A 22 hour bus ride from Puerto Iguazu, Agrentina to Rio, Brazil. Not a great experience but had to be done as the air fare was horrendously expensive.
10 minutes on the bus and we were in Brazil. Once customs was seen to it was straight through hours of rolling hills and green fields looking more like a sunny day in England than I ever thought Brazil would be. Newly farmed fields, of I presume sugar beat as that's what a lot of cars run on here, were everywhere. As are Volkswagon Beetles and Campervans, the latter used as Ambulances in some places.
We passed more jungle type areas before night drew in and a terrible storm that came with it. The movie on the bus was Apocolypto and it couldn't be more apt. Shame it was in Portugese but I got the jist. As the rain hammered the bus and lightening struck fields close by I'll freely admit I was uncomfortable.
After numerous police checkpoints and random stops we arrive in a run down concrete looking Sao Paulo. We dropped a few people off and carried on, it didn't look like the place you'd want to arrive at 4am, or 4pm for that matter.
We arrived in sunny Rio at 10am after a few days of torrential rain here. Our hostel was pretty nifty, our room had a painting of the famous Christ the Redeemer on the wall. We even had a tiny balcony where we could see Christ from. From this moment forth we renamed him Bob. Much easier I thought.
Brazil is a huge country. When the Spanish invaded South America they struck a deal with the Portugese to share the land. Spain got what is now Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru and so on, whereas Portugal got Brazil. It's a fair deal when you see it on a map.
Brazil also took the largest amount of African slaves on the continent. Unfortunately there were too many and now huge favellas, rat warrens of shanty towns, exist throughout the city.
Also, for us just getting into the swing of speaking and reading Spanish coming to Brazil was hard. Even words that look the same here are pronounced differently. It was a bit of a struggle but we were told that in most places you can get away with speaking Spanish, which did work sometimes.
There's no denying that Brazil and Argentina are worlds apart. Rio, especially the outskirts, is a very dirty, gritty and ugly place. This is also the most dangerous place I'd ever been in in my life. Not only that it's way more expensive, double that of Argentina.
But still the bay outside our hostel containing the famous Sugar Loaf mountain is beautiful. Shame you can't swim in Botofogo bay as the water is polluted. Nice.
Immediately we booked to go and watch a football match at the Maracana stadium that evening. It had to be done, especially after missing out in Argentina. The game was a dull affair with little in the way of Brazilian flair, no wonder all their best players play in Europe. But the night was good and two other couples from our hostel went who turned out to be really cool people. It was part of a tour of sorts as we'd heard dodgy things about the area around the stadium.
After a few beers it was back on the bus for the half hour journey to the hostel. I was a bit drunk by this point and had already foregone the toilet at half time for the bar, it was too busy. Problem was at full time we had to leave on the bus straight away, I was busting. Another thing about Rio is at night traffic doesn't stop at red lights. It's too dangerous and cars and buses have been attacked and robbed. I couldn't contain myself any longer and had to declare to the guide I was dying! The bus immediately pulled over at a busy intersection and let me out to piss up near the traffic light, I didn't make it to a tree. I felt a bit of an idiot stood there at the side of a busy road but that soon passed when I remembered why the bus doesn't normally stop. I apologised profusely to the 20 or so people on the bus who seemed to find it all highly amusing. Why do I do this to myself I don't know, and of all the places.
Off to see Bob the next day with an English couple and an Aussie guy we got chatting to at breakfast. It was a Sunday so the place was packed, as I'm sure it is most days. After a 20min steep funicular, train thing, ride to near the top you've a couple of options. Walk the stairs for about 2 minutes to the top or take the lift. Yes, lift. Once off the lift you get on a set of escolators. Yes, escolators right next to one of the most famous sights in the world. Odd. We walked.
The views over Rio are nothing short of tremendous. You can see the main beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema and the one near us, Botofogo. You can also see the many lush islands dotted around and the airport built out in the sea. Very Hong Kong like. Except you can also see the biggest favella in the world. It's huge. It doesn't take much to spot the many others as they're usually hugging hillsides just above town.
The other great sight is the odd shaped Sugar Loaf mountain and cable car to the top, that's for another day. Everything looked like a toy town, the Maracana stadium a Subbuteo set, from up there. It looked a lot better than down on the street.
We headed back to get some beach stuff and hit Ipenema and Copacabana. A nice place but it did remind me of the Costa del Sol, except the beach had more rubbish on it. Warnings about Copacabana had been heeded as we left our camera at the hostel and just had enough money for some classicly strong Caiprihnia cocktails on Copacabana. We felt good as there was 5 of us and were getting a bit cocky about how unsafe the place was supposed to be. Still there was always an edge to being there. Whilst sipping drinks a group of Brazilians came over and performed some unbelievable Caperwhera(not spelt right surely). This was an African martial art that was brought over by the slaves. It was banned by the Portugese but the Africans claimed it was a form of dancing and slightly modified it. It's impressive stuff and worth checking out. These guys would really make breaking your spine look good.
