I must apologise for the general slackness in updating the blog since getting to Buenos Aires, but it seems we haven´t really stopped moving long enough (and when we weren´t moving, there was a lot of sleep to be caught up on...) to post any updates! But I will do my best to give a detailed account of the past 12 or say days that I have been roaming around Argentina.
Welcome to Buenos Aires
We arrived in Buenos Aires around 4 or 5 in the afternoon. Landing in Argentina is quite relieving. Road signs and painted lines are not just for decoration, dogs are on leashes instead of on roofs, nobody is needlessly beeping their horn, the streets are wide, and everything appears to be pretty clean and organised.
Alice has foolishly booked us in to a dorm with 6 other people. I am not sure who she thought she was travelling with when she booked that, but I reluctantly agree to try it for one night (it didn´t last... we booked a private room the next day). When we arrive at our hostel, almost everyone else in our dorm is still asleep. See, in Buenos Aires they have chosen to shift EVERYTHING they do back a few hours in the day. So dinner is at 10pm. Then you have a few drinks at midnight, before the clubs open at 2 to 3am, and you stay out until 7am or so.
So we head out to dinner at a very classy establishment...
This delightful statue was right next to our table, Alice is sitting at her chair to take it. I commence my steak challenge straight away, aiming to get at least 1 steak per day while in Argentina. Alice makes the mistake of ordering pasta, putting her behind on the steak challenge from day one, can she catch up? Only time will tell.
After dinner, we decide that when in Rome... so we head out to a bar. Sticking to our theme of going to authentic local establishments while in South America we head to an Irish Bar for a few drinks. And then to several other bars, where we meet various locals. Usually at least 1 person in a group can speak English and acts as a translator for everyone else.
At some ungodly hour we head back to our dorm. The beds are uncomfortable, and creak loudly everytime someone rolls over, and there is only one bathroom for the 8 guests of that room. Surprisingly, the next morning Alice actually brings up moving to a private room before me! I agree without hesitation.
The steak challenge continues
Alice and I have booked ourselves onto an overnight bus to Mendoza the next day. Realising that this means we will be eating dinner on the bus that night, and it is unlikely they will be serving us a steak, it is important to get todays steak in at lunch time. We walk to the suburb of San Telmo where we check out some markets (basically peddling the same crap that markets pedal all across South America, and Australia), and then consume.
Delicious. Of course you cannot eat steak without red wine, and the local variety Malbec is in plentiful supply. Alice isn´t a huge fan, her delicate Melbourne taste buds describing it as ¨a slightly off Shiraz¨. In the right quantitues, though, it still has the desired effect.
We also head over to the cemetary. Here you can see just how much money Argentina has had throughout its history. The graves are small... or actually quite large shrines to the person or family. If you were wealthy, you get buried in a beautifully decorated large tomb like this -
If you are less wealthy, you are basically stored in the drawer of a filing cabinet, where the drawer may or may not fit, like this -
To Mendoza
So we board our first overnight bus. Busses in Argentina are so comfortable! Leather seats, and free wine. Occasionally even an additional glass of free champagne. It all tastes like it cost about $1 per bottle, but if its free its free, and if its free its bloody good!
Breakfast on the busses, however, leaves a lot to be desired. Especially if considered from a nutritional point of view. It consists usually of a muffin, filled with caramel, crackers with a caramel spread, a sweet croissant called a factura, and a museli bar (not the healthy ones, but the ones with chocolate chips and a thick sugary glaze). Alice, our resident dietician, is horrified... BUT SHE ATE THE WHOLE LOT!!!! (Someone inform the Austrlaian Dietician Society, she should have her membership revoked!)
When we arrive in Mendoza, we take a wander around the city. It is Sunday and everything is closed.
We decide to go and get a slightly healthier breakfast... yeah right! Time for more sweet breads, a ham and cheese toasted sandwich, more facturas, a coffee, a jucie, and a fruit salad (the healthy part)... all in a delightful package called the ¨Americano¨ breakfast.
