This is the blog/travel journal for Chris & Joanne Reilly from Glasgow, Scotland. After quitting our jobs and selling our house, we plan to travel around the globe for the next year.

Friday, April 29, 2005

On my Andes and Kneeses


On Monday (18th April) we crossed the Andes on a bus from Pucón (Chile) into Argentina in the northen Patagonia region, it´s autumn here at the moment and all the trees are bright red, yellow and orange. This area reminds me more of how I imagined Canada to look like, but it was a stunning landscape to watch as the bus struggled to climb the dirt road through the mountains. Just after we went through the border control we passed these cattle herders (proper Argentinian Gauchos (cowboys), whipping about 100 cattle into shape on the road south) it was all the cowboy movies in my head right in front of us, with the dust whipping around them as they chased the stray cattle wandering off the planned route. This was a truly magic moment with stunning backdrops hand painted by hollywoods finest set designers or that is what it was like from inside the bus.

We were heading to a town called Bariloche but we had to change bus in Júnin de Los Andes, we forgot about the 1 hour time difference between Chile and Argentina so we ended up missing the last bus out of town (well there were only two) so we booked a room and stayed in Júnin for the night. We got the tickets changed no problem and we hadn´t anything booked in Bariloche so it wasn´t any hardship. Júnin de Los Andes is supposedly Argentina´s Trout Capital but the only one to be found was the one sitting across from me, but the picturesque town with it´s many Monkey Puzzle trees was very quiet as we wandered about.

We managed to get the bus the next day, and once again it was another spectacular landscape of big country spread out infront of us as we travelled the 4 hours to Bariloche. I´m not sure if I fell asleep or something weird happened but on arriving in Bariloche the bus must have taken a wrong turning because we where now in a alpine town with evey second shop selling Chocolate or German Bier. The Surrounding mountains, lakes and log cabin buildings could easily have been in Tirol or somewhere else picturesque in the Alps.

The next day we headed out of town and wandered round some lakes and forests, the sky was the most perfect blue and the lakes glistened in the afternoon sunshine. The temperatures are starting to fall a bit the further south we travel but luckily we haven´t seen any rain in weeks. After our walk that lasted about 5 hours we headed out to dinner, "The Nuevo Munich" was our restaurant of choice for the night, luckily there were loads of Argentinian choice´s alongside the saurkraut and strudel.

Time for another further deviation on our original planned route, we hadn´t really planned to go much further south than Santiago. Once in Santiago we saw the photos of the Volcano in Puçon and that made us head south and from there it was futher south to Bariloche and now we have decided to take a big swerve and head to the deep deep south of Argentina to see the Moreno Glacier near El Calafate. If you get your maps out and look westwards from the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) you will find El Calafate in Argentina near the Chile border (we really are a long way from home now!!!).

There was one large drawback about going to see the glacier, it was going to be 31 hours on a bus (yes 31 hours!!!!), so we left Bariloche on Thursday afternoon at 3:15pm. Once on the bus we soon realised that we had the worst seats on the bus, very back row under the air conditioning unit and above the engine. The noise was like being on a large jumbo jet, one bonus was we couldn´t hear the sound of the Sylvester Stallone movies. Luckily there was a beautiful sunset to watch for a while before the night took over. I managed to get a sleep for about 6 hours, Joanne said she didn´t but I´m not sure if you can snore while awake. The most annoying thing about travelling on the bus in South America is the constant stopping, if a town has two houses they stop, if the driver runs out of hot water for his mate (herby tea drink) they stop, if they havn´t stopped in the last half hour they stop.

The bus was due to stop at 6 in the morning in Comodore Rivadiva and then leave again at 8 but to make things worse we arrived at 5:15 meaning that we had 2:45 minutes in a town which Lonely Planet described as "A town to miss with the most ugliest Cathedral in South America", and the bus station didn´t even have a cafe or anywhere selling coffee. So after a quick walk round the city centre we found a service station with some seats and we had a coffee with an Australian couple from Perth (Jenny & Shayne) who also drew the short straw of being on the back seat of the bus.

Back on the bus for the next leg of the epic journey (well as epic as sitting on a bus gets). The scenery changed from here on in, very few trees now, just miles and miles of barren flatlands with the occasional huddles of sheep, llama and small ostrich type animals. The landscape never changed in about 12 hours, and for the second time on this bus we saw the sun set. We arrived in Rio Gallegos at 8 at night, here we had to get off the bus and find a hotel or hostel for the night. This turned out to be a bit more difficult than usual, and it was also zero degrees (too cold to snow). We ended up sharing a 4 bed room with Shayne & Jenny. The next morning we had to catch another bus to El Calafate (this was only a 4 hour trip) and stayed there for a night before heading to the Glacier the next day (which was another hour and a half away).

