Friday, 29 April 2011
Machu Picchu Peru and Area
Wow Machu Picchu what an incredible place. The sites are amazing and those Inca people were so talented. It is hard to believe that they created these sites in the 1300’s. The engineering and mathematics behind it, let alone the man power, sheer strength and ability, mind baffling. What they are building over here today is nowhere near the quality of these buildings. Machu Picchu is huge and on top of a mountain. The hiking was incredible the views amazing and sheer drop offs spectacular. I can see now why they scan your passport and get all your info from you before when you buy your ticket in the event that you don’t come out they know who went missing, not that they would find you if you went over the cliff the growth is dense but there are trails that you have to sign in and out of. There is an incredible amount of people coming each day to see Machu Picchu but it was not over crowded, it is massive and most of the tour groups are there only until 2pm and I stayed until 5pm when it closed.
Cuzco is also a great town. It is the starting point of a visit to Machu Picchu. It itself has tons to check out and is a World Heritage site. The Cathedrals woodworking, frescos and oil paintings were spectacular. In the Cathedral they have a portrait of the last supper and it is famous for its offering of guinea pig, yup Charlie their last meal was guinea pig. It is also on every menu in the area, it and alpaca, so while you were having turkey or ham for Easter I was having alpaca.
I also visited the Sacred Valley which includes other little villages boasting an Inca Ruin or two. I tell you those Inca’s were incredible. I especially liked their terraces built into the side of the mountains for crop growth.
Agua Caliente, (The town of Hot Water) was a great town to stay in too. The town has one main street lined with restaurants and massage parlors looking for your business. So after a big day of hiking and walking I hit the massage parlor for a $15hour long massage followed by a trip to the hot springs for a soothing soak in the water for $4 and if you didn’t bring your suit, no need to worry, you can rent one for a dollar.
Here is the link for the photos, enjoy.
Click on this link for photos from Machu Picchu, The Sacred Valley, Cuzco and The Area
Sunday, 24 April 2011
Lake Titicaca, Puno Peru
Happy Easter from the rabbit I saw in the most desolate area of Bolivia and Happy Birthday to you Dad, Dennis and Aunt Anne. Sending you love and birthday wishes from Peru.
I have spent Easter Weekend at Lake Titicaca. Yup, I spelt that correctly and it sounds like it is spelt, so I had to come to this area to see what it is all about. Well it is another lovely area. I am now in Peru in the town of Puno which is on Lake Titicaca. I arrived on Good Friday and was able to witness a Good Friday procession. The statues used in the procession were interesting. My favorite was the last one of I believe Mary all in black and it was neat because it was only carried and surrounded by women.
I took a boat trip out to a couple of the islands on Lake Titicaca, (Uros and Taquile). The first one was really cool. It was a series of floating islands where a couple of hundred people live. Every two weeks they have to cover it with new reeds to keep it from rotting.
South America countries have really kept their traditions. When you visit these places the people are not dressed in their old traditional garb to entertain you, but are dressed that way because that is who they are. Women wear bowler hats with long dark braids in their hair and poufy skirts. On the second island I visited (Taquile) the men wear toques of solid red if they are married and red and white if they are single. The men knit the hats and women weave belts for them to wear. Each year the woman makes her husband a new belt and each year it has a different symbol added to it so it tells the family history, births, deaths, good harvests etc, really interesting. So the girls sell the tourists bracelets but it is really for them to practice their weaving skills so by the time they are an adult they can strive to make their husband a good belt. So nieces and nephews you are getting “practice” bracelets.
