After recovering from BA on the loooong journey south to Puerto Madryn in Patagonia we struck gold by finding a cool little hostel run by a great Argentinian guy called Gaston. This guy was the hostess with the mostest and really couldn´t do enough for us.
After helping us book a tour for the following day, he cooked up the best barbeque ever and also did a wine-tasting session, whereby he took us through a range of fine argentinian reds. Neither Liam nor I are usually partial to a glass of red, but this was not like the vinegary rubbish that we had tried in the past. The BBQ´s or Parillas as they are called here in Argentina are fantastic, with delicious, perfectly-seasoned soft meat which just melts in the mouth (mmm, I´m drooling all over the keyboard just thinking about it) and the wines are fantastic too. No deep-fried shapes for tea in this neck of the woods.
The following morning Liam, Neil and I were collected by our tour guide and taken on a long and drawn-out journey to see the elephant seals, which come up onto the beach at this time of year to mate. Each male seal is surrounded by upto 6 adoring females, like an aquatic Puff Daddy video.
After being shown sheep and rabbits (can we just get to the seals, we´ve got millions of sheep at home thank-you-very-much) for a few hours on the journey, we finally arrived at the Peninsula Valdez. The seals were an amazing sight, hundreds of them on the beach blubbering about and calling to each other. The males were literally huge, and were scratching and making belching noises just like their human counterparts do!
After getting as close to them as we were allowed we had lunch then it was back on the sweltering bus to continue to the whale-watching part of the tour.
We were all a little tired and drained by the time we arrived, but as soon as we boarded the boat and the brisk wind slapped our faces we were awake and raring to see the Southern Right whales.
And they didn´t disappoint...within minutes of getting out onto the ocean we were surrounded by a "copulating group", a rare treat whereby upto 7 males work together to surround a female in order to mate with her. There is no competition involved, just a romping frenzy! The females can be 18m long, whilst the males are only 12m so I guess it makes sense for them to help each other out. The female plays hard to get, however, and spins upside down so that they have to work at turning her over in order to mate.
We got to watch this amazing spectacle from only a few feet away, as our boat lurched and swayed from the force of the water being churned by the whales. We clung to the boat as we snapped away, getting some cool footage of the whales cavorting and splashing around. At one point one whale even spurted water from his blowhole right over everyone on the boat.
It was truly humbling to watch, and the sheer size of these creatures makes you realize your tiny insignificance in the universe.
After a few hours it was time to return to the hostel, and fired-up from the excitement of the day we enthusiastically relayed our experience to Gaston. After a few minutes we realised he wasn´t quite as excited as us , and the horrible truth emerged that we´d made a mistake with our booking and had to leave the hostel there and then. It was gone 10pm, and we thought we´d booked for 3 nights, but once again the Spanglish had let us down and we were homeless.
It took a second for it to sink in, so Gaston somberly marched us into his office, where all our worldy goods had been rammed into plastic bags by a member of his staff. As it was bank holiday weekend, everywhere was fully-booked and the only place we could stay was the local 4-star hotel.
Not such a hardship, you may think, yet we´d already smashed the budget and I was not up for blowing a fortune on a hotel room. After throwing my flip-flops around for a bit I gave in and we taxied it across to the hotel where we would share a cosy room, all 3 of us, Liam, Neil and I...romantic.
We went out on the town to a bar and a cheesy club, only to be turfed out of our room a few hours after we´d got to bed.
Tariq arrived the next day and the boys had a lads´night whilst I stayed in watching movies on Neils ipod.
After a recovery period it was time for more sight-seeing so the 4 of us hired a car for the day and went to Trelew to see the huge penguin colony, where over 500,000 penguins can be seen during peak season.
Weirdly, one of the main languages in Puerto Madryn and Trelew is Welsh, as Welsh settlers staked a claim on this part of Argentina a few hundred years ago. You can even go for a Welsh afternoon tea...very strange when you are in South America!
After messing around amongst the penguins for a while we took another boat tour to see the dolphins. Again, right on cue, the black-and-white dolphins swam around the boat and we even got to see another whale, eyeballing us in close proximity. This boat was considerably smaller, and we were so close to the sealife that you could almost reach out and touch them.
After a fun day it was time for Liam and I to say goodbye and catch the bus back to BA, in order to go back to the airport to catch our flight to Lima.
Just a few days of healthy-living and hydration before some serious trekking. The Inca Trail awaits...
About Me
- Sam and Liam
- We wanted to celebrate our 10 year anniversary with a holiday we'd never forget - we reckon 6 months of travelling the world (from trekking on the Inca Trail and through the Amazon to riding an elephant in Thailand) should just about cover it!
Thursday, 16 October 2008
Back to BA to partaay!
Satisfied that we had seen the Valle De la Luna, a Unesco World Heritage site, we unfortunately had to sacrifice our next stop, Mendoza, due to the dozy Tour operator messing up our tight schedule.
Instead, we boarded another overnight bus back to Buenos Aires in order to meet up with Neil, his sister Jess and her boyfriend Paul, and a couple of crazy Scots, Nicola and Keith.
When we rolled off the bus with sleep in our eyes and bedheads we weren´t feeling or looking our best but when we clapped eyes on Neil and co we actually looked fresh in comparison since they were at the wrong end of a 3day bender.
So we´d finally managed to catch up with Neil, but still hadn´t been able to synchronise our route with Tariq...although whilst looking through Neil´s photos of Pacha we realised that he had! Weirdly, the only person Tariq had met at Pacha out of around 3000 people was Neil, and only after going back to someone´s house for an afterparty had it emerged that Neil and Tariq were both due to meet up with us...small world!