In El Calafate we managed to get a double room and it was also in the same place as Jenny & Shayne. The 4 of us also booked the later trip to glacier for the next day so we could see the sunset at the glacier and also so we could get up a bit later. Joanne decided to make Jumbalya for the 4 of us before we headed out on the town. As it wasn´t an early start we didn´t have to really watch how much we drank (bad mistake), as we had a few bottles of wine with our dinner and the beers were slipping down vey nicely in the bar afterwards. The bar didn´t really start getting busy to about 1 in the morning, as a toast to our new friendship Jenny suggested we get Tequila shooters, so very prompltly afterwards we where licking salt, downing tequila and sucking on lemons. After a few more beers we headed back to our Hostel, i think everybody had an excellent night.

*** small note - we received an e-mail a week later from Jenny.. She had left her earings in the hostel in El Calafate, they were passing back through a few days later so she decided to go back to see if anybody had handed them in. After asking the owner by the use of various hand movements she noticed that the owner was actualy wearing her earings.... the owner sheepishly handed the earings back - ***

Next morning (Sunday 24th)... was the Rangers v Celtic game back home, so after a few hours sleep I got up to check the TV to see if it was on any of the 200 channels. So much for Celtic´s World Wide brand the game was not on one channel, I blame Setanta when Sky was showing games you could always get the big games on Fox Sports. Anyway I decided to head out to an internet cafe (it was 8:30 local time), I could only find one open and they didn´t have speakers or headphones so I had to sit watching a minute by minute text update of the game. This was very frustrating as it wouldn´t always update every minute and I was thinking maybe someone had scored and they had a lot to type in. The other thing with the videoprinter was that you didn´t get the full picture so some of my observation might be out a bit. For some reason every time a Celtic player scored he was booked, this must have been a new rule that has been brought in since my disappearing act. I also read that some Rangers fans raised a toast to Stan Petrov when he scored the opening goal, the new sense over sectarinism policy seems to be slowly filtering down to the grassroot fans. Anyway for those of you who don´t follow football Celtic went on to win 2-1 and are now 5 points clear in the league with 4 games to go, and for all my new Aussie and Canadian friends Celtic won 43 throw on´s to 32 throw on´s with no penalty goals (see it can be an exciting game).

We left for the Moreno Glacier at about 2:30 and weren´t due back to after 9. It was a bit overcast for most of the trip out, which was slightly disappointing as the day before we had beautiful blue sky´s. We stopped of at a few viewpoints along the route to look at the lakes and to see the Glacier from a distance. First impressions were yeah it look´s good but it doesn´t seem that big. The next stop was at a pier for a boat trip up to the Glacier, now we started to really see the scale of the glacier.

Joanne had about 6 or 7 layers of clothes on with a natty trouser/skirt combo but she still complained about her nose being cold. The boat trip lasted for about an hour and we managed to take about 200 photos, I´m sure if it was brighter we would have taken a lot more. The colour of the giant jagged ice peaks of the 60m high glacier was always changing, sometimes white as you would imagine and then it slowly changed to light blue and then a deeper aqua blue, the water on the lake was also a strange turquoise blue colour. While on the boat we never seen any chunks fall off the rapidly advancing glacier (well rapid in over a few years kind of way).

Next it was back on the bus to the viewing platforms above the glacier, this was when things really started to get exciting. Before arriving at the glacier I thought the boat was going to be the best bit as you got really close to the glacier, but from the platforms we could hear the glacier cracking like rifle fire as the peaks rubbed against each other. Then we could see large sheets of ice sheer off the side and splash into the water with thunderous effect creating large waves and creating large bobbing icebergs that floated along in the turquoise lake. This had the four of us running from platform to platform hoping to see the next chunk fall into the water. We stayed here for about an hour and half watching the sun set and the place get darker and darker, but we could have stayed all night watching the perpetual movement of the glacier slowly sliding towards us. This was one of the real highlights of the trip so far and had made the hours of sitting on endless bus´s worth it.

Next day it was time to head north and leave Patagonia and eventually try and get to Mendoza which we had orignally planned to go to after Santiago.

