21 May 2013
by Mo
in Family Gap Year, Safety, Top Experiences, Travelling
Tags: Argentina, dolar blue, Lujan de Cuyo, Mendoza, vinyards with kids
aka – Visiting Argentina’s wine region with kids plus babysitter!
We arrive in Mendoza, Argentina at 5am. Our bus is about 6 hours late! With super sleepy kids and feeling exhausted too we gather our bags and our wits and wonder if you can get any cash or a cab at this time. A money changer offers me 6 pesos to the dollar to change a $20 bill – I know the exchange rate is 5 so I’m baffled but accept and am cautious to check all the notes I get. We soon discover there is another exchange rate – it’s called the ‘dollar blue’ aka the black market rate! There is a daily published ‘dollar blue rate’ on the internet – it’s about 7:1 at this point and climbing – more on this and how much of a difference it makes to us later! Argentina’s economy is in crisis (perhaps as a distraction President Christina Kirchner is making a lot of noise about the Falklands aka The Malvinas) again and so we’re cautious about the reception we’ll get here!
We find a friendly cabbie who is happy to shoehorn the six of us plus luggage into his taxi! (interesting feat) and take us to our pleasant Aparthotel Tunkelen. Determined to get some value from our paid night of accommodation not to mention being bushed, we drive the now wide-awake kids into bed and sleep till 11am,. Of course we miss breakfast but the rooftop pool is wonderful when we finally wake up.
The rooftop pool and Royal Pavillion ?
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20 May 2013
by Mo
in Family Gap Year, Travelling
Tags: Andes, Argentina, Mendoza, Santiago, Santiago to Mendoza
15 February 2013. Our whistle-stop city break in Santiago is done. We ride the Metro for the first time to find yet another sushi restaurant. Its our first subway ride in S America and a bit of an adventure.
Underground ,overground – last morning in Santiago.
We stop for sushi, grab Starbucks coffee, then back at the hotel to collect luggage but find it’s locked in a room with a sign on the door :
‘Gone to lunch-back in an hour’ !!
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11 May 2013
by Mo
in Family Gap Year, Foodie Central, Travelling
Tags: Andes, Bocanariz, Chile, Crossing the Andes to Argentina, La Serena, Santiago
Chile. 11 February 2013.
Seven months today since we flew to South America to begin our family gap year and we arrive in La Serena, Chile, our first taste of coastal Chile, on a rather uncomfortable, but bearable 16 hour overnight bus south from Calama, dropping down 2400m from the heights of the Atacama desert. We’ve finally escaped San Pedro and the floods having missed all the amazing trips we’d hoped to do and having to head back through Calama, seeing evidence of where the road was washed right away as the bus queues to get around the missing carriageway.
Th San Pedro to Calama road is washed away
The challenge of how to cross the Andes to Argentina
Plan A had been to take a bus from San Pedro to Salta – we’d even bought our tickets but got a refund when we knew the pass was going to be closed at least a week due to snow. Plan B is to try our luck with the pass from La Serena to Mendoza.
We had ‘semi-cama’ seats (meaning half-bed). Not exactly what I’d call a half bed but they do recline quite well – and are smart by the standards we’re used to. The kids and Martin (sleep anywhere) slept happy enough – Erika and I found it a bit tough and feel stiff and sleep deprived! ‘Cama’ is a bigger, better recliner, often in the downstairs with semi-cama upstairs. We’re looking forward to trying cama! Maybe next time!
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10 May 2013
by Martin Clark
in Adventure, Family Gap Year
Tags: Calama, Chile, San Pedro de Atacama
We survived our 2 nights in Calama or ’Calamity’ as our friends named it after losing an iPhone. We actually stayed in the same apartment but were super careful not to leave anything. It seems that forgetting an item in a hotel room is like leaving a tip for the cleaners. Only a few days ago Mo left a fleece and socks in Hotel Magia in Uyuni, we went back to ask and were told to return in an hour. Only later we discovered the fleece had several ‘personal’ items in the pockets as it had no doubt been keeping someone else warm! Still, good outcome as we’d had a dispute about the already expensive bill which they’d tried to double! The socks were ’thrown away’, we returned the favour with their ‘pawn’ on a USB drive. (post script – missing socks found in Mo’s dirty washing bag!).
For a booming mining town the Calama centre is pretty strange. More
09 May 2013
by Martin Clark
in Family Gap Year, Travelling
Tags: Atacama Desert, Bolivia, Calama, Chile
4th February 2013. Our bus from Uyuni in Bolivia to Calama in Chile leaves at 4am so we are up at 3am to get out of ‘El Salvador’, our less than salubrious hostal. My suggestion of just going for a late dinner and and crashing on a park bench hadn’t been met by much (any) enthusiasm and our 3 bed, £9.50 room with rather basic facilities was a bit of a climb down from the 4* Salt Hotel the day before. I am quietly satisfied that BZL share beds and sleep on the floor with few complaints, better to view a comfy bed as a luxury to be appreciated rather than an entitlement that the loss of ruins your day.
