I can't complain really

I was talking to a girl in work last week and I said that I need a holiday. Her response to this was "Why?" and "Exactly how much time have you spent out of the country this year?" To be honest she does have a point, I did spend four and a half months in South America earlier this year but to be fair it wasn't really a holiday. The first 10 weeks were spent with Raleigh Internaitonal in Chile, and whilst this was fantastic it was very hard work. We had a limited amount of time to complete our projects (as someone said to me ealier this month, was it like being on Challenge Anika then?...does anyone remember that program from years ago?) and so we were working really hard with very few days off. However my groups did manage to build a bridge, viewing platform, 3km of path, trek 160 km, build a campsite, teach lots of English lessons in Bahia Murta and conduct a nightly radio show...so the hard work was all worth it!

After Raleigh I spent just under nine weeks travelling with Louise (a fellow Raleigh Venturer). We flew to Santiago and travelled up through Chile stopping at Valparaisso and San Pedro de Atacama (the desert in northern Chile). We then crossed into Bolivia and visited Potossi, Sucre, La Paz, Rurrenebaque and Coppacabanna. Bolivia was a sharp contrast to Chile, which (especially Santiago) is very European. The sheer scale of the poverty in La Paz was a huge shock, especially when there was obviously shuch a lot of wealth in certain areas. La Paz is the world's highest capital city at over 4,000m. The centre is in a valley and mountains rise on all sides, and the houses seem to perch precariously on the mountain sides. There is a 10 degree differnce in temperature as you climb higher and hence the poorer you are the higher up the mountain you are forced to live and consequently the colder you are. The political situation in Bolivia doesn't help, whilst we were there we saw a huge protest in the centre and there was talk of road blockades and violence but luckily we didn't get caught up in anything.

From Bolivia we travelled to Peru. What struck us most here was just how "touristy" everything was. You couldn't go anywhere without someone trying to sell you something. Now, I can't complain because the reason it is like this is because there are so many tourists, and I was a tourist and so contributed to the problem, but being hastled all the time did make things unpleasant. Mind you the fact that Louise and I were two young females travelling together probably meant that we were an easy target and so our experiences would have been very different if we had been older and male!

Whilst in Peru we trekked in the Colca Canyon (which is apparently twice as big as the Grand Canyon, but I still haven't established if this means lenght, depth or width!), flew over the Nasca Lines, visited the Reed Islands on Lake Titiccacca and Saw Maccu Picchu (which was absolutely amazing). We then had a choice of travelling up to Lima or instead flying to Buenos Aires. After speaking to lots of people (who's general conclusion was that Lima was busy, dirty and not worth visiting) we decided on Argentina.

My first impressions of BA were just how European and American it seemed. We also had a lot less hastle here because we did not stand out nearly as much (a large percentage of the population are of European decent). Beunos Aires was amazing and definitely worth seeing.

So I supposed my friend in work was right, I can't go around saying that I need a holiday...but I'm sure that after spending 12 weeks in my office anyone would need a break!