In between the buses...

Hola!

This report is brought to you from Arica, Chile!
It's noon here, 22nd of August, and it's a Friday.
We got here after a 10-hour bus ride from San Pedro de Atacama, and are waiting for the next bus (a 15-hour one) to Cusco, Peru.
A good chance to keep this blog up-to-date, eh? ;)

In the last post from San Pedro de Atacama I forgot to mention one small detail. When they turn the power off overnight, there is also no water, at all (yay for brushing teeth and washing hands with bought bottled water!). We heard several stories on why all that happens, from the one of the dead generator to the one of many locals not paying for electricity so the electric company shuts things down as a way of punishment. Anyway, yesterday the town (San Pedro) was full of black flags as a sign of protest against "the darkening".
And it had no water at all. The ENTIRE day. Real nice when you just come from the desert and need to go to a 2-day trip (I won't even talk about the toilets lol).

Lesson learned: when in the desert, cherish the moments with power and water, and use them even if you don't need to just yet! (oh and bottle some water for times of crisis ;))

However, since we were out-of-town for most of the day, we have something to show for it.
The waking up at 4 AM to go to the Tatio geysers and freeze there at the mentioned -15 degrees for a while was well worth it. For me, it was the most beautiful experience yet on this trip.
You wake up at 4 AM, in the darkest of towns (oh yes, I didn't mention that I've never seen so many stars in the sky in my life!), and a bus takes you for 3 hours up a bumpy "road" up to 4300m where it gets colder and colder.
Upon arrival, we got some breakfast and the "Coca tea" (tea of coca leaves). Supposedly it helps prevent the simptoms of altitude sickness :)

And then the sun rises:

Note the people in the picture (you can click it for a bigger view) to get the feeling of just how big these things are ;)
Coupled with the sunrise, it surely was a good way to keep oneself warm, however a braver few wanted more:

The water itself was supposedly quite warm, but the part of getting into (and especially *out* of it) must've been quite shocking (I skipped this experience thank you very much :))
One more look at the geyser grounds:

and we're slowly moving off...

We ride on through the desert to the Cactus Valley. Oddly enough, even though there is a straight road, many seem to take alternate routes beside it (through the rocky parts), our driver included:

Oh yeah, on the way we stopped for a short snack of Llama meat. Yummy! :D


And then on to the Cactus Valley:


Ok, that was the morning. Around 1 PM we returned to San Pedro and grabbed some lunch, and then right off to the next trip - Valle de la Muerte and Valle de la Luna.
First, Valle de la Muerte (Valley of Death), which is actually not all that big when looked from above (it is quite big though).

Then another short bus trip, leading to the hills above Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley):

From this view, we sandslided down into the valley (some even rolled down the sand lol), and took a walk to the other side and through the canyons to exit on the other end of this mountain "complex".
As the sunset was approaching, we climbed up a "secret" sand dune :)
All the other agencies go to the neighbouring dune (more easily accessible, but therefore much more crowded), and our little group climbed a steep sandy path and finally reached this spot:

From here we could sit and watch the sunset, which was much quicker than expected, but gave some nice colors on the mountains on the other side (seek the people in some of the pictures ;))




And with that, we rushed on to the bus to Arica, slept through the night on that bus, and are now sitting in a net cafe in Arica awaiting that next one to Cusco...
Until next time...

A post from the middle of nowhere...

San Pedro de Atacama - is the name of the place we're in now.
The date is 20th of August and it's a Wednesday, I think. It's evening now (7 PM) and we wake up at 3:30 for a morning trip to the nearby geysers. So I'll try not to be too long ;)

I'm a bit lost in space and time at the moment, so ignore the weirdness in the post if there will be any. It's a weird place we are in :)

Anyway, San Pedro de Atacama. It's a village near the meeting point of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, on the Chilean side. It is literally in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by deserts, and full of fun facts like the following:
- it's 25-30 degrees celsius during the day, and you scorch in the sun... it's below zero in the night, with a constant chilling desert wind
- sand is EVERYWHERE... village has no roads of course, just sand paths, so everything that passes raises even more sand
- power generator (the only one of course) died last week, so we have no electricity between midnight and 8AM
- there is warm water sometimes, if you're lucky
- no heaters in the hostel, just lots of layers and you hope not to move to the cold part of the bed
- two ATMs in "town", one of which never has any cash, the other had some yesterday
- dozens of internet cafes (this seems like the business of the moment in these parts), along with as many tourist agencies for doing mini-trips to nearby places of interest...
...and there ARE places of interest, and that is why we are here!