I made it to mass from Easter Sunday. It was a lovely church full of white flowers everywhere. I was surprised there were not too many people there and I was the only foreigner, but they did have lots of masses throughout the morning. Anyway at “peace time” the woman beside me gave me a hug and a kiss, not a handshake. I said my little thank you pray as for some reason I was up really early this morning and double checked with the hostel staff to see how much my bill was, as I needed money from the ATM. Upon doing this the woman called to confirm my bus ticket for the next day to find out that the busses would not be running for two days as there will be road blocks on Monday and Tuesday. She said I could get to Cuzco today or Wednesday. I said I needed to leave today as I fly from Cuzco on Sunday and would like as many days as possible for Machu Picchu and the area. She made some calls and got me on to a night bus that will leave tonight at 10pm hopefully missing the road blocks. I got the second last seat out of Puno, so I said my little prayer of thanks at church this morning. It was really random that we found out this was happening. I tried to get out Bolivia and their road blocks to avoid lost time and now it is happening again. This time it is because the government wants to set off bombs for testing and the miners don’t want them to do it as it will cause environmental damage. So they are protesting.
Here are the photos from Lake Titicaca, Puno, Peru.
Click on this link for photos from Lake Titicaca, Puno, Peru
Four Day Salt Flat Tour Bolivia and tons of photos
Day 1: Today I started a four day Salt Flat Tour from Tupiza to Uyuni in Bolivia. Wow! There are seven of us in an old Toyota Land cruiser with bald tires. We have a driver/Spanish speaking guide, good thing the Mexican girl can translate for us, actually I understood a lot of what he was saying and a cook. She offered up a great picnic lunch in a field of lamas today and a great dinner. The other five of us include a French couple, the Mexican girl, Anne from England and myself. We left Harry today in Tupiza, he was going to do a two day horse trek. The landscape is incredible and it has been for the last couple of weeks. Around each corner it is different. Today we traveled by dirt road about 100km’s and it took eight hours. The views were spectacular. We climbed to 4550m above sea level and I (touch wood) do not have altitude sickness, nor the others in our group.
On the drive we passed through barren land and vast open spaces, no cities, just lamas, donkeys and an ostrich to be seen. We arrived in a little village with one block of houses and a school. This is where we are spending the night in San Antonio de Lipez. The village is full of children with lovely smiles and not a care in the world. They don’t care that there is dirt on their cloths, that their shoes don’t have soles, but they can offer you a smile and a fun time. As the sun was setting on the snowcapped mountain in the background I played catch using a tennis ball with three young girls. While we were playing there was another little gaffer keeping himself quite amused by wheeling a bicycle tire through my legs. The simple things in life are free, isn’t that what they say.
The people of Bolivia have incredible faces. They wear bowler hats with long black braids in their hair, wool skirts and either have their possessions strapped around them with a piece of cloth or a baby. They are very old fashioned looking and they are everywhere, in the cities, villages or in the hills with a whip swatting lamas to go in the right direction.
It is a little chilly tonight, I have had to put on my long johns and I have my toque out in case I need it tonight. You can be so hot during the day, the sun is intense here, but yet at night it can go down close to zero. We have an early start tomorrow, 4:30 am so I will sign off.
Day 2: It was an early start like I said 4:30am. It is crazy when your clothing for the day changes so many times. I started the day in long johns, a toque and mitts and by midday was in a swimsuit and then in between going from sweater to t-shirt and a skort to pants.
Today we learned we are the envy of the other tour groups with our 1997 Toyota Land Cruiser. You spend the night in a communal building with your group of five sharing a basic room, no showers, hot water and questionable electricity. At one of the sites we got talking to some fellows who said oh yes you guys are in the good vehicle with back windows that slide open and power windows that work. An added bonus is that the windows are tinted and keep some of the intense sun out. There older version does not have tinted windows or windows that go down, so they are roasting.
My tour is fantastic. They all get questionable reviews and it is a crap shoot as to who you choose to go with. It is basically the same tour and cost, but some have better vehicles, drivers, food etc. All of the mentioned are great with our company. The food is actually fantastic. I am having the most cooked vegetables I have had weeks and it is all sitting well and the altitude is only bringing on a minor headache which is easily treated.
So today we saw geysers spewing out the lovely sulfur odor. Beautiful mountains and a green lake that is green do to the lead and arsenic that are in it, volcanoes, hot springs, bogs and were at 5000m.