Surely we can´t consume that after only just consuming our bus breakfast?
The Australians have triumphed over their second breakfast. No wonder Australia has taken over the USA as the world´s fattest country.
For dinner we head to the Hyatt, which apparently has Mendoza´s best steak according to a local magazine (probably funded by the Hyatt...). It doesn´t disappoint. More Malbec consumed also. (You will notice that most of my time in Argentina is spent eating and drinking... this is the perfect way to spend a holiday).
The next day in Mendoza we head out on some wine tours. They drive us a little outside the city to the vineyards. Unfortunately due to it being winter, the vineyards aren´t much to look at. Just a whole lot of dead looking vines in dry soil.
GUIDE: Oggada boogada, oogaa booga, bibida bobada bibada. Lo siento mucho gusto ribido robodo chibido bladbidi blah blah memento spirento a la de colcame... (don´t try to translate that, in case its not obvious, I am just typing gibberish, but they speak for several minutes)
SPANISH SPEAKERS: Ha ha ha ha ha (hearty laugh by all at an apparently classic joke by the guide)
GUIDE: A blabidi bla bla cien shen mosomo.... (more Spanish explanation)
SPANISH SPEAKERS: (All nod intently with great interest)
GUIDE: (At last addressing the English speakers) These are the grape vines. END EXPLANATION
Hmmmm... definitely something gets lost in translation. Our explanations are always about one fifth of the length of the Spanish ones.
Eventually they finish the explaining and get to the tasting. Our first wine of the day at about 10am:
At one winery, they spend a long time explaining to us how they are an organic winery which uses no chemicals in production, everything is completely natural. So you can understand my horror, when I see this right next to the grape vines!!!
Those, my friends, are gigantic oil wells! I can´t help but think they are releasing some sort of toxic waste into the same organic soil that this lovely fresh natural wine is coming from...
We are treated to a fairly significant buffet lunch, all looks very delicious. Alice and I are both excited to see what we believe is calamari rings served as part of the entre.
Spanish still not improving
That night, on our way to dinner, Alice and I decide to stop in first at a little bar and have a bottle of red wine as its still early. Its important to keep hydrated, so Alice attempts to order a soda water, or ´Agua con gas´. Waiter looks confused. Alice repeats her request several times, and eventually the waiter appears to understand and leaves the table. He returns with this:
Hmmm.. note quite a soda water. I guess potentially at some point this water did have gas in it, and it is now frozen.
High Andes tour
So I may have consumed a little too much Malbec the previous day and night. Once again, I find myself slightly hungover and about to undertake an altitude tour. We board a bus of entirely spanish speaking people as the only two English speaking people. This means the guide has to translate everything for just 2 people out of about 12. I think she is annoyed. I would be happier if she didn´t translate because then I wouldn´t feel like I had to open my eyes every time she spoke English.
She seems to be crapping on a lot about a bridge. Apparently its very important and famous. Nobody is quite sure who built it, maybe the Spanish, maybe the Inka´s, maybe San Martin. But after all this talk I am expecting something pretty impressive that is for sure. What I am not expecting is this:
This bridge is barely 3m long, and 2 m high. And what is worse, is that the water doesn´t even go under the bridge, it goes to the right of it. So basically if you walked over the bridge, it will lead you straight into the stream... I think the reason nobody knows who built it, is that nobody wants to claim responsibility for it.
We continue up the Andes and the dry surroundings gradually become covered in snow. This is my first time in snow. Some children have built a pretty good snowman. Realising I will have neither the patience nor skill to construct this, I go and acquaint myself with theirs.
(Crying heard in the background...) Hmm. head wasn´t attached quite as firmly as expected. Never mind, some children have constructed another even more impressive one!
Shit... not again.