After a good, pay for the weight of your food, restaurant we got the public bus at night back. Two things not advised in the Lonely Planet. 1. Walking by Copacabana at night. 2. Getting the public buses at night, this is where a lot of muggings take place. But as there was a group of us slightly modified by booze we felt fine. I was feeling a lot more relaxed about Rio. From all that we'd heard we'd seen no evidence of anything dodgy. Until we hear the next morning about the Finnish couple in our hostel getting robbed in broad daylight at Copacabana at the same time we were there. Hmmm
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
To the devil's throat
Avoiding a 22 hour bus ride we buy a flight to Iguazu falls. More precisley Puerto Iguazu, the cool jungle-ish town on the Argentinean side of the falls. If you haven't heard of Iguazu then you should. They're some of the biggest waterfalls in the world and have somewhere in the region of 272 falls within one area.
Landing here is a sharp contrast from Buenos Aires. It's a laid back tropical town and is very humid. Our hostel, run by a punk rocking Argie/Brasilian, is beyond cool. Hammocks in the jungle garden out the back with homebaked chocolate cake and bread for breakfast.
The Iguazu Falls are within a huge national park outside of town. The border between Brazil and Argentina is actually somewhere in the water near the falls and you can cross to Brazil to view the falls over a nearby bridge, we didn't have the time. The Argentina side allows you to get right up close to the huge falls via boardwalks across vast rivers. It's amazing. You walk right up to the edge of most falls, the Gargantua del Diablo, aka the 'Devils throat', is the most impressive. A huge volume of water piles down here and falls all around dropping from lush green cliffs. It's loud, very loud. And you get soaked, just what you want in the baking heat, but it doesn't take long to dry out.
This has to be another one of those must-see places in the world and seeing it through Argentina seems much better than the more expensive and more run down Brasilian side.
It's difficult to describe the whole thing as it's massive. I'll have to get some photos on here when I get on a decent pc. One thing I do remember is the constant rainbows from the vast amount of spray covering the whole area. It's a hell of a sight, and sound.
That night we went out to another typical Argentinean grill for some great steak with a woman from Israel. As it turns out Israelies love coming to South America because it's soo cheap. They're also big fans of Eastenders and Keeping up appearences. Odd.
After a couple of hours of trying to be persuaded to visit Israel we head back to our jungle hostel. Besides, tomorrow we have an almighty 24 hour bus journey to Rio de Janeiro!
This also means the end of Argentina for us. For me this is one of the best countries we've visited so far. It's friendly, cheap, easy to get around, has amazing food and drink and is incredibly diverse. It's also well set up, has great cities and huge national parks. I'd just come on holiday here for a couple of months. One day I will.
Landing here is a sharp contrast from Buenos Aires. It's a laid back tropical town and is very humid. Our hostel, run by a punk rocking Argie/Brasilian, is beyond cool. Hammocks in the jungle garden out the back with homebaked chocolate cake and bread for breakfast.
The Iguazu Falls are within a huge national park outside of town. The border between Brazil and Argentina is actually somewhere in the water near the falls and you can cross to Brazil to view the falls over a nearby bridge, we didn't have the time. The Argentina side allows you to get right up close to the huge falls via boardwalks across vast rivers. It's amazing. You walk right up to the edge of most falls, the Gargantua del Diablo, aka the 'Devils throat', is the most impressive. A huge volume of water piles down here and falls all around dropping from lush green cliffs. It's loud, very loud. And you get soaked, just what you want in the baking heat, but it doesn't take long to dry out.
This has to be another one of those must-see places in the world and seeing it through Argentina seems much better than the more expensive and more run down Brasilian side.
It's difficult to describe the whole thing as it's massive. I'll have to get some photos on here when I get on a decent pc. One thing I do remember is the constant rainbows from the vast amount of spray covering the whole area. It's a hell of a sight, and sound.
That night we went out to another typical Argentinean grill for some great steak with a woman from Israel. As it turns out Israelies love coming to South America because it's soo cheap. They're also big fans of Eastenders and Keeping up appearences. Odd.
After a couple of hours of trying to be persuaded to visit Israel we head back to our jungle hostel. Besides, tomorrow we have an almighty 24 hour bus journey to Rio de Janeiro!
This also means the end of Argentina for us. For me this is one of the best countries we've visited so far. It's friendly, cheap, easy to get around, has amazing food and drink and is incredibly diverse. It's also well set up, has great cities and huge national parks. I'd just come on holiday here for a couple of months. One day I will.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Don't cry for me..
