Buenos Aires

Day 16 to 21                 Buenos Aires

I have a few days here in Buenos Aires before I set off on my next tour.  I am enjoying the luxury of a nicer hotel and having a room to myself!!

On the first day, a few of us went on the hop on hop-off city tour bus. It was a good way to have an overview of the highlights of the city, although it was quite slow as the traffic here is very bad.

La Caminita

In Cafe Tortoni

Street action in Buenos Aires!

We went to an area called La Caminita in La Boca where all the houses are painted very brightly and there is a big focus on the Tango.  Many of the restaurants have tango demonstrations going on outside. One day I went to the Cafe Tortoni, an old traditional cafe - which also does tango demonstrations, for coffee and Churros - an Argentinian (and Spanish) specialty. In fact, I have come across tango demonstrations just going on in the street all over the city!  It is an amazing dance - so sensual!

Ponte des Mujers (Women´s bridge)

One morning I went down to the port area which has the old ware- houses done up with nice shops and restaurants.  There is a rather lovely foot-bridge there, designed by Calatrava, Called the Ponte des Mujers (the Women´s bridge) which is supposed to signify two people dancing the tango.



I went to the amazing Recoleta Cemetry where many famous and/or rich Argentinians are buried, including Eva Peron (warmly called Evita by everyone here). I had not realised that she died of cancer when she was about 32.  The cemetry is quite wierd as each person or family has their own little building in which they are buried so it is like lots of streets of small houses except they are houses for the dead!

Recoleta Cemetry

Eva Peron´s grave

Evita is a real heroine here

Buenos Aires has many amazing buildings both, old and new and they are clearly very proud of its architecture.

La Casa Rosada

I went to the Casa Rosada - the Pink House, that is the Presidential Palace. Outside in the square there are various demonstrations (plackards) including one about the Falklands.  The Casa Rosada is quite an interesting place with many photos and paintings of important Argentinian people.  The ones I recognised were Eva Peron, Maradona, Mercedes Sosa and Cesar Milstein - (you can look them up if you don´t know who they are!)

Torre de Los Ingles

 
Renamed Torre Monumental since the Falklands War!

The Scottish contingent

I came across a festival to celebrate all the nationalities of people who live in Buenos Aires with food stalls and people in national dress from them all. I am sure there were at least 50 nationalities represented, including Scotland!  I enjoyed tasting food from a number of places and watching the parade - vintage open top cars with a girl in the back in National costume of the country!

Bolivian dancers

 Sunday is market day here and there are many markets all over the city. I went to one of the most popular which is mixture of antiques and a tourist craft market. It was very enjoyable to sit in a cafe in the sun watching the world go by.



Because I was to be here for quite a few days on my own I had arranged, before I left UK to go do a cultural tour´´focussing on Argentinian food.  One afternoon I had a cooking lesson and wine tasting.  I made

Cipacitos Correntinos (small cheesy bread rolls), empanadas de Humita (fresh corn pies/ pasties), Carbonada de Criolla (beef stew with peaches) and panqueques de dulce de latte (dulce de latte pancakes) which we then ate with a different wine for each course!  Argentinian wine is extremely good - especially the reds, but all of the wines we tasted were excellent - a fizzy wine, 2 reds (Malbec and Barolo) and a sweet wine.

The next day I was taken to a ´foundation´ (a sort of charity) called Caminita Abierto where they look after children who are abandoned by their parents.  They can go there at any age from five until they are eighteen.  They are given somewhere to live, food and as well as going to school, are trained in cooking, farming and building, to set them up to look after themselves as adults. The people who run this place fund it by running a restaurant which is self sufficient in food from the farm!  I spent the day with them helping in the kitchen making bread, gnocchi and tortilla chips!  No one spok much English so it was good to practice my Spanish!  A tour group from Canada came while I was there and their guide spoke English, hence my understanding of some of the basic set up!  It was an unusual day, but I really enjoyed it and came away with a bag of rolls that I had made and a gift of a pot of honey from the farm!

Overall I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Buenos Aires - it is a lovely city. It has quite a European feel - and is sometimes called the Paris of South America.  I am however, ready to move on.  Next stop Salta in Northern Argentina and Bolivia ......

Argentina and Uruguay

Day 10 to 15                 Countries 2 and 3 Argentina and Uruguay
                                     To Buenos Aires

Eadie offering me Mate

Tasting Mate - very bitter

From Iguassu Falls we went south west to a ranch in a village called El Dorado. It was run by a woman, called Eadie whose grand-parents from New Zealand and the UK had settled in Argentina in 1908. The soil there is completely red and the area with this soil (called Missiones) is the only place that can grow Yerba. Yerba is a tree that is used to make Mate a kind of tea that it would seem all Argentinians drink. It is always served in a special cup with a metal straw with a seive at the bottom.  Eadie told us stories about growing up on the ranch and gave us lunch. 

We then went horse riding and saw some of the lands. They now grow pine trees and keep cattle, rather than Yerba.

We have been travelling entirly by public bus which to date have been very comfortable. To get to the farm from the town we went on a brilliant rickety old bus which added to the experience.







We stayed the night in a town called San Ignazio di Mini a place known for its ruins of a Jesuit village.  The Jesuits seemed to find a way of living with the local Guarani people that gave mutual benefits. The Jesuits converted the people and the people were protected from Portuguese and Spanish slave dealers.  The ruins are really interesting.



In the afternoon, some of us went Kyaking on the river Parana. The river is really wide and forms the border with Paraguay.  The river flows very slowly and languidly and it was a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon, enjoying the lush green scenery.











From there we took an overnight bus to a place called Concordia on the banks of the river Uruguay and crossed the next morning into Uruguay, stopping in the town of Salto.  This was a very pleasant little town with thermal baths. We went there in the afternoon, but the weather was so hot we did not really want to sit in hot baths!

