San Blas, Panama & a night in Costa Rica

The first couple of days on the yacht were fairly uneventful as we powered our way across the Caribbean towards the San Blas archipelago, just off the coast of Panama. Everyone was feeling a little sea sick from the rolling waves and spent most of the night, if possible, trying to sleep out on the deck away from the hot and sticky cabins that only served to increase the nausea.

During the day we sat out on the deck enjoying the sun, chatting with our fellow travellers and watching amazing lightning storms that surrounded us at night. On the second day our designated fisherman, Eric from Sweden, felt a tug on the line we were towing and after a bit of a struggle pulled in a 12kg dorado fish. The fish put up a tough fight and with a bit of a thrash and a cry of "Ah, Fack!" from Fritz, our Austrian captain, the hook had pierced the skin on his knee. After managing to subdue the fish (by hacking through it's spine) Dimmy the deckhand cut it into steaks using a large knife and a hammer to get though it's inch thick backbone in preparation for that nights meal.


The second night was noisey with Fritz's screaming and shouting at the deckhand (he did this a lot, and not just at the deckhand, anyone who was near by while he was annoyed!) during a storm while trying to cover the cockpit. We awoke on the third day to calm seas, beautiful turquoise waters and deserted tropical islands. Our neighbours were two other yachts floating off in the distance and one recently shipwrecked boat on a reef off an island. After breakfast, during which we all recovered our appetite without the sea sickness looming over head, most of us on board grabbed snorkels and masks and headed off to take a look at our surroundings. We swam to a nearby islands and walked, swam and paddled around it collecting coconuts we planned on filling with rum later that night. We snorkeled a little more and saw lots of little fish and a couple of rays buried in the sand. When we got tired we headed back to the yacht to throw ourselves in the deepend by flinging ourselves off the dive platforms at the front of the boat.


After lunch we headed off to another spot and pulled up between two islands, we all suited up again with flippers as well this time as the current was really strong, and swam off to the near by reef. Testosterone was running high with all of the guys wanting to fulfill their urge to be hunter-gatherers so had brought along spears and snares in the hope of catching a crab or fish to supplement the evening meal. We swam along the reef moving between the reef and a steep drop off while spotting lots of bright fish, corals, sea anemones and more rays. We reached one end of the reef which ran along the length of an island and only one of the spear weilding guys had bagged a fish, a pretty pink and purple fish about 5 inches long with barely enough meat to feed a cat. He looked sheepish but carried it all the way back to the boat in his shorts pocket to use for bait for the bigger game. We walked around the far side of the island as we didn't fancy swimming against the strong current and we were all tired from all the tropical life spotting and spearing we'd been doing. Arriving back at the boat after a long swim against the current that just wouldn't let off we all chilled out on the deck and ate mangos and oranges which were not in short supply. That night we were all really hungry after the long swim and were ready for a hearty meal of something delicious only to be rewarded with an Austrian speciality of weird lumps of thick pancake type mix with bits of toffee and a rare sultana hidden deep within. Fritz and Hans, the other Austrian on board, both tucked in heartily as we nibbled a bit and nudged it around our plates while dreaming of a huge pan of floured, fried chicken (what the stuff actually looked like!) Luckily some one asked Fritz to bring out the bread and we all made sandwiches of ham, cheese and tomato with Fritz's delicious homemade mustard to fill our grumbling tummys.


Mark had spent an hour earlier that day hacking open the coconuts to get the milk only to find out that one of them had been bad and had ruined the whole batch. That night we sat around the table late into the night downing rum and coke with fresh limes. After a while a few of us went out onto the front of the boat to escape the Irish banter (8 people of the 13 were from Ireland) and fell asleep under the stars until a storm came in and threatened to soak us. We moved inside for another hot sticky night while the rain poured outside.

The final day started with a crab fishing excursion and a lot of hungover Irish people. We were supposed to be given lessons by a local Kuna fisherman about what to look for and where but after half an hour on his narrow boat he dropped anchor, jumped into the water and swam off leaving us to figure it our for ourselves. We snorkeled around a coral reef for a while until he called us all back to the boat and headed off to another location where the whole exercise was repeated. By the end of the morning the Kuna fisherman had two crabs and a crayfish while of the 10 of us on board Mark was the only one to have spotted a crab.


