Long Night Bus Rides

I'm starting to get used to these long bus rides through the night and have a few things I always make sure are available in my bag.

1. I always take a big bag on the bus to make sure I have everything to hand. I also never put any valuables in my backpack which is stored below the bus, as we've had proof that people do take a peek at what's inside. I loved this black and White one

2. It's really important to be comfy, and that's pretty hard on a bus, especially when you can't afford to buy the fancy seats. Lots of bending and flexing is always involved for me before I can fall asleep, so leggingsare important! And the same for tshirts

3. The buses never seem to be able to get it right with the temperature, it's either always boiling hot or freezing cold, so I like to use lots of layers. I would love this Harry Potter jumperto pull on whenever the air con gets a little icy.

4. A scarf can be used as a blanket to keep warm, or balled up into a pillow, and always comes in handy.

5. Avoid cold toes by always packing a pair of socks.

6. Shoes that are easy to slip on and off are always helpful when the bus pulls over for a break and you have to make a dash to the toilets! I love the colour of these.

7. I'd be lost without things to entertain me on our long trips. I always pack my ipad, headphones, pen, a notebook and my book. The tablet has come in really handy for watching films and writing blog entries.

There are a couple of other things that I also like to pack that I would have been lost without, earplugs, a travel pillow and lots of snacks make the journey a little more bearable!

Horses from Hell in Salta

We took the 9:30am bus out of San Pedro headed for Salta on Thursday. The journey was supposed to take 10 hours, but it ended up taking more like 12 hours, mostly because of the strange way they arrange the border crossing, and when we got into Argentina there was so much rain! Something we hadn't seen for a long time! It was strange driving away from the driest place on earth, crossing the border and suddenly being greeted by a wet and green landscape.


We arrived at our hostel pretty late that night and we were pleasantly surprised by the hostel. It was called Hostal Salta Por Siempre, we had been upgraded to a private ensuite bathroom instead of the dormroom, and they were really helpful in ordering us some tasty pizza to be delivered which is exactly what we needed after our long journey and the gross bus food. The hostel had a really nice outiside area and a bar with ping pong tables. Because of the rain, everyone was taking shelter in the bar and it was nice to soak up the atmosphere.

The next morning, at breakfast we met lots of nice people, and planned our day together. Our first stop was the Museum of Archaelogoy, which contains the bodies of three children who were sacrificed in Inca times as a ritual. Their bodies were so high up that they were frozen in time and today are perfectly preserved. It was a little creepy and sad to see such a young child, curled in a tiny ball who had been left for dead alone.

On a more cheerful note, we met the others for lunch and decided to take the teleferico up the hill to the park, Cerro San Bernardo, where we spent a good few hours soaking up the sun.






Friends come and go when you travel, something I'm getting used to now. We'd only met them that morning, but it was Simon and Vera's last day in Argentina, so it seemed rude not to accompany them for their last steak dinner. The steak was humongous and very tasty!


The next day, we booked to go to a ranch set in the hills of Salta. Lisa and Krister decided to join us as Lisa is an expert horse rider, much better than the rest of us anyways.


We met the cutest kitten who was adapting to his new role as defender against rodents, but didn't seem to be doing too great a job as everyone keeps feeding him.

Next, we were told to get a helmet on and given a horse. I was offered a lovely chestnut brown one with a glossy black mane- little did I know it was the devil in the form of a horse.


I used to do horse riding when I was really young and like to think that I remembered the basics. But this horse had decided he was going to do whatever he wanted. This included walking on the grassy verges rather than the path, the grassy verges were surrounded by thorn bushes which weren't much fun. A few times he point blank refused to climb up the hills. The other horses obviously hated him as one tried to kick him, narrowly missing me. The finale of my wonderful time on the horse came to an end when the guide whipped my horse, who galloped off, directly into a tree.

Battered and bruised, I was very grateful to get off the horse! The men at the ranch had prepared an Asado for us and I felt much better being with the kitten again rather than my devillish horse! The others, on the other hand, all did really well and had a great trek into the mountains!



Our final day in Salta, we took a look around the crafts market and waited for our bus at 12 to head to Bolivia. It was a lovely way to end our time in Argentina.
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San Pedro De Atacama, star gazing and sand boarding

Nick and I had set off on our journey at 9am on Saturday, it was 10am on Sunday and the bus was in the middle of the desert. On the brink of grouchiness, I asked the man who was dishing out a less than appertising breakfast, what time we would arrive. When he said a few minutes, I glanced out the window, taking one look at the sandy hills and cactai and thought that I must have got my Spanish muddled up.

But low and behold, a few minutes later, a few buildings popped up in the distance. As we approached the buildings morphed into little mud huts and I realised that it must have been the worker who had got mixed up and thought that I was asking about another destination.

When we pulled into the station, everyone got off, apart from the other travellers who were peering out the window in disbelief at all of the bags being unloaded. Surely this dusty little town couldn´t be San Pedro De Atacama. Nick went down to ask and nodded when he came back up. We´d arrived!

We forlornly watched the bus disappear into the distance, thinking that we´d made a terrible mistake. All there was around us was dust and sleeping dogs.

Within 5 minutes we were approached by 2 people, offering rooms to rent. To be polite, we offered to think about them and asked one man if we could keep his flyer so we could find him again, but he told us that only people who stayed in his room were allowed a flyer. Bizarre.

It took us a while, but we eventually found a place to stay, a hostel called La Florida. It was pretty expensive compared to other hostels we stayed at, and didn´t include breakfast, but it was one of the cheapest we'd come across and the midday sun was really hot with our big bags on our backs. After 2 nights, we decided to change to the Youth Hostel Association Hostel as it was cheaper for a private room and offered breakfast. I have to say that I would strongly recommend that people DON´T stay at this hostel. It was really noisy, the toilets were filthy and the breakfast was appalling!


The main street, Caracoles, was completely white washed and filled with Artesan shops and tour operators trying to sell more activites than you could imagine possible. Within 10 minutes of us checking in, we heard lots of music from outside, so we went out and found a carnival was taking place!











We spent 5 days in San Pedro, our time in this lazy little dirt town was spent lazing in hammocks and reading, sandboarding in the desert, looking at rock formations that we were told looked like the three Marys, checking out old salt mines, climbing in caves, star gazing at midnight bonfire parties in the desert, eating the most amazing lemon merangue pie. All topped off with an awful eye infection for Nick.















The Atacama desert is the driest place on the earth, and the landscape was absolutely breath taking- I´d never seen anything like it before. Santiago and Valparaiso were beautiful, but they are reminiscent of things I´ve seen before. This is one of the places that really reminded me that I was travelling in a completely foreign place. Amazing.

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