Thursday 24th July 04 We have arrived in the final destination of our trip - Rio De Janeiro! Having arrived just after midnight we checked into a nice hotel in Copacabana, to rest out weary bones! Friday 25th July 04 After a lie-in this morning. we put on our summer clothes and headed out to see what Copacabana has to offer! It was just as we had imagined! After walking the short distance to the beach, we found hundreds of people dressed in the ...

Monday 7th June 04 Today we woke at 7.00am, to catch the bus over the border to Puno in Peru. Only 30 minutes into the journey the bus ceased to work, so we sat on the hard shoulder of a Bolivian highway for around 40 minutes waiting for a new bus to arrive - Good Start!!! From here we were met with various road blocks from raged farmers who had dumped truck loads of rocks in the middle of the road. To take the biscuit we had to attempt bribing the elders w...

Tuesday 25th May 04 Today we boarded our bus at 7am and arrived in San Pedro De Atacama, Northern Chile at 6pm, after an extremely rickety bus ride. This is our first experience of high altitude, as San Pedro is situated 2500 metres above sea level, which caused us to have headaches as we neared the town. San Pedro is a small town, in the middle of the Atacama Desert, which is the driest desert in the world and the views of the surrounding volcanoes an...

Saturday 1st May 04 Today we took the bus from Santiago to Argentina's wine growing capital - Mendoza. On the bus journey we passed through the cactus filled hills and beautiful snow-capped peaks of the Chilean side of the Andes, onto the arid landscape of the Argentine side. We arrived at 10p.m. and checked into a hotel for the night. Sunday 2nd May 04 This morning we went in search of an alternative hotel as we were kept awake during the night...

Friday 23rd April 2004 Well after an 11 hour flight, which was extremely turbulent, we landed in Santiago airport. Things were relatively straight forward with collecting bags and negotiating a bus to the hostel. After checking in we went straight to bed for a couple of hours needed sleep. In the evening we went out to town to a take away pizza chain, where we saw one women and her son going through bins and dashing to tables after people finished to ea...