Day3: Well it is evening now and as I sit here clean from the hot shower I was able to have after two days of dust from the desert I listen to the military practice across the street. At this point they are chanting or singing some song. I figure we should be good and safe in this town as our accommodation tonight is a hostel and it is directly across from the military housing and zone where there is a guard on the corner. Tonight we are staying in Uyuni.
Well today we saw tons of flamingos. It was incredible they were in the lagoons. There was a lot more red rock. We saw a funeral procession in the middle of nowhere. I do not know how far they had to walk behind the body which was carried on a flatbed truck. For three days we have been in this vast land where we have maybe seen accommodation for a hundred people in total. There is nothing out there, but panoramic views at every turn.
So last night was a little chilly. It was rumored to have been -18 degrees C. I slept in my long johns, pants, socks, two shirts, my toque, neck warm and mitts. I was warm though and had a great night’s sleep. The room had electricity for a couple of hours in the evening, no form of heat or hot water, but comfy beds.
It will be another early morning tomorrow as we head out to make sunrise over the salt flats and therefore will be getting up between 4 and 4:30am.
Day 4: I believe I should really start taking pictures of toilets and washrooms around the world. Over the last four days we have had to use “mother nature’s” bathrooms and I have to say that is way better than the one I had to pay to use today.
Today I literally had to go from sun hat to toque. It is boiling hot in the sun and freezing cold in the shade. Layering is the way to go here.
So today was the end all and be all for the Salt Flat Tour. We went to the Salar de Uyuni, or the Salt flats of Uyuni. It was very cool. The area is huge and looks like it is covered in snow, but it is salt. The locals harvest it for table salt and other uses. It is interesting to think that we are driving over it and walking on it and it will end up in someone’s mouth. It is the end of the wet season here so we had to drive through a foot of water in parts. In a month it will be all dried up and there will be no water around. They make piles of the salt to dry it out and it is cool to see them harvesting it with shovels and old dump trucks, then you should see where they dry it. I haven’t said yet how primitive Bolivia is. I cannot capture it in a picture but wow does it have a long way to go as far as progression is concerned, or it will be interesting to see how long they can sustain their quality of life. I don’t want to dis it, I am not, it is incredible, but it is neat to see how unorganized and old the country is. Internet is not an option and if it is it might as well not be. But I don’t really even want to go to talk about the internet. If you are an electrician you would be cringing over here. Bare wires and tape holding things together and then only having electricity for a few hours a day is the way in many a place we stayed. Agua Caliente (hot water) I think not. I have had that before in other countries but they were hot destinations and in Bolivia the temperature goes to below zero.
In the middle of the Salt Flats there is a Salt Hotel. The Lonely Planet says to not stay there as it was built illegally and its waist is going right into the Salt Flats. So we show up at this place and I have to say I was expecting a posh place, but the walls are made out of salt and the roof has tarps on it that are kept down with tires. That is where we had our picnic breakfast as we were at the Salt Flats for sunrise. No one stays there anymore but the tour groups go inside and use the facilities for a place to serve up food.
I forgot to mention there was one ATM machine in Uyuni. At any given time there is a lineup of at least five tourists waiting out front to use it and your taking your chances on whether it is working or not. In Tupiza where I actually booked my tour there are no ATM machines and it is a tourist town with lots of activities that require cash. The Lonely Planet warns you to get cash before arriving here as there is not an ATM so when we were walking the town we saw one and thought the Lonely Planet is wrong. We asked the tour company about it and they said oh no you cannot use it, It is only for local cards and will keep foreign ones. Good thing we didn’t give it a try.
An incredible four days and a must see if you are in South America. The hospitality shown to us by our driver/guide (Santos) and cook (Eli) was incredible, lovely people, great sites, and an interesting country with incredible vast lands.
