Lucille Wong

  • Three weeks in Brazil – Part 3

    Three weeks in Brazil – Part 3

    We arrived into sexy Rio de Janeiro on an overnight bus from Ouro Preto. Unfortunately, our first stop wasn’t Christ, Sugar Loaf or the beach but Copacabana hospital where Lindsay was admitted with a temperature of 39oC. Having visited Peru, Bolivia and Brazilian national parks, the doctors suspected a tropical disease. But after eight hours…

  • Three weeks in Brazil – Part 2

    Three weeks in Brazil – Part 2

    After two days in Salvador, we took a seven-hour bus bound for Lençois, the base for exploring the Chapada Diamantina National Park. We were here for our four-day hike of Paty Valley. Unlike the Inca Trail (mountains, clouds, ruins, rent-a-crowd) and the W Trek (mountains, snow, glaciers, lakes), this hike would take us through lush…

  • Three weeks in Brazil – Part 1

    Three weeks in Brazil – Part 1

    Before I started researching for South America, I could only name one Brazilian city. After the World Cup, I could name seven. After three weeks in Brazil, I have lost count the number of cities I have visited. Brazil is one giant and fascinatingly diverse country and I have barely scratched the surface. Lindsay and…

  • Hiking the W Trek in Patagonia

    Hiking the W Trek in Patagonia

    My love/hate relationship with hiking continued in Patagonia, the deep south of South America. After catching two flights from Salta (bought a dirty street hamburger outside Buenos Aires airport in transit) and two buses, we arrived in Torres del Paine, the national park in Chile where we began our hike of the famous W Trek.…

  • The lies of Colca Canyon

    The lies of Colca Canyon

    Having smashed (crawled) up the four-day Inca Trail a week earlier, my hiking confidence was at an all time high. Is hiking like childbirth? Because within days, I have forgotten the pain of Dead Woman’s Pass (the long, uphill climb at high altitudes – peaked at 4215m above sea level) and the Gringo Slayer (the…

  • Vive la Valparaíso

    Vive la Valparaíso

    Melbourne has the best coffee in the world and I’ve found proof in the seaport city of Valparaíso, some 120 km (90-minute bus ride) from the Chilean capital of Santiago. In Valpo’s main square is the “Melbourne Café”, a café which markets itself as “making coffee, just like in Melbourne”. The menu features the flat…