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South and Central America

November 2022 - June 2023
A 202-day adventure by Sheila Read more
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  • TravelerSouth and Central America
    Day 48

    Santiago

    January 8, 2023 in Chile ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    Look at all these people I know! I arrived in Santiago only to be collected from the airport by Joseph and Sarah in their new wheels. After nearly 7 weeks away it was very lovely to see their familiar faces.
    Hostel: Ventura Sur Hostel. 10/10 hostel. I had been recommended it while I was in Brazil. The owner Ivan is a really cool guy and couldn't have made me feel more welcome. He does avocado and eggs for breakfast and did a huge BBQ for everyone.
    Day one in Santiago had me straight back in the shops to replace the puffa jacket I had lost. Bagged myself a bargain in the Patagonia outlet. The area of my hostel was very nice and we found a nice Italian vibey bar to have food for our first South American family dinner.
    Day two, I had Megan's arrival. I'm now not so solo on my solo travels. For the rest of our stay in Santiago we enjoyed getting to know everyone in the hostel, had a big hostel dinner, drank plenty of Pisco sours and tried to do a few touristy things. Santiago as a city didn't exactly have my heart. It was okay but I didn't feel very safe. Megan had her necklace stolen from her neck while on the walking tour and two people in the hostel had their phones stolen.
    I'll be coming in and out of Santiago a few times in the next couple of weeks so I'll have more opportunities to try to tick off more sights and attractions.

    Things I did:
    Explore the area of Barrio Italia
    Free walking tour
    Cable cars to see the view

    Recommendations:
    Be very very wary of theft    Read more

  • TravelerSouth and Central America
    Day 53

    Mendoza

    January 13, 2023 in Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    Back in my beloved Argentina to dive into the Malbec capital of the world. Megan and I got the 10am bus from Santiago. This is also where we were able to link back up with Joseph and Sarah. The drive was incredibly scenic with a very impressive corkscrew road. It took an age to pass through border control and we arrived at our destination at 6pm.

    Accommodation: Gorilla Hostel. It was pretty nice with very helpful staff. It seemed very social but we mostly did our own thing. It also has a very nice pool in the garden.

    -Day one, Joseph, Sarah and I wasted no time and went straight for steak at El Asadito. We ordered a BBQ platter that came with Argentinian black pudding, short ribs, pork and steak. This was all washed down with incredible Malbec. It was a complete treat to start off the trip and cost less that €10pp.
    -Day two, we started the day with the classic Western Union trip to get some pesos. This was followed by coffee to plan out our day. We headed to the wine area of Lujan de Cuyo to rent some bikes and cycle between vineyards. We had lunch at Bodega Gieco. We sat in a beautiful garden and the atmosphere and service was so lovely. We had a huge meat and cheese platter and, of course, Malbec. We cycled onto the vineyard Via Monte where we had a 4pm tasting booked. It was concluded that we all have kind of cheap pallets and the really expensive stuff is more or less wasted on us.
    -Day three. We had breakfast and then headed to explore Parque General San Martin. We chilled by the lake, read our books, stumbled across a vintage car show (to Joseph's delight) and also the Chilean Mustang Club. After a few happy hour cocktails we had a very lovely and fancy dinner at Anna's Bistro.
    -Day four, needing to have another vineyard fix to went to Roberto Bonfanti winery for lunch. Again it was a platter of meats and cheese but our favourite was still Bodega Gieco. We had a few more happy hour cocktails before we had to say our goodbyes to Joseph and Sarah.
    -Day five. Megan and I used up the last of our pesos by getting mani-pedis and spent the rest of the day chilling out before our night bus to Valparaiso. I also went to the gym in an attempt to combat the effects of falling into so many wineries.

    Recommendations/things I did:
    Explore the vineyards by bike
    Bodega Gieco (our favourite)
    Via Montie winery
    Bonfanti winery
    El Asadito for steak. 5⭐
    Anna's Bistro for dinner. It's French.
    White Shark coffee
    Parque San Martin    Read more

  • TravelerSouth and Central America
    Day 58

    Valparaiso

    January 18, 2023 in Chile ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    Megan and I got the overnight bus from Mendoza straight into Valparaiso. Border control took an age and we were freezing on the bus. Otherwise it was an okay journey but we were pretty tired for our first day here.

    Accommodation: Hostel Po. A very lovely hostel with a great communal area in the roof of the building. Very laid back staff. Ended up extending for an extra two nights. Spent four nights here in total.