The next few days were spent visiting the zoo, the Boca region and the Boca Juniors stadium and going for dinner before donning our gladrags and heading out to a club called Rumi. After several VodkaSpeeds (cheap voddy redbulls) we were revving up into fifth gear, were soon on first name terms with several Argentinians and spent the night tearing up the dancefloor.
The Argentinians have been really friendly towards us and the only real annoyance we have encountered has been getting fake 50 peso notes from various cabbies and restaurants after a few vinos.(Some of the fakes have been laughably bad in the cold light of day!)
Back at the hostel we decided to carry on the party but the hostel bar was a bit pricey and poorly-stocked, so we smuggled in some more bevvies in a rucksack and continued our revelry on the roof terrace with the ipod. After a fun-filled day of ripping the Scots about whose country was best, Liam, Neil and I boarded the bus to Puerto Madryn to go whale-watching. We hadn´t been to bed and were a little worse for wear but the 24hr bus journey gave us plenty of time for catching up on some well-deserved shut-eye. Luckily we had paid the extra for luxury reclining seats, meals and dvd´s so it wasn´t as painful as it may sound...
Instead, we boarded another overnight bus back to Buenos Aires in order to meet up with Neil, his sister Jess and her boyfriend Paul, and a couple of crazy Scots, Nicola and Keith.
When we rolled off the bus with sleep in our eyes and bedheads we weren´t feeling or looking our best but when we clapped eyes on Neil and co we actually looked fresh in comparison since they were at the wrong end of a 3day bender.
So we´d finally managed to catch up with Neil, but still hadn´t been able to synchronise our route with Tariq...although whilst looking through Neil´s photos of Pacha we realised that he had! Weirdly, the only person Tariq had met at Pacha out of around 3000 people was Neil, and only after going back to someone´s house for an afterparty had it emerged that Neil and Tariq were both due to meet up with us...small world!
The next few days were spent visiting the zoo, the Boca region and the Boca Juniors stadium and going for dinner before donning our gladrags and heading out to a club called Rumi. After several VodkaSpeeds (cheap voddy redbulls) we were revving up into fifth gear, were soon on first name terms with several Argentinians and spent the night tearing up the dancefloor.
The Argentinians have been really friendly towards us and the only real annoyance we have encountered has been getting fake 50 peso notes from various cabbies and restaurants after a few vinos.(Some of the fakes have been laughably bad in the cold light of day!)
Back at the hostel we decided to carry on the party but the hostel bar was a bit pricey and poorly-stocked, so we smuggled in some more bevvies in a rucksack and continued our revelry on the roof terrace with the ipod. After a fun-filled day of ripping the Scots about whose country was best, Liam, Neil and I boarded the bus to Puerto Madryn to go whale-watching. We hadn´t been to bed and were a little worse for wear but the 24hr bus journey gave us plenty of time for catching up on some well-deserved shut-eye. Luckily we had paid the extra for luxury reclining seats, meals and dvd´s so it wasn´t as painful as it may sound...
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Valle De La Luna
Weeeell...slight change of plan. We travelled to San Juan specifically to see the amazing rock formations from the Triassic Period, but when we arrived in San Juan after yet another epic bus ride it emerged that the Valle De La Luna is actually a 5-hr bus ride away..although it is in the San Juan region it is actually closer to San Augustin, but that is a tiny village so people generally stay in San Juan. We stumbled, tired and crumpled from the 18hr bus journey, around the town attempting to find a travel agency which was a) .open and b) .able to speak enough English to explain the tour to us.
A) was proving to be the biggest hurdle, as San Juan has a ridiculously long 5hr siesta every day. 5 hrs! The lazy buggers. The shops only open for 3 hours, then the whole town closes down from 12.30 until 5.30pm.
We eventually booked our tour of the Valley de La Luna, but somehow the communication gap (or should that be canyon) meant that despite us getting up whilst it was still pitch black outside for our tour and waiting patiently for our guide...he never showed up!
And angry conversation in Spanglish (my version of Spanish) revealed that the tour operator had sent our guide to the wrong hostel to pick us up. We had to then rebook for the following day, thus losing a whole day as there wasn´t much else to do in San Juan. This was pretty frustrating, but when we finally managed to see the ancient rock formations we both agreed it ws worth the effort and the wait:
The day of the tour started off well - the guide actually turned up, so that was a bonus. Unfortunately his car came complete with two old french birds, who proceeded to twitter on in French for the entire 5hr journey.
Then, something miraculous happened....I rememebered every word of the French language that I had ever been taught. It seems my French A-level A grade was not in vain after all, and before long I was babbling away to the Frenchies like a native. Liam was well impressed, and I spent the day translating everything into English for him. We had a little system going - the French women spoke Spanish, so the guide told them some history, trivia etc, then they translated it into French, then I translated it into English for Liam. OK, so a few things may have got lost in translation, but I reckon my French teacher, Madame Perryhomme, would have been proud.
The Valle de la Luna was incredible - we saw amazing rock formations in gravity-defying shapes, eerie moon-like terrains and fossilized fish and dinosaurs.
We had lunch of empanadas (or ipanemas as we called them - duh!) and then set off for the 5hr ride home with our new french mates.
On the way home we visited a shrine, which thousands of Argentinians make a pilgrimage to every Sunday. It was a shrine to a woman who had died in the desert trying to find her military husband. Her body was found with her tiny son clinging to her breast. Miraculously he survived, and her tomb has become a shrine, with people bringing gifts to her from miles around. These ¨gifts¨included their stuffed pets, wedding dresses, football shirts, papier-mache replicas of their houses, photos, all sorts. It was a very weird sight to see all these people bringing random objects to the grave. There were also thousands of bottles of water, meant to stop her from getting thirsty ever again (she died of thirst in the desert).
An interesting end to a memorable day...
