TravelStream™ news feed for member georgeharper on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/georgeharper en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:06:11 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1224940380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1224940380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1224940380/tpod.html Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:06:11 -0400 South American Adventures

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Buenos Aires, Argentina

So this is it...the last entry!

We had a great journey to Buenos Aires, a very lively bus and another fun game of bingo. We had to pass some time before we could get into our apartment but we´re really happy with our new place. It´s a studio apartment on the 6th floor, all very New York/city living but bright and airy and with everything we need nearby.

We haven´t done much this week but here are a few of the highlights:

Half an hour after we checked into our apartment David Coulthard was driving the streets of Buenos Aires in his Red Bull, and it was all happening about 600m from our place! I didn´t think I would be seeing a Formula 1 car on this trip! There were masses of people and we didn´t have much of a view because we got there so late but we certainly heard the car and saw lots of smoke when he did spins (on purpose!!) in front of us.

On Sunday we went back to the San Telmo antiques fair. It was a gorgeous day and it was wonderful to wander round the area and look at all the antiques and people watch. I could have bought loads of things but really can´t carry back any more stuff!

The big highlight has been seeing Chrissie and Caleb again. We first met on Monday and had a great long lunch to catch up and hear all about their travels. It was funny to hear that they´ve stayed in a lot of the same places as us. We all went to a tango show on Tuesday night, which was fantastic. It was at Cafe Tortoni, a famous establishment in Buenos Aires with a very long history. It was set up caberet style and we had a great view of the dancers. They were jaw-droppingly good, their legs did things I didn´t know was possible and they were so fast at times. I suddenly realised that perhaps the dancers on Strictly Come Dancing aren´t nearly as good as I thought they were (can´t wait to start watching though!!!) The band were brilliant too, I think the pianist is just about the best live pianist I have seen. The whole thing was amazing and I´m so pleased we came back to Buenos Aires so we could go. The show finished at 10pm and, in true Argentinian style, we then went out for dinner. It was 10pm on a Tuesday night but the restaurants were packed!

The following day we met up and went to the zoo! It was a huge place right in the middle of the city and certainly good exercise to walk around. We saw lots of South American animals, although we didn´t spend long at the llama enclosure as we realised that we have definitely seen enough to last a lifetime! It was good fun but certainly not a patch on seeing them in the wild.

We´ve done a lot of walking around the city (got to work off those steaks somehow!) and generally getting as much sun as we can before coming back home. We leave on Sunday morning so we shall spend our last day and a half in the sun, with Chrissie and Caleb, and then go somewhere nice for a final meal.

So, how to finish the blog?? I´ll do my best. I don´t think this trip has fundamentally changed me, I think that happens when you do these things when you are younger. However I am coming back with lots of ways I want to change. This trip has definitely given me some much needed distance from the daily grind but has also enabled me to look at things from a new perspective. I hope I come back taking some things a little less seriously and some things a little more seriously. I want to make more of my life outside work and not be as lazy as I once was.

The trip has definitely been tough at times, being ill was horrible and I have really missed family and friends. It has certainly be a test for me and Dom at times, but we´ve come through it, we´re still talking (!) and we still want to be together...we just need to spend some time with other people now! It has opened my eyes to a lot of things, I will never forget the trip down the mines in Potosi and meeting people, all over the continent, who struggle every day of their lives. But I´ve met fantastic people who have a great spirit and are so proud of their countries.

I´ve had a great time and I´m not coming back with any regrets. The whole thing; people, scenery, my own ability to travel as totally exceeded my expectations. I´ve learnt that I´m more of an outdoors person than I thought I was, I like wildlife a lot more than I thought I did and I can (partly!) overcome a huge fear of spiders. I have also learnt that I like english tea...a lot!

Favourite place, that is a tough one, but I think Ecuador just gets the prize. The jungle experience was truly amazing and probably the highlight, incredible when you think I thought it would be the worst part and didn´t want to go! But I guess that´s the most important thing I´ve learnt, if you push yourself out of your comfort zone you never know what you might find.

I´ll miss South America terribly but I´m an English girl at heart, I´m ready to come back and am looking forward to finding out what´s next for me. Stick the kettle on! I´m coming home!

So that´s it. I´ve spent a staggering 2 weeks on buses (yes! I´ve totted up the hours!!), had too many cases of South American belly to remember, eaten 29 steaks (I´ll round it to 30 before I come home!), been salsa dancing, lived with tarantulas, seen smoking volcanoes and red lakes, been white water rafting, exhausted myself trekking to Machu Picchu, been to the end of the world, seen a killer whale, new born seal pups and lots of whales; stood in front of an advancing glacier, oh, and had a parasite....