That afternoon Fritz realised the next day was a Saturday and the passport office would be shut on the day he planned to drop us off in Panama. We spent most of the afternoon powering over to a more inhabited island to get our passports stamped while local Kuna people came over to our yacht offering local wares as well as crayfish and a huge crab. We decided to buy the lot, 8 crayfish and the large crab for a grand total of $12 which Fritz said he'd cook up for dinner for us that evening. We spent the evening in the same spot and just chilled out on the boat playing cards while the Irish tentativly sipped more rum.


The next day we set off to Cati on the Panama mainland where we were dropped off in the middle of nowhere for a 3 hour 4x4 ride to Panama city.

On our third day on the boat I had picked up bad cold-chest infection so I spent the next few days trying to recover while Mark went out to visit the Panama canal and wandered around the city. We caught a bus and a boat out to another island in the Caribbean sea called Bocas del Torro where we spent a couple of days lazing in hammocks (and doing more recovering) on Isla Bastiamentos. Mark went out to see a local beach on the other side of the island which involved a half hour hike through knee deep mud and a soaking when a big thunder storm rolled in.


The following days were spent trying to travel as fast as possible over the Costa Rican border and out the other side to Nicaragua. We arrived two and a half days later to the coastal surf town of San Juan Del Sul where we are at the moment. We're heading off tomorrow to Isla Ometepe a island formed by two volcanoes in the middle of a lake.

Colombia

After a day in Leticia we said farewell to Tom (and ran away from Mr. Strange) who were continuing on down the river to Iquitos, Peru. Ian, Sinead, Rick, Nikki and I were flying out to Bogota. It was a pretty dramatic flight, with views over the rainforest until the Colombian Andes popped up out of the clouds. There was a fair bit of turbulence and a bit of a nose dive landing and all of a sudden we were in Bogota at the dizzying height of 2640m above sea level. Rick headed off to find a connecting flight to Cali and the rest of us caught a taxi to La Candeleria to find a hostel (Musicology Hostel). La Candeleria is the oldest part of Bogota, with lots of pretty cobbled streets looking down over the rest of the city.


We spent a couple of days taking it easy and wandering the streets taking in the sights. We had heard about a cathedral built into a salt mine, two hours out of the city and decided to go and investigate. We had to take the transmilenio (a bus network that is Bogota's answer to a subway system) out to the bus station where we switched to a collectivo heading to Zipaquira. We thought the driver was an aspiring rally driver as we swerved in between traffic and went up on two wheels around corners. There was a small display showing the speed that never seemed to drop below 85mph and there was much screeching of brakes as we almost ploughed into the back of a Landrover.
We arrived in Zipaquira and, after getting a little lost, found the Salt Cathedral. The Cathedral has been constructed by mining the salt, leaving large cavernous halls, a walkway showing the stations of the cross and prayer station all made of salt. One of the most interesting points in the cathedral were 3 staircases, one for sinners, one for angels and one for people somewhere in between, and we were told to choose which we thought to walk down. Although the structure itself is pretty impressive, it was slightly dissapointing that they had lit it up like a nightclub with neon lights everywhere. We also found out from our guide that it had been built as a tourist attraction that was only used as a cathedral once a week. This took away from the celestial, spiritual feeling most religious places have. It was spoilt further as the guide kept pointing out the shops and we were shown into a cinema at the end of the tour to watch a 3D film (complete with stupid glasses) about the production of salt with a big robot presenter. We headed back to Bogota and rewarded ourselves with a HUGE pizza from PizzaPoli (about 18 inches and that was a medium!)