Sunday, April 17, 2005

Pucón Party Town

Monday 11th April we headed south on the overnight bus arriving in the early hours of Tuesday morning to Pucón (in the Chilean Lake District) which sits at the foot of a large currently very active volcano. We were picked up by Brad (the owner of the hostel who was from Zimbabwe). After 10 minutes in the log cabin in came Brett the guy we shared a room with in Santiago. He met up with three other people (Janet from Northern Ireland, Eric and Mike (both from Canada)).

There were two other girls there Jade from Oz and Or (yes thats her name I am not making it up) from Israel. Brad´s in laws lived next door and they had bought a goat for the father in laws birthday....we thought it was their pet but soon found out it was to be slaughtered for the father in law´s birthday feast. Later on that day we went out for look a whilst the father in law gutted the goat. I left soon after but Chris watched them cut the head off (see the pictures!!).

We wandered into town and it looks like a small town American movie set from Gremlins, Back To The Future or Twin Peaks apart from having a large volcano looming above - it wasn´t how we imagined Chile to look.

Or had told us that she couldn´t climb the volcano that day as it was too windy and that it was also off for the next day. So despite our good intentions not to have a drink we all clubbed in and bought wine and beer for a quiet night in. The party lasted well into the wee hours of the morning and we were entertained by Vivien (Brad´s wife) playing the guitar and singing along with Honey her sister....they were fantastic...we sang, danced and all of us had a great time.

On Wednesday we all got up a bit late....Jade had left and Brad said he would take us out to a waterfall and a lake and we were all also invited to his father in laws birthday BBQ that night. All seven of us got into the back of his jeep. Chris, Janet and I got to sit in the boot with a bean bag what a laugh...the waterfall was really nice and the water further up had such deep shades of blue. The lake was absolutely beautiful and had a lovely sandy beach....being the mad Celts that we are Chris, Janet and I got our shoes off and went in for a paddle....the water was soo clear and warm.

We headed back for the BBQ and went into Vivien´s family´s house. The food was really good and they saved the best ´til last - the goat. As we were all going up the Volcano the next day we decided we couldn´t have too heavy a night. Vivien´s family were all lovely. Her father got extremely sentimental and was pleased that the ´gringo´s´ had come to his birthday. I made friends with Coti (Viv´s sister) who was 6. She was some character we got a couple of good pictures of her in a strop, but we had a laugh dancing, singing and generally giving her tickles....yes the tickle monster is still alive and kicking....I need to make sure that I don´t lose my touch for coming back home!! We went to bed around 1 for an 'early' night.

Thursday....up early for the Volcán Villarrica. Neither of us seemed to get much sleep due to dogs barking but we still managed to get up early for our trip. The first part of the trip was going up on a chair lift...our first time (Boy does Chris know how to treat a girl!!). We then started to climb and it was really tough going when we got to the snow part....we had pick axes to assist for when we fell (a little bit scary) and Chris also had to use Crampons. We could hear the rumble of the volcano several times as we went up (he obviously didn´t like the look of our lovely yellow jackets!). When we got near the top (after 4 hours of hard slog) we were told that we would not be taken to the crater of the volcano as it was becoming too dangerous (over the last couple of weeks there has been a huge increase in the volcano´s activity)....So after some eats we headed back down....This was the best laugh - we had to slide down the side of the volcano using a pick axe to slow us down....well it was steep and whilst I didn´t really fancy doing it, the other option to walk down seemed less appealing. It was GREAT!! That is until at the last slide which was really steep Chris jarred his foot on a rock....he had to hobble all the way to the minibus. (Hoppa long is doing fine.)

Back at the Hostel we decided to head out to the Therma Springs later on that evening. We stopped off for nibbles and drinks and arrived there around 9.30pm.
The sky was clear and you could see lots of stars. Into the springs we went and what can I say after several hours our achy bones and muscles were healed or could that have been due to the drink?? It was such an amazing place being able to sit in a natural hot spring, gazing to the stars and having a good laugh with all the gang. Even better than this it was Eric´s (one of the Canadian´s) birthday - what a place to have it! We left at 1.30 am and got back to Pucón around 2.30 when Vivien and Brad managed persuade the owner of a burger joint (which was just closing) to make us all burgers. Boy were they good!!

