I wasn’t going to visit Valparaiso until I met a young couple living in Chile in a Santiago rock bar. They showed me a picture of the swathe of coloured roofs clinging on to a steep Valparaiso hillside and the art and photography lover in me was instantly hooked. Just one and a half hours by bus from Santiago (that’s just down the road in...
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Call me weird, call me a kook, but I have this thing for graveyards/cemeteries. I love browsing, the same way you would browse in a bookstore. I love working out ages, looking for clues to help me build a picture of the person’s life before they moved on. In addition to this I love the aesthetics of the place, the angles, the light, the carefully...
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La Boca is a working class district of Buenos Aires and is a place that you should visit at your own peril. So say the guide books, and so said the Argentines I spoke to before going. I was advised not to walk to there, but to get the bus. Wise boy: I did. I hopped on the 152 bus from the end of Avenida...
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To meander unplanned through a city is to enter on a voyage of fresh discovery. On that journey you discover anything that your senses and your mind are open to. My stroll through Montevideo today was one such experience. Walking for several hours from the port market in the old town along Sarandi pedestrian street, I arrived at the Ciudadela Gate, which marks the transition...
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When you arrive in Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay, just a short one hour Seacat ride from bustling Buenos Aires, you soon find yourself lost in an oasis of charm that refreshes you and leaves you calmly satisfied. This feeling ratifies the words of the welcome brochure handed out on arrival at the hostel, which boldly and proudly proclaims: “Colonia del Sacramento with it blend...
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Here’s a bit of waffle I wrote in Rio bus station while waiting for the bus to Foz do Iguacu a few days ago. I’ll do a separate post about things to do in Rio when the motivation and inspiration to write fully take hold. You know how it is when you sit down to write and the words are stale and uninspiring and send...
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Today I went on one of the most incredible excursions of my life. I took a short ride over the border into Argentina from my Brazilian hostel, to visit what must surely rank amongst the wonders of the natural world. It is one of those places to which it is impossible to do justice, either in words or in pictures. You stand in awe, wishing...
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You win first prize and find yourself sitting in front of the only non-functioning entertainment system on board flight UA4 from Heathrow to Houston. You don’t really want to spend $22 on in flight wifi. You can of course still listen to a plethora of amazing tunes stored in your iphone. I literally stopped in my tracks when Perfect Day by Lou Reed came on....
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