Argentina has had it's fair share of problems. Before the Spanish arrived it was doing alright but only in a hunter gatherer subsistance farmer type of way. After the first wave of Spanish attack things changed with the left over horses and cattle that have now become Argentinean staples. The cowboys of Argentina, 'Gauchos', and the quality beef (actually British cows) have become Argentinean trade marks the world over.
Once the Spanish finally did command Buenos Aires they banned trade with all countries other than Spain. This was pretty crippling as other parts of Argentina were doing well from Bolivian exports. The Brits had an attempt at taking Buenos Aires but were soon beaten off. Eventually Argentina, by the hand of the now South American hero General San Martin, declared independance from Spain. This cleared previous trade embargoes and made Argentina a decent export force.
In more recent times cruel dictators have lead the way. Before this however, the famous Peron's set about improving the welfare state on one hand and destroying the right to free press on the other. Economically Argentina began to suffer and needed to borrow heavily. A debt which they still haven't paid off.
The dictatorship which ruled the country through the dirty war of the late 70's was harsh. Up to 30,000 people went 'missing' for declaring any kind of disdain for the leader. Funnily enough it was the Brits who put an end to the dictatorship by fending off the Argentineans attempt to regain the Falkland Islands, named Las Malvinas in Argentina. Low on funds and over stretching himself the dictator lost the war and leadership of the nation.
Argentina have had so many ups and downs in the last 30 years. From being the second richest country in the world to the Argentinean Peso being worth absolutely nothing. Prompting people to queue with sack fulls of cash to buy enough food to feed themselves.
Now it seems things have come good and the economy is more stable. People on the street are friendly and genuinely happy. It's a good place to be, if it lasts.
Being British I did expect some stick from the Argies, either it be football or regarding the Falklands, but not a jot. I did notice that on maps of Argentina the Falklands are still considered part of the country although no Argies live their. Near the train station is a monument donated from Britain in a kind of peace agreement. This has graffiti strewn across it reading, 'Volvemos Las Malvinas'. To the effect of, 'we will get the Falklands back'.
Back on the street and Buenos Aires continues to impress. Full of neo-classical buildings such as the grand 'pink parliament'. This is where Evita Peron gave a famous speech of which I know zero about. I couldn't stand to watch the film of constant warbling starring Madonna. Unless she was naked at any point, then I may consider it.
Many a business man struts along the business districts and smoke havana cigars in the smoking cafes dotted around. Many places reminiscent of the best of London.
We cross the widest avenue in the world, the Avenida de Julio 9. It's huge. I think there's 16 lanes and it takes a while to get fully across the other side on foot. There's a famous obolisk in the centre that you can see clearly from the plane as we leave.
But before that there's still much to see. We ran out of time to watch a football match and visit La Boca. This is an edgy area even in daylight but one street is for the tourists, brightly coloured corregated houses and live street tango. Just don't stray off that main street. Definitley one for next time.
Buses here are superb. Well they're rickety and a bit uncomfortable but the maximum you pay around town is 'ochenta', 0.80 Pesos. About 13p to the Brit. Considering the bus rides can be up to an hour long it's resonable indeed.
We visit the flash district of Recolleta. There's supposed to be another grander area, Palermo, but time isn't on our side. The reason for visiting Recolleta is the graveyard. Sounds grim. In fact this is one of the grandest graveyards in the world. It's huge. Giant crypts and sarcophigi and statues line up next to each other in countless mini-avenues. Some incredibly over the top stuff. Famous Argentineans are buried here, including Evita, from poets to presidents to humble nobodies. It's worth a visit just to see the scale of the place. It does show a problem with the society here though. The gap between rich and poor is enormous. On the way to the airport you see the sprawling slums of tumbledown crammed in concrete and corregated iron hovels. Bare footed kids ambling dirt streets not a million miles away from well-to-do business men puffing on havanas.
We finish off our Buenos Aires visit with a traditional Argentinean grill, a Parilla. Meat, there certainly is. What meat I'm not 100% sure. I think I ate intestine of some sort(some places actually advertise themselves as 'Intestine Specialists', no thanks), a nice tasting blood sausage, a bit of steak and the oddest ribs I've ever seen. It's like they just randomly hacked into a cow and left half of it's vertebrae on my plate!
Off north we headed still high on Buenos Aires and looking forward to returning. I still can't get over the odd Argentinean mentality of littering though. It was the same in Mendoza. A beautiful place but people of all ages and backgrounds think nothing of throwing any rubbish they have onto the street, or in Mendoza's case into the vast gutters. Then every night cleaners come round and clean it all up for the next days onsluaght. Maybe they think it's keeping people in work. It bugs me either way.