On Friday the boys had an afternoon of pleasure to themselves - well they went fishing (that´s what I was told anyway!!). They only managed to catch a little tiddler and then had to throw it back. But they said they had a great BBQ and a few beers sitting beside a beautiful river with spectacular scenery which look as though it was a backdrop from Lord of the Rings. The girls just generally chilled out and had a laugh....we went to the lake to watch the sunset - the sky was a lovely colour of orange - it was absolutely beautiful. That evening we all had Spag Bol and Chris & I decided to have a quiet night in and watch some rubbish tv.

We chilled for most of the next day and went out into town at night with the gang, before heading back to the hostel to another riotous party!!

Last day in Pucón we both managed to lift our weary heads to say ´Cheerio´to most of the gang who were leaving. Brad cooked us a roast dinner (which was almost as good as Chris´ Dad´s) and we wandered down to lake to sit in the sun and watch the sunset. The volcano has also been smoking non stop for at least two hours....so maybe it´s time we leave before another disaster strikes.

Both of us feel that this is the most welcome we have been made by any hotel/hostel. Brad has been extremely helpful in driving us around and taking us places that would have been difficult to reach without a car. Nothing was too much trouble for him and Vivien and they joined in with everything we did over the week.
So if you are ever in Chile - make sure you go to Pucón and stay in the Monkey Puzzle Hostel.

Monday, April 11, 2005

Smoggy Santiago


Flew over the Andes on the way into Santiago and were blown off our feet (well there was quite a bit of turbulence). Found our hostal and managed to get a room sharing with just one other guy (we were quite lucky as we were supposed to be in a dorm which slept 8 people and they only charged us the dorm rate). The rooms all face onto a courtyard where everyone chills out and there was a huge kitchen which we took full advantage of.

That night after making a huge pot of Jumbalya and eating it we stayed at the hostal as they had a slide show on Chile (actually a tour company touting for business) with free Pisco (a grape drink that tastes like sour lemons). Some of the pictures were amazing. Following this Chris & I decided that we would like to head to a place called Pucon next as there was a live volcano which looked fantastic.

On our first day we walked into the centre to the cathedral and then wandered around various other parts of the city. After realising that the city centre wasn't that big so we decided to visit a nearby park called Parqe Metropolitano. It had a short train ride up to see a huge statue of the Virgin Mary....they also had a cable car ride....now picture this...you get in a wee pod which can hold up to 4 people (thankfully it was just the two of us). The doors close (but not fully) and then with a jolt you are thrown out of the building on a single wire cable. I held onto the Jesus handle and frequently yelled Let me out!! whenever we went over the next really bumpy bit....we were quite high up. Shaken and might have been stirred I stumbled out of the cable car with a huge sigh of relief only to realise that we had to go back up in it!! The views were apparently amazing!

At night we met up with two Aussies (but they weren´t together) Fiona and Matt and a couple of beers later headed out to the pub. For a couple of drinks (honestly!).

The next day we headed to another park in the centre of the city which had loads of different paths and fountains and gave you some great views of the smog over the city. The next few days we just hung out with other people from the hostel and just walked about the city. We also went to a great museum on the Sunday which had loads of artefacts going back over 4500 years....some of the pottery was in amazing condition.

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Argy Bargy!!

Another overnight bus (Fri 1st April)... this time from Punta del Este back to Buenos Aires. We went for the bus this time instead of the bus and boat route we had taken on our way here, it worked out a bit cheaper and we could save on a night´s accommodation. Apart from the rubbish movie the 10 hour journey was a piece of cake compared to our previous bus trips.

The plan was to stay in the hotel (Gran Hotel Oriental in Congresso) we previously stayed in until Wednesday then we were due to fly to Santiago in Chile. We tried to phone the Hotel from the Bus Station but it was just ringing out, so we jumped in a taxi. When we approached the hotel we noticed that the road was blocked off and the taxi driver had to drop us off round the corner. The building next to the hotel was no longer standing and looked like it had collapsed. There was no access to the hotel and we´re not sure when this happend but the manager must be fuming because he had just spent a fortune decorating the foyer over the last few weeks. I suppose we were quite fortunate as it could have happened when we staying there.

We tried a few other hotels but they where a bit expensive so we head to the St Nicholas hostel. They didn´t have any rooms available in the main builing but they had a double free in a building across the road, we agreed to take this even though it was almost twice the price of the Gran Hotel Oriental but I suppose the building was still standing. On entering the hostel we soon realisd the communal area was very damp and our cell like room wasn´t much better. The private bathroom was also not that private as it was adjacent to the communal kitchen and it was also so small that when you sat on the toilet your knees hit of the sink. We decided to ask for our money back.

