chilean pesos, all a bit stressful..

Chile is very different to Argentina, weird as you could tell the difference as you crossed the border, i seems more mysterious and brooding almost. The skies are more of a mauve colour as opposed to the bright blues of argentina and the mountains are in dark clusters around the place covered in trees (aregentinian andes were bare of and trees or much vegetation). The people are also not as open and chatty as the argentinians which is no a bad thing, just different.

You gotta love this place, the next morning we were up early and driven to the Villarica i think it´s call(the volcano), we got crampons on our feet and ice picks (no teaching us how to use them or anything funny)and off we went. the weather was not great being pretty chilly and cloudy so the snow had turned to icem hence the crampons from word go. It was bloody hard work and after 3 hours of climbing we had to turn back as the the clouds had decended over the top of the volcano - it was a pity but it was still a great experience and the views were amazing. Pics to appear on the site shortly - you can see how Paris and Nocole do volcanos.

We are now in Valparaiso, arrived yesterday and have had an accident each day. yesterday in the taxi from the bus to the hostel and then today on the bus back into valparaiso. Its pelting down cats and dogs and our bus crashed into a car on the highway, these things always happen to us! anyway we are fine but had to wait for another bus to come pick us up.

Off again tomorrow to get back into Argentina which im lookin forward to as this place is bloody expensive. I do have to say however that Valparaiso is growing on me, it was a little scary at first as it felt very foreign. Everywhere else we have been has had a western feel about it whereas this place is very dilapidated and does not have many tourists (if any)but it has alot of charm, all the houses are painted different colours (not unlike La boca in BA) and go on as far as the eye can see. Very interesting architecturally too...we are off to dinner tonight with an interesting guy from the south of spain who has moved here named Oscar (met him in a coffee shop yesterday) - very liberal left wing arty tye of guy with some very interestig views on the world. He first had to go to hospital today for a bruised or broken rib, seems lke him and his friend who came here with him dont get along so well anymore.

Nothing really changed in the last couple days in Barriloche, we had some fantastic steak, went riding to in the mountains and to one of the lakes -so beautiful but bloody freezing. The saddles were not really saddles actually, they were not much of anything and there were no covers for the stirrup buckles so Annelie and i both have lovely bruises on our thighs!

We went for a greeat steak as i said wehere the waiter (admitedly gorgeous) pinched my butt while taking a photo with us and then told me to meet him t Roxy´s (local club) later, we did actually end up going there but i didnt see him. The usual get home at 5am thing and then took a hungover cable car up Cerro Campanario i think its called - the most spectacular views of lakes and mountains i have ever seen .- i have photo´s but the PC´s here are so slow there is no way i can get them on my site just yet, i have the cd´s with loads of pics but no way of getting them to you.Anyway, we then went to the bus station for our bus ride to St MArtin de los Andes (where i am now) only to find out we had missed it and had to wait 3 hours for the next one - great, so we mised the view of the 7 Lakes as we travelled at night..oh well.

Went for a hike yesterday and in true Paris and Nicole fashion we took a wrong turn and ended up straded on some cliffs with the sun about to set. The adrenaline set in and we were rick climbing and sliding down the mountain at a 90 degree angle. T o no avail, we eventually found these 2 little boys in the mountains (not sure what they were doing there but no matter) and paid them to get us the truck off the bloody mountain. They were seriously like little mountain goats jumping off little cliffs and running down the mountain at angles we didnt think possible - we did it nonetheless and paid them 5 pesos (well spent) at the bottom after they had to protect us from the aggressive dogs in the shanty town we ended up in - all quite adventurous and fun (once we were down that is)

Must fly, have a bus to Chile to catch as we are going to attemp to climb a volcano on tuesday.

