Travel Stories

San Martin De Los Undies

July 8th, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Travel, Travel Stories | 2 Comments
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G’day Everybody,

Most people doing the clockwise trip of South America travel to Pucon, Chile from Bariloche. Most people take a leisurely overnight bus for the 10 or 12 odd hour trip through the Andes. Most people. Not us. Nope, 10+ hours on a bus at this point in our trip was fairly frightening for me at least. 10 hours couped up in a small seat without food and with the person in front reclining their seat all the way no matter how much i press my knees into the back of the seat. Terrifying!

Instead i consult a snowboarding mate i met on the Internet. Yup you’ve got to love the world wide web. He tells us of a quaint little town much better than Bariloche, only 6 hours from Bariloche and has a short route to Pucon. Brilliant! The places name, San Martin De Los Andes.
San Martin De Who?
Yup San Martin for short.

Pretty Trees

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Strangebrew…

June 13th, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Travel, Travel Stories | 1 Comment
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We just flew into Iquitos Thailand/Peru, hot humid scooter.motorbikes and tuk tuks fill the roads. Now this town is isolated, coming from Perth i get it but this town cannot be accessed by road and it’s got 500,000 people in it. So it’s all river and air transport. We got to our hotel and was greeted by Hugh Hefner in his robe who told us that there was food but now it’s late. We were amused since it was 7:30pm. We then walked around and there found a tree house that would put robinson crusoe to shame. We really needed food so we climbed into a Tuk Tuk and motored off to a chinese restaurant called Long Dong Fong. Bumped into another political rally and came home.

At home we discovered the place was used to shoot and house the stars/crew of Fitzcarraldo. You know the Beatles right? Ok, so a bit later one there was a band named The Clash, you know The Clash? Ok, no. So you know Rock The Casbah? Ok that year. 1982 was when the film was released but the writers/producers etc stayed in Iquitos for 5 years prior. Mind boggling. Hugh Hefner is really Walter Saxer the executive producer. He co-owns the place and runs it from what i can gather, nice bloke who occasionally gets pulled out of the jungle to produce films.

We wake up the next morning to the sounds of a rooster barking and a dog crowing.

Must dash, i’ve got to have breakfast by the palm covered pool and next to the naked mermaids.

Later

El Hutcho

Hutchae in Bariloche

June 10th, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Travel, Travel Stories | 5 Comments
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Yes, you read it right Hutchae was in Bariloche(pron. Baril-o-ch-ay)
He was travelling with the beautiful Jessae
Sometime in Autumn, probably mid-May
When it was time, Hutch did say
To do some exercise, a cycle around the bay

They hopped off the bus round mid-day
And to their great dismay
They got off early about 5 k
Walk walk and walk the rest of the way.

Arrived tired and sweaty at the bus bay
Grabbed some bikes and set off for 30k
They met some freaky deaky dutch along the way
Firkin knackered Hutch did say
The dutch replied Oh Touche’

3 hours later back at the bus bay
They arrive knackered and willing to convey
That this was the hardest bike ride on a highway
But it was stunning on such a beautiful day

Later that night they sat down at a buffet
With the freaky deaky dutch and a waiter Jose’
They had earned dessert, a great sorbet
Retired to bed listening to Ricky Gervais.

The Tour De Bariloche was a 30km ride on bitumen up and down some big hills around some of the most spectacular lake’s and forrest we’ve ever seen. Here are some photo’s of our great little Tour De Bariloche:

A lake on route to the first hill:

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A cute little cafe:

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Please read on below.

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Wildly Dramatic

May 29th, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Travel, Travel Stories | 4 Comments
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We were excited to arrive to El Calafate in Southern Patagonia and be greeted with a very picturesque village with amazing autumn colours, and the mountains reflecting in a flamingo laden lake.  Since all the hostels in the town were so expensive we decided to “posh pack” and upgrade to the most popular spot on trip advisor. After a bumpy ride out of town on a dirt road we arrived to a lovely little hotel right on the lake. We had wine and canapés overlooking the stunning views on arrival which worried us….. Had we miss read the price tag or something? The room was fantastic and I was very excited at the prospect of a bath and a hair dryer (it doesn’t take much). It allowed us time to get organised for what everyone comes to El Calafate to do and that’s the glacier.