The next day we decided to have a walk around a different area of the city and visit some museums. We wandered down to an Andy Warhol exhibition, but there was a huge queue, and as neither of us are massive fans, we skipped it. We visited the Plaza Bolivar and then decided to go and get some lunch. As we were walking down a street just outside of the old town that we had been warned about we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by people. Everything happened very quickly, but basically someone spat into the left side of my face to distract me, then unbuttoned a pocket on my right side and took my wallet. We didn't realise what had happened until we were another 10 metres down the road. We immediatly decided to get off the street and headed back to the hostel until we thought that maybe the theif had just taken the money and dropped the wallet on the ground near by where it all happened. We walked back to the area and looked around but to no avail, we headed back to the hostel wondering what we were going to do for money (our only free withdrawals bank card was lost). We told the staff at the hostel who immediatly phoned the police and helped us get things sorted, we cancelled the card and headed off to get some lunch (bought by the hostel owner) before heading down to the police station to get a statement for our insurance claim. The police, as one might expect of Colombia, were of no help at all and wouldn't even let us write down the amount of cash we lost on our claims form as well as making us write everything in Spanish. Luckily the hostel owner had come along with us and managed to translate all this and then helped us write the form. We were leant some money to last us the day and we set to work trying to get all our money into an account with a card we could use in Colombia. We got chatting to various people around the hostel and everyone we spoke to had their own horror story of being robbed which made us feel very lucky as the majority of them were a lot worse than ours - people had been held up by guns and knives and had a lot more stolen than we did. It was a definite annoyance, mostly just loosing our debit card, and has made us a lot more cautious around the big cities (which mostly involves Nikki sticking all our cash withdrawals in her bra until we get back to our hostel and the safety deposit box!)


A couple of days later we went to Villa de Leyva, a pretty town 4 hours outside of Bogota. The Lonely Plant had advised not to visit during weekends and holidays, throwing caution to the wind we arrived on a Sunday of a bank holiday weekend to a lively interesting town where everyone was relaxing and enjoying themselves. We found a hostel with ease and settled in before heading out to get some asado (various meats cooked on an open fire) that we had seen when walking to the hostel. That evening we and the couple we had travelled with called Sarah and Carl (with an Irish spelling?) sat around the plaza sipping cold beers and wine with the other Colombian holiday makers that were visiting the town for the weekend.

The next day we strolled around the town and took in the sights. The day after the four of us got a taxi out to El Infernito (or the more aptly named "Penis Park") containing lots of large stone formations to represent fertility, which had just closed for lunch. Next we walked out to see a large dinosaur skeleton, gaining two rowdy young labrador dogs on the walk. With ominous clouds looming we tried to finish our trip quickly with a visit to an ostrich farm where we got to see the chicks and feed the adults before we fed ourselves with a delicious ostrich steak and salad!



Nikki and I said goodbye to Sarah and Carl and caught an over night bus to Taganga via Santa Marta on the northern coast of Colombia. We stayed for two nights where we spent the day playing around on the beach called Playa Grande and eating delicious BBQ fish for lunch. Next stop Cartagena. We arrived and tried to check into the hostel we'd booked but they were full so were moved to another round the corner. We checked out of the 12 bed dorm we were in as soon as possible and managed to get a cheap double room for only 2000 pesos more (about 60p). We've been in the hostel for 8 nights now and have arranged with lots of ummming and ahhing to get a yacht (Fritz-the-Cat) to Panama which will stop at the San Blas archipelago for 3 days along the way. We're both really excited and looking forward to seeing the Caribbean paradise, that we've been seeing in pictures since we arrived in Colombia, in person.

There's not much to tell about Cartagena itself other than it's VERY HOT - about 32°C and about 95% humidity - which is the killer! When we first got here we met up with Ian, Sinead and Rick for an improptue night out in Boca Grande accompanied by bottles of rum and a local salsa band at a small street bar. We've enjoyed walking around the pretty old town where our hostel is situated (Casa Viena)and sampling the street foods and snowcones on offer - "maracuya y limon" all the way! (passion fruit and lemon). Now that we're finally up to date with the blog (sorry it took so long!) we're going to go sail off into the Caribbean sunset for 5 days. We'll let you know how we get on in paradise!

Floating down that big river.

We found it really hard to find reliable information about trips down the Amazon, so the first part of this blog is just for other people who are looking for similar information. This is a rough guide though, as things can change from boat to boat the information here was based on our boat and our trip from June 2009.