...I wouldn´t have missed it for the world.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1224080700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1224080700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1224080700/tpod.html Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:54:04 -0400 South American Adventures

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Mendoza, Cuyo, Argentina

We left Bariloche with the aim of travelling to a small town called Junin de los Andes in the hope that we could spend some time in the beautiful Lake District but away from the tourists. We took a little, local bus to the town and arrived there at 1pm. Unfortunately our plans were very quickly thwarted; we found it wasn´t cheap and there wasn´t actually a lot to do unless you had a bigger budget than us or had a car. We asked the tourist office for advice on hostels and a friendly chap marked a load on a map for us. We took turns to wander around but without success, the hostels either didn´t exists or were charging outrageous prices and refused to negotiate. So we decided to give Junin a miss and spent the afternoon in a cafe getting food and passing time until we could get a bus to Mendoza at 5pm. This bus wasn´t direct, we had to change in a place called Neuquen, and were a bit worried about only having a 20 minute gap between buses. I asked what would happen if the first bus was late, "the second bus will wait for you", "really?!", "yes". We weren´t particularly convinced, but it was the same company and we didn´t really have a choice except to take a chance and hope it all worked out.

The bus kept to time beautifully; we were rolling into Neuquen right on schedule and starting to breathe a sigh of relief when the bus took a turn and we saw an ominous "diversion" sign. We then went round the houses, literally, and watched the time disappear. It was looking less and less likely that we would make our connection and it also seemed like the driver was lost because we kept asking for directions. I was trying to believe that the bus would wait but it was unlikely. We finally pulled into the bus station and could see an Andesmar bus just closing it´s doors...panic! Dom was practically beside himself and told me to rush downstairs while he got the stuff. The moment the doors opened I sprinted to the bus yelling "wait! wait!" only to find that the bus was actually going to Buenos Aires! Rather embarrassing. There was a bit of running about until we found out our second bus was delayed by half an hour....and relax! The second bus eventually turned up and we got on and promptly fell asleep.

We woke up the next morning to be greeted by sunshine, vineyards all around us and the huge Andes in the distance. It was a beautiful area and we were looking forward to getting into Mendoza. At the bus station the tourist office were very helpful and it wasn´t long before we were in a taxi and off to a great deal at the hostel Parque Central.

Mendoza is a lovely city; it was virtually flattened in an earthquake in the late 19th century and was rebuilt with plenty of plazas and wide leafy streets. The plazas were evacuation points and the wide streets meant the rubble would have somewhere to go. We were on a nice quite street and the hostel felt more like someone´s house and had a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. We spent a lovely afternoon wandering around and soaking up the sun. In fact that was pretty much what happened for the next week!

Every day was warm and sunny so we decided to stay and soak up as much sun as possible before heading back to cold, grey England. Our days were absurdly lazy and repetitive but that was just what we wanted at this stage, it was just like a holiday. We would get up late, wander around town, buy provisions, maybe visit a gallery, have a lazy lunch, read, play table tennis, watch a bit of TV and eat steak in the evening. Every day, at the same time, we went to the same cafe for a cortado (espresso with a dash of milk, very popular in Argentina). and saw the same people every day. A group of old men would come and sit at the same table and spend the morning putting the world to rights. In fact there were old people everywhere, if we had lunch out we were always surrounded by "ladies who lunch" and old men who didn´t even need to tell the waiter what they wanted they go there so often. We got ourselves known in a few places and people were really friendly. With the lovely warm weather and relaxed lifestyle it was great, if this is what retirement is like I can´t wait!!!

We did do one exciting thing...we went to the vineyards! We managed to negotiate the bus out of town to the village of Maipu where we rented bikes for the day. We had a great time cycling around the pretty countryside to various vineyards. We visited a wine museum which was quite interesting, although it was all in spanish so Dom had to translate for me as my wine knowledge isn´t up to much. We then cycled a fair distance to a small family run vineyard where we were allowed to taste the wine sitting on beanbags next to the vines. Next we went to what turned out to be our favourite vineyard, Tempus Alba. It was much more modern but they had a great roof terrace overlooking the vines for the tasting. I say tasting but this one was more like drinking, 3 proper glasses of wine for us to try and not a spittoon in sight! I wish I could have frozen time up there as it was the most perfect place, there was no-one else around and we sat in the sun with a gentle breeze and tried three great wines. When we got up we were a little wobbly to say the least so quickly ate our picnic out of sight in the car park and headed off, concentrating hard, to the next stop.

