Tilly The Traveller

Firstly, I must apologise for how long it has been since my last blog entry. Three weeks of illness and then end of term Markham Madness led to no chance to write anything. Add to that the fact that the Internet at home stopped working, along with the laptop, my ipod and the XBOX and it has all been a bit of a technological nightmare. The ipode now sounds like a 1989 walkman complete with whirring tape effect and at times it even sounds like the tape is getting jammed. Only with an ipod you can't take out the tape and wind it back in with your finger - you are just stuck with a music player that won't play music.
With the cost of replacing electronic devices and of the ongoing $200 a month immunisation plan that is still going on - we decided to keep our holiday cheap and just go to Rio de Janeiro and Iguazu falls!!
We booked the holiday around one month ago and were amazed at how easy it was. An amazing website called Despegar.com was our route of booking and we would like you to remember that name as we will tell you now - NEVER USE IT!!! They confirmed our 5 day stay in Rio, they confirmed our flights to Rio and Iguazu and they confirmed our hotel in Iguazu. It was all simple and the emails were sent within the day. Wwe were sorted. Our stressful end to the term would all be worth it as now we were off to a place that we had only previously dreamed of going to. However, they then rang to ask for a deposit via telephone. Wierd, I thought, why would they want a deposit when I paid in full. I was at work and so said I would call back. I did call back and it took me 4 tries and 1 hour 30 to speak to anyone. They then said that they would call back in one hour. I waited, and waited and waited and nobody called back. Then, the next day everything was cancelled. So we tried again and this time went to their offices to pay.
'you cant pay at the offices, its an Internet company' we were told. So instead of taking our money in cash and in person - they sent us back to trying to pay by phone and then the next day they again cancelled all of our reservations.
By this time it was less than a week to go and so we booked our flights through a travel agent and then booked hotels through the ever reliable and decidedly non South American Expedia. So finally we were booked (it now cost A LOT more money but we were going and it was time for the holiday of a lifetime).
We would depart for Rio within 6 days and we would go to Iguazu falls and visit Argentina and Paraguay. All in all it would mean that Tilly The Traveller would have been in 6 countries within 4 months of her life!
Due to the Internet not working the full holiday undates will come in bit by bit but feel free to look at the Flickr photos in the meantime.
Chiao for now.