Now the bus out there was another story, oh my god. The trip from Uyuni to La Paz took 10 hours to go 536km on a night bus and I have never been on such a terrible ride in all of my life. My back still aches and I am in need of a massage. The Road for FIVE AND A HALF HOURS was like and accordion or washboard and was incredibly bumpy. Think of those massage chairs they have a home that you can sit in and now think of the deluxe one and put the thing on turbo and multiple it my a 100, that is how the ride was. The seat was vibrating like nothing I have ever felt and this went on for FIVE AND A HALF HOURS! I literally thought at one point my insides are going to come right out of me through my private parts (sorry but the feeling was like nothing else) and the sound of all the banging in the bus was so loud. I really thought we were going to break an axel or tire rod, or the side was going to fall off the thing. The totally body vibration was unbearable thank god that is over and I hope to never experience that again. The teacher blockades and strikes are over and so we were not held up with that which was nice.
Now for tons of photos, DON’T MISS THERE ARE TWO LINKS FOR PHOTOS, one is the Bolivian Boarder Crossing and the other is the Four Day Salt Flat Tour.
Click on the link for The Bolivian Boarder Crossing
Click on the link for tons of photos from The Four Day Salt Flats Tour
Sunday, 17 April 2011
Bolivia Boarder Crossing
I have arrived in Bolivia. All is well and it was a really easy and uneventful boarder crossing and drive to where we are staying. I am with Anne and Harry at this point. There is always talk amongst the travelers about Bolivia. Some hate it, some love it, some are afraid of it. Anyway our trip yesterday was great. We took the bus from Tilcara Argentina to the boarder town of La Quinta. Once we were there we hoped in a taxi for a $1 to get us to the boarder. Crossing was easy. I expected to have to pay $75 US to get in, but didn’t have to. Maybe it is only if you fly into the country? We are not sure. Once we were through the boarder crossing we walked straight into a Cambio, where you change your money. No problems there and we caught a taxi to the train station to go on to Tupiza. The train only runs certain days of the week so we stayed an extra day in Tilcara to be able to catch it. Not an issue thought I probably would have stayed another night anyway, but long story a little shorter. We get in this cab to take us to the train station in a broken Spanish conversation the cabby says he can drive us to Tupiza. So we look at each other, we all have a good vibe about the guy and say, yeah ok, what the hell. So we tell him we need to eat and he takes us to the place to eat and we are on the road, an hour before the train is “scheduled” to leave. The train takes close to three hours and we were able to drive there in an hour and a half. He was a cautious driver and we even had seatbelts. At one point we had to stop and wait as in numerous spots the road was under construction but it was fine. They had just blasted a new tunnel and were clearing the rubble, so that was neat to drive through.
We arrived at a great hotel that had rooms for three so that is what we had booked. The place even has a pool, it is luxury for $7 each a night. Who said Bolivia was a hard place to travel? Well I will touch wood as the next four days are going to be an overland Jeep excursion to the Salt Flats at high altitude, so here is hoping it goes smoothly and that I don’t get altitude sickness. I may be out of contact potentially for a week but at the end I should have a gazillion photos to upload. So here is the news and again the buzz with people, some afraid others are fine. The boarder was closed the other day between Bolivia and Argentina, we learned this after we crossed that it was the day before we crossed. There are protests throughout the country and guess who are protesting? The teachers, they are looking for a 15% pay raise. So people are talking about riots etc. some are just moving on as normal and others are trying to get out quickly. I will leave it up in the air.
The next four days are on this tour through the salt flats and then I can cross into Chile to go to Peru or go through Bolivia and cross into Peru. Basically I need to move a little quicker now as I fly out of Peru to Easter Island on May 1 and have to see Machu Pichu before that. Here’s hoping those teachers aren’t too rowdy.
Sorry I cann't get my photos to upload.
We arrived at a great hotel that had rooms for three so that is what we had booked. The place even has a pool, it is luxury for $7 each a night. Who said Bolivia was a hard place to travel? Well I will touch wood as the next four days are going to be an overland Jeep excursion to the Salt Flats at high altitude, so here is hoping it goes smoothly and that I don’t get altitude sickness. I may be out of contact potentially for a week but at the end I should have a gazillion photos to upload. So here is the news and again the buzz with people, some afraid others are fine. The boarder was closed the other day between Bolivia and Argentina, we learned this after we crossed that it was the day before we crossed. There are protests throughout the country and guess who are protesting? The teachers, they are looking for a 15% pay raise. So people are talking about riots etc. some are just moving on as normal and others are trying to get out quickly. I will leave it up in the air.
