Hello,
The Awesomeness of Buenos Aires. It is awesome in many ways, namely the steak, the wine, the people, the sights, the night life, the history, the steak, the travellers, the museums, the atmosphere, the tango, the steak, the wine, the steak...(guess what I have been mostly eating since I got here!) After a good two weeks in this most wonderful of cities I could proudly list for you the things which I have enjoyed most. However, such a list would entail only the repetition of two things on the above list: wine and steak. Which is not to say I did not enjoy the other things I did, which were also awesome. But the steak and wine were amazing. I realise, nonetheless, that you might also appreciate a little insight into the other excellent things about Buenos Aires. So here goes...
Buenos Aires is a pretty darned cool place. The atmosphere is very cosmopolitan, very European, very multicultural. In fact, due to the Spanish and Italian heritage it is almost an extension of Europe and certainly has a very different feel to the rest of South America. You can get shower gel, brown bread and other such western delights, and even (albeit terrible tasting as it is made in Brazil) Cadbury´s! And they know how to make a proper cup of coffee. Gone are the days of Ecuadorian ashtray-flavoured instant coffee with a sprinkling of powdered milk. Gone are the days of coffee gloop reminiscent of congealed soya-sauce found in Bolivia which had to be watered down and doused liberally with sugar to make it even partially palatable. And welcome the days when quality caffeine can be relied upon to cure the worst of red-wine hangovers. Beunos Aires is also pretty darned cool because it has so many different areas. For the first stint of my stay I resided in the Clan hostel in the microcentre. A rocking atmosphere and a selection of great new traveller friends were complimented by the great things to see in the neighbourhood. I checked out the Casa Rosada (Argentina´s pink answer to the White House) and saw the Madres (mothers) of the children lost in the Dirty War protest outside it, I saw the congress buildings, and dallied around the most expensive shopping malls salivating lustfully over beautiful leather bags. I also managed to catch a tango show in the rather swish Cafe Tortoni before branching out to visit the area of La Boca - the colourful home to Boca Juniors Football Team and historic birth place of the sultry dance of tango itself. With some new found Israeli friends and the lovely Norweigan Ida and German Claudia, I ticked off another area and sauntered around the middle class gardens of Palermo. Then, with Pete Ross safely sent to Patagonia, the arrival of Peter Goult and his friend Will brought a new selection of exciting things to be done. Firstly, an afternoon trip to see a polo match resulted in sneaking in the back accidentally, then taking full advantage, naturally, of the free wine and beer afterwards. And since then Pete and Will have been doing a splendid job of entertaining me. On Sunday Pete and I mooched around San Telmo (another area - cobbled stones, lovely little squares, rather quaint) antiques market, watching street artists and tango dancers. And on Monday they convinced me to go to Uruguay...
Uruguay. First stop, Colonia. One ferry ride at an unearthly time in the morning later, and we reached a pretty but overly quiet little place where there was little to do, and where it rained. All day. However, given that I have only seen rain twice in the last 3 months though, the novelty of rain only added to what actually turned out to be a rather enteraining day. Faced with next to nothing to do, the impromptu rental of a golf cart enabled us to see the city in style, as well as speeding recklessly at the maximum golf cart velocity of 20 mph, racing other golf cart renters and attempting wheelies and spins on gravelled areas. We found a deserted and dilapedated bull ring, saw a lighthouse, some ruins, and marvelled at the show piece 1.90m walls the guide book raved about. The day was topped off by dining in the excellently converted interior of a 1920s car in a rather eccentric restaurant. As you do. So all in all a good day. Which is more than can be said of Montevideo. Again, it rained. Again, there was nothing to do. We met some friendly South Africans, went to a none existent beach and saw an uninteresting museum of art. And then we went back to BA.
Soooo, back in buzzing Buenos Aires, and we changed hostel to stay in Palermo, where I resumed culture vulture status by visiting the Museum of Belles Artes and the Evita museum, as well as finding a beautiful leather bag, and making a quick re-visit to the microcentre to see some churches. I also resumed my party-animal penchant for a couple of nights, once again consuming more steak than is strictly necessary and imbibing more red wine than is probably wise. Pete turned 23, in aid of which a few screwdrivers and various other cocktails assured he didn`t even make it out of the hostel. So I went out to a club instead to celebrate my last night in BA. Sigh.