    Valparaiso is a UNESCO town and became a popular place for artists to settle in the 90s. The town was originally formed as a result of the port which was once the largest and most important in Chile. It has a total of 42 hills. The main tourist hill is called Happy Hill. Definitely the safest place to stay and to wander the streets. We walked the length and breadth of this while we were here taking in the street art. It's a good work out for the legs. Our days consisted of walking tours (we did two), going for coffee and chilling in the hostel. We opted against going out at night mainly for safety reasons. We had been well warned to be extremely careful. There is a lot of theft here which unfortunately has gotten a lot worse lately. Someone I know from home sent me a message saying him and his wife were attacked at gun point a few weeks earlier.
    The neighbouring towns are also lovely and worth checking out. They're very close by and all run into one another. We did a trip to Vina del Mar and Concon where we watched the sunset from the sand dunes.

    Recommendations/things I did:
    Walking tours of Valparaiso
    Maria Maria for food. I went three times! Excellent coffee, the best pastries and do a fabulous brunch. The lunch menu starts at 1pm. Got the cauliflower sandwich. The place is a must.
    Coffee at 504 Coffee
    Get empanadas from Le Pató
    Hotel Brighton for a drink. Has a great view from the terrace. They do an excellent Pisco Sour.

    Vina del Mar:
    Went to the beach
    Had lunch at Noosa Cafe

    Concon:
    Black sand beach - pretty tacky and far too many people
    Las Deliciosas for empanadas - I got the crab stuffed one. It was a recommendation from the Lonely Planet book.
    Watch the sunset from the sand dunes. According to Megan, they have nothing on the ones in Donegal!

    Get the local bus between the towns. It only cost around 50p. They drive like lunatics and it feels like you're on a low key rollercoaster.    Read more

  • TravelerSouth and Central America
    Day 63

    Pucon

    January 23, 2023 in Chile ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Megan and I took an overnight bus from Santiago to reach Pucon. We booked a premium bus and were very excited to be able to have a seat that went the full 180. We arrived at 6:30am so we had to kill some time sitting on a curb outside a coffee shop drinking terrible coffee until we could check into the hostel.
    Pucon is a volcanic town which currently has a semi-active volcano. During our stay it went from a yellow to an amber warning alert. The town is beautiful and would remind you of a little European ski town. It has huge lakes with black sand beaches.

    Accommodation: Chili Kiwi hostel. It's such a great hostel and we loved it here. It has loads of different sections with various kitchens and hangout areas. It has a treehouse that overlooks the lake and has great sunset views.

    -Day 1: arriving to the hostel I met plenty of familiar faces. I met Emma from Patagonia, Elisa from Santiago and Ronan from Mendoza. I also linked back up with Joseph and Sarah for our Chilean family holiday. Day one was pretty chilled, checkout out the town and had drinks in the hostel.
    -Day 2: We had a slow start to the day and then hiked/hitched to a nearby waterfall. It was a much steeper climb than we anticipated so we weren't too mentally prepared. Very kindly, we were offered a lift back to town by a Chilean couple in their huge truck. Predictably, Joseph was very happy with this. In the evening we had the vans first BBQ. We had steak and ribs which dad would say were "cooked to perfection".
    -Day 3: this was an advertuous day. We went hydrospeeding which was floating through rapids on a river while lying on top of a tiny foam board. I was clinging on for dear life and stressfully kicking to stay in line and keep clear of rocks. It was a great adrenaline surge. In the evening we had our second BBQ, this time joined by Ronan and Gandalf the beagle.
    -Day 4: We went to the national park called Huerquehue and did the San Sebastian hike. This was steep and hands down the hardest hike I've done in SA. It was 1300m in elevation. It took the full day but gave us incredible views of the area. We were very pleased with ourselves and had a cup of Barry's tea when we were back down in the van. We ate out at Cassis restaurant and went to bed very tired.
    -Day 5: The last day of our little family holiday. We rented out kayaks and had Rob from the hostel join us. Sarah and I took turns being in the middle to be the ladies of leisure not having the paddle. We had a few drinks at the hostel before saying our sad goodbyes. Megan and I took our night bus to head back north.

    Recommendations:
    San Sebastian hike
    Hydrospeed
    Rent kayaks
    Hike to the waterfall (can't remember the name)
    You can also climb a volcano but it's pricey and we couldn't get to the top as it's active    Read more

  • TravelerSouth and Central America
    Day 68

    San Pedro de Atacama

    January 28, 2023 in Chile ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    We took a night bus from Pucon to get us to Santiago. We spent a few hours killing time in a shopping mall before heading to the airport to fly to Calama. From there we took a shared taxi/shuttle to the town of San Pedro. It was like entering the wild wild west.

    Accommodation: Casa Voyage. This was a lovely hostel and the top rated to stay. It was very camp-like with lots of individual buildings and outdoor hangout areas. They did a group dinner every night. We were there for burger night and pizza night. Both included wine for a total of £5.

