South America Posts

The last time I was in Brazil, I was there from June until August in 2013, which was basically the tail-end of their winter. The weather was actually quite nice (compared to a Canadian winter), with most days hovering around 20C. But I haven’t experienced summer in South America since my first trip to Argentina in 2011. Given that it’s been snowing and below zero here in Hamilton for the last two weeks, seeing the sun again and 30C days is going to be a great change. I’m flying out of Pearson in the early afternoon on Wednesday, with a brief 4-hour stop over in New York City. I found a flight that was about $200 cheaper because it requires an airport change from Laguardia to JFK in New York City. It’s a bit of a pain, but I have four hours there and it’s just a 20 minute cab […]

In 2011 I spent three months living in the beautiful country of Argentina in South America. I enjoyed my trip so much that in 2012 I went back and spent another two months there. From the steaks and tango in Buenos Aires, to the vineyards of Mendoza, to the rolling hills and epic landscape of Patagonia, the Argentina scenery all around the country is absolutely amazing. If you’re thinking about taking a trip to South America, then definitely make sure you visit Argentina, one of the prettiest countries that I’ve ever been to. It’s also a great place to eat steak, if you’re a meat eater. Here are a few of the photos I took during my two trips representing some of the beautiful Argentina scenery. All in all, I had an amazing five months in Argentina, with the highlight being a four day trip to Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost […]

It has been a long-time dream of mine to finally visit Machu Picchu, the Lost City of the Incas. I actually tried several times over the last few years, but somehow never made it to the ruins. I even bought a plane ticket earlier this year from Vancouver to Cuzco, Peru, but ended up not being able to go due to work commitments. Since I’ve been living in Brasil for the last month with my girlfriend, we decided it would be a good opportunity to finally visit Peru and Machu Picchu. A Few Days In Cuzco Most people who visit Machu Picchu initially have a stop in Cuzco, a medium-sized city approximately one hour by airplane from Lima. For a city of about 300,000 people, the downtown core feels surprisingly small, and easy to navigate by foot. Driving around the city on the other hand can be a bit scary […]

Luciana and I headed to the airport around 1am last night, with plans to catch a flight at 3:50am for Lima. Obviously that’s not an ideal flight time, but since it was heavily discounted we thought we could live with it. Another reason we booked that particular flight is that it was with TAM airlines, and they happen to be with Star Alliance. Since I’m going for Gold Status this year with Star Alliance, I welcomed the chance to get 6,000 more miles with them. Unfortunately when we got to the airport, TAM told us that we had to go over to LAN’s counter and check-in with them. I said I was confused because the tickets we had clearly said they were for TAM, even though the flight was operated by LAN Peru. The end result of this 15 minute discussion is that all my efforts to book with a […]

I few months ago I blogged about the fact that I had finally purchased a ticket to go to Peru and see Machu Picchu. Unfortunately due to the launch of WPtouch Pro 3, I wasn’t able to go at the time, and ended up tossing a $1,000 plane ticket in the garbage since Expedia wouldn’t give me a refund. All in all though the launch was a big success, so I can’t really complain. Sacrifices like that are part of owning your own business, and why I personally don’t feel as guilty when I enjoy a bit of relaxation time when things occasionally slow down for a while. Now that I’m finally back in South America, Luciana and I decided it would be an opportune time to visit Peru and ultimately Machu Picchu. We have a flight out of Sao Paulo at 3:50am (ouch), but that means we’ll be in […]

I’m currently down in São Paulo, Brazil, living with my girlfriend Luciana in her apartment in Vila Leopoldina. The original plan was to spend two or three months here exploring Sao Paulo, and then eventually head to Europe to continue on with our travel adventures. Our plans have changed somewhat though in that Luciana is now able to travel sooner than she would have originally been able to. So we’ve decided to accelerate our plans slightly, first by heading on a trip to Machu Picchu tomorrow, and second by heading to Europe in just a few weeks. I’ll be heading back to Canada on August 8th to see some friends and some family, and then I’ll be heading to Madrid to meet Luciana. She’s forced to stay back in Brazil for an exam for her MBA, but we’ll meet up shortly after that. In terms of São Paulo, my main […]

One of the hardest parts of traveling to remote countries is that it is not always easy to find some of the foods you enjoy the most back home. That in itself presents a great opportunity for exploring new foods, but let’s face it: sometimes it’s nice to have some tried and true comfort food. A good example of that for me is mexican food. It’s probably my favourite cuisine, and it was pretty rare that we didn’t have tacos at least weekly in my household growing up. Unfortunately in many parts of the world I’ve been in, finding mexican salsa can be a real pain. Even if you can find it (like here in Brazil), it’s an imported item that can easily cost $10 for a small container’s worth. Thankfully making fresh salsa at home is a pretty easy task, and one that I’ve performed a few times over […]

I was sort of hoping to keep this trip a secret, but enough people know now that it doesn’t seem to make any sense to not talk about it anymore (basically, I suck at secrets). While I have been to South America twice now, there is one destination there that I have never been able to make happen on my previous trips – I have always wanted to visit Peru, and in particular Machu Picchu, the Lost City of the Incas (now found, thankfully). So I decided to finally plan a trip to Peru. I’ve also aligned the trip to coincide exactly with my birthday, which will be a nice change from my normal birthday (which I usually always try to make rather quiet, but ends up usually involving shooters and a hangover). Machu Picchu is one of the New Wonders of the World, and it’ll be the 4th one […]

To be honest, it still feels a bit strange to be using the “Argentina” category on this blog again. When I left in March of last year, I wrote my final entry and had not envisioned coming back so soon. But as I mentioned in my previous post, after being away for a while I started to miss some of the better parts of this city, as well as some of the friends that I have here. Buenos Aires was my first trip that I set out on in January of 2011. I was still a very green and naive traveller, not really knowing what to expect or how I would deal with new situations. Back then many of my experiences seemed frustrating, and the first six weeks or so were a bit hard since I didn’t know anyone really in the city. After a year of travel I thought […]

In just a few days I’ll be leaving for the city of Buenos Aires again. As people who read this blog know, I started off this great travel adventure of mine last year in that very city. At the time I was a pretty green traveler, and struggled with the language and figuring out how the city worked for the first month or so of my trip. I was frustrated a few times, and a little disheartened with how hard it was at first to meet people. But I eventually overcame most of those obstacles, and probably grew as a person in the process. When my three months were up in Argentina, I was looking forward to heading to New York and to Ireland. But I really enjoyed my time in Argentina, the people I met, and the culture I got to experience. Over the last year or so I’ve […]