Valparaiso

By the time we reached Valparaiso, we were pretty tired after all the horse riding and liver bashing. As a result we took it pretty easy here again and looked around the streets, ate nice meals.. and surprise surprise, drank more wine. We were staying in a ghost-town of a hostel, but just down the street was all the craziness of this awesome city. We loved all the graffiti on the walls, and spent most of the time taking pictures of the streets (we must have looked like such tourists). Highlights of our culinary experience included The Best French Restaurant Ever, and this awesome little place that only served one meal – an enormous pile of chips with some beef, onion and egg on top… Amazing! I think we put on about 3 stone in the three days we spent here. Three days later we reluctantly left our beloved Valpo and travelled back to Santiago for one more night before finishing our South American adventure with a big plane to NZ.

Uspallata

After an Emotional good bye to Leon and Rowan we were exhausted. For the previous 8 days we had done every activity in the guidebook, eaten every food in a cookbook and drunk every beer, wine and spirit known to man! So instead of heading south (our original plan) we decide just to keep hanging out in Mendoza for another few days before a short bus ride north to the mountain town of Uspallata. Still tired, we booked into the classiest hotel in town and chilled out with some cable TV for a further 3 nights. We did manage to do some more horse-riding (in the pouring rain)and visit a few attractions but mostly we just veged!

Mendoza (the Rowan and Leon weeks cont...)

After a short but extremely bumpy plane ride over the Andes, we arrived in the beautiful tree lined Argentine city of Mendoza (home to 70% of Argentina’s wine producers)!!!
Hardly any time had passed when we checked into the greatest little hostel anywhere in the world, before we were out enjoying the amazing food and nightlife that this vibrant little city has to offer. With hardly any sleep and a bad hangover we were picked up early the next morning for a full day of white-water rafting, and it was amazing. For starters, we were the only four people going rafting that day, so we had the river to ourselves. Secondly, the packed lunch that was included was immense, with every food and drink you could have dreamed of, including wine! By the end of the adventure downstream, we had all managed to fall out (except for Abi) and laughed all the way home, well for the 5 mins we weren’t all asleep!
On another day we also hired bicycles and rode around between the different wineries! I’m not convinced this is the safest activity, considering there are no bike lanes, a lot of traffic and every tourist is extremely drunk, but it is loads of fun! All in all we loved this place and would go back in a heartbeat!

Santiago and Pichilemu (the Rowan and Leaon weeks)

We arrived in Santiago from a 20 hour bus ride from the north of Chile. We went straight to our accommodation and low and behold who should we run into in the reception area but Rowan and Leon (for those of you that don’t know, they are our close friends and we were going to be doing some travelling together for 8 days). We had managed to hire a gorgeous little two bedroom apartment for a couple of nights and settled in there quite quickly. After
The following day we did some sight-seeing around the city, before a quick dip in the pool on the 24th floor of our apartment complex.
We then decided for a change of scene and headed south to the sleepy surfing town of Pichilemu. We hired our own little wooden, mountain cabin for 3 nights and managed to get in some surfing, horseback riding along the black sand beaches, and brilliant local cuisine. It was a great chilled out few days and highlighted by finding a beachfront bar with hot-tubs above the sand dunes, where you could drink cocktails in the setting sun!

Salt Lakes

We began our Salt Lake adventure in Uyuni in the middle of Bolivia at ridiculous o’clock in the morning after yet another overnight bus ride, this time from La Paz. We both must have eaten something dodgy the night before because we felt terrible and were close to blowing the trip off for the day and finding a comfortable hotel to die in. But with the help of some local medication and a hundred trips to the toilet we were ready to go.
First stop was only 10 mins out of town where lay a graveyard for abandoned steam locomotives, about 50 all in all. From there we drove onto the largest salt lake about an hour away. It was pretty majestic – flat and white for as far as the eye could see… and yes I did lick the ground, tasty! We moved onto an island in the middle of the lake that was completely covered in huge cacti, it was eerie yet beautiful. We stayed in the middle of nowhere that night but had a great time drinking cheap wine and getting to know the other 4 people in our 4x4 slightly better.
Over the next two more days we visited countless deserts, strange rock formations, geysers, active volcanoes and crazy coloured lakes. We saw eagles, chinchillas, pink flamingos and loads of other amazing wild life. All in all, this was the best tour that we had been on.

La Paz

We only stayed in La Paz for a couple of days but if we had more time we would have stayed much longer. La Paz is built in a basin and you approach the city from a road running around the top, which is absolutely spectacular. We indulged in some amazing food, including a couple of currys, whilst enjoying the mountainous skyline. Our other main activity was shopping, which we had saved for Bolivia since we had heard it was cheap. It certainly was, and we spent a meagre amount of money buying ponchos, hats, t-shirts and tacky souvenirs. We were tempted by the llama foetuses, which you are supposed to bury under your front door for good luck, but decided that they probably wouldn’t get past Australian customs. Maybe next time.

Puno & Lake Titicaca

Puno is situated on the Peruvian shores of Lake Titicaca - the world’s highest lake at 3800m. It’s also pretty big. We arrived in Puno at 5am having taken an overnight bus from Cusco. We then started the tour a few hours later, beginning with the floating villages, which are man-made islands consisting of what looks like rotting leaves. We then moved onto a bigger natural island where we stayed with a local family for the night. We ate plenty of carb-heavy meals (rice with pasta and a side of potatoes) and climbed up a mountain named father earth (Pachutata). The following day we went to another island, which apparently sells the most amazing handicrafts ever for a mere 100 dollars. Fortunately we are not suckers so we ignored this advice to get our wallets out and instead enjoyed the beautiful surroundings for free. That night we went into Puno town and had quite possibly the most amazing pizza of our lives, washed down with some vino caliente to warm our cold bones.