But first, the view from our hostel:

and the main street of S.P. de Atacama:


We arrived late yesterday and booked some tours for the two days that we're here.
Tomorrow we will go to the geysers till lunch, and to the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley) and Valle de la Muerte (Death Valley) in the afternoon, and sit on a bus to Arica right after that (another 12 hour ride I think, but at least overnight... sleeping on buses is becoming a common thing here)

But anyway, back to today. After waking up at 5:30 we went to the nearby salt flats. Seeing the mirage in the desert as the sun was rising was an amazing sight indeed. Walls of heated air were formed around us and gave hope to a warmer outside after leaving the bus at the destination. Still, my fingers were freezing as I was trying to take photos. I see gloves coming up tomorrow, and even more layers! (they say it's -15 celsius at the geysers, at 4300m altitude)
In the salt flats there were the pink flamingos:

and later on we moved to a few lagoons (whose names I can't remember now but I will later :p) high up in the mountains:


This was accompanied by a walk down a canyon:


On the way back, we stopped at the spot marking the ancient Inka trail, which is a straight path connecting Cusco, Peru and Santiago, Chile:

and the new road beside it:


There were a few more cool events but we have no time to write about everything (and gotta leave some stories to tell for when we get back home now don't we :))

Almost 10PM here now, so sleep time. Wake up at 3:30AM and off to the coldness.
We're on a quite tight schedule in the next 2-3 days, in an attempt to reach Cusco as fast as possible, so expect more when we get there...

Adios!

A taste of Argentina

Allrighty, back in the hostel after our first "excursion" - to Cafayate. But we'll get back to Cafayate, let's go back to the start of South America first...

After a sleepless "night" in London on the 16th, we had to leave at 3 AM to Heathrow Airport to catch the flight to Buenos Aires. Everything went on time, first one of smaller Iberia's planes to Madrid (they gave us no food grrrr, even though the ticket said they would! unforgivable!!!), then after a 2 hour wait a bigger one to Buenos Aires.
We got the aisle seats so as to be able to stretch our legs (flying for 12 hours sitting 99% of the time is NO fun, especially if you're on the taller side of the population) and after what seemed an endless no-real-sleep watching some already seen movies and episodes of Friends(?!) the arrival to Buenos Aires was finally announced.
Outside of the plane there were some thunderstorms (and I believe I saw a lightning hit the plane on one of the screens showing the outside of the plane, but then again, maybe it was just some random lightning :p), and at one point the plane dropped through some turbulence and caused quite a few of the passengers to recheck their seatbelts and contemplate the meaning of life :)
I have to mention that these guys made it up for the last plane, with a basically all-you-can-eat/drink kind of food programe (although they did run out of sandwitches and coke pretty soon lol).

Anyway, being that the plane landed a bit later than it should have, and that Marko's luggage came down that line dead LAST, and that we had less than an hour to reach the Retiro main bus terminal, find the last bus to Salta and get on it (bus to Retiro drives for about an hour), we took a cab and got our own driver.
Supposedly there is quite a high crime rate in Buenos Aires (even my plane co-traveller warned me about it :)), so you don't just pick any cab. You get to a cab company booth and they provide you a cab and a driver.
Luckily, the driver was awesome and got to Retiro in only 30 minutes.