Better get back on the bus. We head up to see the highest point in the Americas. We ask the tour guide to take a photo of us. She keeps telling me to move forwards, backwards, bend back because I am blocking the view of it. Until, in the end, I have adopted a stance which makes me look camper than the love child of Peter Allen and Liberace.
Back to Mendoza, then back on another overnight bus to Buenos Aires. We have about 6 hours to spend there before boarding yet another overnight bus to Iguazu Falls.
Luxury at last
16 or so hours later we are in Port Iguazu, where we are transferred to the Sheraton to check in at about 2pm. I guess some time ago, the Sheraton put a lot of money into a brown paper bag and handed it to a president or some dodgy politician to be given the right to construct their resort (which, compared to the surroundings, is kind of an eyesore) right in the middle of a national park, only a few hundred metres from the falls (one of the natural wonders of the world). Yay! Here is the view from our balcony:
Yay!
And another shot from the hotel as I enjoy my first beer:
We go for a wander to check out the falls. Our full day tour is tomorrow, but its only a few hundred metres so definitely worth the stroll to get a sneak preview.
Breathtaking!
Anyway, enough of that, plenty of time to see the falls tomorrow. Alice and I head back to the hotel and take up our rightful positions beside the swimming pool, cocktails in hand. After a few cocktails, we decide to go and see about our compelementary ´whirlpool´ experience. We aren´t really sure what this is, but apparently we have to wait about half an hour before we can do it, so they offer us to spend half an hour in the sauna while we wait. Sounds good.
Male and female saunas are separate, so we head to our respective rooms for half an hour. I come back to the meeting spot, fully clothed. Alice is sitting in the waiting area wearing the complementary bath robe. Without giving it a great deal of thought I head back to the changing room and change into my bathrobe, head back to the waiting area and very carefully sit down.
Awkwardly I enquire of Alice ´Are you naked under that?´. Horrified at this suggestion, she replies ´No, of course not, we are about to get in a public pool, I am wearing my togs.´
Right... I head back to the change room once more and apply appropriate swimming clothes. Glad that happened before we got to the whirlpool experience. The whirlpool experience turns out to basically be a series of water massages jets for your back, head, shoulders, feet. Sooo relaxing.
We return to our room and drink the bottle of wine we smuggled in to avoid paying the outrageous prices charged by the Sheraton. Unfortunately this significantly increases our tolerance to later outrages prices to be charged by the Sheraton while we enjoy our three course meal, with a massive steak, and a bottle of wine, and some champagne... and a slightly overpriced glass of cognac to top it all off. When we check out we are kind of shocked to realise we have just spent US$800 between 2pm yesterday, and 8am today... and most of it between 2pm and midnight. Luxury comes at a price, and it was definitely worth it... I never want to leave.
We go on our falls tour, it is spectacular. See photos for proof.
It takes two to tango
Back to Buenos Aires on ANOTHER overnight bus. I think we have now spent more time on busses than on land over the last 4 days. We book to see a tango show. Unfortunately, said tango show also comes with a compulsory tango class!
While we got off to a shaky start, with Alice in her grandpa slippers and me in my hiking boots, we manage to graduate with flying colours! Certificate to prove it!
That brings us to today, where Alice has dragged me to another boring street to get photos in front of colourful walls...
And we also checked out more gardens, containing even more statues of topless women (the city is littered with statues of topless women... yay!).
Today we managed to get our obligatory steak in at lunch time. However, given it is our last night in BA we are about to head to a very highly recommended restaurant, where I will more than likely consume my second steak of the day. This is indeed a fitting end to an amazing 6 week journey!
So that is about it! My plane leaves tomorrow at 2pm Argentina time, and arrives in Brisbane on Tuesday night sometime. Its all over!
I hope you have enjoyed blog and it will serve as a guide to any of you considering travel to South America in the near, or distant, future!
Adios!
Do you still have time to eat another steak? It must be done..
ReplyDeleteCan you please stay on holidays. I will miss these highly entertaining reads. Anne-Marie
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