Hey everyone

hope you are all well, me, i have been suffering since i left Buenos Aires 5 or 6 days ago. Defo overdid it there but had such a good time. Mendoza was much of the same, the first hostel we stayed in was pretty boring so we left after 2 days and went to another one, bad bad move! There were a bunch of Quebecans (so the French variety of Canada - i made the mistake of calling them firstly Americans which did not go down well, so i then attempted calling them French which was even worse...apparently Quebecan is the correct term not to be confused with anything else.) Anyway, long story short, we ended up being cooked for by them they plied us with massive amounts of the local wine and being a sunday with not many clubs open we asked one of the hostel workers where we should go. Well the place we ended up in on the outskirts of Mendoza was one of the most "interesting" places i have been. Big lesbian cops at the front and a 6"4 platinum blonde haired man with massive boobs to rival even Jordan, and the most pocker marked face i have seen - basically, pretty scary! We had some petrol like drinks there and i had to protect the boys from all the scary gay men (being a gay club - knowing this before would have helped), i didnt realy mind as my charge was a lovely boy called Laurence (with a French accent) who looked exactly like Collin Farrel (even better looking in fact)- so i was more than happy to oblige....naughty! Anyway, we got little tipsy and as a reslut went to bed a 6am and couldnt make it to the day wine tour we were supposed to go on. We were leaving on Monday night for Bariloche and decided that we could not be in the winbelands of Argentina and not go to a wine farm, so being the troopers we are we booked another trip for 2pm and off we went, hangovers and all....got the bus to drop us off at the bus station Monday evening after trying and buying 4 bottles of wine, (not that we needed to add to the whole luggage situation) and we somehow managed to get all our crap(and there is alot of it, dont know how but we seem to have a "girl explosion" wherever we go! Thankfully got on the bus for a 20 hour bus trip which was thouroughly enjoyed as i had the best nights sleep over 4 hours for the first time on this trip. Now in Barriloche, first night last night and in true P and N fashion we caused a fight in the club we went to, as the men were trying to get us to kiss and basically manhandling us, some Ausies and Americans got involoved and some guys were kicked out the club - we seem to cause chaos whereever we are, i am hoping when we are in the middle of nowhere we will manage to keep everything calm and not cause anymore fights and - that remains to be seen. havent showered in 2 days and had 3 hours sleep last night so i must go but there will be some more pics on the Truprint sight soon......send me news..xxxx

Hey hey
Just back from a great day in the area of BA called La Boca- its the 'downtown area' of the city but the most unbelievably exciting place, the streets are brightly coloured = each house is painted lots of bright colours and there is alot of tangoing going on in the streets, this is the area where tango first originated, it was more of a poor mans dance - the dance that the sailors and prostitutes did when trying to woo each other, when the yellow fever epidemic broke out half the people moved into the more posh areas of Recoletta and Palermo where they started Tango too and thats where it grew from. We had a walk around the streets went into the Boca Juniors stadium (they were the team we watched play on sunday and won the league)- for those of you who dont know - La boca is Maradonna's team - unfortunatley we leave on thursday and wont be able to make the next match on sunday at the home ground where Marradonna will be - its great, right in the middle of the seats there is a big yellow sofa where he sits and 60 thousand people chant his name - it would beunbeliavable to see that but alas we need to get the truck out of this fantastic city - too much carnage going on and the budget does not exist any more - i am really looking forward to getting to the Andes and chilling the truck out - this place is goddamn crazy. i must say though, for any interested in coming here - DO - it is such a fantastically vibrant happy and friendly place, it is a bit dilapidated in parts but this only seems to add to its charm - it has so many different areas to explore - from the posh Recoletta with beatifil parks to the vibrant but poor La Boca, the streets are massive the building are fantastic and they have statues of any foreign famous person who ever visited BA in its history - seriously you have never seen such massive and impressive staues in your life, from Ghandi to Columbus. The clubs are great the food is great the wine is great and they are a very welcoming lot. We have made some great friends which we will be sad to part from but no doubt we will be meeting many more along the next 2 months.....i now have added Swedish, French, Brazilian, Australian and more english to the friendship list. Before i go i'll give you a brief update on what we did last night, yesterday was more of the same - walking around getting lost and getting home exhausted - great fun and even managed to get a gallery in there too. We went o ut to dinner with a friend of Jacks's friend in london = who then bumped into his old school mate who is Brazialian and very cute. His father is the Bob Dillan of Brazil apparently and has over 300 recorded songs and his uncle lives in Peru dealing with and exporting medicinal herbal plants...lets not read into that one too much!! we will hopefully be getting in touch with him when we get to Peru - contacts are always great to have ...hmmmm Off finally for some steak and tango this evening before heading off to El Tigre with the boys (we have alot of guy friends which is great - not so many girl friends yet - must be jealous as we keep taking the cute boys on adventures with us!)for a bit of a picnic by the river and chill out session which should be great before leaving muchos early on Thursday morning to the winelands of Mendoza
chat later
and please write to guys - i miss you