The next four days are on this tour through the salt flats and then I can cross into Chile to go to Peru or go through Bolivia and cross into Peru. Basically I need to move a little quicker now as I fly out of Peru to Easter Island on May 1 and have to see Machu Pichu before that. Here’s hoping those teachers aren’t too rowdy.
Sorry I cann't get my photos to upload.
Friday, 15 April 2011
The seven colour hills, Purmamarca Argentina.
Argentina is such a lovely place. It is so easy to get around the people, food and sites are fantastic. I am loving my time in Argentina. I love when you intend to spend a night in an area and it turns into a week. That is what happened in Salta. Thank god I didn’t move on, I would have missed some tranquil places in Cafayete, Cachi, Tilcara and Purmamarca, each have incredible landscapes. They are just my kind of places, little towns with great character.
I was able to do a great three kilometer walk around Purmamarca. It is where the seven colour hills are. Amazing colours that change as the sunlight hits the mountain, or hills. You might be sick of the rock photos but it is just amazing everywhere you turn there is something different and amazing to see. Hope some of those panoramic photos might give you a better perception.
So I met a guy Harry yesterday and as fate would have it we would have met on my scheduled Antarctica trip that I had to cancel. We were to be on the same boat, same dates and company. Interesting how we would now meet up in Northern Argentina as we each head to Bolivia. Kind of cool how random things happen. He loved his Antarctica trip. it is neat to talk to someone who has been there. So we gained another travel companion for a few days at least.
Click on the link for photos from The Seven Colour Hills in Purmamarca Argentina
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Road trip between Salta and Cachi Argentina
Good morning. I don’t know how successful I am going to be at typing this as I am on a bus which seems to not have any shocks and I am wondering if my breakfast is going to stay down as we bounce, bounce along. It is just a four hour trip today. It is kind of surreal though. I am sitting right at the front of the bus on the second level and because I can type without looking at the keyboard. I am just watching the beautiful scenery go by. It is kind of neat to be so productive (getting the blog caught up) and relaxed at the same time. No WIFI on the bus, that just seemed to be in Uruguay so I will write this now and post it later on.
I had another incredible day yesterday. The scenery in the Salta province is incredible. Esteban was Anne and my guide for the last two days. Anne is my new friend from England. On day two of our drives to check out the area we were the only ones in the car and therefore had a private tour. It was great. I knew it was going to be a fantastic day as we were driving through the green mountains with the tunes cranked rocking out to it’s a beautiful day by U2. At work they play music some mornings to get the kids moving to class and I love when it is this song, for me it is a great song to start the day with, so when it came on and we were driving through that beautiful landscape I couldn’t help but smile.
The landscape between the two days was so different and yet they are so close. One day was red mountains and the second day was green mountains. The way the sun was hitting the one area in the afternoon made the mountains look like they were covered in plush velvet and I just wanted to reach out and pet it. You know how I am with petting things being the tactile person I am.
Oh god, just a little pause and a prayer. We just came across carnage on the highway. There we two bodies spewed over two lanes of the highway going in the other direction. It must have just happened. Sorry for those families losses.
I am now a little distracted. We saw tons of cacti yesterday and at times there were cacti in the foreground and snow on the Andes in the background. We saw a condor which was really neat. Esteban has been trying to take a picture of one for three years so he was really excited about seeing it too. It was close to the road and it was huge. It looks almost like a big wooden bird. We watched it and its baby’s for awhile and then it took off in flight. They have a 10 foot wing span. We also saw wild donkeys that are prey for pumas and guanacos (they are kind of like a deer and an alpaca). We actually pulled over the car because we could see a tarantula crossing the road and didn’t want to hit it.