    -Day one. We spent the morning sussing out tours for the following days and how best to enter the salt flats. We ended up booking three tours through the company Eco Tours for a total of £108.
    We did the 3pm tour to Valle de la Luna (moon valley). It included a picnic with Pisco sours. The scenery was very impressive and we got a gorgeous sunset.
    -Day two. We did a full day tour to Piedras rojas. This was so enjoyable. The guide was excellent and told us so many great facts. I learned that cactuses grow arms for balance and the lama came about from the vicuna and guanaco cross breeding. Also that vicunas are the ones with yellow faces while the guanaco has a black face. The air is so clear in the Atacama that the human eye can see three times its normal distance and it's also the second driest place on earth. The driest surprisingly is Antarctica. We saw several lagoons with flamingos and some impressive red rock. The tour included an excellent breakfast and lunch.
    In the evening we went star gazing. The Atacama is the best place in the world for viewing stars. It was really great to be able to see the moon through a telescope and learn that the closest star to the moon is actually Mars.
    -Day three. We designated this day to planning. It was a bit of a struggle considering pretty much all networks went down. The down side to being in a desert! We lazed by the pool and ended up going to an electronic club with the hostel.

    Recommendations;
    Booked our tours through EcoTours. Found them pretty good and they let you haggle the price. Also booked our salt flat tour with them.
    Roots sandwich bar.    Read more

  • TravelerSouth and Central America
    Day 72

    Salt Flats

    February 1, 2023 in Bolivia ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    My three day/tour night salt flats tour. I booked this through Eco Tours for £170. It was a pretty good price. I learned that it basically doesn't matter who you book through. They're all more or less the same.
    I had a very lucky, small world moment. I ended up being on the same tour and in the same car as Kate, who I know from home. We had been in contact during our trips but it was by complete chance we ended up together.
    Day one of the tour brought me into Bolivia. We had six people in our 4x4. We were very lucky to have Kate and Gina along with Femka and Marlise who we had met on a previous tour. I saw plenty of lagoons. One of them was pink and had thousands of flamingos. We stayed in a very basic guest house and had a pretty poor dinner. It was bed early with some mild altitude sickness. We did however have some very funny chats in what felt like a big sleepover. It was very cute!
    Day two brought us through interesting rock landscape. We saw some geysers. Turns out they smell really really bad. We stayed in nicer accommodation but the food was still pretty sad.
    Day three. Finally got to the salt flats. We had to get up at 4:30 to make sunrise. Unfortunately it was pretty cloudy but it was nice all the same. The salt flats were stunning and thankfully I got the desired mirror effect. When I was originally planning my route I wanted to be here during the rainy season purely for this reason. After the tour we were dropped off in Uyuni where we caught an overnight bus to La Paz. We said our good-byes to Femka and Marlise and continued on as a four.    Read more

  • TravelerSouth and Central America
    Day 75

    La Paz

    February 4, 2023 in Bolivia

    La Paz is definitely a city where you feel more out of your comfort zone. The altitude is intense. Walking up a slight hill has me out of breath and my lips have a slight tinge of blue. The city itself is complete chaos but it's really lovely to see how it hasn't been westernised. The city is still two thirds indigenous people. You can see the local cholitas in their traditional clothes while working at the local street food stalls. Bolivians are very local people and no franchise or chain restaurant has ever been able to survive here.

    Accommodation: Wild Rover. Can't say I'm the biggest fan. It's a notorious party hostel and I'm not really in the mood for partying. It's also Irish owned.

    -Day one: We arrived early on an overnight bus from Uyuni. We went to The carrot tree restaurant (Irish owned) and had a delicious breakfast. We then watched Ireland Vs Wales in the first of the 6 nations matches at the Lucky Llama. We checked into our hostel and I met my friend Grant who I originally met in the Philippines five years ago. We went to a local market together that's only on for the month of February. It's a religious market where they buy things in miniature versions. The miniature things are to represent everything that they want for the year (eg a new fridge or stacks of money). They then give these to a little god that has cigarettes in its mouth. The cigarettes need to be lit every Thursday at 12pm for a whole year. They seem to be very superstitious here.
    -Day two: we had another long breakfast at the Carrot Tree and I had a planning day. I booked my flights to Rio and to Mexico city. That evening we went to a Cholita wrestling match. It's one of the recommended things to do here. To be honest, it didn't really float our boat.
    -Day three: I had lunch at a famous street stall called Doña Emi. It was fried mash potato with a meat filling. It was very tasty. I then went to meet Crazy Dave, and ex inmate from the famous San Pedro prison. He's become a bit of a tourist attraction who tells you about the lawless life inside the prison and his time making "the best" cocaine in Bolivia inside the prison walls. The book Marching Powered has made it known to the world and I'll definitely be giving it a read. After that I did the Red Cap city walking tour and learned more about the superstitious ways of the Bolivian people. They believe in sacrifices when building property. This is often a dead lamba but an urban legend has everyone convinced some also used people. In the evening I had dinner with the girls at The Curry House. It was nice to get some spice again.
    -Day four: I went to meet Gina for breakfast at Cafe del Mundo and then for lunch headed to get a chola sandwich. This was again a location from the Netflix documentary. I spent the rest of the afternoon back in the same cafe to do some planning and organise heading to Lake Titicaca the following day.

