Here's a quick update of where we've been so far:
Argentina - Buenos Aires, Rosario, Puerto Iguazu, Salta.
Argentina is a must see, and each city we went to differed vastly in culture but we couldn't help feeling that we were only in Spain when walking through the sunny streets of Buenos Aires and Rosario. Buenos Aires isn't somewhere I would go again in a hurry, it reminded me of London, but busier and dangerous. It's a beautiful city but that's it's only pro, so we cut our week long stay short and headed to Rosario. Rosario had more of a chilled out vibe and we spent our time there chilling out at the man made beach and getting drunk with other people from our hostel. Salta on the other hand was a different story and it felt almost stuck in time with its historic buildings and laid back way of life. It's a great city for learning about the history of the incas but there isn't much to do.
Brazil - Foz do Iguazu, Rio de Janerio, São Paolo.
Brazil is beautiful and I already wish we'd given ourselves more time to explore it properly. Rio is INCREDIBLE, possibly one of the best places I've ever been. The people, the sights, the culture, everything. One highlight was climbing the two brothers mountain - well at least until we got to the top and it started raining. HEAVILY. And we slid all the way down, almost killing ourselves many times - the views were unreal and it felt rewarding to know we had trekked through the jungle for 2 hours to reach the top. Our hostel was in the heart of the Vidigal favela, and since Chris had made me to watch City of God before we got there I was pretty sure we'd die. But I actually think it made our time in Rio to see how the locals live - and look on the bright side we saved money on a favela tour. We also managed to see the Brazilian cup final in the Maracana, and even though I don't like football it was pretty cool.
Foz do Iguazu, being one of the new 7 wonders of the world is amazing and a must see (from Argentina too, some say it's better but we both preferred the Brazilian side) but there's not really anything exciting to say about it - it's just a waterfall.
Bolivia - Tupizia, Salar de Uyuni, Uyuni, Potosi, Sucre, La Paz, Rurrenabaque.
And then there's Bolivia - the most diverse, surprising place I've ever been. We arrived after a hellish
night bus from Salta (think of a 12 hour megabus from Glasgow to London as 5 star service in comparison) to a little town near the Argentinian border so all we had to do was walk 10 minutes to the Bolivian border... WRONG. 3 hours of waiting for the border to open, -5 degrees, serval stray
dogs and even a couple of stray pigs (yes, actual pigs) later and we were in Bolivia.
Our first stop was Tupiza, a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. We were doing a salt flats tour from here so we had to stay a couple of days to acclimatise to the high altitude. We had a great couple of days chilling by the pool in our hotel and eating. So much so, that on the first night of the tour when we arrived in a town with 3 or 4 buildings, miles away from any kind of civilisation and only 3 hours of electricity a day, we wondered what the hell we'd let ourselves in for. The mountain views and volcanos made up for it though and by the second night, we made the most of our temporary way of life and even had a couple of beers whilst playing card games by candle light. By the 3rd night we'd moved on to drinking games and doing shots of rum anytime anyone mentioned how cold they were in the cement huts or the altitude. The 5am rise the next morning to watch the sunrise over the salt flats was tough and I think everyone on the tour whitey'd at least once. But the salt flats didn't disappoint and we had so much fun taking loco photos!
Next we went to Potosi, the highest city in the world. Here we went on a mine tour of inside the mountains where thousands of Bolivians work daily to find minerals to sell as jewellery. Most workers put in shifts of 24 hours at a time and don't leave the mines until their shift is finished - meaning they don't get a break. So when the tour guide suggested that we take the miners gifts of coca leaves and alcohol (96% btw, whit!) we jumped at the chance. As they work underground the miners worship the Devil and upon entering the mines they offer him (a statue) alcohol, cigarettes and coca leaves in return for luck during the shift in the mines. We had to crawl most of the way and it was so hard to breath, one girl on our tour even had an asthma attack. As you can imagine we felt relieved to get back out safely. This tour was an eye opener to say the least and it made me feel guilty about all of the jewellery I have at home that I never wear that these miners have worked so hard to find.
Next up was Sucre, which was a beautiful city but after days of high altitudes and tours we decided to take it easy and spent most of our time in pubs watching football...fun.
Finally we went to La Paz, which much like the rest of Bolivia, has a really high altitude so it was freezing when we arrived off the night bus from Sucre at 7am. After a warm shower and a nap we headed out and spent the day walking around the city and exploring the witches market where they sell animal foetuses, potions and all things coca (things made with leaves from the cocaine plant). We also went to the coca museum, which was interesting to see the history of the use of coca for the locals. We toyed with the idea of doing a mountain bike tour down death road but decided to head to Rurrenabaque to do a jungle tour first. So off to the jungle we go...