Next was an olive oil factory, so we had a quick tour of that and then headed over the road to our next vineyard. This was another small family run place and we had a great tour of the place. We were even allowed to go into the cellar where the wines mature, the smell in there was amazing! We watched a bit of the bottling process and met the owner, it was so small and friendly you felt you could quite easily get roped in to do something. The wine was good too! We then cycled all the way back stopping at one final place where we got to try liquors, delicious chocolates, pickles and jams. It was a great day and definitely worth the trip to Mendoza.

We spent just over a week in Mendoza and managed to sort out an apartment in Buenos Aires for our last week in South America. We were sad to leave Mendoza because we had grown to love it and the guys in the hostel had been really friendly. However our time there ended on a bit of a sour note. On our last day our bus was at 8.30pm and our bags had been in a room at the hostel. About 10 minutes before we were due to leave Dom realised his camera was missing (this was the camera he bought in Ushuaia to replace the one he lost in Buenos Aires). The guys had moved our bags during the day and the second room wasn´t locked. We couldn´t believe it, although it was a bit stupid because we shouldn´t have left it in there. The guys in the hostel didn´t seem to care until we said "no, we haven´t lost it, it´s been stolen, you didn´t lock the door". Then they jumped into action and although we looked everywhere the camera was obviously long gone. The owner was nice enough to give us a lift to the bus station and we made sure we didn´t leave on a bad note but I think we all learnt a lesson.

So that was Mendoza, we couldn´t believe we were feeling like this but we were actually quite sad to get on the bus as we knew that this would be our last bus journey in South America!

Last stop, Buenos Aires.



]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1223756100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1223756100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1223756100/tpod.html Tue, 21 Oct 2008 12:33:57 -0400 South American Adventures

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San Carlos de Bariloche, Patagonia, Argentina

We knew that the journey from El Calafate to our next destination was going to be huge. We had found out that road between the two places, Route 40, was closed during winter so we had been told that we would have to get the bus back to Rio Gallegos, then an overnighter to Puerto Madryn and then another overnighter to Bariloche. We weren´t looking forward to two consecutive nights on the bus but it had to be done. We got to the bus station a couple of hours before our first bus and had breakfast and read and generally whiled away a couple of hours. Ten minutes before our bus (at midday) we were getting our stuff together when we noticed a teeny tiny sign in the window of one of the bus companies saying "El Calafate - Bariloche, direct, only on Fridays". Today was Friday so we investigated and found that we could get a bus direct that would avoid having to do two nights on the bus...and obviously would be cheaper. We´d already bought our tickets so decided to pick up the direct bus in Rio Gallegos.

So we took the bus to Rio Gallegos and "enjoyed" a triple bill of Will Smith films in Spanish to make the 5 hours passed quicker. We then had a five and a half hour wait in the bus station in Rio Gallegos. The bus station is in the middle of nowhere with no internet cafe so we passed most of the time with an epic game of Scrabble, in which I was narrowly beaten by Dom. (But I am getting better, I´ve beaten him three times now!) Eventually the bus arrived and we found our seats and settled in for the 25 hour journey to Bariloche. Luckily the bus was virtually empty (probably because of the stupid teeny tiny sign) so we were able to spread out get some good sleep. The time went by and eventually, knees aching from sitting for so long, we arrived in Bariloche.

Bariloche is like Switzerland; it´s setting is beautiful, by a lovely blue lake and surrounded by snow capped mountains. The buildings are wooden chalets and there are chocolate shops and fondue restaurants everywhere. Some of the chocolate shops are outrageously big, about the size of your average city centre supermarket. However the whole place is so touristy it made our heads spin. Having spent so long in small towns in the middle nowhere it was strange to be in a place with loads of people again. Everywhere we´ve been people have raved about Bariloche, saying it´s the most fantastic place we´ll go and we´ll want to stay forever. I really wouldn´t go far, it´s not that good, in many ways it feels quite fake. But I could be doing it an injustice, I did feel totally spaced out for two days after all that travelling!