The people around here are also quite lovely. The hostel I was staying at in Salta had incredible staff. Each day was someone different but each one of them was extremely helpful. Traveling with no phone sometimes leads to a bit of a hassle but these people were always offering their phones and making calls for me. When I was trying to arrange the car to go around the area and Anne was staying in a different hostel they made the calls and arranged it for us. Then they called her hostel for me so I could tell her we were good to go etc. Anyway little things make me happy, right. Then this morning when I was checking out the guy who checked me in saw me and instantly said “Sarah, how are you? Where were you yesterday I worked from 8 – 7 and I didn’t see you, where did you go?”All this service for $12 a night and they also had the best breakfast, included. Today I had two eggs and each day there was fresh fruit out all day for your taking. A typical South American breakfast is white bread, which they had brown, dulce de leche, a carmel sauce which they are obsessed with and a croissant. Oh yeah and I got hot chocolate made with milk whenever I wanted it. All included in that $12 fee. Now it is no four star place, a six bed dorm room and not the greatest bathrooms, I definitely needed my shower shoes, but a great showerhead with pressure, which is sometimes hard to find and therefore sometimes it’s hard to get that shampoo out of my hair or the soap off your body for that reason.
Again lots of photos were taken some of them are quite cheesy as were we playing around to maybe make the shots a little bit more interesting for you.
One of my favorite things to see, Grace will make fun of me because it is red, but it was a field of drying chilies it was incredible to see this field of red.
Anne has an I-phone and can take panoramic view photos so I copied a few of her pictures on the bus today. They are really neat to see. Did I tell you this guy in Buenos Aires had an I-phone with him and he had an app on it that translated for him? He held the phone over a menu and it translated the print from Spanish to English. Oh how travelling is changing.
We arrived in Tilcara this afternoon; it reminds me of the wild, Wild West. It is a little town with a mix of authentic locals and backpackers in a hot dusty 20 square block area. It is a beautiful location though among the mountains and such a nice vibe to it.
We arrived at the hostel to suppose to be having a twin room but the room was rebooked by its previous occupants. So they gave us a two bedroom room with a bathroom and balcony that can sleep six for the same price of $11 each a night. I walked onto the private balcony that looks out onto the mountains and went ok this is cool. I can chill out and read and write on this for awhile.
Here is the link for the photos from Cachi Argentina.
Click on the link for photos from the drive from Salta to Cachi Argentina
Monday, 11 April 2011
Salta Argentina
Wow! What an amazing day. You should see the scenery around Salta Argentina, amazing. I can see why Nancy Towns is a bicycle guide in this area. Too bad she is not around at this time, she is in Spain. But man did she ever have some good suggestions.
The road from Salta to Cafayate has incredible mountains and beautiful red rocks. You will see them in the many photos I took. It was amazing. I went in a car with a guide a girl I met on the 24 hour bus, Anne from England and another couple from Austria. I could see buying that BMW motorcycle and bringing it down here for a hell of a trip.
The other day I went to San Lorenzo by local bus, 30 cents. It is just a suburb to the city of Salta with a great forest and jungle. I hiked in there and did a zip line over the gorge after my hike. It was great to be out of a big city and back into nature.
Salta has a cable car to get up the mountain to check out the view of the city. So I did that and then walked back down the mountain for some exercise. It is nice to get moving again after days of sitting.
Part of today’s trip included visits to two wineries. The smell of the fermenting grapes was incredibly good.
Have you ever seen a tobacco fence? In tobacco country the road is lined with them as the farmers are drying out their product for export.
Click on the link for tons of rock and mountain photos from Salta, Argentina
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Iguazu Falls Argentina and tons of photos
Iguazu Falls Argentina. WOW! What a beautiful National Park. It puts Niagara Falls to shame. There are beautiful easy walking paths through the park that lead to lookouts along the way that just keep giving better and better views. The paths are through the jungle and easily followed. It sure beats the tacky tourist shops along the road in Niagara Falls. The sound of the rushing water is incredible.