The cost

- Quoted luxury cabin price (for 2 people) from Hostel Manaus (double bed, tv & fridge in room): R$1000 (Brazilian Real) bartered down to $950
- Quoted normal cabin price (for 2 people) from Hostel Manaus (bunk bed): R$750
- Hammock space price from Hostel Manaus (for 1 person): R$270 (stated as R$300 on ticket, otherwise we would have had to pay the extra R$30 once on board)
- Price for hammock space direct from the boat, or bought once on board: R$300
- You need your own hammock, ours cost R$25 each, including the rope (don't forget rope!)
- The price included all meals (breakfast, lunch & dinner) plus fresh, ice cold drinking water
- It is possible to sleep on the boat the night before departure for no extra cost
- Despite there being a loading jetty out to the boat, we had to get a small water taxi to the boat at a cost of R$5 each

The boat


- There are showers on board that are cold and are cleaned daily
- Toilet paper was supplied
- There is a shop/bar on the top deck that sells normal priced beer, sweets, hamburgers, toasties & toiletries such as shampoo, toothpaste & sanitary towels
- The sides of the hammock decks are open to the elements, although there is a tarpaulin that can be pulled down to stop wind/rain, but it can still get a bit chilly so bring at least a sheet
- Security isn't really a problem as long as there is someone keeping an eye on things when docked
- It was possible to strap backpacks to the ceiling bars
- The boat is 3 decks, the bottom for cargo, middle for hammocks, cabins, kitchen, dining area & bathrooms, top for leisure area, more cabins, bar/shop and more toilets.


The trip

- We went from Manaus to Tabitinga
- The trip took 6 days & 5 nights leaving at 4.30pm and arriving at 11.00am
- Breakfast was at 6.30am with two sittings and consisted of bread with cheese & margarine and very sweet, milky coffee.
- Lunch was at 11.30am with 2 sittings and dinner was at 5.30pm, both always consisted of some kind of meat (varying between chicken, beef steaks, hunks of some kind of meat, dry mince and once we had pirahna), rice, beans & cold spaghetti
- Meals were served at a communal table in the dining room, where serving bowls of food were spread out down the table and you help yourself
- There was also another kitchen on the cargo deck where it is possible to take your own tupperware box/plate for the meal and then you can find a space somewhere on the boat to eat.
- Mosquitoes are not a problem while the boat is moving, but can be an issue when docked

Our journey


We awoke after our first night to a still fairly empty boat, which we found odd as we had heard that it can fill up quickly and get pretty tight for space. We arranged with Ian & Sinead to watch their stuff so they could get some more supplies from town and then when they returned we would head out. We had been told by someone the day before at the airport that the boat would be setting off at 6pm. Just to make sure we asked a member of the crew what time they we would be setting off and they told us 1pm, which caused a bit of a panic as we had to pick laundry up from Hostel Manaus at 12pm. We asked someone else to try and confirm it, and they told us 2pm. To try and save time I went up to CarreFour supermarket to get some extra supplies (flavour sachets, cookies, fruit & nutella) while Nikki guarded our belongings. When I got back I spent ages arguing with the security guards to let me walk back down the jetty to get back on the boat, but they said I needed a ticket, which I had left on board. Eventually I think they just gave up and they let me through. Sinead & Ian had returned, so Nikki & I went back into town to get our laundry and send e-mails letting people know we would be out of reach for 6 days. We got back on the boat just after midday to make sure we weren't left behind and the deck was now starting to fill up with hammocks. At 4pm we still hadn't set off and with the arrival of 2 German guys (Phillip & Stefan), an American (Rick) and another Englishman (Tom) who had set up next to us, we now had what we dubbed a "Gringo Corner". Elsewhere on the deck were 4 more English guys (Dom, Teddy, Hope & James) and a rather odd Belgian chap (we shall call him Mr. Strange). About half an hour later, we were eventually on our way.


Over the next 5 days we got to know some of our fellow gringos quite well and settled into a nice routine. We usually got beaten by Nikki at Uno in the morning, conversed about what we thought lunch/dinner could be (Burger King, lasagne, a nice Ceaser salad...), ate lunch/dinner (always some kind of meat with rice, beans & cold spaghetti), played Top 5... (- celebs you'd like to punch in the face, - historical figures you'd like to have lunch with, - injuries, - travel stories, etc.) and played a guessing game of when we thought we might arrive in Tabatinga. Occasionally our routine would be interrupted when we docked into a town, at which point Rick would go off to find women and occasionally Tom and I would get off to have a look around the town, but most of them were pretty similar, small dirt road places with run down shack-houses that had brand new plasma screen TVs in.