Well we have had some interesting times since i last wrote....Friday we decided to have a walk around and see some of the sights etc, basically, to cut a very long story short we got it wrong from the time we walked out of the hostel...we walked out turned left and followed the map up to where we thought Plaza de Mayo was and then proceeded to get a bit lost but eventually found Recolleta where we went and saw Evita Perons Grave/tomb in the massive (and impressive)cemetary - my feet were ripped to shreds and i stopped to put some plasters on and then proceeded to wonder around the cemetary trying to find Evitas one - walked a full circle only to notice my bloody Prada handbag still on the bench i had left in on 15 minutes earlier - thank god i had not realised it was gone until then as i think i would have died on the spot from a heart attack - there was our hole lives in cluding all mopney and cards as well as phones and keys for the hostel. Phew! Anyway we then somehow found our way to the shopping steets and then tried to get home, we took a tube to where we thought the hostel was only to eventually find out that we had been reading the map upside down the entire day - this would explain the fact that every time we turned down a street it seemed to be the wrong way! and we ended up not on the map any more and had to take a cab home - all the spots we had gone to during the day are in fact only a few minutes walk away from where we are staying, we managed to take a day to do it - at least we saw most of Buenos Aires!!! We bring out the Blondes in each other me thinks. So, friday night we went to a bar recommended by a friend of Annelis friend and then on to a very posh club called RUMI in Palermo - we mentioned the guy who owns the places name and were let inside with no problmes, had a bit of sushi at 12 at night - thats around the time they stop serving food and it turns into a club - played great music - starting off with a bit of Hotel Costes 'I like London in the Rain' ironically enough... we made few boy friends there - very cute Rugby player, only 22 though! They were very sweet boys, but then got a l;ittle aggressive and demnading so we eventually ran away from them at around 5am and cabbed home. Saturday was spent doing some more walking around and with our new Aussie mate Mike, who is a big lad and thus the comments are kept to a minimum while walking around the town. saturday night was 'SOUTHFEST' night - massive party with Ladytron and Deep Dish amounst others, it was at the Docs not very far from here, open air and 20,000 people!! Bloody huge! Great time getting home at around 6am this time, not before getting an Argentinian leech attached to us quite early on in the evening and refused to leave us alone - pretty annoying but did a lot of jumping around and making friends with all the amazingly cooked people there! Exhausted and needless to say no sleep - its pretty danm noisy in this hostel with people only getting in around 6 to 9am and then the others wake up at about that time so we basicallay just got up, and got ready to go to our first ever live Football match. Quite a biggy as it turns out, BOCA vs Independiente - basically the final of the Argentinian league - over 100k people there - the most incredible atmosphere i have ever been in - these people take their football extremely seriously! We were Boca supporters but sitting with the Indi supporters, we needed to pretend we were supporting them... anyway when Boca won Mike decided to take a photo of them which the others did not think was cool - next thing Annelie was flying forward and i was flying to the right into the people in front of me - yup - do not take a picture of the winning team if you are sitting with the losers! Shots and tear gas and everything - fantastic!!!!!! anyway - i am hogging the PC so must fly - dont worry photo's are to follow soon!!

Love you allxxx

We have Arrived! So far so good, the argentianian people are very friendly, maybe a little too much when we are walking around outside! We do stick out like sore thumbs the 2 of us Blondies...we just ventured out yesterday evening to find that the men could not stop staring at us and making comments but i didnt get the uncomfortable feeling i got when i was in Italy - quite flattering realy - we really are a popular couple! im sure the novelty will wear off soon but we will milk it while we can I am sure! We need to find someone associated with the Polo scene as that is something we really want to go see some of that = and the cute boys of course! So the plans so far is to go do a bit of walking around today, familiarising ourselves with the city and seeing a few things before deciding what to do tonight, maybe a bar, jazz club or good dinner, we will see. Then Deep Dish and Lady Tron tomorrow and Football on sunday....action packed, we have to move out our room on Tuesday and we havent yet planned where we will be staying for the final 2 days but im sure something will come our way...here's hoping, will start a little search tomorrow. We just had breakfast which was interesting, 2 little rolls with a tub of caramel and a tub of the brown variety of jam - interesting! I am yet to try out the Argentinian steaks! iLL KEEP YOU UPDATED ON THAT FRONT.

Hi All

Sending out a brief tester before I jet off to South Amercia.... Just to give everyone a brief run down on the most likey itinerary, its going something like this:

4May Arrive Buenos Aires

11 May fly to Argentina's wineland region Mendoza
(this is where the date because less important)..

Down to lake district (Barriloche)
Cross over into chile to climb Pucon (volcano)

Spend next weke or so travelling up through Argentina before crossing over into the Northern part of Chile (Salar de Atacama i think)

From there we will be crossing over into Bolivia where we will be travelling through the Salt Planes up to La Paz.

This is where we will hopefully be doing an Amazonian trip - do they really have Anaconda's out there?

On to the back end of the trip - no less exciting though! This is when we cross over Lake Titicaca and up to Cusco where we will be doing a 4 day Inca trail to Machu Piccu - this one of the highlights of my trip!

Then Arrequipa, Nasca Lines and Colca Caynon to see the famous condors!!

Up through Peru and finally into Equador for the last 2 weeks.....

I will be unpdating this weekly so you can track my progress - and hopefully send me news from home.

Love you all and look forward to seeing you when i get home!

Rxx