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Coloniaoscopy

May 21st, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Travel, Travel Stories | 2 Comments
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After BA Tigre and Iguazu  we were feeling a little tired and wondered what would be the best way to spend Bickies (Ben and Vicky’s) last three days of Vacation before they headed back to the states. After some deliberation we decided to go to the UNESCO World Heritage town of Colonia Uruguay. It is a town where the Portuguese used to smuggle goods over to BA when the areas were still disputed between the colonial powers of Spain and Portugal.

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We took the ferry from BA and checked into our lovely B&B/hostel with a balcony and a view to the sea. Unfortunately Bickie didn’t have such luck getting a room where the windows shook violently every time someone turned on hot water (which was frequently). Needless to say they moved to another B&B the next day.

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Accommodation Top Eleven – Review

May 6th, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Travel, Travel Stories, Travel Tips | 4 Comments
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G’day Guys and Gals

We’re doing some reminicing of our trip so far and came up with a list of our top eleven accommodation’s we have stayed at as of the 5th May 2010:

1. Las Dunas – El Calafate Argentina – Good food, good views, room with wifi, good rooms, good bath, good service, cable tv, bad pillows, more expensive and no liquardo’s! (4.5/5)
2. Las Lucarnas – San Martin De Los Andes Argentina – Quaint, cosy, great rooms, great beds, good location, bath, wifi in room, fantastic service, good breakfast, great value and cable tv. (4/5)
3. Viajero Bed and Breakfast – Colonia Uruguay – Great rooms with balcony and view, wifi in room, cable tv, ok service, ok food, good value and good location. (3.5/5)
4. Hostel Patagonia – El Chalten Argentina – Great new cosy rooms, fantastic service, cosy common areas, no breakfast, no in room wifi and good value. (4/5)
5.  Buenos Aires Apartment – Buenos Aires Argentina – Self contained, balcony, convenient, good location, wifi and mobile phone, bit small and smelt awful. (3.5/5)
6. HI Downtown San Francisco – San Francisco USA – Good room, great location, wifi in room, street noise, ok service and bad breakfast. (3/5)
7. La Balconada – La Paloma Uruguay – Fantastic staff/owners, personal touch, tiny rooms, expensive, no wifi and shared bath. (3/5)
8. Marcopolo Iguazu – Iguazu Argentina – Hotel-like, ok service, ok rooms, ok food, wifi in rooms, great bar, pool and ok location. (2.5/5)
9. Hostel-Inn Bariloche – Bariloche Argentina – Great common areas, great view, ok service, good cars, smelt like gas, shared bathroom and dinner and breakfast included. (2.5/5)
10. Hostel Ritz – Buenos Aires Argentina – Great liquardo de banana, room service, good location, ok rooms, hotel-like, smelt like mould and ok service. (2.5/5)
11. Viajero Downtown Montevideo – Montevideo Uruguay – Tiny rooms, overwhelming smell of bleach, stuffy, ok food, good service, pretty building, good location and good common areas. (2/5)

We have also found that the Lonley Planet is seriously seriously out of date though if you do find the hostel/hotel is still in business it usually is very good. Hostelworld.com reviews are way way off the mark and as useful as drinking salt water in a drought. HiHostels.com is average, booking has to be done at least 2 days in advance and the reviews are semi-accurate. Tripadvisor seems to be the most accurate but rarely has hostels.

Most of the places we have stayed in cost around US$40-50 per night for a double room with private bathroom and includes a free breakfast.

Any questions, ask away below.
Cheers
Jess and Hutch

La where the hell?

May 5th, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Travel, Travel Stories | 6 Comments
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Sunday 11th April 2010
We say goodbye to our good friends and travelling buddies Vix and Ben and jump on a hot coach bus to Montevideo from Colonia. The bus is semi-full filled with locals and we spend the time reading up on Montevideo in the Lonely Planet and playing NBA 2K10 :-)

Montevideo can be summed up pretty quickly. Montevideo is like a rice cracker, as Homer Simpson puts it “Hello hello hello taste? Where are you!?”
It’s a nice bland city, there’s nothing really wrong with it, old town is lovely, it’s located on the river/gulf, not too expensive and getting around is fairly easy. But it just lacks character, large high rise apartment buildings line a stinky litter-ridden gulf foreshore.  I have a 16gb memory card in my camera so i don’t mind snapping away at random things but we struggled to even find something worth photographing. That said we did spend 4 days there looking around for things to do, hoping we just had missed something absolutely amazing but it never happened.