The scenery along the way was quite surprising, we had been expecting non-stop jungle, but were rewarded with quite varied landscapes. We would go from quite narrow points in the river, close to jungle and all of a sudden the river would widen out, with the opposite bank just a thin line on the horizon. A lot of small towns were dotted along the way, some had been built so they floated, rising as the river did, but some had been built on stilts and all that remained of them were rooftops poking out the top of the water. We also managed to glimpse some wildlife such as monkeys and lots of parrots. Relatively early on Tom & I think we spotted pink dolphins and from then on everyone was on dolphin watch. None were spotted until the second to last day when I was out on the top deck by myself and suddenly loads of them started jumping out of the water and there was no one around to confirm my sighting.


One evening we were all sat on the top deck of the boat watching the world go by as some of the crew members fired up a BBQ next to us. We got chatting to one of the guys called Raimundo and he showed us what they were planning to cook; a huge tray of various fish - we didn't know what they were but we managed to gather than none of them were pirhana. We had already eaten our meal earlier but Raimundo asked us, in a very conspiratorial manner, to dine at the Captain's table with him and the other staff. Due to the language difficulties we weren't sure if he was asking us to join him for definite so left it until at the last minute he waved at us to follow him downstairs. Nikki and I were each given some of each of the different fish to try followed by some unusual fruit that involved karate chopping to open. We said our thanks and left them to the rest of their meal (which was a lot more varied than ours!) and headed back to play more Uno. The next night one of the crew who worked in the kitchen came running upstairs to find Nikki and I and made us follow him downstairs and into the dining room where he showed us a huge moth/butterfly that had landed in there. He picked it up for us to photograph it and handed it to us to take back upstairs to show the other gringos. Bemused we said our thanks again and left with a flapping, frantic bug in our hands.


Over the trip we became friends with many of the children on board the boat. They would pull up a chair and watch as we played either cards or uno and smile until they got bored and disappeared off into the hammocks. Eventually they worked up the courage to ask to borrow our spare pack of cards so they could play their own games. One day there was a commotion near our hammocks and a bat, that we had seen flying around the deck durning the night, was kicked across the floor towards the edge of the boat. We all crowded around to take a closer look as it lay jerking on the floor. Apparently it had been roosting in the rafters over someones hammock and had woken them by emptying it's bowels over them. It was sharply removed by a flying flip-flop and then was about to enjoy a plunge into the Amazon but our curiosity had saved it. As we stood around debating what to do with the twitching creature it shuddered one last time and breathed it's final breath so Tom gracefully flung it over board. During this a young girl who worked in the kitchen had come by and joined in the scene, later that evening she came upstairs and sat with us while she taught Nikki a magic trick. Later that night she and two other boys taught us how to play a card game, they taught us their names - Priscilla, Fagner and Delei and we taught them how to play Uno. Tom, who speaks Spanish, managed to translate the basic rules for them while they rolled about laughing, we eventually managed to find out that they found Tom's pronunciation of the Spanish word for "blue" hilarious. In European Spanish the "s" sound is lisped where as in Latin Spanish it isn't. Tom had pronounced "Azul" as "Athool" - the kids giggled and repeated the word over and over until it became Tom's new name and he was known as Athool for the rest of the trip.


We had some good fun along the trip, mostly attributed to the good people that were on board. We were sad, in a way, to get off the boat at the other end but we were deleriously happy to have proper beds and a choice of food in various restaurants! We said our goodbyes to Priscilla (Delei and Fagner had got off at other towns earlier that day) and the other staff and thanked them and said bye to the other four english guys while the rest of us (Sinead, Ian, Tom, Rick, Nikki and I and Mr. Strange who tagged along) headed off to Leticia to find a hostel and showers as the weather was incredibly humid and warm now we were in the heart of the Amazon.