Posing with a low voltage light bulb!!

That evening was the Salto Carnaval - not sure why it was at a different time than everywhere else.  It was a really fun afair - nothing extravagant like Rio - but a fun local event.  It started at 11pm and (apparently) went on till 4pm, but I was in bed long before then!


From Salto we went on to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.  it seems like a pleasant city, but we were there on a Sunday and virtually everything was closed. It made the city feel a little like a film set.  the old market was open though as it was full of tradional restaurants where locals seemed to go to eat Sunday lunch.  The local fare is very meaty with lots of beef and pork on flaming grills. In the afternoon we went to the beach and watched a Pan-America´s beach handball championship which happened to be going on there.

Looking at the map of Uruguay, I noticed that one of the cities is called Fray Bentos- presumably the place the company was named after!

Our hotel

River Plate (rather muddy)

Our last stop in Uruguay was a beautiful, rather small colonial town called Colonia di Sacrimento on the banks of the Rio Plato (River Plate).

This is a lovely gentle place with lots of historic buildings including an old light house and some interesting shops and restaurants.

I could happily have spent a few more days here, however, we had to move on and the next morning we caught a ferry across the river (about 30 or 40 miles) to Buenos Aires and the end of our tour.

Our last group dinner

Iguassu Falls

Day  6-9       To Iguassu Falls

We left Sao Paolo to go to a town called Curitiba - Another travel day with a long bus journey on a remarkably comfortable bus. It seems that travelling long distances by bus is common practice here  and they  are all amazingly comfortable with fantastic leg room, and reclining seats.  Again the scenery was beautiful with lush, tree covered hills, banana plantations and meandering rivers.
 
We arrived in Curitiba in the afternoon. It was cooler as it is at an altitude of 900m. Apparently from a quality of living perspective this is considered to be one of the best  places to live in Brazil. It is a pleasant place, but nothing very exciting going on there.

Devil´s Throat from above

From there we had an overnight bus journey to Foz di Iguassu, the town closes to the Brazilian side of the Iguassu falls.  I treated myself to a helicopter trip over the falls which was very exciting.










The falls are really amazing - the longest curtain of water of any falls in the world.  The main part is called the Devil´s Throat as it almost closes into a circle down which the water thunders.

Apparently we saw the falls at relatively low water as there has been a drought in northern Argentina - I cannot imagine what it would be like at full flood!

Before we went to the falls we also a visited a bird park and saw many of the exotic birds that are found in these parts. My favourites are the Toucans!

Finally we visited the falls and saw them from every angle - fantastic!!



In the evening we went to a show with all the different music and dances from different countries in South America.  It was a bit cheesy, but was also very interesting to see (and hear) the differences.  For example Paraguayan music always involved a small harp!

We crossed the border early the next morning and spent the whole day at the Argentinian side of the falls.  They are even more spectacular from this side.  The highlight of the day was a boat trip under the falls -  so much fun - so wet!

One of the boats under the falls

Some of our group on the boat - before ......

After ...

Brazil - From Rio to Iguassu

Days 1-5          Country no 1 - Brazil

Ariived in Rio early in the morning - the journey into town passed shanty towns, commercial docks and really posh places. I noticed vultures wheeling around and sitting on lamp-posts as we would expect to see sea-gulls.  I only had that day in Rio and so charges around the main sites: -
Christ the Redeemer - it is truly stunning - the scale is phenomenal - they definitely should not put one on Primrose Hill! It would never be as good and if on the same scale would dwarf the hill!

From there I walked along Ipanema and Copacobana beaches.  The bays are clearly stunning but being the last day of Caranaval and with Rio having 2million visitors during Carnaval, the beaches were packed with bodies -people recovering from seriously hard partying and others continuing with the hard partying!

View from Sugar Loaf Mountain

Finally I went up Sugar Loaf Mountain on the cable car - the views from there are stunning and really shows off Rio at its best.
In the evening I went out to one of the street parties near my hotel - so many people having fun and a lot of alcohol, but all very amicable and jolly - it was amazing but would have been more fun if I had been with other people ....

The next day, having met my group for the week we set off to the bus station and onto a local bus to Paraty.  The buses are amazingly comfortable and bode well for the next few weeks .....
There are currently 18 in the group, but a few leave after the fast week.  It is nearly all girls with 3 blokes in the group and our tour leader.  Most of the group are australian and between 18 and 26 but there are a few others to add to the diversity!

One of the bays where we swam

Beach at Paraty

Paraty in flood

Paraty is a really beautiful Potuguese Colonial Town - very cobbly streets that flood once a month at high tide. The buildings are painted in multiple colours - very pleasant.  Today we went on a boat tour around the coast and to a few of the islands off the coast - really beautiful and very relaxing. We saw dolphins around the boat which was great.

We have now moved Sao Paolo, the biggest city in the world / southern hemisphere - depending on who you listen to. Apparently 20 million people live here.  It is huge and amazingly busy.  Today I went with a couple of the others to the main art museum - what a fantastic collection they have - though mainly European art - Monet, Picasso, Rodin etc etc.  We then went up the tallest building in Sao Paolo - the views were great - sky scrapers as far as the eye can see.  Apparently Sao Paolo has the largest fleet of helicopters in the world as that is how business men get around - it takes so long by any other means!!  Finally I went to the Municipal Market. I love the way that all the food is displayed so magnificently - fruit, vegetables, cheese, meat, fish, olive oil, cakes - everything.

Now back at the hotel and trying to sort the technology .......

Preparing to go

Trying to set up all the technology I need to allow me to stay in touch with you  while I am away .....