Aaaanyway, long story short, we got on that 18-hour bus to Salta, from which we could finally make our first photos of Argentina.
First sunrise from a gas station next morning:

A bit later the bus had to slow down and wait for the goats to clear from the road:

and this is also a typical scene from this 18-hour bus drive down the 2-lane (one each way) straight road through the desert:


Finally, we arrive in Salta. Already at the bus terminal several people want us to go into "their" hostel, and being that practically the only Spanish we know is "no entiendo" (I don't understand) we went with the one speaking best English :)
Since it was already evening, and Salta has a nice little hill above it, we decided to go have a walk up and see Salta from above:

Original plan was to go on to San Pedro de Atacama as soon as possible, but we just realized here that the bus goes three times a week, next one being Tuesday morning. We got a ticket for that one and had to think of something to do in the one day we had to spend in or near Salta.
Luckily, with help from another hostel guest who speaks both Spanish and English (such people are a godsend to us here :)) we also found a tourist agency and booked the mentioned excursion to Cafayate.
So, today early morning - the agency bus picked us up at the hostel and started slowly southwards...
Lesson learned: if you need Spanish to book a trip, it's likely that no one on that trip will know English...
Thus, we didn't understand almost a thing the guide was saying, but that didn't stop us from running around taking photos every chance we had. In fact, from first stop onwards, the guide was most heard calling our names to get back to the bus :)
(seems most tourists are happy with just getting off the bus and taking a minute to have their photo taken at a spot and want to go on as soon as possible... not us though :p)
Anyway, a bit of what we saw today...



There'll be more, but since it's past midnight here now and we have to wake up at 4:30 to catch the bus to San Pedro de Atacama (that's in Chile), and this computer is waaaaaay too slow to do anything more and stay sane - we're off to sleep...

Catch you all tomorrow, hopefully from San Pedro ;)

London impressions

OK, I still owe a few words about my London experience. I'll keep it short since Daniel described everything in such detail.

The first thing you notice when you arrive to London is how multicultural and multiracial it is. It's like nothing I ever saw before. Just as I stepped out of our train at Victoria station just by turning my head around I could se both black and white people, Japanese, Chines, Arabs, Indians... The city is also just full of tourists from all over so you also hear all sorts of languages around you, not just English.

For the most part we were walking in the center where the streets are full of all sorts of shops, there were a lot of people everywhere, both tourists and locals. It's not hard to find a place to sit down and have something to drink or eat. People seemed pretty nice.

I really liked 'the tube'. It so great! Even if you have to change 3 trains it still takes you just a few minutes to get from one place to the other. The subway maps are posted everywhere so it's easy to find your way around. The only downside is that it's always very hot underground, neither the stations or the trains have any air condition.

One thing that is a bit of a problem, at least for us from Croatia are the prices. London is expensive. For example, if you want to seat somewhere and eat something simple like a sandwich and have some bottled water with that you'll pay at least 5 GBP for that. In Zagreb it's at least half of that. Its pretty much the same with all the prices, it's something like x2 compared to Zagreb (if you're lucky).

All in all, I liked London a lot and would like to go there again sometime if I can. The only thing I didn't like was how expensive it was.

A few shots of the famous landmarks:

The Gherkin:

Saint Paul's Cathedral:

Tower Bridge:

Buckingham Palace:

Houses of Parliament:

London pt.2

Second day of London was supposed to be an early wake-up day, but being that we're on vacation... we got there around noon :)

Still, the weather was fine so that was still plenty of time to see a good deal of things.
The eastern part of the centre around Thames was the goal for today, and we started off towards the Tower of London.
However, on the way we are distracted by an egg-shaped skyscraper so we decide to first go see it from up-close.
It's called "The Gherkin" and is a 180m tall skyscraper designed with energy-saving in mind (from aerodynamics to materials used).

After some twisting and turning we got back to the Tower of London, which looked as though no one works here on Friday. It was packed full of people enjoying the (finally) no-rain sunny weather.

