South America Travel Blogs | Travelogues | Travel Journals

The perfect way to avoid the cold, rainy and short winter days of the Netherlands, is to fly to the summer. It only takes 14 hours of flight time (2 hours for AMS-MAD & 12 hours for MAD-EZE) to be in Buenos Aires. But if the captain would have turned back halfway, and flewn back to Madrid, I may not have noticed the difference. Buenos Aires looks a lot like Madrid: huge European-style buildings, everything in Spanish, activity at all times of the day, and there is even a C&A here. The...

     We had a free day in Cusco upon our return from Machu Picchu and I decided to explore as much as I could.  Being a teacher, I was anxious to see several museums and their treasures.  Some places allowed pictures, other prohibited them.  I would have liked to sneak a picture of some of the Inca mummies but never got a chance.  Too many police and closed circuit TV.  The artifacts photos at the bottom of the page were taken at the Pre-Columbian Museu...

The GALAPAGOS ISLANDS; I didn't know much about them except  blue footed boobies and huge turtles lived there and just what I saw from the movie 'MASTER & COMMANDER'. The wildlife alone made me want to visit here. From reading brochures & researching it on the internet, we had no idea what to expect. When we booked this with GENERAL TOURS, it said you walked on lava rocks & always had to be with a guide on the islands. There was a checklist of many things to br...

Well I´ve been here a week and it feels like much longer, I´ve done loads of stuff, I don´t know where to begin! Spanish school is over, I´m not sure I learned a great deal in a week even though my teacher gave me a test everyday. It was more like a refresher. I would have liked to do another week but need to start moving south this week. It served its purpose though, I got to settle in and meet other people. I went to school in the morning 8.30 until 12pm and then had the rest of the da...

Monday - Wow!  We arrived in Lima after a long journey via Madrid and landed in the middle of the rush-hour (fortunately on the runway!).  We negotiated a taxi to our hotel in the salubrious neighbourhood of Miraflores (yes, our airport shuttle didn´t turn-up!).                                     &n...

Walking out of the airport was a pleasure. 18 degrees at 10am and 75 percent humidity. Off with the jerseys and jackets which we had been wearing to ward off London’s spring weather. Second surprise. Sunshine. Yay.   First impressions of Buenos Aires when coming from the airport is that it is an enormous city (13m according to one guidebook). A 5 lane highway brings you into the city where it reduced down, once you have taken an off-ramp, to 1 or 2 lanes of chaos. Trucks, taxis and p...

Cool and rainy day kept me from enjoying one final beach day in Rio.  That is ok, because in a few days i will be in the Greek isles. Took a bus to the airport from a street close to the hostel.  This was actually kind of difficult, because the buses came at you pretty fast, and if you didnt wave them down, the bus would pass you by.  Since the buses only came every 30 minutes for the airport, it was pretty important to catch the bus.  I finally found one, and of course i...

We got back to Cusco and were picked up at the airport by our travel agent friend Milagro from SAS who had found a couple of alternative places to stay for our last five nights in Cusco.  We ended up opting for the Plaza de Armas hostal which overlooks the main square and actually had both heat and hot water which Cindy seems to enjoy ;-) and got a nice little room, overlooking the main road into the square.   Cusco’s biggest festival of the year is June 24th, three days after t...

Personally, I prefer to discover a city just by my own.  I mean, I don't like going with a guided tour. But this time was different. My boss came to Lima during Easter and before being able to travel to our destinations in South America, we had to spend some free time in Lima. He has been here several times, but never could know the city, always was running from one place to another. Anyway, he wanted to take a tour and I chose this one, because I wasn't at the Parque de la Reserva befo...

6months has gone so fast.  The months have just flown by, one minute we was at the airport in Heathrow, moaning about the girl from the Air Canada desk, thinking she was rude and brash, then worried because my name was spelt wrong on the airline ticket.  And now we are 5hours away from Lima Airport and our last minutes of our trip half way across the world. I am sad to go, but its the right time, i am now in my overdraft, god knows by how much, and i do feel like i want to go back,...

Ok well, there are many things to say about venezuela,hopefully my blog will give you a taste! I arrived in Caracas in the late afternoon,to a bright sunny day. Once you have got your luggage,you walk out into the bustling thoroughfare of the airport and it s not long before your mobbed by taxi drivers,all bellowing at you,then you have the airport police circling like vultures and they also approach you with their hands held out,just act like you have been there several times before, and w...

Hey guys, well this is going to be a biggie as the internet is fairly expensive here (for sth america standards) and i havnt had a chance to knock up afew entries so this will be 4 in 1 account of my time but woweee what a place Florianopolis is so lets go back to the beginning after this short announcement.... YESTERDAY MY SISTER TURN 13, HAPPY BIRTHDAY GORGEOUS HOPE YOU HAD A FANATASTIC DAY! I RECKON EVERYONE READS THIS SHOULD SEND HER A HAPPY BDAY SMS (her profile is&n...

I'm back in Concepción and packing my bags to go home. Thanks for following my travels, and tune in for my next adventure (hopefully it'll be soon!).

I couldn’t believe it, I was back home!!! I was able to communicate to my mom while I was in Miami, so she sent a taxi to pick me up from the airport. Doing customs wasn’t bad, since I left the plain early, but picking up the bags took a long time!!! Actually the longest was getting out of the baggage claim area. In Lima you have to press a button in order to know if they are gonna check your bags or not. Anyway, 2 flights from Miami arrived at same time and both of them were full, ...

Hi all, After a long days travelling today we arrived in Lima, Peru local time at 6pm. We´ve arrived at the hostel which is excellent, quite a few English people here and we´ve just been out and bought a few local cans of brew to drink. Then off to bed and out to explore tomorrow. The adventure has begun!