A) was proving to be the biggest hurdle, as San Juan has a ridiculously long 5hr siesta every day. 5 hrs! The lazy buggers. The shops only open for 3 hours, then the whole town closes down from 12.30 until 5.30pm.
We eventually booked our tour of the Valley de La Luna, but somehow the communication gap (or should that be canyon) meant that despite us getting up whilst it was still pitch black outside for our tour and waiting patiently for our guide...he never showed up!
And angry conversation in Spanglish (my version of Spanish) revealed that the tour operator had sent our guide to the wrong hostel to pick us up. We had to then rebook for the following day, thus losing a whole day as there wasn´t much else to do in San Juan. This was pretty frustrating, but when we finally managed to see the ancient rock formations we both agreed it ws worth the effort and the wait:
The day of the tour started off well - the guide actually turned up, so that was a bonus. Unfortunately his car came complete with two old french birds, who proceeded to twitter on in French for the entire 5hr journey.
Then, something miraculous happened....I rememebered every word of the French language that I had ever been taught. It seems my French A-level A grade was not in vain after all, and before long I was babbling away to the Frenchies like a native. Liam was well impressed, and I spent the day translating everything into English for him. We had a little system going - the French women spoke Spanish, so the guide told them some history, trivia etc, then they translated it into French, then I translated it into English for Liam. OK, so a few things may have got lost in translation, but I reckon my French teacher, Madame Perryhomme, would have been proud.
The Valle de la Luna was incredible - we saw amazing rock formations in gravity-defying shapes, eerie moon-like terrains and fossilized fish and dinosaurs.
We had lunch of empanadas (or ipanemas as we called them - duh!) and then set off for the 5hr ride home with our new french mates.
On the way home we visited a shrine, which thousands of Argentinians make a pilgrimage to every Sunday. It was a shrine to a woman who had died in the desert trying to find her military husband. Her body was found with her tiny son clinging to her breast. Miraculously he survived, and her tomb has become a shrine, with people bringing gifts to her from miles around. These ¨gifts¨included their stuffed pets, wedding dresses, football shirts, papier-mache replicas of their houses, photos, all sorts. It was a very weird sight to see all these people bringing random objects to the grave. There were also thousands of bottles of water, meant to stop her from getting thirsty ever again (she died of thirst in the desert).
An interesting end to a memorable day...
Friday, 3 October 2008
Buenos and beyond...
Population of Argentina:40million.
Population of dogs in Argentina: about the same.
Number of piles of dog poo dodged each day: hundreds.
I kid ye not, there are millions of dogs here, most apparently strays but they also appear well fed and cared for, and I have been known to save my brekkie on numerous occasions to feed a few.
Much to our relief, Argentina is much cheaper than Brazil. After living Richard Branson´s lifestyle on Oliver Twist´s budget, it was time to reign in our spending a little. We decided to explore the city by subway to save money (one journey on the tube is only .90 pesos, which is less than 20 pence), and bumped into a Brazilian guy who we´d met at the bus station the previous day who obviously had the same idea. Luckily Adriano, as he was called, informed us that he was a "Paulista" (resident of Sao Paulo) just before we were about to launch into a tirade about how awful a city it was, and our least favourite place in the whole of Brazil. For once, I managed to stop myself from putting my size 8´s in my mouth.
We explored the city with Adriano for several hours, before breaking off on our own to go for lunch. We wandered down by Puerto Madero, a port which is similar to London´s Docklands, with huge skyscrapers and flats alongside the river, combined with swanky restaurants and bars.
Much to our delight, it was possible to get a delicious 3-course lunch with complimentary champagne and a bottle of wine for about 25 quid for both of us!
Compared to the aformentioned deep-fried everything in Brazil, this was absolute heaven, with perfectly-cooked steaks and luxury chocolate deserts. What with the beautiful view over the river and lovely hot sun, this had definitely been the best food we´d sampled so far.
After lunch we continued exploring the city, although after all the wine and champers it ws pretty hard not to crack up at the most inappropiate things, and we ended up having to leave the cathedral in a hurry as we had a fit of the giggles...
That evening the hostel had organised a pub crawl, and we should have realised from this title that it was going to be a trashy affair aimed at 18-year olds. When we realized that the meeting point for this bar crawl was the local town square we were not impressed, and I was suddenly overcome with memories of getting bladdered on Diamond Whites down Danson park.
The bars they took us to were actually pretty nice, but there were a couple of irritating Americans who were cramping our style. As I was also a bit hungover from lunchtime and tired from all the sightseeing I was not in the mood to suffer fools, and dealt them a swift blank.
The evening culminated in a visit to a club called Lost, appropriately named as I managed to lose Liam when I went to the toilet (yes, I know I´ve done this several times before girls), then also managed to lose our Mastercard. . Doh!
The next day we visited the Eva Peron museum, which was really interesting, and crashed out in the sunshine for a while in the botanical gardens. We also went to San Telmo and watched some live tango shows in the main square and wandered around the markets and antique shops.
As we are returning to BA next week before travelling south we will visit the Boca neighbourhood and Recolleta then.
From BA we travelled to Rosario, where it rained non-stop for 2 days. Apart from Che Guevara´s birthplace and the memorial to him we didn´t find too much to excite us here, so continued north to Salta.
Salta was fantastic - we explored the city, went up in a cablecar to get a panoramic view (and almost lost my lunch in the process, it was wobbling around so much), and booked a trip on the "tren a la nubes" (train to the clouds) and to the salt flats.
We were picked up from the hostel at 7am, along with a group of 6 Irish nurses (who looked at me blankly when I did my best Catherine Tate impression, you know the one where she does the ginger irish nurse) and a few others. It was such a good day, through miles and miles of mountain ranges and desert, before visiting San Salvador and San Antonio Des Corbres, where llamas wandered about, and the people looked tiny and ancient. They are descended from indigenous tribes, and live in the middle of nowhere. One of the towns (I forget the name) had a population of 26 people! It´s amazing to see a lone old lady walking through the desert with only a goat or two for company, wearing full traditional costume, with nothing for miles around.