    Recommendations:
    Try all the street food you can and watch the Netflix documentary beforehand.
    The Carrot Tree. Great food and Irish owned.
    The lucky Llama. Irish pub
    Cafe del Mundo
    Cholita wrestling
    Witches market
    Get the cable cars around the city.    Read more

  • TravelerSouth and Central America
    Day 79

    Lake Titicaca

    February 8, 2023 in Bolivia ⋅ ☁️ 9 °C

    I've learned that Lake Titicaca is both the largest lake in South America but is also the highest of the world's largest lakes. It's shared by Bolivia and Peru. We broke the trip up by spending one night on Isla del Sol and one in Copacabana.
    Isla del Sol:
    Accommodation: Hostal Tawri. It was more of a homestay than a hostel and was owned by a very sweet local couple. The room was freezing at night and there was no hot water. Slightly to be expected based on where we were.

    Day one: we arrived at Copacabana from La Paz on a local but. It was a bit of a rough ride and took 4 hours. From there we took a 1.5 hour ferry to the island. The lake was beautiful and we definitely struggled with the altitude on the hike up to the accommodation. On arrival we learned you could only pay in cash and there are no ATMs on the island. Both Megan and I and an Oz couple we met were strapped for cash. After a long discussion it was decided that I would transfer the Oz couple money and they would pay for our accommodation when the owner of the hostel went back to the mainland with them when they could us an ATM. It was an absolute faff. We then had to hunt for the cheapest place we could find to have dinner.
    Day two: We met a lovely Irish/Swiss couple at breakfast. We were sad we couldn't spend the whole day with them. Megan and I went for a little stroll to see more of the island. Low and behold, we found a restaurant that not only accepted card but also gave cashback. We sat and had coffee and took in the spectacular view of the lake. It also looked out onto Peru which is the closest I'll be getting for the foreseeable future. We were so close, our phones changed to Peruvian time. We then made the decent back down to the harbour for the 3pm ferry.

    Copacabana:
    Accommodation: Hostal Florencia. It was £6 each for a private room. It was extremely basic but it was to be expected with the price. Breakfast was inedible but the showers were good.

    We didn't do a whole lot here but it was nice to chill out. I got some nice fresh trout for dinner by the waterfront and we tried the Bolivian drink Singani in a Chuflay cocktail.    Read more

  • TravelerSouth and Central America
    Day 81

    La Paz, take two

    February 10, 2023 in Bolivia ⋅ ⛅ 13 °C

    I've come back to La Paz for one last stint.
    Accommodation: Skyline hotel. It was my first time on the trip having a private room to myself. It was pretty loud though and very cold at night.

    Getting back from Isla del Sol, I said my sad goodbyes to Megan. It was so lovely to have her with me for so long.
    On Saturday I did the much anticipated Death Road. I booked this through Altitude tours. I went for the cheapest package which cost 350 Bolivianos. It included breakfast (coffee and a breakroll), some snacks and lunch (rice and chicken). The cycle itself was really good. It's true that it is scary but not as bad as it's hyped up to be. The scenery is great and the cliff drops at the side of the road are scarily steep. We weren't able to completely finish the death road as a land slide a few weeks earlier has blocked the road. This meant we had to drive the whole way back up which was even scarier than being on a bike. I would have preferred if the tour didn't include lunch as it meant we spent hours driving to the "hotel" where it was located. We finished cycling at 11:30 and didn't arrive back to La Paz until 18:00.    Read more

  • TravelerSouth and Central America
    Day 83

    Santa Cruz

    February 12, 2023 in Bolivia ⋅ 🌬 30 °C

    I have absolutely nothing factual to say about Santa Cruz as I did absolutely nothing here.

    Accommodation: Hostal Backpackers Travelero. It was the top rated in the area on hostelworld. I spent two nights here. The beds were very comfortable, it has a pool and they do a good free breakfast. Ticked all the boxes but didn't have many bathrooms.

    I met Marlise again here. It was lovely to be arriving to a familiar face. I was pretty exhausted the day I got here and I woke up to an extremely swollen eye. I have no idea why it's so bad but it's not painful. I took a very strong antihistamine. It was like being on a sedative for the day so I was pretty dead to the world. I more or less just ate and slept. For lunch I had amazing Saltenas and for dinner I stumbled upon the best sushi. It was a set sushi menu so I left absolutely stuffed and it only cost £6.    Read more

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