We got our money back and got a hotel in the San Telmo district, the room was quite small but it had a good shower and it was also very handy for all the happenings at the weekend markets in San Telmo. The room was also very cheap (5 UK pounds a night for the room). The markets in San Telmo is how I would imaginge the Barras where like 20 or 30 years ago before it was overun by copy DVD´s, cheap tobacco and fake designer gear. There were hunderds of shops and stalls selling antiques and books and not just your usual touristy trinkets we have seen everywhere in South America so far.

Now for our first unsavoury incident of our trip..

Sunday morning we headed for something to eat about 10 o´clock (some might even call it brunch - Cheese & Ham omlette if you are interested) to a cafe we had been in the previous day for a coffee. As we ate our breakfast a guy came up to our window and chapped a few times... trying to sell us Clorets... (my first reaction was how bad must my breath be if he could smell it through the glass) he did this a few times. At the same time three girls entered the cafe, stood quite near Joanne, took their jackets off (they looked as if they where going to take a table near us) and one asked Joanne for the time. Just after this the guy came into the cafe from the door behind me and again tried to sell us something. We both turned to the guy say we didn´t want anything. A few seconds later the 3 women left the cafe via a door behind Joanne. I didn´t know what had just happened but something didn´t feel right, so I checked my bag and wallet (both were ok) and I then said to Joanne if her bag was ok, it wasn´t there. I saw all of them running up the street and almost immediatley Joanne was up off her seat after them. I got to the door, realised that I had left my bag and turned to get that first before trying to catch up with Joanne, who I have never seen run so fast in my life (I haven´t ran as fast as that since I was in the 100 metres aged 15 in school (Joanne)). As Joanne got up to the end of the street two of the women and the guy were sauntering across the road they hadn´t seen her behind them......as she screamed at them she realised it was one of the girls who had the bag....there was a look of disbelief on her face and she dropped the bag. I caught up with Joanne just at this point. After checking the bag nothing was taken but Joanne´s sunglasses had been broken.

After the adrenaline had dropped off we realised that we probably shouldn´t have chased after them, we were pretty shaken up for a while that day but again we were very lucky to get the bag back. There wasn´t much in the bag: a sweatshirt, sunglasses, guidebook, a few pesos and the small digital camera but it was good just to get it back for the hassle factor.

That afternoon we decided to stay around San Telmo. We wandered about the antique market stalls as there were twice as many as the day before and watched the numerous street performers (we also saw one who reminded us of our old neighbour Maime playing drums, plastic cups and a Kazoo!!).

Next day we walked for miles to the Palermo district, it´s a bit like the west end (Byres Road, Ashton Lane & Gibson Street areas) with plenty of small cafe´s, bars, and arty shops. It was a lovely day and the place looked great with the sun filtering through all the trees. On the way back we took loads of pictures of the main avenues at night.

On our last full day in Buenos Aires we walked along the river front, Buenos Aires is about 5 to 10 years ahead of Glasgow in the redevelopment of their previous industrial river front. They have all the things up and running which Glasgow have planned for the next 5 years; fancy bridges, museums, international hotels, business headquarters, yauchting pontoons, loads of restaurants and great weather. I´m not sure if Glasgow will be able to compete on the last one.

Went on an late 19th century Argentinian ship (we weren´t sure if it was a warship or a cargo vessel) but it sure had a lot of guns and cannons. We also went to the Modern Art Gallery which was also really interesting.

Despite what happened on Sunday Buenos Aires will always hold special memories. It is a fantastic place with a great atmosphere with loads of cool places to eat, drink and chill out in. People here also love protesting so much that almost every day there was a march and demostration for one cause or another. We would recommend Buenos Aires to anyone and it is up there on our list of places to come back to.

Friday, April 01, 2005

Uruguay´s and Dolls

Before we left the UK we hadn´t really thought of heading too Uruguay... I thought maybe we could head over to Montevideo from Buenos Aires but never really gave it too much thought until we got here...but that´s why we left gaps in our itineary...

We had got speaking to a few people in the Hostel at Foz de Igazu who said the beaches in Uruguay where really nice...so when we got to Buenos Aires we checked out the price of the boat and decided to head over the River Plate and have a nosey about Uruguay....

Left Buenos Aires early on Monday 20th March and headed to Colonia del Sacramento on a three hour ferry across the River Plate for our first stop in Uruguay. On arrival we had no accommodation but managed to get somewhere fairly quickly and cheaply. Wasn´t too difficult as we were handed lots of flyers as we got off the boat.