However, Buenos Aires has to be one of the greatest cities on this earth. Amazing food, music, art, culture, people, neighbourhoods and districts. Please go, but try and forget about the rubbish.
Once the Spanish finally did command Buenos Aires they banned trade with all countries other than Spain. This was pretty crippling as other parts of Argentina were doing well from Bolivian exports. The Brits had an attempt at taking Buenos Aires but were soon beaten off. Eventually Argentina, by the hand of the now South American hero General San Martin, declared independance from Spain. This cleared previous trade embargoes and made Argentina a decent export force.
In more recent times cruel dictators have lead the way. Before this however, the famous Peron's set about improving the welfare state on one hand and destroying the right to free press on the other. Economically Argentina began to suffer and needed to borrow heavily. A debt which they still haven't paid off.
The dictatorship which ruled the country through the dirty war of the late 70's was harsh. Up to 30,000 people went 'missing' for declaring any kind of disdain for the leader. Funnily enough it was the Brits who put an end to the dictatorship by fending off the Argentineans attempt to regain the Falkland Islands, named Las Malvinas in Argentina. Low on funds and over stretching himself the dictator lost the war and leadership of the nation.
Argentina have had so many ups and downs in the last 30 years. From being the second richest country in the world to the Argentinean Peso being worth absolutely nothing. Prompting people to queue with sack fulls of cash to buy enough food to feed themselves.
Now it seems things have come good and the economy is more stable. People on the street are friendly and genuinely happy. It's a good place to be, if it lasts.
Being British I did expect some stick from the Argies, either it be football or regarding the Falklands, but not a jot. I did notice that on maps of Argentina the Falklands are still considered part of the country although no Argies live their. Near the train station is a monument donated from Britain in a kind of peace agreement. This has graffiti strewn across it reading, 'Volvemos Las Malvinas'. To the effect of, 'we will get the Falklands back'.
Back on the street and Buenos Aires continues to impress. Full of neo-classical buildings such as the grand 'pink parliament'. This is where Evita Peron gave a famous speech of which I know zero about. I couldn't stand to watch the film of constant warbling starring Madonna. Unless she was naked at any point, then I may consider it.
Many a business man struts along the business districts and smoke havana cigars in the smoking cafes dotted around. Many places reminiscent of the best of London.
We cross the widest avenue in the world, the Avenida de Julio 9. It's huge. I think there's 16 lanes and it takes a while to get fully across the other side on foot. There's a famous obolisk in the centre that you can see clearly from the plane as we leave.
But before that there's still much to see. We ran out of time to watch a football match and visit La Boca. This is an edgy area even in daylight but one street is for the tourists, brightly coloured corregated houses and live street tango. Just don't stray off that main street. Definitley one for next time.
Buses here are superb. Well they're rickety and a bit uncomfortable but the maximum you pay around town is 'ochenta', 0.80 Pesos. About 13p to the Brit. Considering the bus rides can be up to an hour long it's resonable indeed.
We visit the flash district of Recolleta. There's supposed to be another grander area, Palermo, but time isn't on our side. The reason for visiting Recolleta is the graveyard. Sounds grim. In fact this is one of the grandest graveyards in the world. It's huge. Giant crypts and sarcophigi and statues line up next to each other in countless mini-avenues. Some incredibly over the top stuff. Famous Argentineans are buried here, including Evita, from poets to presidents to humble nobodies. It's worth a visit just to see the scale of the place. It does show a problem with the society here though. The gap between rich and poor is enormous. On the way to the airport you see the sprawling slums of tumbledown crammed in concrete and corregated iron hovels. Bare footed kids ambling dirt streets not a million miles away from well-to-do business men puffing on havanas.
We finish off our Buenos Aires visit with a traditional Argentinean grill, a Parilla. Meat, there certainly is. What meat I'm not 100% sure. I think I ate intestine of some sort(some places actually advertise themselves as 'Intestine Specialists', no thanks), a nice tasting blood sausage, a bit of steak and the oddest ribs I've ever seen. It's like they just randomly hacked into a cow and left half of it's vertebrae on my plate!
Off north we headed still high on Buenos Aires and looking forward to returning. I still can't get over the odd Argentinean mentality of littering though. It was the same in Mendoza. A beautiful place but people of all ages and backgrounds think nothing of throwing any rubbish they have onto the street, or in Mendoza's case into the vast gutters. Then every night cleaners come round and clean it all up for the next days onsluaght. Maybe they think it's keeping people in work. It bugs me either way.
However, Buenos Aires has to be one of the greatest cities on this earth. Amazing food, music, art, culture, people, neighbourhoods and districts. Please go, but try and forget about the rubbish.
More Paris than Paris
A description of Buenos Aires by some random traveller we met. If it really is like Paris but much better then it sounds good to me.