And now - one 26 hour bus journey later - I am in Bariloche. The journey was rather scenic, passing expansive plains on which cattle grazed and finally melting into the rolling hills, snow-topped peaks and sparkly lakes of the Lake District. Bariloche itself is wonderful. It is just like Christmas. The streets are lined with log cabins and chocolate shops piled to the ceiling with delicious chocolatey goodness. Mmmmmm...And Bariloche is also a great centre for outdoor activities. Some of the things I would like to do are skiing, snowboarding, hiking, biking, paragliding and horse riding. Not that I will have time to do all of them, or that the (slightly cloudy and drizzly in the town, but nice and snowy in the mountains) weather or my finances will permit me to do everything, but I am having fun deciding which outdoor pursuit injury to acquire first. Watch this space for inevitably hilarious pictures of me failing spectacularly at various new sports (but doing so, naturally, in superlative style). I think I might hit the slopes tomorrow for my first skiing lesson, and in the meantime I will be taking full advantage of the sugary wares of Argentina`s chocolate capital.
xxx
Saturday, 15 September 2007
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
On Salt, being a tramp, and the world´s best steak
Afternoon y´all,
Soooo - where was I? Salt Flats. Well, the journey there was a little more tricky than anticipated. What should have been an easy transfer to Uyuni turned into an impromptu stop-over in the tourist-hating hell-hole of Oruro, where we were ripped off, scammed, shunned and scorned and had a thoroughly unpleasant time. This was mainly on account of my inability to move any quicker than a pitiful hobble, thus causing us to missing two buses and me to be unaffectionately renamed ´limpy Longfils´. Anyway, when we finally arrived in Uyuni via nightbus we jumped straight onto a tour of the Salt Flats and sped away to one of the eeriest places in the world. Imagine being in a David Hockney picture entitled White/Blue. That´s the salt flats. Massive expanses (12000 squared km to be exact) of flat, white, 40 thousand year old salt, topped with cloudless blue sky, spreading out in a glittering, glaring, snow-like landscape. We had a lot of fun posing like idiots among the snow mounds, saw a train cemetery and some salt processing, and were whisked off to our salt hotel (a hotel made entirely of salt) by our inept, useless and bolshy guide to spend an afternoon awaiting dinner-time. And there was nothing to do there. After the initial 5 minute long novelty of staying in a salt hotel wore off, we explored the surrounding desolate desert and salt - akin, I imagine, to being on Neptune - to find only more desert and salt, and nothing of any more interest than a couple of unclimbable wannabe mountains. Nothing to do. Nothing. Absolutly NOTHING. Faced with such a predicament, (Grandma, do not read the rest of this sentence) there was simply no choice but to get *blind* drunk and entertain ourselves with a stuffed armadillo. We discovered said armadillo fortuitously on a window ledge and named him Kirky, after the illustrious Mr. Adam Kirk, esq.. Kirky was great.
The morning after the night before was spent nursing horrendous hangovers and trying to unravel the mystery of where-did-Kirky-go. (It turned out the hostel owner confiscated him and locked him in a room well out of harm´s way - (Spoil sprts!) - a room which, I should add, apparently underwent numerous drunken and thwarted break-in attempts to rescue Kirky by Pete and me). We were then taken to the Galaxias caves, where we shimmied through petrified cacti forests, marvelled at moon-like caves of ancient fossilised coral (which would have been underwater 40000 years ago when the salt flats were actually a lake), explored a cemetery in another cave, went to what was once an island and gazed out on its white sea of salt, and argued with our rubbish guide to make him take us to a volcano specified as a highlight of our tour. Numerous threats of reporting him to the Lonely Planet later, we got a good view of an awesome volcano, stumbled on a flock of flamingos and saw some (salt) water springs to pot. Not bad all in all.
And after Uyuni, the epic trek to Iguazu began. Commencing with an obscenely early bus (and a serendipitous view of a lunar eclipse!!) to Jujuy, our descent into trampery began. Wearing approximately 13 layers of clothing in a bid to ward off the subzero cold, not having showered for 7 days (too cold to undress!) and having slept and lived in the same clothes for 5 days solid (again, too cold!), we reached Argentina smelling terrible, looking destitute, and thinking we had finally attained tramp status. An overnight stop-over in a cash point with a bonefide tramp while waiting for a connecting bus proved us wrong, however. I now consider the true point of my acquisition of trampliness to be when I started to envy our tramp his cardboard box. Moving on...some 1700 km, a shower in Salta and several packets of Oreos (my favourite travel food - oooh, the chocolatey goodness) later, having passed through Paraguayan capital Asuncion and had a do-it-yourself city tour by Ruth, stopped over in the most corrupt city in South America, Ciudad del Este, we finally got to Iguazu. It. Was. Amazing. Utterly amazing. We spent a day on the Brazilian side (got stamped in, but forgot to get stamped out again...so I figure I will be in Brazil for the rest of my life??) and one on Argentina´s side. Got lots of photos. Got wet.