We invested in a couple of knitted woolly hats made from llama wool complete with ear flaps and llama patterns which we bought from the local women, as it was pretty cold due to the high altitude (4200m above sea level at the highest point), before we headed for the salt flats.
The salt flats were an incredible sight, just pure white plains as far as the eye can see. As you can imagine, we had great fun messing about taking photos of us all sprawled out on the salt, plus a few funny ones of the men who work at the flats, collecting the salt for processing.
As these guys work here for long periods, they wear balaclavas and glasses to protect them from the wind and bright sunlight reflecting off the salt. All very practical, but absolutely hilarious to look at.It was like chilling out with a gang of terrorists. They were a bit camera-shy though, so I had to buy a little piece of the slate they were carving llamas into just so they would let me take a few snaps of them. Maybe they didn´t appreciate us rolling about with laughter at the sight of their get-up...got a few choice piccies though! Unfortunately most internet cafes won´t let you upload pics so I haven´t figured out how to share them with you yet. I then got terrible altitude sickness (payback for laughing at those guys), which didn´t ease offf until we came back down.
We also went to a traditional BBQ, where we ate more lovely steaks (we´ll probably be digesting all this red meat for as long as it takes to pay for this trip), and danced (badly) with some locals to their traditional music, before hitting a club called Babylon with the Irish and a few others.
We also went to a really great archeological museum in Salta. Digging old stuff up for fun has never interested me that much, but this place was awesome, and housed perfectly-preserved remains of 3 inca children which were over 500 years old. As they had been offered to the gods on the top of a mountain, the conditions meant that as well as their skin, every hair, eyelash and fingernail remained intact. It was as though they died yesterday, and was a little creepy but fascinating too.
As this seems to be a record-breaking post, I´ll sign off now (well done if you made it this far!), and just say that we are now in San Juan. Tomorrow we are visiting the Valle De La Luna (Moon Valley), which is a huge Unesco National Heritage Park, where you can see ancient eerie rock formations. Then we will travel south to Mendoza, the main wine-producing region.Hmm, a few wine-tasting tours are in order methinks...
Population of dogs in Argentina: about the same.
Number of piles of dog poo dodged each day: hundreds.
I kid ye not, there are millions of dogs here, most apparently strays but they also appear well fed and cared for, and I have been known to save my brekkie on numerous occasions to feed a few.
Much to our relief, Argentina is much cheaper than Brazil. After living Richard Branson´s lifestyle on Oliver Twist´s budget, it was time to reign in our spending a little. We decided to explore the city by subway to save money (one journey on the tube is only .90 pesos, which is less than 20 pence), and bumped into a Brazilian guy who we´d met at the bus station the previous day who obviously had the same idea. Luckily Adriano, as he was called, informed us that he was a "Paulista" (resident of Sao Paulo) just before we were about to launch into a tirade about how awful a city it was, and our least favourite place in the whole of Brazil. For once, I managed to stop myself from putting my size 8´s in my mouth.
We explored the city with Adriano for several hours, before breaking off on our own to go for lunch. We wandered down by Puerto Madero, a port which is similar to London´s Docklands, with huge skyscrapers and flats alongside the river, combined with swanky restaurants and bars.
Much to our delight, it was possible to get a delicious 3-course lunch with complimentary champagne and a bottle of wine for about 25 quid for both of us!
Compared to the aformentioned deep-fried everything in Brazil, this was absolute heaven, with perfectly-cooked steaks and luxury chocolate deserts. What with the beautiful view over the river and lovely hot sun, this had definitely been the best food we´d sampled so far.
After lunch we continued exploring the city, although after all the wine and champers it ws pretty hard not to crack up at the most inappropiate things, and we ended up having to leave the cathedral in a hurry as we had a fit of the giggles...
That evening the hostel had organised a pub crawl, and we should have realised from this title that it was going to be a trashy affair aimed at 18-year olds. When we realized that the meeting point for this bar crawl was the local town square we were not impressed, and I was suddenly overcome with memories of getting bladdered on Diamond Whites down Danson park.
The bars they took us to were actually pretty nice, but there were a couple of irritating Americans who were cramping our style. As I was also a bit hungover from lunchtime and tired from all the sightseeing I was not in the mood to suffer fools, and dealt them a swift blank.
The evening culminated in a visit to a club called Lost, appropriately named as I managed to lose Liam when I went to the toilet (yes, I know I´ve done this several times before girls), then also managed to lose our Mastercard. . Doh!
The next day we visited the Eva Peron museum, which was really interesting, and crashed out in the sunshine for a while in the botanical gardens. We also went to San Telmo and watched some live tango shows in the main square and wandered around the markets and antique shops.
As we are returning to BA next week before travelling south we will visit the Boca neighbourhood and Recolleta then.
From BA we travelled to Rosario, where it rained non-stop for 2 days. Apart from Che Guevara´s birthplace and the memorial to him we didn´t find too much to excite us here, so continued north to Salta.
Salta was fantastic - we explored the city, went up in a cablecar to get a panoramic view (and almost lost my lunch in the process, it was wobbling around so much), and booked a trip on the "tren a la nubes" (train to the clouds) and to the salt flats.
We were picked up from the hostel at 7am, along with a group of 6 Irish nurses (who looked at me blankly when I did my best Catherine Tate impression, you know the one where she does the ginger irish nurse) and a few others. It was such a good day, through miles and miles of mountain ranges and desert, before visiting San Salvador and San Antonio Des Corbres, where llamas wandered about, and the people looked tiny and ancient. They are descended from indigenous tribes, and live in the middle of nowhere. One of the towns (I forget the name) had a population of 26 people! It´s amazing to see a lone old lady walking through the desert with only a goat or two for company, wearing full traditional costume, with nothing for miles around.