First off there's a 12 hour bus ride from Mendoza to get over. Argentinean buses are excellent. There's no National Express crap here. Well in fact there is, much cheaper and more crammed buses are everywhere but when it's this cheap I think we'll travel first class. The bus even has a stewardess who supplies us with good food, steak obviously, and great red wine. A couple of movies and a bit of wine later and I slide back on my fully reclinable leather chair. Not bad.
Still, arriving early morning in Buenos Aires I'm knackered. The city is huge, 13 million people live here in the capital of Argentina and it's no surprising that it's heavily built up from a long way out.
The centre looks really good, akin to photos I've seen of New York and there's a resemblance to Paris, mainly in our hostel. We stay in the chic San Telmo area, famous for it's tango shows, art, music and romance. The hostel itself looks straight out of a French romance flick. High glass ceilings, checkered floor and ornate metal adorned doors. The croissants in the included in the breakfast are yet another nod to the French connection.
We head out for the Sunday market in San Telmo. The cobbled streets are pedestrianised for this flea market selling antiques and arts and crafts. It's crammed and rightly so. The colonial buildings make the place feel like it hasn't changed for years and the great street music create a relaxed colourful vibe. There's the standard street tango coupled with fantisticly fleet fingered Spanish guitarists. We watch an orchestra type tango kind of band on the street. They'd even dragged out an upright piano for the day. The music was soo good we bought a cd and considered going to their gig that night.
We'd heard about a newly renovated dock area that was similar to London. Not really. Not at all. It was a few renovated warehouses next to a brown and murky water setting. Not ideal. Plenty of overpriced restaurants but non had the appeal of the dimly lit stylish places in San Telmo.
Back there we went and as dusk arrived a large group of drummers filled the streets in a slow but constant march picking up people like the pied piper. The beats were a bit ramshackle though.
We bumped into a couple we'd met in Mendoza a few days earlier and mentioned the gig that evening. We met them later on and ventured into low lit back street club. Tango lessons were going on when we arrived so we hit the bar. It was a funky place that could've easily been featured in films like Amelie or Delicatessen. First up was a drum troop. These guys were amazing, and amazingly loud. Displaying samba to dance, to what was almost metal, beats. All following the lead conductor with expert precision.
When the band we'd came to see arrived on stage people were itching for a dance and began tango-ing imediately. Not for me, I can't dance. Fact. But it was good to watch people just doing it for the love of it rather than going to one of the many Tango shows on offer here.
The band were excellent. Who thought beardy accordian, upright bass and piano coupled with over the top Spanish vocals could sound this good? Very rock and roll.
This could be Europe. I love it.
Not bad for a first day.
First off there's a 12 hour bus ride from Mendoza to get over. Argentinean buses are excellent. There's no National Express crap here. Well in fact there is, much cheaper and more crammed buses are everywhere but when it's this cheap I think we'll travel first class. The bus even has a stewardess who supplies us with good food, steak obviously, and great red wine. A couple of movies and a bit of wine later and I slide back on my fully reclinable leather chair. Not bad.
Still, arriving early morning in Buenos Aires I'm knackered. The city is huge, 13 million people live here in the capital of Argentina and it's no surprising that it's heavily built up from a long way out.
The centre looks really good, akin to photos I've seen of New York and there's a resemblance to Paris, mainly in our hostel. We stay in the chic San Telmo area, famous for it's tango shows, art, music and romance. The hostel itself looks straight out of a French romance flick. High glass ceilings, checkered floor and ornate metal adorned doors. The croissants in the included in the breakfast are yet another nod to the French connection.
We head out for the Sunday market in San Telmo. The cobbled streets are pedestrianised for this flea market selling antiques and arts and crafts. It's crammed and rightly so. The colonial buildings make the place feel like it hasn't changed for years and the great street music create a relaxed colourful vibe. There's the standard street tango coupled with fantisticly fleet fingered Spanish guitarists. We watch an orchestra type tango kind of band on the street. They'd even dragged out an upright piano for the day. The music was soo good we bought a cd and considered going to their gig that night.
We'd heard about a newly renovated dock area that was similar to London. Not really. Not at all. It was a few renovated warehouses next to a brown and murky water setting. Not ideal. Plenty of overpriced restaurants but non had the appeal of the dimly lit stylish places in San Telmo.
Back there we went and as dusk arrived a large group of drummers filled the streets in a slow but constant march picking up people like the pied piper. The beats were a bit ramshackle though.
We bumped into a couple we'd met in Mendoza a few days earlier and mentioned the gig that evening. We met them later on and ventured into low lit back street club. Tango lessons were going on when we arrived so we hit the bar. It was a funky place that could've easily been featured in films like Amelie or Delicatessen. First up was a drum troop. These guys were amazing, and amazingly loud. Displaying samba to dance, to what was almost metal, beats. All following the lead conductor with expert precision.