The first wake up call we got was when we checked our bank balance, all those buses had really taken a chunk out of our budget. It meant we had to have a big think about what to do next. We also realised that we were beginning to run out of travelling steam and were thinking about home more and more. After some talking realised that we didn´t actually want to go to Chile, both because of the prices in Chile and the fact that we like Argentina so much. So we had a total rethink and decided not to bother with Chile, finish our trip in Argentina and fly home from Buenos Aires. We also found out that our friends Chrissie and Caleb were going to be in Buenos Aires. Avid blog readers may remember that we met Chrissie and Caleb in our very first week back in Ecuador. We´ve been trying to meet again ever since but never been in the same place at the same time. It felt right that we would spend our last week with people we met in our first week!

We had a very boring and lazy couple of days wandering around town and passing time in the hostel. The hostel was one of the strangest we´ve stayed in. It was a wooden chalet-style building which was like a tardis, it was so much bigger than it seemed. There were random holes to rooms everywhere, I´ll never forget when I was on the computer and someone dropped out of the ceiling and landed next to me, giving me the fright of my life! We got a bit fed up and grumpy, feeling sorry for ourselves about money and generally couldn´t be bothered with it all any longer.

We knew we had to snap out it because we still had 3 weeks to go and didn´t want the end of the trip to just fizzle out. So we needed something that would wake us up again and get us back on track so to speak. So our second wake up call was...white water rafting! (I know what you´re thinking..."what about the budget?!" We decided to overlook it and say that this was our Christmas present to each other!) We decided to go for the more difficult option, which was grades III and IV for people who like to know these things (and took us to the limit of what we were insured for!)

We took a minibus to the starting point and drove through stunning countryside which made us realise that the area was so much more beautiful than we had realised. We were in Argentina´s Lake District so there were gorgeous blue lakes, forests and snowy mountains. When we arrived at the start point it was like we were in a fairy tale, we were in a clearing in the forest, with blue sky, mountains in the distance and the most perfect green/blue river to raft down. We had coffee and croissants while the instructors got all the equipment ready. Then, horror of horrors, we had to get into wetsuits! It was then straight onto a calm bit of water for instructions and practice.

White water rafting is certainly an effective way of learning spanish! Very quickly I had to get used to left, right, forward, back, easy forward, hard forward, positions, inside, high side, stop! I was a little worried about being given the safety instructions in spanish but I got the gist of it!

The rafting was brilliant and definitely what we needed. The water was so cold and very fast as it the melting snow is pouring off the mountains at moment. However it was great fun and no-one ended up in the water. We rafted all the way to the Chilean border and when we got out both said that we could easily do the whole thing again. We then headed back to the starting point and had a lovely bbq before heading back to Bariloche.

We left Bariloche the next day, still feeling good after the rafting, with the aim of going to a small town north of Bariloche. We were hoping to spend a few days there and enjoy more of the beautiftul Lake District.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1223496360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1223496360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1223496360/tpod.html Sun, 19 Oct 2008 14:46:09 -0400 South American Adventures

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El Calafate, Patagonia, Argentina

Remembering the journey we had to get there, we took a deep breath and hoped for the best when we left Ushuaia. We had to get a 5am bus from Ushuaia back to Rio Gallegos to change to get the bus to El Calafate. We would be arriving in El Calafate at 1am so decided not to take any chances this time and booked a hostel! Luckily there were no delays this time and the ferry crossing was in calm seas and beautiful sunshine, there were even dolphins swimming next to the boat. The exit-entry-exit-entry border formalities went without a hitch and we arrived in Rio Gallegos on time. We had 3 hours to kill in the bus station but the next bus came at 8pm without a problem. I slept for most of the journey and we arrived in El Calafate at just after 1am. The hostel was a very quick walk from the bus station and we knocked on the door hoping my reservation had worked. An old lady answered the door, she had clearly waited up for us and was dressed smartly and in full make-up! However she was obviously just as tired as us and showed us straight to our room and was keen to get away. Although she did have enought time to tell Dom to take his dirty pack off the clean bed!

El Calafate is not a town for someone on a budget. The nearby Perito Moreno glacier is a huge tourist magnet and consequently the prices in the town are silly. We couldn´t afford to stay in El Calafate any longer than necessary so having got to bed after 1.30am the alarm went off at 7.00am so we could get the first bus to the glacier. Our accomodation was a room in an elderly couple´s house, no breakfast and no kitchen, so we had breakfast that morning in the only place that was open...the petrol station!