And one 17 hour bus journey later, and we are now in Buenos Aires. Perhaps my favourite place so far. We are staying in a funky hostel full of travellers, soaking up the sights, drinking red wine, seeing tango, and eating our body weight in the most excellent steak in the whole wide world. Mmmmm... Ruth and Matt fly home tomorrow, so one big night out tonight to celebrate our travels...and then it´s just me and Pete. Pete is currently masterminding a trip to Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia. Being adverse to the cold, however, I think I am going to stay put here in BA for the next while...and I will tango my socks off, eat meat, and let you know more about the awesomeness of Argentina´s capital next time.
Ciao for now
xxx
Soooo - where was I? Salt Flats. Well, the journey there was a little more tricky than anticipated. What should have been an easy transfer to Uyuni turned into an impromptu stop-over in the tourist-hating hell-hole of Oruro, where we were ripped off, scammed, shunned and scorned and had a thoroughly unpleasant time. This was mainly on account of my inability to move any quicker than a pitiful hobble, thus causing us to missing two buses and me to be unaffectionately renamed ´limpy Longfils´. Anyway, when we finally arrived in Uyuni via nightbus we jumped straight onto a tour of the Salt Flats and sped away to one of the eeriest places in the world. Imagine being in a David Hockney picture entitled White/Blue. That´s the salt flats. Massive expanses (12000 squared km to be exact) of flat, white, 40 thousand year old salt, topped with cloudless blue sky, spreading out in a glittering, glaring, snow-like landscape. We had a lot of fun posing like idiots among the snow mounds, saw a train cemetery and some salt processing, and were whisked off to our salt hotel (a hotel made entirely of salt) by our inept, useless and bolshy guide to spend an afternoon awaiting dinner-time. And there was nothing to do there. After the initial 5 minute long novelty of staying in a salt hotel wore off, we explored the surrounding desolate desert and salt - akin, I imagine, to being on Neptune - to find only more desert and salt, and nothing of any more interest than a couple of unclimbable wannabe mountains. Nothing to do. Nothing. Absolutly NOTHING. Faced with such a predicament, (Grandma, do not read the rest of this sentence) there was simply no choice but to get *blind* drunk and entertain ourselves with a stuffed armadillo. We discovered said armadillo fortuitously on a window ledge and named him Kirky, after the illustrious Mr. Adam Kirk, esq.. Kirky was great.
The morning after the night before was spent nursing horrendous hangovers and trying to unravel the mystery of where-did-Kirky-go. (It turned out the hostel owner confiscated him and locked him in a room well out of harm´s way - (Spoil sprts!) - a room which, I should add, apparently underwent numerous drunken and thwarted break-in attempts to rescue Kirky by Pete and me). We were then taken to the Galaxias caves, where we shimmied through petrified cacti forests, marvelled at moon-like caves of ancient fossilised coral (which would have been underwater 40000 years ago when the salt flats were actually a lake), explored a cemetery in another cave, went to what was once an island and gazed out on its white sea of salt, and argued with our rubbish guide to make him take us to a volcano specified as a highlight of our tour. Numerous threats of reporting him to the Lonely Planet later, we got a good view of an awesome volcano, stumbled on a flock of flamingos and saw some (salt) water springs to pot. Not bad all in all.
And after Uyuni, the epic trek to Iguazu began. Commencing with an obscenely early bus (and a serendipitous view of a lunar eclipse!!) to Jujuy, our descent into trampery began. Wearing approximately 13 layers of clothing in a bid to ward off the subzero cold, not having showered for 7 days (too cold to undress!) and having slept and lived in the same clothes for 5 days solid (again, too cold!), we reached Argentina smelling terrible, looking destitute, and thinking we had finally attained tramp status. An overnight stop-over in a cash point with a bonefide tramp while waiting for a connecting bus proved us wrong, however. I now consider the true point of my acquisition of trampliness to be when I started to envy our tramp his cardboard box. Moving on...some 1700 km, a shower in Salta and several packets of Oreos (my favourite travel food - oooh, the chocolatey goodness) later, having passed through Paraguayan capital Asuncion and had a do-it-yourself city tour by Ruth, stopped over in the most corrupt city in South America, Ciudad del Este, we finally got to Iguazu. It. Was. Amazing. Utterly amazing. We spent a day on the Brazilian side (got stamped in, but forgot to get stamped out again...so I figure I will be in Brazil for the rest of my life??) and one on Argentina´s side. Got lots of photos. Got wet.
And one 17 hour bus journey later, and we are now in Buenos Aires. Perhaps my favourite place so far. We are staying in a funky hostel full of travellers, soaking up the sights, drinking red wine, seeing tango, and eating our body weight in the most excellent steak in the whole wide world. Mmmmm... Ruth and Matt fly home tomorrow, so one big night out tonight to celebrate our travels...and then it´s just me and Pete. Pete is currently masterminding a trip to Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia. Being adverse to the cold, however, I think I am going to stay put here in BA for the next while...and I will tango my socks off, eat meat, and let you know more about the awesomeness of Argentina´s capital next time.
Ciao for now
xxx
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