When the band we'd came to see arrived on stage people were itching for a dance and began tango-ing imediately. Not for me, I can't dance. Fact. But it was good to watch people just doing it for the love of it rather than going to one of the many Tango shows on offer here.
The band were excellent. Who thought beardy accordian, upright bass and piano coupled with over the top Spanish vocals could sound this good? Very rock and roll.
This could be Europe. I love it.
Not bad for a first day.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Mas vino por favor!!!
It took a couple of hours to get to the Andes proper but when we did it took around 5 hours to cross them. This is some mountain range. Such a humongously long and quite wide range of peaks with such a varied range of colours and rock formations. Some bits look like Uluru, others like New Zealand and a lot like I've never set my eyes on before.
We pass under snow covers by grey rivers, then red rivers (near where most of the red rock and earth was) following an abandoned railway line. Up in the mountains is the pretty good looking ski resort but the season has pretty much passed. It's supposed to be a very cheap place to try it too.
The border into Argentina is high up in the mountains and pretty cold, not surprisingly. Everyone's bags have to come off the bus and be x-rayed and everyone's hand luggage gets individually searched. Takes a bit of time but the Argentineans are friendly enough.
Bienvenidos a Argentina!
Coming down from the Andes into a small dusky village in the middle of no-where, Uspallata. This is where the Brad Pitt film 'Seven Years in Tibet' was shot. It didn't seem too appealing to me, although we'd been told otherwise.
Mendoza, however, sounded a lot more my kind of place. Wine is big business here, I'm sure we've been on a wine region tour around the world, not on purpose I may add. 70% of Argentina’s entire wine production is from the rolling hills and flat plains of Mendoza. Over 2000 wineries in total. Chances are if you've drunk Argentinean wine that you drunk from the grapes of Mendoza. I was never much of a fan before but the wine here is top notch. We'd heard good things about Argentinean food and wine and neither disappointed. Oh, and it's cheap. The supermarket's cheapest wine was about 50p, fairly palatable. We usually splashed out a bit and got a good one for one pound fifty. Malbec is the local grape of choice, tinto(red) if you're interested.
Mendoza itself is a beautiful sun drenched and friendly city. It's safe to stroll around anywhere here at any time and you don't get hassled. In fact it's fair to say that again I'm one of the only blond guys walking about the place but no-one cares. Partly because this must be the best looking city in the entire world. I've never seen soo many good looking people in one place in my life. It was obscene! No wonder they couldn't give two hoots about a blond Lancashire lad!
Every street is tree lined and fairly wide. An earthquake in 1861 flattened most of the city. The council decided to rebuild with wider avenues, for rubble to fall into, and include many open squares for people to evacuate into if another earthquake struck. It never did, but it did mean that the place is great to walk around. Lots of little Plazas in different styles, there's a Chile, Italy (in a Roman style with statues and fountains), España(with intricate tiling covering every surface) Plaza and so on, that all look great. It's much warmer than temperate Santiago too. I can't begin to think how many days it's been since we saw rain.
Ice cream seems big business here, on a Saturday night families and couples are seen scoffing large ice-creams upto 2am! I know because we could see them from our room.
There's also a pre-occupation with battered old cars here. Every other car is 1970's Renault or Fiat. It seems there's more status the more battered your car looks. I'm sure a few have been booted in the side to achieve the desired affect. They're also very very loud cars. The street below our window howls nightly with the loudest exhaust noises I've heard away from a race track.
We ate some of the greatest ever food here too. The meat, Argentineans being the biggest meat eaters in the world, is beyond good. They certainly know how to live very well here. Some of the funky restaurants and cafés make it feel very European. A woman we met from Sydney, whilst in New Zealand, said that she preferred travelling in Peru and Bolivia than in Argentina. Mainly because Bolivia was much cheaper and that Argentina felt like it could've been in Europe. That's exactly why Mendoza was so good I thought. Besides, like the American in the next room said to us, 'Just because a place is cheap it doesn't make it good. Bolivia is no Argentina that's for sure'.
This is where we also begin to encounter another type of traveller that didn't seem to exist in Oz or NZ. The kind of traveller that isn't happy unless they've hacked half of their leg off somewhere in the Amazon and needs to enter bugs to the wound to seal it. These guys are planks. They think if you're not going on a 4 day trek through the jungle then you've seen nothing. Bollocks. These are the same people who say they've been to England and have only seen London.
We lived it up in Argentina, there's no denying it. Great wine and amazing food every night. Sun shining everyday, beautiful streets, beautiful people, beautiful buildings and beautiful cars. I was in my element.
