SmaviesAdventures

Passing through La Paz #OliviaInBolivia In my country Hear Ye, Hear Ye, thine Queen hath spoketh. We went to visit my people, although they spelt Olivia wrong, what’s with the B? We landed in El Alto, a City on the outskirts of La Paz, at the top of the mountains before we descended into the City Centre (a mere 3,600m above sea level). Whereupon we met our host who chuckled at the name Olivia, before declaring it to be a beautiful name. La Montana and the Market starting to clear The high altitude and 3 rd floor apartment with huge windows gave beautiful views of the mountains and their stunning sunrises (for Andrew) and sunsets (for both of us). The scenery around La Paz and Bolivia in general is truly breath-taking. First steps on the moon Our apartment was right in the heart of the city and on the weekends the normal street market exploded into a grand bazaar of a street market. With various vegetables sold, fruit, raw fish and meat (unrefri...

Central Celestial Scenes Our second installment of South America covers the alien and celestial landscapes of Bolivia and Northern Chile La Paz Spirit of the Andes sculpture in Valle De La Luna Salar De Uyuni We tried to be friends... San Pedro De Atacama The Pukara de Quitor Arica San Marco Church, designed by Gustave Eiffel Overview European Ecstasy Adventures in Asia Pacific Paradise Southern South American Splendour Central Celestial Scenes Incan Delights Heading North

Rio De Janeiro Part 2 A day in Parliament After leaving Teresopolis  we were soon to be departing from Brazil entirely. This meant that we had to fly to Sao Paolo before flying onwards to Brazil. So we arrived back in Rio and stayed as close to the airport as we reasonably could. After all we only had one day to do anything.  We arrived back in the bus station we had left from and then went towards the tram stop just outside. As we were staying in the Central area it was easier to get around by tram than it was by Metro or Bus. Unfortunately we needed to purchase some Rio Cards to use on the public transport, this was a bit of a pain as we could only use exact change to buy them and realistically only wanted to take two journeys on them. But nevertheless we paid the fare needed (mostly in 10 centivo pieces, imagine paying £6.80 in 10p pieces...) We took the tram to the Lapa neighborhood as that was the easiest place to get to our accommodation in Santa Teresa, a...

Teresopolis The many fingers of Teresopolis We decided to have a break from the city and head in to the mountains for a few days staying at Teresopolis. Teresopolis is a small town that on a quick google search promised a number of fun sights to see, and of course a fun hike into the mountains. The first day we gathered our trusty satchel and headed to the information centre to get some information on how to enter the park and for a few things to do, we stopped at one of the trusty sights the fountain of Judith on the way. The fountain was quite Dutch in style, mostly porcelain tiles with a blue flowery nun on them. Lots of the local used this fountain to fill up their own water bottles. There was very little information at this location but we assume this saint made drinking water in a land where the tap water was bad. Perhaps she was the first to filter water with her stockings, perhaps she secretly boiled the water with her wrath behind her fount we will never know. ...

Sun, Sea, Sand and Brazillians (no, not that kind...) The Panorama from Christ the Redeemer As I write this, it is raining... but at least the rain is warm! For the last month or so we have been in winter, which has seemed at polar opposites with the sweltering weather that the UK has been experiencing. But since arriving in Rio it has truly become more summer like. To be completely transparent it is winter here, but at roughly twenty seven degrees each day it is a very poor excuse for winter... The sandy Copacabana We have situated ourselves in a lovely apartment about two blocks from the world famous Copacabana. We have walked along this beach a few times having a look at the sea and walking on it's wavy black and white sidewalk. I have to say it's been a little scary though as whenever I enter the beach there is this impending sense of doom, probably because whenever an action film wants to prove it's a global crisis something terrible always happens here.....

The Devil's Roaring Throat View of the Devil's Throat, with an eagle soaring above it Our trip from Buenos Aires was less than easy. We were flying from the domestic airport this time, instead of the international airport that we had arrived in. On the map and when we looked up the public transport this seemed like a relatively easy journey as the airport was near Palermo in the north of the city, as opposed to outside the city. However upon crossing the city we found out that the internet and the map had it a little wrong and we were not only running late, but 1.5km away from the airport, on the wrong side of the airstrip. Thankfully we managed to catch a bus around the airfield and ran through the terminal to make our flight (although, as irony would have it, our flight was delayed, so we had plenty of time).  The top of the Garganta del Diablo Iguazu falls are located on the border of Brazil and Argentina . In a futile bid to make our transport easier we...