End of Chile and Costa Rica

A nice end to the time in Chile by going to the relaxed colonial town of La Serena and then travelling in the Elqui Valley with a sailor I met on the bus there - Erwin. Elqui is home to the delicious alcohol Pisco but we ended up on a horseride up & down a steep mountain for views overlooking Elqui Valley and never made it to the tasting. Instead, a water fight (the horses weren't amused as we were using their water) and later a grape fight - just like children, but very good fun.


Costa Rica
Sooooooo different to any of the other countries I've been to - so green lush and evidence everywhere of the rainforests which used to occupy the whole country. The weather is so changeable with sun one moment, dense cloud (running up the high street), then rain pouring out the sky. So far I've turned into a lobster (despite putting on factor 40 every day) and have been bitten by the lovely mossies - I think I'll end up with a polka-dot tan!

So far visited 2 volcanoes but the very active one spewing lava has managed to avoid me (hid behind cloud for the 3 days I laid in wait to take a photo. Nevermind, lots of other volcanoes still to come in Central America:) The drive to the beach at Manuel Antonio was really green and lush and the waters gorgeous. So much wildlife in the forests as well from sloths, iguanas (one scurried away with my lunch on the beach whilst I relaxed), snakes, parrots, bats, monkeys etc.

Then onto Monteverde for a walk in a cloud forest and a visit to a shadegrown coffee plantation (the tasting element was a bit wasted on me though as I don´t drink it:)).

This entry will be updated with more photos once I'm actually out of Costa Rica and in a place where I have enough power to upload!
(Pictures - Poas Volcano, Manuel Antonio beach/national park/wildlife, Volcano Arenal)


Education corner - interesting thing about the Arenal Volcano. If you look at the picture it looks as if there is a mis-shaped crater at the top. The right side of the 'crater' is actually a second peak. The volcano came alive again in 1968 with the perfect conical volcano (the crater being the left hand part of the crater in the picture) exploding from the bottom on the other side of the volcano to where this picture is taken. The continous lava pouring out (a 50km lava chamber underneath the volcano) meant that the volcano grew in size to look like a conical shape but with two craters. Since 1968 the new side has equalled the 1600m hight of the original crater and is now 100m higher.

San Pedro de Atacama and the Salar de Uyuni

I´m not going to give much commentary and just let the pictures talk for themselves. SPdeA is in the north east of Chile on the border of Bolivia and Argentina. Its home to the Atacama Desert, the Valle de la Luna, Valle de la Muerta, Geysers. I did a horse ride in the Valle de la Muerta, contrary to this picture I was not in control of the horse - it took the guide 10 attempts to get a photo where the horse was behaving itself!


It is also the gateway to the Salar de Uyuni trip, 3 days into Bolivia across lagoons, hot thermal pools, flamingos, vicunas/llamas, geysers, and the salar itself - a gigantic salt flat (4,085 square miles) . And a sweet Bolivian kid (sex unknown) who managed to reprogramme my camera:)

Surprise visit to Argentina

I´ve decided that for safety sake I am not going to Bolivia so have popped into Argentina for 3 days to wait for a parcel and will be visiting the north of Argentina now aswell.

First stop Mendoza over a gorgeous drive over the Andes, again in a all local mini-bus and being asked by three Argentinian men on the border into argentina to compete for their love - none of them won...I was too knackered.


Mendoza, a lovely laid back relaxed town with a spanish feeling to it. Laid out on a grid system, with lots of parks, trees and surrounded by vineyards... oh it also contains a delicious chocolate factory (that was a surprise ended to our ´wine tour´ that we bought:) I wasn´t complaining.


Buenos Aires, a lovely city with a European feeling to it. A mixture of Paris, Munich, Barcelona and London all rolled into one. Very manageable, cheap and lots of party atmosphere.

I met up again with Mariano (from the Villarica Volcano) and had a guided night visit after waiting on a street corner for 1 hr. Lovely guy in both ways. The next day whilst he did a 10k run I went off to watch the local equivalent of a Chelsea v Arsenal match, La Boca verus Independiente at Independiente´s grounds. Colourful, noisy and good fun. English hooligans are tame compared to this lot. According to the Argentinians around us Argentina´s football is not very good at the moment and England are way better. Never thought I´d hear that.


Iguazu Falls - shorter but far wider and impressive than other falls


Salta and around - Cafayte and north of Salta provided great mountain scenery with multiple colours in the rock face, as well as a nice place to chill and buy souvenirs.