The only problem with the place I could find was the transport. We walk everywhere in most places and Mendoza was no different. Thing is when we did want to get a bus we couldn’t as you need the exact amount, in change. Change is a real problem. The supermarket near us had 4 coins, the rest notes. 4 coins! I mean come on! This also meant that every time you buy anything you are always asked if you've got 'cambio', or change to you and me. No-one has change, except for the bus companies who must have piles of it!
We could manage with this until the day we decide to go for a walk in the park. Parque San Martin is a sprawling 420,000 hectares. I'm not too great with hectares. In fact I've no idea how big a hectare is. So walking it sounded fine. It took 30minutes of walking in baking sunshine to get there. When we did get there we realised it must be quite big as there's proper roads inside, and no-one is walking. There are joggers though so we plod on for another 2 and a half hours on dusty path and being fried by the sun. This was a bad idea. Our main objective was to climb atop the hill on the park for views of the city. No chance. We couldn't find anything but dust tracks and roads. But then to show how big this place was we passed two Universities, a cycling velodrome, a football stadium, a science research facility and a zoo. We finally get to a campground and I test my Spanish in trying to find out where to get the bus to get out of here. Surprise, surprise you need the exact change. The campground shop had only one coin! The owner even rang a friend and he had no coins either! What a joke. Another hour or so of walking and we happen upon a bit of life and a waterfall, aswell as the obligatory smooching couples lying on top of each other on the grass. We walk back and write the whole thing off.
Totally knackered and after about 5 hours of walking in flip-flops my legs are black with dirt. We deserve some good food and drink. Thankfully, we're in the right place. An excellent buffet place with fresh pasta, made on request, gorgeous paella, various salads, quiches, ice creams, cakes, cheesecakes, pancakes with booze and ice cream and a meat counter. Now in Argentina they don’t have an average buffet. There’s a separate guy that looks after and gives out the meat. It’s a huge grill rammed with all kinds of stuff that I have no idea. I do recognise the large pig strung out across the top though! I have no idea what to ask for so I just tell him ‘Mi Español is no bueno’ and he lumps one of the biggest pieces of tastiest meat I’ve ever eaten. And cracking crackling! All the great food you could eat and a bottle of wine for about 6 pounds each. I love this place! I could barely move afterwards. It had a great atmosphere too as a live singer wandered through the masses and everyone knew the words, young and old clapping and cheering. We were the only Europeans in there but it was just brilliant. An American guy came over to us and said, ‘Isn’t this just the most bizarre place you’ve ever been?’. ‘Yes, it’s great!’, I beamed.
Our last day was spent checking out some cool art and a bit of history about the earthquake. The graffiti here is also really good and really brightens the place up. We sat watching skateboarders whilst eating ice-cream in the sunshine.
If Mendoza is this good, what’s Buenos Aires going to be like!?
We pass under snow covers by grey rivers, then red rivers (near where most of the red rock and earth was) following an abandoned railway line. Up in the mountains is the pretty good looking ski resort but the season has pretty much passed. It's supposed to be a very cheap place to try it too.
The border into Argentina is high up in the mountains and pretty cold, not surprisingly. Everyone's bags have to come off the bus and be x-rayed and everyone's hand luggage gets individually searched. Takes a bit of time but the Argentineans are friendly enough.
Bienvenidos a Argentina!
Coming down from the Andes into a small dusky village in the middle of no-where, Uspallata. This is where the Brad Pitt film 'Seven Years in Tibet' was shot. It didn't seem too appealing to me, although we'd been told otherwise.
Mendoza, however, sounded a lot more my kind of place. Wine is big business here, I'm sure we've been on a wine region tour around the world, not on purpose I may add. 70% of Argentina’s entire wine production is from the rolling hills and flat plains of Mendoza. Over 2000 wineries in total. Chances are if you've drunk Argentinean wine that you drunk from the grapes of Mendoza. I was never much of a fan before but the wine here is top notch. We'd heard good things about Argentinean food and wine and neither disappointed. Oh, and it's cheap. The supermarket's cheapest wine was about 50p, fairly palatable. We usually splashed out a bit and got a good one for one pound fifty. Malbec is the local grape of choice, tinto(red) if you're interested.
Mendoza itself is a beautiful sun drenched and friendly city. It's safe to stroll around anywhere here at any time and you don't get hassled. In fact it's fair to say that again I'm one of the only blond guys walking about the place but no-one cares. Partly because this must be the best looking city in the entire world. I've never seen soo many good looking people in one place in my life. It was obscene! No wonder they couldn't give two hoots about a blond Lancashire lad!