Sticking to our mantra of ´avoid tours wherever possible´ we visited the glacier under our own steam and caught the public bus. The glacier is 2 hours away and we had considerable gear trouble but we got there in the end. It didn´t seem to matter because the glacier is located in the middle of a stunning national park, so we had wonderful scenery to keep us occupied. The first glimpse of the glacier was pretty special, it was so much bigger than I thought it would be. It´s 60m high, 5 km across, goes back for 14km and is advancing at a rate of up to 2m a day (one of the few glaciers in the world to still be advancing). You could see where the glacier started, way up in the mountains, and it looked like a river of ice coming towards you. It was possible to start to imagine what the earth must have looked like during the ice age.

Once we got up close there were a series of walkways so you could see the glacier from all sorts of different angles. We wandered about and found a great spot to sit and have our picnic. It is amazing to hear the ice creaking and cracking, now and then a bit would break off making a sound like a gunshot and would fall into the water with a huge boom. While we were eating a huge section broke off right in front of us. It was enormous, about the size of the two-up-two-down house I used to live in in Oxford! It made a huge noise, like a bomb going off, as it fell in the water. Even though we knew the noise was coming we still jumped when the ice hit the water.

We sat there for ages and stared at the glacier, trying to guess which bit would fall off next. It reminded me of that slot game where you put pennies or 10ps into a slot to try and push lots of coins off the ledge where they are precariously balanced. The top of the glacier was all jagged where the ice had compressed and been pushed up and you could see where ice caves have formed. The most wonderful thing was how blue the ice was, it was like nothing I have ever seen....again...in fact, that should become the phrase that sums up the whole trip, I seem to be constantly saying "I´ve never seen anything like it"!

After some time we were able to tear ourselves away from the glacier and took a boat trip so we got get up close to the glacier and could appreciate it´s height. We had to go past icebergs to get to the glacier and once we got close it was pretty chilly. Most people stayed inside the boat but we braced the cold and stood out on deck at the front so that there was nothing in front of us but a great wall of ice. It was hard to imagine that the glacier went down for 180m under the water. To hear the creaking and know that the glacier is advancing towards you makes it seem as if it is somehow alive. It´s a very strange feeling and the whole thing is quite eerie in many ways.

Although I could have stayed for ages and watched the glacier, waiting for the next bit to break off, we had to catch the last bus back to El Calafate. Once back in town we spent about an hour walking around trying to find a cheap place to eat. In the end we decided the best value was the all-you-can-eat bbq buffet, which are popular all over Argentina. Let´s just say the experience will not be repeated!

We had an early night because we knew the next day we had to start our longest journey yet...
(I´ve just realised there are no photos of me in this entry, sorry Harriet! I´ll try and do better next time!!xx
)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1223063700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1223063700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1223063700/tpod.html Sat, 18 Oct 2008 11:49:15 -0400 South American Adventures

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Ushuaia, Patagonia, Argentina

From Puerto Madryn we decided to head South with the aim of going to El Calafate to see a huge glacier. Our bus was due to leave at 3pm and we arrived at the bus station with 20mins to spare, as usual. At about the same time a group from a local primary school arrived, one of the girls approached me and started chattering away. At first I thought she was trying to sell me her school book, so I told her that under no circumstances was I going to buy her school book. However we quickly established that she actually wanted to read me a story! So I listened to her read me a story about a whale. She was about 8 and I´m ashamed to say I couldn´t quite keep up with all the story...but she read it very well! Afterwards her teacher gave me a slip of paper to say thank you for listening and taking part in Argentina´s 6th Reading Marathon. As a thank you I gave the girl a packet of pencils we´ve been carrying around for just such an occasion...I don´t know who went away more happy!

The bus journey was pretty uneventful, although we did have a conductor who loved his job and took great pride is making sure we were comfortable and happy at all times. He even organised a game of bingo for the whole bus which was good fun, especially when a 10 year old won and was given a bottle of wine as a prize! We managed to get a good night of sleep and arrived in Rio Gallegos, where we had to change buses, at 8.30am the next day. Rio Gallegos is further south than El Calafate, so we had said to each other that, if we were going to go all the way to the very bottom of Argentina, perhaps now was the time to do it. At the bus station we looked at the possibilities, there was a bus to El Calafate at midday or a bus to Ushuaia, the Southern most city in the world, at 9am. We decided to change plans and go for Ushuaia. So we grabbed to breakfast and jumped onto the next bus feeling like true travellers who could make these last minute decisions to go to the end of the world.

