"How could you be so complacent as to arrive with no money??? You've travelled the world... for years.... How could you possibly have let this happen???" That was all I could hear from the voice inside my head as I stood at the baggage carousel...
I love travelling by night bus in South America. There's a sentence you won't hear often. But I do, I LOVE IT. Most people will give an array of horrid cramped experiences. And they're telling you the truth, it's a tough experience. But a wonderful one. Why do I love night bus travel in South America?
We arrived in Cartagena via a lovely air conditioned minibus named Miramar. We stayed at Viajero hostel, which is inside the city walls of the old town (rather than Getsemane like most) and spent two days relaxing and checking out the town – well other than the first night when the hostel literally set up a dj right outside our dorm room. The highlight was sitting on top of the city walls at Café del Mar and watching the sunset over the horizon. Cartagena is [...]
The most beautiful places on earth are often the most difficult to get to. That’s definitely something I’ve learnt on my travels. Stories of these places of magical beauty are paralleled only by the stories of how travellers got there. Full of sweat, tears, and in this case, incredibly sore calf muscles. Tayrona National Park is no exception. The morning of July 6 I woke up to a mosquito net followed by bare feet on wooden stairs, bare feet in sand, palm trees, and dark coloured [...]
There are often times when travelling when I've sat back and thought deeply about life... in fact, travelling is the time when this happens the most for me. Anthony had only been in Colombia two days before he was forced to ask himself a serious life question. "Given no other options, does a real man surf with a pink board named Betty?" As per the tattooed guy hiring out the board, the answer was a resounding "yes". After 1 day of catching up in Santa [...]
Dear Anthony and Bryce, It's 5:32am in Canada… I can barely convey how tired I am. Thankfully, I’m being fed coffee. I have 4 flights over the next 24 hours… and many hours in airports.I feel rubbish, but through my hazy eyes I can tell you that I have never been so excited about my travel companions. See u in Colombia, Sis xo The three of us were coming from three different directions to meet up in Santa Marta on the north coast of Colombia. I [...]
2012 a year of change as prophesy would have it. Whether it be destruction... enlightenment... truth... 2012 appears to be the year where big changes are made, where the lines are drawn in the sand. Both globally and for a lot of people, personally. For me? Well to be honest, 2011 was so utterly rubbish that I'll take the change. Whatever that may be. In 2011 I thought my traveling days were over. I arrived home after five years away and attempted to settle back into real life and society [...]
Uruguay was never on our Itinerary but I'd heard good things about a resort town called Punta del Este on the southern tip of Uruguay, which was only 6 hours form Buenos Aires. So we decided to take 3 days out and check it out. To reach Punta del Este we woke up bright and early to take a three hour ferry ride to Montevideo followed by a three hour bus ride to the resort town. I had heard that Punta del Este was quite busy over summer, with the [...]
Buenos Aires is everything that everyone raves about and more. It's a big city, with even bigger character. After the 52 hour bus ride up from Ushuaia, we stumbled into Terrazas Estoril hostel on Avenida de Mayo smelling the worst I've smelt in a long time but feeling like heros. Our dorm room was a small dome room on the roof of the hostel. There was a pool just outside the door... a very cool blow up baby pool. I immediately loved the hostel and the [...]
Crazy? Yes Alternative options? No. I was at the End of the World after all... Ushuaia Argentina, Distance to here... Any sane person would take a flight. I'd take a flight, if there were any... but there was a two week wait. Booking a flight ahead of time would have required planning, and in Patagonia we were already planning 2 weeks in advance, which was quite enough for this trip heavily based around Freedom. We asked the receptionist at our hostel where we [...]
