Gringos and Gauchos Southern Patagonia 21-29th Oct 2011 As with all South American travel blogs this one starts on a bus, or to be more precise stood next to a bus, the wind whipping at our faces and stinging our eyes at 6am on a cold Patagonian morning in Puerto Madryn. The aforementioned bus was already half an hour late so not a good start, but that was only a minor annoyance compared to the hoard of French couples on a saga style holiday and under the impr...

Having A Whale Of A Time Bariloche and Puerto Madryn 11th-20th October 2011 We're getting the hang of these night buses now. The key, we've found, is to have a huge meal before you board, a bottle of wine with dinner or at least four beers, get a seat on the bottom deck at the back (away from the loo) and take your own food. Then fix the eye mask in place, select the gladiator soundtrack on the iPod, semi recline and be rocked to sleep by the motion of the bus...

Cusco to Mendoza 5th - 11th Oct 2011 After shooting up Machu Picchu like rats up a drain pipe, our bodies fell foul to a nasty stomach bug. Without going into too much detail I unleashed hell on the pan more times than my guts would like to remember whilst emptying my stomach orally at the same time. Luckily little miss chemical sorted me out with a fist full of drugs which firmed everything up..... Ahem, stopped the chocolate milkshakes! Anyway that's all be...

Cusco and the Inca Trail, Peru 26th Sept- 5th Oct 2011. Margaret is 67, a teacher from Brisbane, Australia. She is the oldest member of our group about to start the four day, high altitude, Inca trek over 43km of steep Andean mountains to Macchu Picchu. She has hardly any hiking experience and her kit consists of jeans, plimsoles and a vaguely waterproof jacket. Can she really make it to the ancient Incan town?Well, first let me tell you about our journey to Cu...

Puerto Viejo 20-25th September 2011 Jumping off the bus in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, we were hit by a sense of Rastafarian tranquillity. This town is a small Caribbean surf haunt renowned for the Salsa Brava- one of the biggest breaks in Costa Rica and with such a shallow reef it generally results in broken boards and bones! September is calmer on the surfing front though, allowing for the underwater gardens to be explored with maximum visibility. We checked ...