We invested in a couple of knitted woolly hats made from llama wool complete with ear flaps and llama patterns which we bought from the local women, as it was pretty cold due to the high altitude (4200m above sea level at the highest point), before we headed for the salt flats.
The salt flats were an incredible sight, just pure white plains as far as the eye can see. As you can imagine, we had great fun messing about taking photos of us all sprawled out on the salt, plus a few funny ones of the men who work at the flats, collecting the salt for processing.
As these guys work here for long periods, they wear balaclavas and glasses to protect them from the wind and bright sunlight reflecting off the salt. All very practical, but absolutely hilarious to look at.It was like chilling out with a gang of terrorists. They were a bit camera-shy though, so I had to buy a little piece of the slate they were carving llamas into just so they would let me take a few snaps of them. Maybe they didn´t appreciate us rolling about with laughter at the sight of their get-up...got a few choice piccies though! Unfortunately most internet cafes won´t let you upload pics so I haven´t figured out how to share them with you yet. I then got terrible altitude sickness (payback for laughing at those guys), which didn´t ease offf until we came back down.
We also went to a traditional BBQ, where we ate more lovely steaks (we´ll probably be digesting all this red meat for as long as it takes to pay for this trip), and danced (badly) with some locals to their traditional music, before hitting a club called Babylon with the Irish and a few others.
We also went to a really great archeological museum in Salta. Digging old stuff up for fun has never interested me that much, but this place was awesome, and housed perfectly-preserved remains of 3 inca children which were over 500 years old. As they had been offered to the gods on the top of a mountain, the conditions meant that as well as their skin, every hair, eyelash and fingernail remained intact. It was as though they died yesterday, and was a little creepy but fascinating too.
As this seems to be a record-breaking post, I´ll sign off now (well done if you made it this far!), and just say that we are now in San Juan. Tomorrow we are visiting the Valle De La Luna (Moon Valley), which is a huge Unesco National Heritage Park, where you can see ancient eerie rock formations. Then we will travel south to Mendoza, the main wine-producing region.Hmm, a few wine-tasting tours are in order methinks...
Thursday, 2 October 2008
mini rant... and breathe...
We finally arrived in Buenos Aires after planes, trains and automobiles (plus every other form of public transportation known to man). The flight itself was only a few hours, which was extremely infuriating actually as we were totally engrossed in our films (me- Sex and The City, Liam -Troy) when the pilot interrupted to say he would be switching off the in-flight entertainment for landing. We were literally 20 minutes from the end so it was tres annoying to say the least. (We had spent a blissful few days in the beautiful town of Paraty, but unfortunately had to travel south to the slightly less aesthetically-pleasing Sao Paulo for the flight to Argentina, which meant a 20hr journey before we arrived in Buenos Aires).
Long bus journeys are a big part of travelling, especially if you are on a budget (which we are smashing, by the way), as flights tend to be at least twice the price. When we started this trip we baulked at the idea of an 8hr bus ride, but now we are used to regularly spending 24hrs on a sweaty bus and 8 hrs seems like a walk in the park. Whilst I´m on the subject of the more negative side of travelling, let me just have a quick rant about other irritating aspects, just to get them off my chest.
1.Every laundrette shrinks your clothes, so much so that I´ve had to chuck away 2 tops and 3 pairs of knickers (which they shredded somehow?) already, and a few of my trousers are beginning to look scarily like they´ve had a row with my ankles. What do they DO to them , for chrissakes?
2. Carrying a huge backpack around on your back is not fun. I´ve developed a curvature of the spine in recent weeks. By the time we come home we´ll probably be crawling on all fours.
3. Some of the food in South America (Brazil particularly) is just plain WEIRD. Take for example the beef stroganoff that I ordered. (I didn´t know I´d ordered it as I couldn´t understand a word of the menu so just pointed at something randomly and tried to look confident in my choice). It came with a deep-fried banana in batter sticking out of it. I mean. A banana. In batter. The filthy, fruit-frying, b*stards.What was the chef thinking when he created that particular little delicacy I wonder. Perhaps he just stuck that in there for a laugh to try to confuse the gringo in the restaurant, looking smug that she´d managed to pronouce something for once.
Or how about the various assorted shapes they serve as snacks, which Liam and I lovingly refer to as UFO´s (unidentified fried objects). A typical discussion when ordering these goes something like this "what do you fancy ordering Liam? Well, we had a couple of triangles yesterday, so why don´t you try the square and I´ll have a few of these oblongs". The scary thing is we don´t know what the contents of these culinary delights are even AFTER we´ve eaten them.
3.How come everything came out of the rucksack, but now we´re trying to repack it (which we have to do every few days when we´re moving to a new place), only half the stuff will fit back in? It seems to take us at least an hour to leave the room each time, and even then it´s with half our belongings swinging on the outside of our packs cos we couldn´t face rearranging them for the umpteenth time.I guess our interpretation of travelling light is a bit different to everyone elses. Other travellers smirk when they see we´ve got half of Dixons in our bags, what with 3 mobiles, a PSP,an electronic translator, an iron, straghteners, hairdryer, ipods etc all bulging out.
4. Dorms were created by the devil. If hell exists, it will be a huge foreigner-filled dormitory) We´ve only stayed in them when we´ve arrived in the dead of night in a new place with nowhere to stay and this is all that´s available. The last time we did this I was on the top bunk. about an inch from the ceiling (some dorms even have 3-storey bunkbeds) sharing a room about the size of a postage stamp with 5 overexcited Spanish girls on a hen do, who rolled in at about 5am waving plastic willies and half-empty vodkas and then proceeded to throw up for what was left of the night.
