Audience for this Blog

I created this blog to allow people to view my photos from the South America trip.


This blog contains mainly photos, with some explanatory text and a few maps. Most readers have either done a similar tour or have seen my emails from the trip and have some idea of what I've been up to.

If you've stumbled onto this site by accident (rather than invite) then that's fine too! But don't expect too much - I'm not pretending this is a "Lonely Planet" style guide to South America.

The trip was an organised tour through Peru for three weeks, followed by three days in Buenos Aires (Argentina) then three days in Iguazu Falls (on the border of Argentina & Brazil).

The photo coverage is rather patchy. Some days and some excursions I took little, if any, photos. In hindsight I should have been more diligent. I guess I need more practice going on holidays!


If you have any comments or suggestions about individual photos, captions, posts or the blog, please send me an email.

How to Use

I've divided the photos into posts (blog speak), where each post is either a location (typically a city) or an excursion (in or near a city).

The map below displays each city we visited. You can click on the map for a larger view (then click the 'back arrow' button to return here).


I've made minor changes to the original shooting order of the photos to allow them to be grouped into locations / excursions. I hope you find this presentation method easier to follow than a simple "dump" from the camera's memory card.

The right hand side of this blog lists all of the posts - click on one to jump directly to it.

You can scroll up and down within a post, or across a number of posts. If there are more posts to follow, click on the "older posts" button at the end of the current crop of posts; the next lot is displayed.

To view a larger version of a photo (in the same window) simply click on the photo.

Technical Notes

I created this blog in September 2009, hence the date displayed at the top of the "Location / Excursion" list.

All photographs were taken using my trusty Canon SD880, hand-held. This point-and-shoot style camera is very convenient and capable. However it's not a waterproof / sandproof camera, so I had to keep it under wraps on a couple of excursions. And like any point-and-shoot camera, the image quality in low light situations is poor.

All photographs have been edited to varying degrees using an image editor. Typical edits include cropping / straightening, exposure adjustment (contrast), colour correction, perspective correction, spot fixing, removing distractions and sharpening. Removing distractions means editing out an unwanted element, which could be anything from a small reflection to a person.

From the 700 photographs I shot, I picked out and edited 330 photographs for this blog.

The camera generates images with a 3:4 aspect ratio, which I prefer over the "traditional" 2:3 aspect ratio. Some photos might benefit with a crop to a different aspect ratio, but I've decided to retain the 3:4 ratio in all of the images used in this blog.

The two maps of South America were created from images taken from Google Maps. I manually overlaid the location of each city we visited (or had an interest in).

Santiago - stopover

The flights from Adelaide to Lima take the best part of a day (24 hours). The 5 hour stopover in Santiago was our first taste of hanging around an airport. Kirsten and Jenny went for a quick tour of the city whereas Peter and I decided to tough it out in the airport. There's only so long you can stooge around an airport terminal. The look on Peter's face says it all. B-o-r-i-n-g!

Lima

The flight into Lima landed late at night. We took a taxi into a rough part of town where the hotel is located. The following morning was the start of our first full day in South America!

From the hotel we walked into and around the town square and also went on a guided tour. This was the pattern we adopted in most of the cities we visited.
















The official Peruvian cocktail drink is the "Pisco Sour". It was pretty good and we made a point of having one (or three) in every city we visited.



When the Spanish occupied Peru 500 years ago, they brought in their language, architecture and religion. Every town has a Catholic church and the cities have a Cathedral as well.




The buildings around the town square and the religious buildings have the best workmanship and maintenance. However the back of the Cathedral here looks a bit worse for wear. The general standard of buildings is poor by Australian standards.

Lima - Presidential Parade

One side of Lima's town square is occupied by the Presidential Palace. As we walked into the square we heard a military band. The band marched out from the behind the palace gates and progressed around the square. The musicianship was first class (as you would expect from South Americans).

Pisco

Pisco is a dusty, rough and dilapidated place. It was hit by an earthquake several years ago and more than half of the city was affected. The hotel went unscathed and is still one of the better buildings in the city.

It's the first time the people in the tour group had a meal together. We all sat around a long table; it was a good night.





Nina, Ellie, Naomi, Kendra, Jan and Aimee. Nina is the youngest person in the group (18) and Jan is the oldest (63).