Brazil - Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro to Manaus

We arranged a bus across the Argentine/Brazil border and settled in for another long night with no leg room and freezing temperatures (they love their bus air con.) We got to Sao Paulo mid morning and spent a while figuring out the subway system and further language barriers (we were now trying to talk Portuguese) before heading to Pinheiros, an arty district of the city. We had been warned before arriving in Sao Paulo that it was quite a dangerous city and to be careful where we chose to stay, as always the Lonely Planet was useless but we'd managed to find a nice sounding hostel run by a load of ex-students called Ô de Casa.


Sao Paulo is the third largest city in the world; a huge metropolis of about 17 million people that isn't particularly touristy but we found a few things to keep us entertained. To get the scale of the city we decided to go up the Santander Tower, a huge skyscraper that had a viewing platform giving a 360º view from the top. We'd heard of a few streets in the Pinheiros area that are frequented street artists and decided to go and take a look. We got lost and wandered in circles for a while until spotting a few pieces of graffiti that led us into the colourful streets where all the walls had been painted with large murals by lots of different artists.


We walked around the city a lot and saw lots of local life; from the plaza outside the cathedral that was filled with beggars and the homeless to huge groups of football fans as they chanted their way through the city and could be heard for miles around.

After visiting a couple of local supermarkets we quickly realised the quality and variety of produce in Brazil was of a much higher quality than in Argentina and Chile, that we wouldn't have to choose between the shrivelled tomato and the one that was growing mold anymore! We took a day to head out to see the municipal market which is supposed to be one of the best in the country and the areas around where lots of street sellers peddled their goods. We eventually found the market after strolling down and around the general area for about half an hour. Along the way we saw millions of illegal traders sprinting down the roads with carts and bags then hiding in alleys while the police leisurely strolled behind confiscating anyone's stock who was too slow. In the markets we found lots of colourful and amazingly displayed stalls selling anything from tropical fruits and veg to salted meats and pickled things in jars.


Our aim was to try a few of the tropical fruits that Brazil is famed for. We headed to a busy looking stall and got chatting (mostly gesturing) with one of the workers. We told him how much money we had to spend and he set to work offering us various tasters and making "mmmmMMMMMmmmmm"'s and other creepily seductive noises as we tried the fruit. We eventually whittled down our selection to a few fruits and while he was wrapping them he decided he liked our pen he had been using to cost everything and so traded it for a mango, then while no one was looking he slipped in another couple of fruits. We said our goodbyes, consisting of learning new handshakes and high-fives, and headed off back to the hostel for a tasting session of our own. We came away with: 1 custard/sugar apple, 1 mango, 1 cashew apple, 1 chocolate pudding fruit, 1 tree tomato and a couple of anonymous green fruits that tasted like apple.


Next we were heading off to Rio de Janeiro on a nice, short 6 hour bus. We arrived after dark to a very confusing bus terminal and no obvious way of getting to the subway system other than a taxi and yet again Lonely Planet was of no use! After searching around and looking suitably lost for a while someone came to our rescue and told us that there is a shuttle bus that connects the bus station with the subway that only costs a few Reais (sort of pronounced "real" but not really, very confusing, we never got the hang of it!) After a few more lovely people offered us their help with getting to and on the subway on the right line we managed to make our way to our hostel in Copacabana (Walk on the Beach) and crashed out in a 9 bed dorm, three beds stacked on top of one another. With only two top beds left we eventually managed to climb up and slept until morning.

The next day we took in the sights of the city as we strolled to the beach and lazed about in the sun. The following day we took in the same sights of the city as we strolled to the beach... it became quite recurring and we eventually decided we needed to see more of the city and, as the day was cloudy, we strolled around to the part of town next to Ipanema beach. We watched the sun set while sat atop a big rock formation over looking the beach and caught a glimpse of Christ the Redeemer (the "big man on the hill") in the distance. We strolled back to Copacabana and sat on the beach front sipping fresh coconuts with rum and watched the sky fade to black.


We had booked a flight with Gol to Manaus, a city on the Amazon river, and with one day left in Rio we decided we had better make an effort to go and see the city's main attraction, but first we would spend a couple of hours on the beach. It's a hard life. We got directions and caught the bus to Christ the Redeemer just in time for sunset. We caught a tram up the mountain that circles the statue and gives amazing views over the city. It arrived at the top while the sun was still up and the skies were clear so we took the obligatory arms spread wide photos while stood in front of the statue and smiled at the details (he had toes sticking out the bottom of his robe - this makes me happy). Clouds began to roll in as the sun was dropping and the temperature plummeted as we shivered in shorts and t-shirts. As the Christ disappeared into the clouds we made a quick retreat back down the mountain and to warmer ground.


