• Lara Chadwick
jan. – apr. 2020

South America

This is the website where I will be posting updates on my trip to South America!! Læs mere
  • Cusco

    5. marts 2020, Peru ⋅ 🌧 12 °C

    TREASURE HUNT! Yesterday we explored Cusco in a very unusual way...

    Our guide Ronald took us on a treasure hunt all around Cusco!

    First, we were at a cathedral where we saw lots of gold stolen from the Incas. There was also a HUGE oil paining painted by the Incas but the order of the Spanish of the last supper, but they were all eating guinea pig, because thats what the Incas thought was a grand meal!

    Next we went to a market and there were rows and rows of sellers selling souvenirs and fruits! It reminded me of Serangoon in Singapore, and my mum called it Perangoon! Like Serangoon in Peru! We went to find some Peruvian fruit and it was so delicious! Straight from the mountains!

    After that, we went to an Inca temple and all the stones were completely and perfectly aligned! It must have taken ages! Also the temple was seismic proof! It has stood in the same place for 600 years and still looks perfect!

    The last stop was the square where the treasure was hidden! I solved the final clue and found the treasure, which was lots of Inca souvenirs including llamas!

    We finished off our day by going to the Pisco museum, where my parents had cocktails 🍹 🍸!
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  • La Paz

    7. marts 2020, Bolivia ⋅ ⛅ 8 °C

    We arrived in La Paz yesterday and it is the worlds highest capital city (Of Bolivia) at 3600 metres above sea level! And the airport is at 4000 metres! The air is quite thin and most people get altitude sickness but we are okay because we acclimatised in Peru. What I find really extraordinary is all of La Paz was UNDERSEA!

    My favourite thing we did today was visit a place called ‘Moon Valley’. La Paz used to be underwater, and we found some fossils of fish, which is surprising as we are nearly 4000 metres up in the sky... The Moon Valley is a place is an “Other Worldy” place, hence the name, Moon Valley. The rocks were nothing like I had ever seen before! Every one was different but all the same?

    Next we went on a CABLE CAR! Instead of an underground train system, they have a cable car system! 🚡 🚠 It was so cool to see the city from above! The cable cars are the same as at the ski resorts without the ski holes on the outside and it felt like we were going skiing! (Without snow)

    Driving through La Paz, we saw loads of Cholets, which are super fancy houses that are used for weddings, anniversaries, 15th birthday parties, which is a special birthday in Bolivia. Personally, I find the Cholets quite tacky, don’t tell anyone 🤫, but they are obviously very popular with the Bolivians!
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  • Uyuni

    9. marts 2020, Bolivia ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    Today has been a salty day...
    After a short flight from La Paz to Uyuni, we first went to see a train cemetery. The idea was that Uyuni would be a big train intersection but it didn’t work out, so now there are lots of mostly rusted steam trains sitting in the middle of nowhere. My dad and I had lots of fun pretending we were in Red Dead Redemption 2! We pretended to rob people with out pretend guns an we pretended to drive the train! It was so much fun 🚂!

    Next we drove to the salt flats and you could see all around you for miles without seeing other people. If there were cars far away they looked like hovercrafts because of the heat haze. At one point we stopped to take some silly photos which looked great because of the plain white background of the salt flats.

    In the evening we went to watch the sunset at a place in the salt flats with 5 centimetres of water, and everything reflected off it as there was plain white underneath. It was like the world’s largest mirror!

    Uyuni is supposed to have a great night sky but there were so many clouds we only saw 4 stars.
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  • Siloli Desert

    9. marts 2020, Bolivia ⋅ ☁️ 5 °C

    The last 2 days were incredible days like no other as we moved towards San Pedro in Chile from Uyuni in Bolivia. We travelled by 4x4 through some amazing scenery including several lagoons with BRIGHT PINK FLAMINGOS 🦩!

    The scenery seemed to change every hour! Every hour we were in a completely different alien landscape. We saw from volcanic rocks, to red and green lagoons full of flamingos! At one point it seemed as although we were on Mars!