We didn't have time to enter and explore the Tower, so we proceeded down the bank of Thames towards the Tower Bridge, which is another famous London site:

Unfortunately, no luck in having a taller ship pass through so we'd see it actually rise.
Moving on to the next site "no one visiting London should miss" - the St.Paul´s Cathedral! :)
However, in between the famous spots, there are other things I just can't miss posting. Wouldn't you just love to eat under a dog that looks like he's just about to pee on you:

Anyway, yeah, the St. Paul's Cathedral:

You might notice that I'm rushing through this post quite a bit. This is partially due to the fact that we rushed through London as well and didn't visit as many things, we just looked around from the outside. Other part is because I'm sitting in a Cayafate net cafe now listening to some local Argentinian music and hurrying to start writing about South America!! :D

And yeah, one reason we didn't enter as many of the sights in London, other than lack of time, is that London is EXTREMELY expensive. We went to this trip with a planned budget for South America. For a visit to St. Paul's Cathedral (which is btw packed full of tourists and you're not even allowed to take photos inside anymore - sorry, but giving 12 GBPs for that is a ripoff in my book!) I can go to a full-day trip to Argentinian glaciers, transport included.

Anyways, back to London ;)
Trafalgar Square deserves a mention here I think:


And these signs that are actually quite useful to any non-Brit here, as the cars seem to always come from where you least expect them :)


Anyway, this day finished at home with a nice barbeque and taking of some family photos (mum will be happy ;)), no sleep at all, and a travel to Heathrow Airport at 3AM to catch the 6:20 flight to Buenos Aires via Madrid.

And now we're here, in a place which looks like time has stood still here for quite a while, except that the type of shop that is most found here is an internet cafe! (we found three in the first five minutes here lol)

Anyway, from now on, all our posts are belong to South America (except the one Marko is writing now and will contain some more impressions from London in a less "reporting" manner ;))

Adios Amigos,
Daniel

Finally in South America!!!

Hola!

Just an opening post for now. I'm using a hostel comp and doubt I'll be able to abuse it for much longer (will post like this, and update as much as I can stay on comp for today)
I still have the rest of London to update, and then the part from there to here (which was a fun thing in itself :))

In short, we're in Salta.
Took 14 hours of flight to get to Buenos Aires, and another 18 hours by bus to get here. First next bus we need to catch is to San Pedro de Atacama, which doesn't go before Tuesday morning, so until then we'll have a day to see what's there to see around Salta ;)

Gotta go now, will write more tomorrow evening.
Cya! :)

London

Last two days were the days of running. We've tried to squeeze as much of London as we can in only two days and IT'S MADNESS!!!
Lesson learned (a quickly learned one this time): you need *at least* a week to see only the most known sights of London.

Anyway, back to the beginning of this story.
In the morning of April 14th, we took a train from Maidstone to London's Victoria station. It's some one hour ride and lets you see some of really nice picturesque British villages on the way. The very entrance to London is rather crappy-looking bacause the train brings you in through some warehouses and junkyards, but once you exit the train the picture changes completely.

First thing that I noticed on Victoria station is the multitude of races and nationalities, all gathered here in such a small spot. As a friend said - it's a good reminder to just how different we humans can be. And it's a great sight to see.

Once up on the surface, the pulsing life of such a big city hits you with all the expected imagery - the London architecture, the black cabs, the red double-deckers...

As we were slowly making our way to - what else but - the House of Parliament and The Big Ben, we passed the Westminster Cathedral and the Westminster Abbey.
Even though the weather looked very promising so far, the British weather gods have cast their dices once again and the one wishing for rain seems to have won this round.
Just as we approached Big Ben, it was time to pack the cameras in the bags and get the raincoats out.
After several such swaps (did I mention British weather can be really annoying at times?), it was pouring and we finally found a place to sit inside and have a meal while waiting for the rain to stop.
Luckily, the dices rolled in our favor once again, and the (photo)shooting continued full-scale.

We backed out around the Downing Street (where the Prime Minister resides), through the St.James's park and onwards to Buckingham Palace (have to see that now don't we ;))

It was too late to see the changing of the guards, but oh well...

After a decent walk westward, we reached a more modern spot every London visitor should visit - The Harrods! (every shopper's dream place! every shopper with loads of cash, that is...)
Now this is not just an expensive shop. This is a place where people from e.g. Dubai or Bahrain come to shop. And I don't mean they stop by when they're in London on business. Nooo, they fly here from e.g. Dubai for one day, with their whole entourage of servants, to show themselves and spend small fortunes most people could only dream about. Then they fly back.
The kind of people that bring their Bugatti Veyron's for a visit to London. And this is definitely not just any Veyron:

Lesson learned: don't go to Harrod's if hungry or thirsty; if you want to blow loads of cash, at least buy something there that you won't eat or drink in 5 minutes.