Every street is tree lined and fairly wide. An earthquake in 1861 flattened most of the city. The council decided to rebuild with wider avenues, for rubble to fall into, and include many open squares for people to evacuate into if another earthquake struck. It never did, but it did mean that the place is great to walk around. Lots of little Plazas in different styles, there's a Chile, Italy (in a Roman style with statues and fountains), España(with intricate tiling covering every surface) Plaza and so on, that all look great. It's much warmer than temperate Santiago too. I can't begin to think how many days it's been since we saw rain.
Ice cream seems big business here, on a Saturday night families and couples are seen scoffing large ice-creams upto 2am! I know because we could see them from our room.
There's also a pre-occupation with battered old cars here. Every other car is 1970's Renault or Fiat. It seems there's more status the more battered your car looks. I'm sure a few have been booted in the side to achieve the desired affect. They're also very very loud cars. The street below our window howls nightly with the loudest exhaust noises I've heard away from a race track.
We ate some of the greatest ever food here too. The meat, Argentineans being the biggest meat eaters in the world, is beyond good. They certainly know how to live very well here. Some of the funky restaurants and cafés make it feel very European. A woman we met from Sydney, whilst in New Zealand, said that she preferred travelling in Peru and Bolivia than in Argentina. Mainly because Bolivia was much cheaper and that Argentina felt like it could've been in Europe. That's exactly why Mendoza was so good I thought. Besides, like the American in the next room said to us, 'Just because a place is cheap it doesn't make it good. Bolivia is no Argentina that's for sure'.
This is where we also begin to encounter another type of traveller that didn't seem to exist in Oz or NZ. The kind of traveller that isn't happy unless they've hacked half of their leg off somewhere in the Amazon and needs to enter bugs to the wound to seal it. These guys are planks. They think if you're not going on a 4 day trek through the jungle then you've seen nothing. Bollocks. These are the same people who say they've been to England and have only seen London.
We lived it up in Argentina, there's no denying it. Great wine and amazing food every night. Sun shining everyday, beautiful streets, beautiful people, beautiful buildings and beautiful cars. I was in my element.
The only problem with the place I could find was the transport. We walk everywhere in most places and Mendoza was no different. Thing is when we did want to get a bus we couldn’t as you need the exact amount, in change. Change is a real problem. The supermarket near us had 4 coins, the rest notes. 4 coins! I mean come on! This also meant that every time you buy anything you are always asked if you've got 'cambio', or change to you and me. No-one has change, except for the bus companies who must have piles of it!
We could manage with this until the day we decide to go for a walk in the park. Parque San Martin is a sprawling 420,000 hectares. I'm not too great with hectares. In fact I've no idea how big a hectare is. So walking it sounded fine. It took 30minutes of walking in baking sunshine to get there. When we did get there we realised it must be quite big as there's proper roads inside, and no-one is walking. There are joggers though so we plod on for another 2 and a half hours on dusty path and being fried by the sun. This was a bad idea. Our main objective was to climb atop the hill on the park for views of the city. No chance. We couldn't find anything but dust tracks and roads. But then to show how big this place was we passed two Universities, a cycling velodrome, a football stadium, a science research facility and a zoo. We finally get to a campground and I test my Spanish in trying to find out where to get the bus to get out of here. Surprise, surprise you need the exact change. The campground shop had only one coin! The owner even rang a friend and he had no coins either! What a joke. Another hour or so of walking and we happen upon a bit of life and a waterfall, aswell as the obligatory smooching couples lying on top of each other on the grass. We walk back and write the whole thing off.
Totally knackered and after about 5 hours of walking in flip-flops my legs are black with dirt. We deserve some good food and drink. Thankfully, we're in the right place. An excellent buffet place with fresh pasta, made on request, gorgeous paella, various salads, quiches, ice creams, cakes, cheesecakes, pancakes with booze and ice cream and a meat counter. Now in Argentina they don’t have an average buffet. There’s a separate guy that looks after and gives out the meat. It’s a huge grill rammed with all kinds of stuff that I have no idea. I do recognise the large pig strung out across the top though! I have no idea what to ask for so I just tell him ‘Mi Español is no bueno’ and he lumps one of the biggest pieces of tastiest meat I’ve ever eaten. And cracking crackling! All the great food you could eat and a bottle of wine for about 6 pounds each. I love this place! I could barely move afterwards. It had a great atmosphere too as a live singer wandered through the masses and everyone knew the words, young and old clapping and cheering. We were the only Europeans in there but it was just brilliant. An American guy came over to us and said, ‘Isn’t this just the most bizarre place you’ve ever been?’. ‘Yes, it’s great!’, I beamed.
Our last day was spent checking out some cool art and a bit of history about the earthquake. The graffiti here is also really good and really brightens the place up. We sat watching skateboarders whilst eating ice-cream in the sunshine.
If Mendoza is this good, what’s Buenos Aires going to be like!?
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