    I’m writing this Blog post from a hotel which is 4700m altitude. The air here is really thin and there was an old man using an oxygen cylinder in reception when we arrived. The electricity and hot water are all solar powered, so everything except the lights shuts down at 10pm...that includes the heating 🥶 and wifi.
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  • San Pedro de Atacama

    13. marts 2020, Chile ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    We are now in Chile! We are in a town called San Pedro de Atacama which is at the edge of the Atacama desert. The Atacama desert is supposed to be one of the driest places in the world. The average rainfall is 15 mm per year, however it has rained every day that we have been here, causing floods and powercuts in the shops and streets. The desert is a 600 mile plateau west of the Andes mountains.

    The thing that I find most interesting is how much the desert looks like the planet Mars. In fact, the Atacama is often used for filming Mars scenes, and is being used by NASA to test instruments for Mars missions. It looks like Tatooine from Star Wars.

    Yesterday we went to see La Valley de Luna and the Mars Valley. I couldn’t believe how alien the landscape looked for miles around us as far as the eye could see.

    2 days ago we visited the geysers and hot springs in the Atacama desert called El Tatio. It was at 4320 metres altitude, which again made the air very thin and extremely cold. It is the 3rd largest geyser field in the world! The reason this was so amazing to watch is because this is still a seismically active area, with active volcanoes all around 🌋! Some of the geysers were spewing out water and boiling mud and our guide said it looks like the gateway to hell!

    The town of San Pedro is really cute! There are LOADS of dogs all around! It looks like a wild west town! All the houses are built the same too!
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  • Lama hike

    15. marts 2020, Argentina ⋅ 🌧 14 °C

    Now I know for sure that Llamas are super cute! They look just like camels and they always have a very smug face. My Llama was called Miski, which means sweet in Quechua, and he really was sweet! He tried to make friends with the dogs but they kept running away and then Miski got sad.

    The organisation was trying to bring back the use of Llamas for transportation, and they carried out lunch all the way up the hill and we had some ham cheese and grapes while we watched the llamas rolling around and the dogs chasing rabbits! We each got to lead our own llama and my dad’s llama kept sneezing on him and making funny noises! My llama kept resting his head on my shoulder and putting his face in my face and my mum just took the photos!

    After that my mum and dad went for a walk around the town and saw loads of pretty mountains as you can see in the photos! (I didn’t go because I was super tired after our llama walk!)
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  • Coming home!!!!

    17. marts 2020, Argentina ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    As some of you may know, we are cutting our trip just a little bit short because of the Coronavirus. We are going to finish the trip here (Salta, Argentina) because the borders will be closing soon for people coming out. It doesn’t feel like a holiday, as everyone is treating us differently, all the hotel staff stay very far away from us and won’t touch us etc. We even had to show our passports to the waiter before we could eat any food!

    We arrived at the airport and immediately our flight had been cancelled and we were trying to get to Brazil (for our connecting flight to London) and so we were trying to negotiate our way into several flights to get to Brazil.

    Funny story

    I bought an alarm keychain in Colombia and when we were going through security the pin got pulled out by the machine in the conveyor belt and make a HUGE sound and it was so loud I thought someone had something bad in their case! 😂

    I will be updating this blog post as we go through the days!

    Wish us luck!
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  • Coming home!! Part 2

    17. marts 2020, Argentina ⋅ 🌧 22 °C

    We arrived in Cordoba by aeroplane! Our next flight is in 2 hours so we are sitting down and I’m going to eat some pizza! (If they actually come and take our order, they act like we have the plague.)

    The airport is almost empty!
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  • Coming home!! Part 3

    17. marts 2020, Argentina ⋅ 🌧 20 °C

    We arrived in Buenos Aires! We are still stuck in the airport which is a shame because Buenos Aires is such as cool city! I’ll definitely come back and visit it soon!

    We are about to get a 5 hour (?) flight to Brazil!Læs mere

  • Coming home!! Part 4

    18. marts 2020, Brasilien ⋅ 🌙 24 °C

    We arrived in Rio! We are going to stay the night and explore tomorrow then get on our way home tomorrow!

  • Coming home!! Part 6

    19. marts 2020, England ⋅ ☁️ 9 °C

    We landed at Gatwick Airport and we are in our way home!

    Slut på rejsen
    7. april 2020