Have Itch, Will Travel

Travelers have a love/hate relationship with cab drivers. On one hand, they will take you to a familiar place if you are lost , but on the other hand, they are far more expensive than public transport, even when they're not ripping you off. They don't provide you with the authentic local experience like public transport does, but they can be more comfortable . Some cab drivers are honest and have suggestions for places to stay or eat... that is, if they are not getting a commission from the owner of the place. Cab drivers can be a great source of other information though, and good practice on your language skills... if they are not distracting you from their partner in crime pulling out a knife in order to mug you... Yes, there is a love/hate relationship with cab drivers. Individuals may have many good attributes and generally, taking a cab can have advantages , especially when you are not confident in taking public transport, have luggage or shopping, are lost, in a dodgy ne...

With very little time to make good on my promise to be back in Lima before my birthday, I booked the three day direct bus from Buenos Aires to Lima. I bought the ticket the morning of the massive earthquake in Chile , that decimated the nation's capital, toppling skyways and buildings to rubble like you see in disaster movies. It was very real and the news everywhere in Buenos Aires was about that tragedy, as well as the recent smaller quake in beautiful Salta of Northern Argentina. The quake didn't impact my travels, though the bus had to change its route to avoid the disaster zone. All in all, three days on the bus wasn't so bad... if you can believe that! The most memorable things of the trip included the ever changing scenery out the window as we drove across Argentina, in particular, the Andean snow capped peaks , pink with the low light of the rising sun. It was quite a sight when I woke up that morning. We entered Chile in the middle of the freezing high altitude nig...

I had promised Joe that I wouldn't be away from Peru too long, and was determined to make it back to Lima by my birthday. I had six days left; the last three needed to be allocated to the full three day bus trip from Buenos Aires to Lima, so I was left with just three days to experience the Falls on both the Brazilian and Argentinean sides, as well as allow for overnight stays to get buses. It seemed like an impossible task, but I was to have a few lucky days. I finally arrived in the town of Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil at 2:30pm. I thought it was too late to see the Falls and had all but decided to find accommodation for the night. Before I left the bus station, I went to the tourist information desk for details on how to get to the Falls and they said I still had time today. What the hell! I thought. I jumped on the next shuttle and was pleased to see that the visitor's centre had lockers where I could stow away my pack and be free to wander. The Falls were just incredible....

People seem to be concerned about mosquito-borne illnesses while traveling in the tropics, and with good reason too. Rarely, they are concerned about catching the dreaded common cold . Sure, a cold is no big deal but it's uncomfortable and in this age of H1N1 panic, it is potentially inconvenient to be held up at border crossings. So how do you get a cold in hot climates? Let me tell you the three ways I caught a cold during my travels. The first time was in the middle of the Peruvian Amazon . It was a warm day, perfect for Joe and I to try our hand at fishing the river. Borrowing a canoe, we clumsily paddled out and it began to rain . Surprisingly the rain was bitter cold and soaked us, and we endured about two hours of shivering. This was sufficient to land me in bed for two days with a fever , and I didn't recover completely for weeks, thanks to Limeño smog. The second time it happened on the Costa Rican coast . It was stinking hot, so much so that it sapped your energy and ...

Shortly after Santa Theresa gave me that taste of a hillside view of Rio, I took a bus to Pao de Açucar ( Sugar Loaf ), a striking hill by the coast. It was as easy as walking a couple of blocks in Centro to where everyone was waiting for a bus and then hopping on the first one headed to the neighborhood of Urca . Bus fares seemed to be mostly the same, at R$2.35 ($1.45AU). I overshot the stop by two blocks when the bus turned into the smaller suburban streets, but it was a pleasant walk back to the plaza. If you want to live in Rio, Urca is the place to buy a house. Quiet, by the beach and full of neat little houses in cool leafy streets. To ride the cable cars up to Sugar Loaf was about R$22 and certainly worthwhile. An afternoon visit produced a lot of glare off the water as the sun sets behind Christ The Redeemer on Corcovado , so a morning visit would've probably been better. But the view was stunning. The ocean on both sides, fading into mistiness, yachts and sailboats...

When I arrived in Rio de Janeiro , I was disappointed. Where was the amazing and beautiful city I had imagined? Not here. Instead, there was a conglomeration of ugly buildings that I pictured still housed furniture from the seventies, cluttered sidewalks and graffiti tagging every wall. Occasionally, there would be a surprise around the corner; an interesting monument, a park or a colonial style building wedged between plain concrete ones. The main square in Centro expectedly had some attractive buildings surrounding it, but there was not much more beyond that. This was what I saw initially. But on closer observation, it was a lively city bustling with people doing their daily things. With every other step I encountered a suco (juice) bar or restaurant, vendors selling delicious coconut water or snacks. For every wall that was a canvas for a vandal there was a bold graffiti art that was welcome on the otherwise grey street. The boulevards were shady and everything was convenient. ...

I finally managed to make a trip to the colonial part of Salvador, Pelourinho . I wished at the time that I could've visited outside of Carnaval since just about all buildings and monuments were boarded up. Av Sete de Setembro looked like it was a street full of character away from the ad hoc bars and food stalls. Having walked the five-odd kilometers from Barra, I was glad to have persisted, blisters and all. All I knew of Pelourinho was that it was a relatively safer area and touristy, so I was pleased to be around such pretty old buildings and cobblestone streets. In a way, the buildings were similar to the rest of Latin America's colonial cities', with ornate wrought iron window grills and balconies, and colorful facades, but the fact that most of the buildings were taller and built on hills, made it different somehow. As typically pretty and colonial it was, it typically couldn't escape tourism. Every building was dedicated to that industry, being an internet ...