We stepped out of the air conditioned airport in Manaus to a wall of heat and humidity and a quick tropical downpour after spending the night in Rio airport (our flight was at 5am.) We hadn't slept but had no time to rest as we had heard there was a boat leaving to go up the Amazon the next day (the next one after wasn't for another 5 days) to a town called Tabatinga where we could cross the border into Colombia. We went to a hostel we had heard about called Hostel Manaus and asked to use their facilities (e.g. shower and laundry etc.) despite not wanting spending the night. We thought we were in for an afternoon of running around ticket hunting but we got speaking to a couple, called Ian and Sinead, who were already booked on to the boat and had spent 4 or 5 days already just searching for the cheapest tickets. They had found out that Hostel Manaus offered the best priced tickets and so we decided to save ourselves the hassle and booked through them. We had planned to book a cabin but the only ones left were the luxury ones that were way out of our budget so we decided to get a couple of hammocks and string them up with everyone elses. We were feeling slightly more bold about the matter since we'd just met two more "gringos" who would also be doing it. We headed into town to find a cash machine to pay for the tickets and to pick up essentials such as water, crackers and nutella for the five day journey up the river to make the meals a little more interesting (we had been warned they were a little bland and repetitive.) We met the man we were buying the tickets off and he organised a taxi to take us to the boat and swung by a street stall on the way to buy our hammocks and rope to string them up. A quick water taxi later and we were on board the boat and trying to set up our hammock in a cosy corner out of the way.


We had decided to spend the night before the boat departed sleeping on board as this saved us another nights accomodation and meant we got to start the "adventure" a little earlier. The night went well and we were surprisingly comfortable until about 3am when a big storm started and we all froze due to the open sides of the boat until we figured out how to drop the tarpaulin to block out the wind. The next day the boat began to fill up and we would soon be on our way...

Buenos Aires and Puerto Iguazu

A sixteen hour bus later we arrived in Buenos Aires and after eventually finding the tiny sign for the hostel we crashed out in the sitting room to watch movies with a big bowl of popcorn free from the manager. We spent about a week in the city trying to explore a different "barrio" (neighbourhood) each day. The hostel we were staying at, called The Garden House, was really great; the staff were really friendly and the hostel was so small (only two dorms and a few private rooms) that we soon got to know everyone staying there and all got chatting over a great breakfast. Our main objective in the city (or should I say my main objective) was to go on a search for the "prefect" present for my Mum's birthday, this meant that I was happily dragging Mark to all and any local craft markets and stopping to look in the window of hundreds of stores along every street.

Our first day we went to explore the main shopping area of the city around Avenue Florida and the Obelisk. We walked around the theatre district while on the search for English book shops and saw about three different protests along the way. One of these involved all the taxi's protesting the change of a taxi lane to a bus lane so they had blocked up all the main streets and were handing out leaflets and flying huge banners out of the windows of their cars.


The next day we headed back to the area via underground (so cheap and easy to use!) and explored the Plaza de Mayo, the Casa Rosada, Cathedral and a random museum from which I spotted another crafts market in the street behind. One of the days we headed out to a nature reserve the sat between the city and the ocean and was possibly the most death defying journey across multiple six-lane roads of traffic just to reach the entrance. We closely avoided a huge downpour and wandered off into the park which dulled the city's noises considerably, although the skyscrapers were always visible in the background.



Near to where we were staying was a huge antiques market (read: lots of old crap that no one wants anymore, although Dad could probably find a buyer on ebay!) that was held on Sundays in Plaza Dorrego. As well a the antiques stalls there were side streets full of craft stalls, paintings, snack vendors and tango-ing couples who would happily pose for some spare change and a smile. From here we headed into La Boca, a decidedly dodgy area of town where the main Boca Juniors football stadium can be found. We arrived just in time for the stadium to fill up with fans so the area was full of police and security and lots of street food vendors selling BBQ meats in all shapes and forms. Further into La Boca was the Caminito, a touristy area of brightly painted houses, street performers and outdoor restaurants. We strolled through and out to the main road just in time to see the football fans from the other team being bused in with police escorts (supposedly to keep the riots to a minimum.) They were all hanging out of the windows of the old school buses and shouting taunts and singing loudly while the people on the streets laughed and taunted back.