I know it´s totally self-indulgent and spoilt-brat-like to have a moan when we are on the trip of a lifetime, but I´m hungover, feel sick and it´s my blog so I´ll do what I like.
I´ll be back with a proper post once my head is removed from the vice-like grip of this migraine....
Argentina is fantastic by the way.
Long bus journeys are a big part of travelling, especially if you are on a budget (which we are smashing, by the way), as flights tend to be at least twice the price. When we started this trip we baulked at the idea of an 8hr bus ride, but now we are used to regularly spending 24hrs on a sweaty bus and 8 hrs seems like a walk in the park. Whilst I´m on the subject of the more negative side of travelling, let me just have a quick rant about other irritating aspects, just to get them off my chest.
1.Every laundrette shrinks your clothes, so much so that I´ve had to chuck away 2 tops and 3 pairs of knickers (which they shredded somehow?) already, and a few of my trousers are beginning to look scarily like they´ve had a row with my ankles. What do they DO to them , for chrissakes?
2. Carrying a huge backpack around on your back is not fun. I´ve developed a curvature of the spine in recent weeks. By the time we come home we´ll probably be crawling on all fours.
3. Some of the food in South America (Brazil particularly) is just plain WEIRD. Take for example the beef stroganoff that I ordered. (I didn´t know I´d ordered it as I couldn´t understand a word of the menu so just pointed at something randomly and tried to look confident in my choice). It came with a deep-fried banana in batter sticking out of it. I mean. A banana. In batter. The filthy, fruit-frying, b*stards.What was the chef thinking when he created that particular little delicacy I wonder. Perhaps he just stuck that in there for a laugh to try to confuse the gringo in the restaurant, looking smug that she´d managed to pronouce something for once.
Or how about the various assorted shapes they serve as snacks, which Liam and I lovingly refer to as UFO´s (unidentified fried objects). A typical discussion when ordering these goes something like this "what do you fancy ordering Liam? Well, we had a couple of triangles yesterday, so why don´t you try the square and I´ll have a few of these oblongs". The scary thing is we don´t know what the contents of these culinary delights are even AFTER we´ve eaten them.
3.How come everything came out of the rucksack, but now we´re trying to repack it (which we have to do every few days when we´re moving to a new place), only half the stuff will fit back in? It seems to take us at least an hour to leave the room each time, and even then it´s with half our belongings swinging on the outside of our packs cos we couldn´t face rearranging them for the umpteenth time.I guess our interpretation of travelling light is a bit different to everyone elses. Other travellers smirk when they see we´ve got half of Dixons in our bags, what with 3 mobiles, a PSP,an electronic translator, an iron, straghteners, hairdryer, ipods etc all bulging out.
4. Dorms were created by the devil. If hell exists, it will be a huge foreigner-filled dormitory) We´ve only stayed in them when we´ve arrived in the dead of night in a new place with nowhere to stay and this is all that´s available. The last time we did this I was on the top bunk. about an inch from the ceiling (some dorms even have 3-storey bunkbeds) sharing a room about the size of a postage stamp with 5 overexcited Spanish girls on a hen do, who rolled in at about 5am waving plastic willies and half-empty vodkas and then proceeded to throw up for what was left of the night.
I know it´s totally self-indulgent and spoilt-brat-like to have a moan when we are on the trip of a lifetime, but I´m hungover, feel sick and it´s my blog so I´ll do what I like.
I´ll be back with a proper post once my head is removed from the vice-like grip of this migraine....
Argentina is fantastic by the way.
Friday, 26 September 2008
Favelas and Football...
So, after plenty of partying, we decided to do some more cultural stuff and give our poor livers a holiday (well, a mini-break at least).
We decided to get outside our comfort zone and went on a tour of the favelas (shantytowns) of Rio, which are hard, lawless societies up in the hills where the sound of gunfire is an everyday occurance. The tour began by us being taken into a favela called Rocinha on the back of motorbikes driven by scary-looking male residents of the favela, which was a hair-raising experience in itself as they drove at break-neck speeds without crash helmets up the winding hills, weaving in and out of buses and other vehicles who were all driving erratically themselves. This favela is home to 300,000 occupants who all live in extremely close proximity in tiny houses that they have literally thrown together themselves. Each woman has on average 7 children, all living in one or two rooms. As the favelas are so overpopulated, people then sell their rooves for around 2000 reals (about 650 quid), and another family then build their house on top. Some of these "houses" are about 4 storeys high and it´s amazing they even stay up. We were told not to take photos as we entered the favela as there are children who sit at the entrance with walkie-talkies, keeping watch for the drug barons and reporting who enters and leaves the favela. They had guns and hand grenades and just stared at us with cold expressions as we went past. Aside from this, everyone else that we met was pretty friendly (as 60% of the tour fee goes to the residents they are generally tolerant of tourists).
There was clearly a lot of talent and creativity amongst all the poverty and filth. We watched a group of young boys playing the drums and singing and they were really skilled musicians, yet their "instruments" were just old cans, paint drums and sticks. We also saw the graffitti which covers the walls, some of which were fantastic works of art. Apparently some international footballers came from this favela.
As the police stay away from the favelas there are no laws or authorities, so hundreds of wires hang down in the narrow streets as people attach their own cables to the electricity supply and water mains, and siphon off their power for free. Some of the huts even had free Sky TV and internet!
It was an interesting and humbling day, and as there are 52 million Brazilians who live in favelas around the country it was something we wanted to see first-hand to really get a feel for how these people live. Of course there are also rich areas, but only 2% of the population account for over 90% of the country´s wealth.
