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1038 days ago
Next stop was San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador for a couple of nights. Outwardly it is a modern city with american strip malls and the usual fast food franchises, unfortunately the civil war of the nineties has meant a lot of the country's population has decended onto San Salvador in search of non existent work. I went for a walk through the city centre and market area passing the odd street kid sprawled out on the pavement sleeping off their last fix and could feel all the eyes on me probably wondering how many dollars I had in my pocket - needless to say I was pretty happy to get out of there. So it's no surprise that San Salvador has a high robbery rate, walking around at night is a no no with taxi's being compulsory transport. Nicaragua next, an early bus departure where I caught up with Lucas, an american I met in Guatemala who convinced me to bypass Managua and head to Granada about an hour away - or 45 minutes if you have a maniac bus driver! Granada was a ...
1113 days ago
After a lay over in Cancun I was back to the airport to board my flight to Havana which I discovered was a solid Russian aircraft. After making my way through the 4 foot high entrance door to the aircraft I discovered that the same idiot that designed the door also did the seating pitch which seemed to be set up for midgets and above knee double amputees. By some miracle I managed to get an exit row seat from which I smiled happily to the other passengers. My smile soon turned to a chuckle as we sped down the runway and the air conditioning kicked in filling the cabin with dry air vapor the consistency of smoke which caused a few alarming looks. Thankfully the landing was uneventful which I was quite happy about. (After arriving I read the section in my guide book which tells you that Cubana had back to back crashes in 1999 - was pretty glad I didn't read that before I left!) I spent the first few days in Havana in one of the many casa particulares, basically where you stay with ...
1142 days ago
After an early start, a manic border crossing, a change of bus and a military check point I finally coasted into La Paz, a pretty wee city nestled in a valley with an elevation ranging between about 3600 and 4000 metres. In this town the rich live at the low end. No problem feeling lonely though as my new found Hungarian, Dutch and Australian friends whom I'd met in Peru were all in town. No piligramage to La Paz is complete without partaking in the mountain bike ride down the worlds most dangerous road and hey it's all down hill isn't it?! So it was I found myself one of only two people standing round in shorts at 4750 metres ready for the start of the ride - the other short wearer was the kiwi guide on the second group. The first 20k's of the ride is on tarseal so was pretty fast and gave everyone an opportunity to get the feel of their bikes. It was on this section that I discovered that it was not all downhill with about 6k's of gentle rises proving real lung bursters at ...
1180 days ago
First stop in Peru was Lima, a familiar town from my time working here so it was off to check out a few of the old haunts and see what had changed. Whilst in town I also managed to take in a few sites including the national museum which is a pottery fan's dream. After a couple of sleep in's and with clean clothes packed I headed to Huaraz, about 7 hours north of Lima nestled between the cordillera negro and blanca mountain ranges at just over 3000 metres. It was here that I found the best hostel in the world - La casa de Zarela. Thanks to Zarela's tips on places to go and people to see I soon settled into Huaraz life. Part of my mission whilst in town was to go for a walk in the hills - well more like a leisurely stroll around the Santa Cruz trail with donkey's carrying my pack, tent erected on arrival and 5 star meals - not sure if I can do it any other way now! I seemed to be a bit of a novelty on the trail as the only guy in shorts - nothing unusual if you're an antipodean, ...
1214 days ago
Well I managed to survive my flight to Columbia despite the best efforts of the pilot to drive the landing gear up through the wing. I'm guessing it was his first day on the job. My first night in Bogota was a chilly one which emphasized the altitude factor over our proximity to the equator, whilst my first meal quickly reminded me how spoilt I´d been munching on Argentinian steak! Although to be fair Columbia would probably have the best drugs in South America. I soon found my newly acquired transportable skill of stepping around dog shit, honed on the narrow side walks of Buenos Aires, a vital necessity on the streets of Bogota with no shortage of obstacles to negotiate. My first port of call was the gold museum with many fine pieces on display - those being the ones which the conquistadors didn´t melt down. There are also plenty of old buildings to take in with the exception being the Courts building which was destroyed by the military trying to literally smoke out a ...