Dumped our bags and roamed around the large town centre in about 10 mins. The place was undoubtedly very cute and you could see why it was mentioned in all the guide books, but there wasn´t much to do apart from watch the sunset. This we tried to do from the top of a lighthouse from which you could see for miles. As usual Joanne mucked up the time and we were over an hour too early due to the time difference from Uruguay and Argentina. Maybe it´s time I get another watch since I left my last one in Glasgow somewhere....

Colonia del Sacramento is your quintessential one horse town, but we searched over a day and a half for that horse but it wasn´t to be found! Colonia is the sleepy town to end all sleepy towns, it´s amazing anything gets done when all you see are people walking about with a thermos flask in one arm and cup containing tea mixed with cold orange or lemon juice and sooked through a pipe (this is known as Mate). We came across this a few times in Brazil and Argentina but everybody is at it here in Uruguay!

Next stop Montevideo, a two hour bus journey from Colonia. Went to our current most favouritely named restaurant "Don Pepperone". Next day we wandered about doing all the touristy things ; General Artigas Masoleum, antique stalls, government buildings, Joaquin Torres Garcia Museum (an abstract and cubist artist) and the new massive telephone offices which also had a museum including a display all about Alexander Graham Bell. Steptoe and Son´s empire seems to be alive and kicking here as we have seen many horse drawn carts loaded with odds and ends on the streets, maybe this is what has happened to Colonia´s missing horse.

At this juncture we had the option to either to head north to Fray Bentos in the ranching area but we canned this idea (Sorry Bad Joke - (c)Hugh Reilly 1973) and decided to head east to Punta del Este where the River Plate meets the Atlantic Ocean.

As it was coming up for the Easter weekend we tried to phone ahead to Punta Del Este to arrange accommodation, but to no avail. On arrival we found out that the place we were trying to phone no longer existed and took second best instead. After booking into numero dos we decided it wasn´t that great to spend the week in and spent the rest of the afternoon looking for a decent apartment for the week. A few false starts later we had found an excellent 8th floor apartment with views of both the Atlantic Ocean and the River Plate.

Punta del Este seems to be the playground of the rich from Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Pollokshields with many famous designer label shops and fancy restaurants. But never mind that´s why we´ve went self catering!

The beaches here are lovely, miles of clean golden sand and rolling waves ideal for windsurfers and surfers. There are many sellers on the beach but the best one yet was the guy selling leather jackets with sheepskin collars and cuffs - just what you need for a day on the beach (in Scotland maybe!).

Thursday to Sunday Punta Del Este was extremely busy and the beaches were mobbed....then comes Monday all you hear is the sound of packing tape and shutters closing on shops and restuarants. Unfortunately for us this is the start of autumn and most people move back to the cities, but there is still enough to keep us busy and the travel monopoly has come out of it´s box! NB their autumn is still around 26 degrees centigrade.

One night we were woken with a few strobes of lightning....and soon the thunder came. We seemed to be right underneath the storm for a good few hours before the rain came but the storm continued for a few hours more. Fortunately it had all passed and was dry by the time we got up in the morning.

We haven´t done too much here but chill out on the beaches... we´ve hired bikes a few times and cycled out to the more remote beaches... The waves are a bit wild at times and both of us have been knocked off our feet on more than one occasion... with skint knees to show for it..

One thing thay had been worrying me since leaving home was my hair.... don´t laugh there at the back... the thing is I have been getting my haircut by the same person for the last 12 to 13 years (thanks Ross)... Joanne has also got the same dilema.
So the thought of getting my haircut has been worrying me a while now.... but on a mad impulse whilst walking past a barbers in the old town of Punta del Este.. I decided to go in... The Barber couldn´t speak any English and mine´s is still struggling a bit... and my Spanish is even worse. But with Joanne´s phrasebook and much pointing I manged to escape with my hair a few inches shorter and able to walk the street without a hat all for the pricely sum of 1 UK pound. Joanne has decided that it might be best for her to find somewhere a little more upmarket but I am giving her a budget of 2 quid!!

People in Uruguay have been really friendly, helpful and will stop to talk to you. We´ve been given directions to the best beaches and good cheap restaurants. I´ve even had people toot at me and no it wasn´t my hoops top it was a Sweden top this time!!

We leave Punta del Este tonight (Friday) and plan to be in Buenos Aires until Wednesday when we fly to Santiago in Chile.