Of course, Liam wouldn´t have been happy unless we saw a football match before we left Brazil, so we hooked up with a group of people we´d become friends with at our hostel in Rio and headed for a game at the Maracana stadium. It holds around 110,000 people, and although there were only 28,000 at the match we saw (Flamengoes v Impatiga (I think!)), the atmosphere was electric. We were right in the thick of it, with everyone chanting, playing the drums, waving huge flags and generally going mental!
After an action-packed week in Rio, we decided to travel to Paraty (Para-chee) to chill out for a few days before our flight to Buenos Aires. Our hostel was gorgeous (a word I never thought I´d use to describe a hostel) and right on the beach, so we could hear the ocean as we dropped off to sleep. This was a really beautiful town: quaint, with cobbled streets and great views. Locals even tied their horses to lampposts whilst they stopped for a quick cerveja in a bar.
After soaking up the sun (we are still anaemic by the way, thanks to our factor 30 emulsion and temperamental weather conditions) and relaxing, it was time for another bustling city...Buenos Aires, here we come...
We decided to get outside our comfort zone and went on a tour of the favelas (shantytowns) of Rio, which are hard, lawless societies up in the hills where the sound of gunfire is an everyday occurance. The tour began by us being taken into a favela called Rocinha on the back of motorbikes driven by scary-looking male residents of the favela, which was a hair-raising experience in itself as they drove at break-neck speeds without crash helmets up the winding hills, weaving in and out of buses and other vehicles who were all driving erratically themselves. This favela is home to 300,000 occupants who all live in extremely close proximity in tiny houses that they have literally thrown together themselves. Each woman has on average 7 children, all living in one or two rooms. As the favelas are so overpopulated, people then sell their rooves for around 2000 reals (about 650 quid), and another family then build their house on top. Some of these "houses" are about 4 storeys high and it´s amazing they even stay up. We were told not to take photos as we entered the favela as there are children who sit at the entrance with walkie-talkies, keeping watch for the drug barons and reporting who enters and leaves the favela. They had guns and hand grenades and just stared at us with cold expressions as we went past. Aside from this, everyone else that we met was pretty friendly (as 60% of the tour fee goes to the residents they are generally tolerant of tourists).
There was clearly a lot of talent and creativity amongst all the poverty and filth. We watched a group of young boys playing the drums and singing and they were really skilled musicians, yet their "instruments" were just old cans, paint drums and sticks. We also saw the graffitti which covers the walls, some of which were fantastic works of art. Apparently some international footballers came from this favela.
As the police stay away from the favelas there are no laws or authorities, so hundreds of wires hang down in the narrow streets as people attach their own cables to the electricity supply and water mains, and siphon off their power for free. Some of the huts even had free Sky TV and internet!
It was an interesting and humbling day, and as there are 52 million Brazilians who live in favelas around the country it was something we wanted to see first-hand to really get a feel for how these people live. Of course there are also rich areas, but only 2% of the population account for over 90% of the country´s wealth.
Of course, Liam wouldn´t have been happy unless we saw a football match before we left Brazil, so we hooked up with a group of people we´d become friends with at our hostel in Rio and headed for a game at the Maracana stadium. It holds around 110,000 people, and although there were only 28,000 at the match we saw (Flamengoes v Impatiga (I think!)), the atmosphere was electric. We were right in the thick of it, with everyone chanting, playing the drums, waving huge flags and generally going mental!
After an action-packed week in Rio, we decided to travel to Paraty (Para-chee) to chill out for a few days before our flight to Buenos Aires. Our hostel was gorgeous (a word I never thought I´d use to describe a hostel) and right on the beach, so we could hear the ocean as we dropped off to sleep. This was a really beautiful town: quaint, with cobbled streets and great views. Locals even tied their horses to lampposts whilst they stopped for a quick cerveja in a bar.
After soaking up the sun (we are still anaemic by the way, thanks to our factor 30 emulsion and temperamental weather conditions) and relaxing, it was time for another bustling city...Buenos Aires, here we come...
Sunday, 21 September 2008
ripping up the dancefloor in Rio
We finally arrived in Rio, after a record-breaking 26hr bus journey, our longest yet! We even had to put our clocks forward when we arrived as we had crossed a time zone. We got on the bus at 4pm after a night out with a great Austrian couple we´d become friends with in Iguazu and had then spent the camping trip in the Pantanal with. We spent a gruelling journey in close proximity to the toilets and a few Brazilian guys with questionable hygiene habits, finally arriving in Rio de Janeiro at 7pm the next evening.
As you can imagine we were pretty tired so were impressed when we arrived at our hostel, Mellow Yellow, to find it had a hot tub on the roof. The excitement was short-lived however cos as well as the hot tub it was also home to a whole ecosystem of insects, all residing in our room. Liam removed a few millipedes (giant ones!) from the room and we went to bed, only to be woken up in the night with all the shouting and drunken antics going on. This hostel is huge, with 24bed dorms, and although we had our own (grotty) room it still felt like the rest of Rio was in the room too, the walls were that thin. Even the bedbugs wore earplugs.Anyway, I was actually glad to be woken up because when I opened my eyes I realised there was another party going on, namely on my stomach with a family of tics! As I yanked the little bloodsuckers off me I vowed to leave that place as soon as it got light outside.
Struggling in torrential rain, we left this bug-infested version of hell and made our way to a smaller, better (and cheaper!) hostel down the road, just near Copacabana beach, where the people were friendly and the rooms relatively bug-free (we´ve still picked up lots of suspiciously flea-like bites all over our lower bodies from here though I hasten to add).
Creepy-crawlies aside, Rio is fantastico! We arrived on Monday and are still here now, Sunday, as it is absolutely buzzing and we can´t tear ourselves away.