Anyway, the evening is approaching, and we decided to shoot the House of Parliament in the night, with it's lights reflecting in the River Thames, so it's down to "the Tube" (subway) and back eastwards.
Turns out they don't turn the lights on until it's very dark, so we spent about an hour at the river bank with dozens of other tourists awaiting the same thing. Such an original shot lol

Now comes the fun part.
Exhausted we hurry back to Victoria station to catch one of the last trains back to Maidstone. We arrive in time, only to not see it on the boards. After asking about at the info office, we are told that the last train to Maidstone already went off, and that the one we were looking for (and the subsequent one we counted on) are not stopping at Maidstone station at this time.
However, the info guy told us that we should go to Charing Cross station and catch another train (last one from nearby London that does stop at Maidstone), going in ~20 minutes.
Bummer. We just came from Charing Cross. And 20 minutes is barely enough.
Back down to the tubes. Back to Charing Cross, practically running. Look around, ask about. There is a train, but it DOESN'T stop at Maidstone.
After a helpful official made some calls and checked everything out, he told us that whoever told us the first story was talking bollocks, and that the original train we wanted DID stop at Maidstone, and that the last train to Maidstone does go from Victoria station, in some 30 minutes.
Back to tubes. Back to Victoria station. Wait for the train. Sit in the train. Feet up. Sleep. Return home. Sleep some more.

Lesson learned: if something sounds fishy, doublecheck with several persons. Even officials sometimes have no clue what they're talking about.


London day 2 - a more eastern part...
I'll have to stop writing now as it's almost 3AM here and we're about to go to Heathrow and catch that Buenos Aires flight.
This means ~14hr flight, followed by ~18hr bus to Salta, followed by several more buses in a similar duration range to San Pedro de Atacama. If all goes well :)
So, until Monday/Tuesday...

(I'll update this post with the second day of London and more pictures as soon as I catch some time)

Maidstone

Ahoy! :)
Just a short report from our first stop - Maidstone, Kent, UK.
We'll be here until Saturday morning when we fly to Buenos Aires.

Our first flight went from Zagreb Airport, Velika Gorica, at the morning of 12th at 9:40 local time (I have to remind myself of the dates as often as possible or will lose track completely lol).
I was ringing all over the security check, before losing my belt, watch, compact camera and even it's carying case, and finally boots (guess they were "too metal" :p). What I was wondering about at the time though is why the guy in front of me was carrying an unpacked Canon EOS 1D Mark III with some expensive lens I was not able to detect but were surely also costing a small fortune (yes, we photographers are a bit looney hehe, but I know some of you reading this would drool over this camera... for the rest of you, let's say you could get a good used car for that price).
Anyway, I'm going off track now... he was not the only guy with a fancy camera, and he was a journalist. Turns out we were waiting for a plane next to our high jumping champion - Blanka Vlasic - who was just traveling to the Olympics in Beijing. Only she didn't use a low cost company like we did :p
Anyway, good luck Blanka, and get that Beijing Gold ;)

Now, back on track. 11:05 Luton Airport, London.
Kudos to Wizzair, plane flew on time and landed on time, and in what was probably the smoothest landing I've seen so far.
The good effect of this was spoiled a bit by having to wait in line for more than an hour at the "immigration counter", but the staff was in a good mood so it was ok in the end.
My cousin and my other cousin's husband (no, this will not turn into a mexican soap :p) met us at the airport and - since we were all starving by the time - took us to Burger King for a REAL burger (McDonalds should learn from them before calling something "big" mac).
Anyway, what followed is a 1-2 hour ride back "home" to Maidstone in which my instincts were trying to dodge cars coming in from the other direction driving on the "wrong" side of the street. Might have something to do with the fact I was sitting in what would've been the drivers position back home.

Maidstone is the capitol of Kent, the province southeast of London. It is actually quite a large town (300k+ pop), but it feels like a nice cosy British village, especially the part we're in.