The Bolivian Chilean border
We are out the door at 3.29am to cross the road to the bus office, very glad that another gap year lesson of not unpacking everything each time you stop seems to be hitting home. ’Lazy Lara’ yet again refuses to carry her rucksack, no excuse as it only weighs 2.5kg, kind Dad having swapped her clothes for the kids life jackets. 2 years ago she carried a far heavier one in Cambodia like a trooper. I think the problem is a combination of being the youngest and a touch spoiled plus her force of nature personality that means she generally gets her own way and pushes the boundaries. Maybe I am a bit cynical (moi?) but I think she has worked out that ’Mummy, I’m tired’ is a great way of getting your bag, and often Lara, carried! One to work on.
The 12ish hour journey with Trans Azul has cost us 750 Bolivianos or £14/head (interestingly the ticket says 700BS so the lady in the bus office has made a quick 50BS, about half a day’s salary, I bet she loves this job!).
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21 Apr 2013
by Zoe
in Adventure, Family Gap Year, Kids Stuff
Tags: Chile, Flat Stanley, San Pedro de Atacama, San Pedro Flooded
10/2/13. We’ve been in San Pedro for a few days! We’re stranded!! It’s a small town with everything built of mud and straw bricks, some buildings are painted white and its very dusty!
San Pedro is not meant for rain!
We were going to go and see some geysers high up in the mountains near the Bolivia border, float and swim in hot pools and salty lagoons, then take a bus into northern Argentina but then, on the first afternoon, it started to rain. There was lightening and the loudest thunder we ever heard! We were in our apartment at the hostel and water started to pour under the door!
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20 Apr 2013
by Mo
in Adventure, Family Gap Year, Health & Fitness, Photos, Top Experiences
Tags: Bolivia, Colchani, gap year with children, Hotel Luna Salada, Salar de Uyuni, salt flats, Salt Palace, Uyuni
Everything you read about the Uyuni Salt Flats in the high Altiplano of Bolivia makes you desperate to see it but a little fearful that it maybe can’t live up to its reputation.
We’d hoped for a three day trip which would take us across the salt flats into Chile but tour companies weren’t running them due to the rains. The one day trip is said by some to make for a very second rate experience to the three day expedition!
The kids on the jeep – Salar de Uyuni
Zoe wakes in our Salt hotel feeling really breathless and has some oxygen More
19 Apr 2013
by Mo
in Family Gap Year, Kids Stuff, Top Experiences
Tags: Bolivia, Hotel Luna Salada, Salt Palace, Train Cemetery, Uyuni
Visiting dead trains, staying at a Salt hotel and walking on a moon-scape with broccoli – all in a days travelling in Uyuni, Southern Bolivia….
We wake up in Uyuni, Southern Bolivia, still high up on the Altiplano, a real hot, dusty frontier town.
Best thing – our friends the Bremners are in the room next door! We email each other to confirm whereabouts and Lara runs off to find them and go off to breakfast with Sarina and Max!
It’s only been a week since we said goodbye in La Paz but we are all gabbling ten to the dozen over breakfast, catching up on each others news! They have been driving their way south, visiting mines in Potosi (not for the faint hearted!) and we have had our extra time on La Paz to tell of and our bus and train trip!
Piled into the Bremner’s boot – so happy to be reunited!
We have a bit of a dispute with the hotel More
17 Apr 2013
by Mo
in Family Gap Year, Travelling
Tags: Andes, Bolivia, la Paz, Oruru, Uyuni
Rewind to 1/2/13.
I’m sitting on a train, as we make our way south on the 7 hour train journey through the spectacular southern Altiplano to Uyuni, Bolivia, catching up on blogs and diary in between looking out at lakes full of flamingos, small farms and villages and the occasional distant snowy peak! Martin is catching up on sleep and the kids are watching Mr Poppers penguins in Spanish. Everyone is happy!
Beautiful lakes with flamingoes which we cross on the train.
The peaks of the Andes, seen from the train
We’re in executive class with More
16 Apr 2013
by Mo
in Family Gap Year, Looking Back, Photos, Top Experiences, Travelling
Tags: Argentina, Boipeba, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Falklands, Family Gap Year, Paraguay, Peru, South America, Uruguay
11th April 2013. Nine months today since our family of five touched down in Rio de Janeiro on a BA flight from Heathrow, London to begin our Family Gap Year travelling around the world.
Our journey so far…
We’ve almost done a (kind of squashed) figure of 8 around the continent, flown or boated to islands in the Pacific and Atlantic and are now in Santiago, enjoying our last days before flying to Easter Island (part of Chile) and then on to Tahiti in French Polynesia.
Nine months, Nine countries. Our Family Gap Year journey so far…
We’ve been to More
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