We have visited all the major tourist attractions, such as Sugar Loaf mountain, the Christ the Redeemer statue, Santa Theresa the artisan and hippy area (Chris you would love it there) and much more. We also spent the afternoon with an artist called Selaron, an amazing guy who has covered some steps (125 of them) with tiles from all over the world, from over 60 countries, making a colourful, mosaic-effect work of art. These steps are so famous that they have been used in a Snoop-Dogg video, in CSI, and loads of magazine shoots etc.
We have also done our share of partying - these guys don´t mess about! We went to a street party in Lapa on Friday night, which was absolutely amazing. We lubricated ourselves with several Caipirinhas ( basically sugar, lime and cachacas) at the hostel bar before a big group of us headed out to the party, where literally thousands of people filled the streets, all gyrating to the intoxicating drum beats of Samba music. The locals were only too willing to grab hold of us and attempt to teach us how to do it, but Liam and I have been dancing to house music for far too long, and couldn´t get the rhythm the same as them. They were wiggling their hips and shuffling their feet, and we were doing big box, little box instead! They didn´t seem to mind too much, and may have even picked up a few new moves from us I reckon.We finally staggered home at around 4.30am, all samba´d out.
The next day we decided to recover on Copacabana beach, although the constant prodding by beach vendors selling all sorts of stuff was pretty grating, especially when they accidently kicked sand in our faces every time they flip-flopped off.
Last night we hit it hard again with a load of people from our hostel, all about 10 years younger than us might I add. We still gave those whippersnappers a run for their money on the dancefloor though I can tell you. The only annoying thing about the clubs here is that you drink all night then pay at the end, so it can get pretty pricey, especially as those caipirinhas slide down just a little too easily...
So we´ve decided to stay here for a few more days, even though our wallets and livers are begging us to move on. We are truly enthralled by this place, and all the scary stories about how dangerous it is here seem to be far removed from the truth. We have heard some pretty awful stories, but don´t panic Mum, we´ve encountered nothing more than a few bad hangovers here!
It feels soo much safer than Sao Paulo, and much more fun too.
Let´s hope Argentina has as much to offer as Brazil, as we are flying to Buenos Aires on Wednesday. Now, shall we stay in Rio or head to Paraty and Ilhe Grande, which was the original plan? Something tells me we may be staying in Rio just a little bit longer than planned...
As you can imagine we were pretty tired so were impressed when we arrived at our hostel, Mellow Yellow, to find it had a hot tub on the roof. The excitement was short-lived however cos as well as the hot tub it was also home to a whole ecosystem of insects, all residing in our room. Liam removed a few millipedes (giant ones!) from the room and we went to bed, only to be woken up in the night with all the shouting and drunken antics going on. This hostel is huge, with 24bed dorms, and although we had our own (grotty) room it still felt like the rest of Rio was in the room too, the walls were that thin. Even the bedbugs wore earplugs.Anyway, I was actually glad to be woken up because when I opened my eyes I realised there was another party going on, namely on my stomach with a family of tics! As I yanked the little bloodsuckers off me I vowed to leave that place as soon as it got light outside.
Struggling in torrential rain, we left this bug-infested version of hell and made our way to a smaller, better (and cheaper!) hostel down the road, just near Copacabana beach, where the people were friendly and the rooms relatively bug-free (we´ve still picked up lots of suspiciously flea-like bites all over our lower bodies from here though I hasten to add).
Creepy-crawlies aside, Rio is fantastico! We arrived on Monday and are still here now, Sunday, as it is absolutely buzzing and we can´t tear ourselves away.
We have visited all the major tourist attractions, such as Sugar Loaf mountain, the Christ the Redeemer statue, Santa Theresa the artisan and hippy area (Chris you would love it there) and much more. We also spent the afternoon with an artist called Selaron, an amazing guy who has covered some steps (125 of them) with tiles from all over the world, from over 60 countries, making a colourful, mosaic-effect work of art. These steps are so famous that they have been used in a Snoop-Dogg video, in CSI, and loads of magazine shoots etc.
We have also done our share of partying - these guys don´t mess about! We went to a street party in Lapa on Friday night, which was absolutely amazing. We lubricated ourselves with several Caipirinhas ( basically sugar, lime and cachacas) at the hostel bar before a big group of us headed out to the party, where literally thousands of people filled the streets, all gyrating to the intoxicating drum beats of Samba music. The locals were only too willing to grab hold of us and attempt to teach us how to do it, but Liam and I have been dancing to house music for far too long, and couldn´t get the rhythm the same as them. They were wiggling their hips and shuffling their feet, and we were doing big box, little box instead! They didn´t seem to mind too much, and may have even picked up a few new moves from us I reckon.We finally staggered home at around 4.30am, all samba´d out.
The next day we decided to recover on Copacabana beach, although the constant prodding by beach vendors selling all sorts of stuff was pretty grating, especially when they accidently kicked sand in our faces every time they flip-flopped off.
Last night we hit it hard again with a load of people from our hostel, all about 10 years younger than us might I add. We still gave those whippersnappers a run for their money on the dancefloor though I can tell you. The only annoying thing about the clubs here is that you drink all night then pay at the end, so it can get pretty pricey, especially as those caipirinhas slide down just a little too easily...
So we´ve decided to stay here for a few more days, even though our wallets and livers are begging us to move on. We are truly enthralled by this place, and all the scary stories about how dangerous it is here seem to be far removed from the truth. We have heard some pretty awful stories, but don´t panic Mum, we´ve encountered nothing more than a few bad hangovers here!
It feels soo much safer than Sao Paulo, and much more fun too.
Let´s hope Argentina has as much to offer as Brazil, as we are flying to Buenos Aires on Wednesday. Now, shall we stay in Rio or head to Paraty and Ilhe Grande, which was the original plan? Something tells me we may be staying in Rio just a little bit longer than planned...
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