Some dude on a horse in the main square

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Jesse in the markets

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Buenos Aires – Part One

May 1st, 2010 | Posted in Blog, Travel, Travel Stories | 1 Comment
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We landed in Buenos Aires (BA) airport feeling pretty rough having spent the night flying 10 hours without any sleep.  I really didn’t know what to expect from our first taste of South America. As we got off the plane we were segregated into two lines, Aussies, Canadians, Americans and then all the other nationalities. Ben and Vicks we ushered through promptly as we were stuck in line. We were lugged with a $100 USD entrance fee each by an abrupt customs official and cattle herded to the next line. Good start on all accounts.

Ben had all the apartment info and had left to baggage by then. As we waited in line an aggressive customs agent was drilling an obviously gay couple in front of us on where they were staying and why they didn’t know the exact address. This started to worry as we didn’t have those details either; I was pretty impressed that I had remembered the suburb to be honest. A tense ten minutes later we thankfully got another official who was blasé but still pretty short. Slightly relieved we progressed to the slowest moving baggage carousel in history and the jeers of Ben and Vicks (collectively known as Bicky) having passed through quickly with no fee on their British passports. I don’t know how that works since the Brits fought a war against the Argentinians and we Aussies had done nothing but be pleasant as far as I know…..Maybe there is something in that?

All the bags were thankfully collected which is always a concern for Justin and I and after a twenty minute wait we were bundled into our transfer van which obviously caters for South Americans who subsequently are small people. Ben and Plum are not small people and we had to have a mini game of twister to get in. With faces squeezed up against windows and bodies snug against each other we set off.

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When Did That Happen?

May 1st, 2010 | Posted in Blog, Travel, Travel Stories | 1 Comment
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It’s always tough saying good bye to friends and family. The older I get the harder it seems to. I have developed an aversion to airports as I associate them with trauma.  Well not all airports, just Perth International airport really. Plum and I had to laugh as we compared how different we were in many ways to when we both went travelling the first time.

It was ten years ago for me and eight for Plum. The lead up to this trip had been extensive. We had to sell cars, pack up houses, organise three different visas, set up bank accounts in foreign countries and work full time jobs during it all, plus still run a household.  We wondered if we would have enough money, if we would be safe and if we were crazy for doing this. Ten years ago, all I had to do was get a passport and pack my bags (which I did the day I was leaving). It never occurred to me I might not have enough money, I never doubted my safety and I thought I was crazy for not doing it earlier. Plum even laughed at how he was hung over the day he left.

I don’t classify myself as being old in any way (I was even asked ID today) but somehow I long for that innocence and naivety of youth. The self-assuredness to never question anything and to just fly by the seat of your pants without thinking if the pants are the right pants to use for said flying, or if the pants are insured if they are lost or stolen in flight transit.

Some may say that innocence and naivety are replaced by wisdom and the realisation of something called responsibility. All of a sudden you are accountable for things like mortgages which force you to be reliant on a wage, in a job that doesn’t fulfil you.  What then happens when you start having kids? These are the things that we have to answer to, the things we have on our backs. For whatever reason, it seems like we seek these, it is how you get ahead in life. How quickly they weigh you down or confine you to place you created and can’t seem to escape. Maybe we have it all wrong? It was such a liberating feeling to remove these and replace them with a back pack. Just Plum and I, a couple of bags and a world of possibility.

I may not be as reckless and care free as I once was, it may have taken more to get here and the stakes are higher but the reward is greater and I appreciate and relish it ten times over. We are kicking back and enjoying the ride albeit with extensive travel insurance, cash behind us and a better matured sense of savvy. Maybe I am getting wiser?

just back from a hike up to La…

April 27th, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Travel, Travel Stories | 1 Comment
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just back from a hike up to Lake Capri. Not too hard unless your in gale force winds and rain. Drenched but what a stunning beautiful walk!

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