A twenty minute $1.50 bus ride gets you out to the Falls from the quaint little city of Puerto Iguazu. Once there you pay your $25 admission into the National Park and hop on a little site seeing train that takes you to the walking paths. If you get your ticket stamped on the way out they will let you back in the next day for $12.50. I will be heading back for some more scenery, fresh air and exercise. You can do 8km walks or multiple 1km walks all giving excellent views of the falls. Iguazu Falls lies in both Argentina and Brazil. I was on the Argentinean side as I don’t have visa to get into Brazil.
We arrived in Puerto Iguazu in the morning and lucked out again with the hostel giving us our room early. We had taken a 12 hour night bus that brought us into town at 10am. It was a comfy bus with reclining leather chairs that would remind you of lazy boys. The bus trip cost $72 and included a hot supper with wine, coffee, tea or pop, breakfast, English movies with Spanish subtitles and a steward.
I am just back from day two of visiting Iguazu Falls, incredible views. The weather here is incredible too, blue skies and lots of hot sunshine. Yesterday I am sure it was around 35 it was really hot and today maybe 28 degrees Celsius.
I took different paths today at the National Park. One went over the river that led to the falls. You were able to get right up close and on top of it in places. If you are into birds then this place is a must for you and butterflies. I have never seen some many in one place, alive. (Mom and I saw lots of dead ones in Panama all pinned up.) Their wings are brilliant purple, blues and reds, but the photos I got are of yellow and orange ones.
The falls are very expansive and consist of numerous falls all put together. The section I saw today is similar in it’s horseshoe shape to Niagara, but there are large parts on each side that you cannot see in the pictures, therefore making it larger than Niagara Falls.
Click on the link for tons of waterfall photos from Iguazu Falls, Argentina
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Sunday, 3 April 2011
Salto Uruguay
Recheck the Montevideo pictures from the last post if you would like to see photos from the Barbeque, I added them after I did that post. Their hospitality was exceptional.
Last night the Aussies and I took a night bus to Salto Uruguay after the barbeque at the hostel. We arrived at 5am in Salto, hung out at the bus terminal for an hour and got a cab to the hotel. The hostel in this town is not open for the season yet and cancelled our reservations via email that we had made online. Still checking my credit card to see about getting that $7 deposit back The hotel is a budget hotel I think it is rated one star. It is good though. Really good if you consider they gave us our room right away (before 7am) and we were able to grab a couple of hours sleep. It is $20 a night for a single room.
Today Shelley and I visited the thermal pools outside of Salto. We hopped on the local bus for 70 cents and went out to the thermal pools. It cost $3.50 to get into the pools. I expected a more natural setting than what the photo above shows, but whatever. The pools were filled with water from the hot springs and marked with their temperatures. They ranged from 37 – 39 degrees Celsius.
Not much is open in South America on Saturday or Sunday, but we did find an amazing bakery today and had a feast on little sweets. It was so fresh and yummy.
Off to IguaƧu Falls in Argentina tomorrow via bus. It should make for an interesting story as we can’t get a hold of the schedule because we will be getting the bus in Argentina not Uruguay and the bus originally starts in Buenos Aires (~13 hours away) and we can’t find out the time it will be where we need to get it until we get over to Argentina. So we will cross the boarder in a taxi and go from there. It could be good connections or a long day of waiting around.
Saturday, 2 April 2011
Montevideo Uruguay and UPDATED photos
This is a picture of the garbage pickers in Montevideo. Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay and it has very interesting areas. I mean some posh beach areas, not where I am staying and some interesting poorer areas. This hostel leaves a lot to be desired, but there are some lovely people at it. The hostel owners are having a barbeque in the street tonight so we bought some meat, ribs on their recommendation and sausages. Having a barbeque in the street is a dying tradition they said so they are trying to bring it back, remember this is the capital city and they have set up their barbeque in the middle of the road.
Click on the link for Montevideo Uruguay pictures
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