We had heard from one of the guys in the hostel that there was a "huge flower" in a park in town that opened in the morning and closed at night. We were intrigued so went to investigate. It sure was a big flower and it did open during the day and close at night... It was made of metal and rose out of a large manmade lake in the middle of a park next to the highway. While we were in the area we went to the near by Recoletta cemetary and went to find Evita's grave (where they should put Madonna) as well as the sites of many possible zombie outbreaks (a lot of the tombs were in great disrepair.) After being suitable creeped out by the tombs we wandered off to find another market we'd heard about after the seemingly elusive "perfect" gift.

To escape the hustle and bustle of the city centre we caught the train out to Tigre, a small port town on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. We strolled down the rivers edge and watched the world going by while lying on the grass outside the art museum. Afterwards we were off on another search in a market for the present, only to come up short once again. We got a cold drink and sat at the waters edge before catching the train back to the city.



Our budget didn't really allow for us to eat out or drink while we were in Buenos Aires but we did sign up for the hostels weekly Parrilla (pronounced pa-ree-sha, well in Argentina at least but lets not get into that...) aka BBQ which of course was a must as Argentina is so well known for it's steaks and meat in general. We ate great slabs of slow roasted beef, chorizos and lots of other random BBQ'd items. We met the chef beforehand, a local Buenos Aires man and he showed us the food he'd just bought - three carrier bags full of meat and one about half full of salad... vegetarians need not apply! Mark went out one night to sample the local bar with a couple of guys from the hostel, one, and English guy called Rick who had already drank a bottle of wine as well as three beers and the other, Alessandro, a Brazillian from Sao Paulo. Conversation with the locals started out interesting with topics such as the Falkland Islands (the locals let it drop by explaining they knew it wasn't Mark's or Rick's fault that it was all down to the leader of the country and not the local people - phew), politics (no one likes Americans), Tony Blair quotes and the age of Noah - of the Ark - (275 and still smoking.) Alessandro went home shortly after arriving with a bad stomach and the chatting continued through partial Spanish, English and gesturing. The conversation took a turn for the worse when a local offered his services as a taxi tour guide which was mistaken by Rick (in some weird drunken state) that the man was able to get him some cocaine. The matter was cleared up and chatting continued until Rick decided that he needed cocaine right there and then. He persisted in telling the locals in the bar that he needed the cocaine and stumbled off to the bathroom in which time Mark quickly explained that he had known Rick for only 3 days and didn't want anything to do with cocaine and the locals agreed that Rick was acting "loco". Rick came back from the toilets and carried on persisting in his drunken quest until a local went out onto the street and returned with some rather unsavory characters and Rick realised he had no money (he'd been helping himself to the locals beers all night) and was now trying to beg money off everyone around him so he could buy cocaine. At this point Mark convinced Rick that if he wanted the drugs he would have to go get his own money at the hostel, knowing full well that Rick would probably pass out as soon as they got back and he could escape the whole fiasco. The next morning at breakfast Rick seemed to have convieniently forgotten the whole incident (possibly due to his girlfriends prescence) and meerly mentioned some "shady characters" that entered the bar... needless to say I nearly leapt over the table and broke his jaw. I didn't. Asshole.

Luckily in all our trawling markets and shops and stalls and everything else I managed to find a small gift for my Mum's birthday but I still haven't found the "perfect" gift. I'll keep looking.


All of a sudden ten days had passed and we were on the most luxurious bus (hot meals, champagne and pillows) heading up to Puerto Iguazu to visit the Iguazu Falls. We stayed at a HI hostel just across from the bus station and hid indoors while the weather took a dramatic turn for the worse as it poured solidly for a day and a half. Luckily the day we visited the falls the weather had broken and the falls were full and thundering dramatically over the edge while the mist drifted past full of rainbows. Next stop - Sao Paulo, Brazil.