First day we just had a little walk around town and had a chance to enjoy the famous "British weather". Everything you hear is true. The weather gods here are either bored or simply can't control their mood swings.
Lessons learned #1: Never leave home without an umbrella!
Lessons learned #2: Chocolate fudge cake is delicious!!! (I'll have to trust Marko on this one, at least until I try for myself (which will be first chance I get, considering his reaction). I did try fudge today, tastes good :)

First thing today we went to an old Maidstone cemetery, with first graves dating back before 1200's. Some of the tombstones are so old that the stone carvings have been worned out by time. In the moments between the drizzles, a few photos were caught:

After this, we paid a real quick visit to the Carriage museum:

This visit was interesting but quite short, as we had to run catch the bus to the Leeds Castle. That ride was likely the most impressive bus driving I've had a chance to witness. Streets here are narrow, and drivers a bit on the agressive side. Many close pass-bys, many bushes slapped beside the road, no visible scratches on the bus - that's got to be experience, not luck ;)
Arriving at the Leeds Castle:

The entrance ticket is quite expensive (15£), but is valid for an entire year, so if you're here more often it's actually quite a good deal. And a motivation for us to visit again ;)

On the Castle grounds, besides a horde of swans, ducks, peacocks and lambs, there is also an Aviary, a kiddie fort, a maze...

Lesson learned: don't leave home without a good windstopper jacket!

So much for today. Next two days are reserved for London, and then it's off to the distant lands...

Until next time...

Last minute change of plans

After talking to some friends (who helped us unbelievably with detail planing of the whole trip), we decided to completely rearrange our plan. 
We'll still be visiting the same places, but instead of going south after lending in Buenos, we'll head north (or north-west), first to Chile and then to Peru. We'll leave Patagonia and the glaciers for the end of the trip.

Everything is packed, we leave for London tomorrow. ;)

3 days, 22 hours, 36 min, 32 sec...

This is a screenshot of the top right corner on my PC here at work. It's a little countdown timer showing the remaining time until my Zagreb - London flight on Tuesday. It's been here with me for some time now, so it's nice to see it showing only a few days left. :)

Anyway, it's Friday and it's time for my 5 week long holiday. Finlay!
w00t!

So, the plan goes something like this:
We leave for London on Tuesday the 12th of August. We spend 3 days there and then on Saturday we catch a flight to Buenos Aires. We probably spend a night in Buenos and hopefully we catch another flight (or perhaps a bus) to a small town on the far south of Argentina called El Calafate. This will then be our home base for exploring the Patagonia's glaciers.
Some ten days later we need to be in Cusco, Peru. We are not sure how we'll get there, but we'll most likely have to fly again. Then we leave our bags in Cusco and head out for a 4days/3nights Inka Trail. We'll be hiking along ancient Inka path that takes us across the Andes mountains ending at Machu Picchu. We'll have porters carrying the tents and most of the food. We go back to Cusco with a bus or a train.
After that we'll probably stay in Cusco for a few more days exploring the city and surrounding Inka related sites. Then we head towards Chile stopping in Arequipa (Peru) on the way.
In Chile the plan is to definitely see the Atacama desert. We'll probably stay in a small town called San Pedro de Atacama and if we find enough time we'll try crossing the border to Bolivia, which is supposedly very beautiful and well worth a visit.
At the end we'll try to go to Iguazu falls - it's something like South America's version of Niagara. The Iguazu falls are located on the Argentina-Peru-Brazil border so this is somewhat out of our way, but we'll try to get there if we can.
Then it's back to Buenos so we can catch a flight back on the September 11th. (Uh, I just realized at what date we are flying back.) We land in London on Friday night and catch our flight back to Zagreb on the following morning.

That's about it. I'm not sure how often this blog will be updated though, who knows when and where we'll be able to access the internet...

Finally, since one of the major reasons for doing this trip is photography, here's one of my favorite photography tutorial-like articles, take a look: link. It's called: 'The secret of too' and it's something I'll try reminding myself often during the next 5 weeks. ;)