Gringoland

I thought I'd write a bit about how we've found south america as gringos (tourists).

The people have on the whole been lovely to us. Even though we've struggled with the language, they still help us. No one's been rude to us or refused to help us because of the language difference.

The hostels have been great everywhere. I know alot of people imagined it would be like the Hostel films and they'd have grotty bathrooms and bed bugs. Theyve all been clean, many having housekeeping in for 8/9 hours a day. The bedrooms are standard dorm rooms with little detail, but still comfy with clean sheets. You can't really complain about a breakfast that is waiting for you when you get up. Fresh bread, jams, fresh fruit juice,  fruit and tea/coffee is pretty nice.

When you're sharing a room with people who all want the same thing,  there is little room for disagreement. Even after a night out everyone tries to be quiet. The only issue is charging things. Some of the rooms have only had a couple of plugs and you don't really want to leave your phone/camera/ipod lying around, but we've managed so far!

One odd thing about south america is that everywhere we've gone so far, the toilets can't handle toilet paper so you have to use a bin. Not so nice.

The food has been good,  if a little basic. The supermarkets have improved as we've gone along. Argentina was pretty basic and there wasn't much you could really get a part from pizza and pasta without spending a fortune. The same with eating out. Alot of places have pizza, pasta, seafood etc. Jays probably enjoyed eating out more as there is alot more variety of meat to choose from whereas the veggie options have mostly been cheese pizza with the odd exception where they do a veggie burger or something.

Buses have been pretty good too. Alot better than British buses as it's the main form of transport for people in south america. Although when we got onto our bus to valperaiso,  someone was changing their baby's nappy on our seats.

The weather has been good throughout the whole trip. Weve had sun most days with temperatures in the twenties. There's been odd days of cloud or rain,  but mostly lovely weather.