The journey was supposed to take 9 hours, on top of the almost 18 hours we had just done. After an hour we reached the Argentinian border with Chile and had to wait around for our turn to go and get an exit stamp for Argentina. A big chunk of the journey is through Chile and the authorities take great care in making sure you get an exit stamp from Argentina, and entry for Chile, then an exit for Chile and another entry for Argentina. (Why can´t it be like the EU and you just wave your passport at them!) Whilst we were sat on the bus we could see that the wind was blowing a gale outside. The bus was rocking and we we laughing at people getting blown about outside. Once it was our turn to go into the office we got a taste of how strong this wind really was. It was so difficult to walk, you really had to push against the wind and then it would easy suddenly and you would go flying forward. The whole border formalities took about an hour and then we drove to the Chile offices...only to be told that the wind was so strong the ferry to cross the Magellan Strait had been cancelled. We weren´t going to be going to Ushuaia today.

We drove back to the Argentinian border where there was more hanging around. We looked at hotels in Rio Gallegos and decided that we would give it one more go tomorrow. We had just picked a cheap place when the bus started moving and appeared to be leaving the Argentinian border. But we hadn´t got our entry stamps! I was thinking "Oh my God I´m internationally stranded!!" when we turned round and started heading towards the Chilean border...was the driver going to burst through the border??! That would be even worse than not getting an entry stamp! Luckily we screeched to a halt just before the border and the crew on the bus announced that the wind was going to drop at 6pm and we should be able to cross then. We would wait at the border until then....it was midday when they said this and we weren´t particularly happy to have to wait at a windy border for 6 hours. Surely it would be better to go and wait where the ferry would go from? But no, we were to wait there. So we settled down for a long wait, the crew put on a a video of 80s pop music and handed out bland sandwiches.

I had taken about 2 bites of my sandwich when the crew announced that actually we would go to the ferry and wait there. So we all had to leave our food and get off the bus to go and get out entry stamp to Chile. Luckily that didn´t take long and we were soon on our way and heading to the ferry point. We arrived about 40 minutes later in pouring rain and water so choppy we were all saying "there is no way we could cross that, even if we wanted to...which we don´t". We sat on the bus and waited to see what would happen.

After a couple of hours doing nothing the Chileans decided to give the ferry a go, and selected our coach to be in the first group to cross. We nervously borded the ferry and set off for a very choppy but thankfully safe crossing. We arrived on Tierra del Fuego just as a huge hail storm started and began to wonder where on earth we had come to! It was about 4pm at this point and we were told we would arrived in Ushuaia at about 10pm. At this point we began to get slightly edgy; because it had been a split second decision we didn´t have a reservation in Ushuaia. We thought we would get there at 4pm, plenty of time to find a room, but 10pm was a little later than we would have liked. In addition there was no mobile signal so we could organise something from the bus...we just had to sit it out.

So we drove for a long, long time watching bad Eddie Murphy films in Spanish and generally getting tired and bored. We had to go through another border section so all had to get off to get our exit and entry stamps. We arrived in a small town at 8pm hoping to pick up a sandwich at the bus station. However they only had a sit down restaurant and wouldn´t do take away so dinner that night was a packet of small sponge cakes (Tim, this was not as good as it sounds!).

At about 9pm I fell asleep and woke up again at 11pm wondering why we weren´t in Ushuaia. Dom said to me "Erm...I think you should take a look outside..." I peered out into the darkness and could not believe it when I saw a huge blizzard! There were fallen down trees at the side of the road and generally it looked foul. Within 10 seconds I was fully awake and in a panic! Having felt "this will be a good adventure" earlier in the day I now decided that this was the most stupid thing we had ever done. We´d jumped on a bus to the end of the world without checking the weather conditions, completely inappropriately dressed for snow and heading to a town in the middle of the night, in a blizzard, without a reservation. I also convinced myself that because it was off season most of the hostels and hotels would be closed and all the rest would be full because people couldn´t get out in the blizzard. Also, Ushuaia has no bus terminal so we had no idea where the bus was going to drop us off.

We eventually arrived in Ushuaia at midnight with the snow still falling very heavily and the wind blowing. I definitely felt like I had come to the end of the world! I was a nervous wreck praying that the credit card would somehow buy us out of trouble and Dom was trying look calm but I could tell was just as worried as I was. We got off the bus and went to get our bags when we heard a voice..."does anyone want a hostel?" I have never heard such wonderful words in my life and could have gone straight over and hugged and kissed the guy! We were saved! I didn´t care how much it cost. However our traveller heads are obviously screwed on tight because we both said very casually "maybe, it depends how much it costs". We weren´t going to get ripped off now!

But it all worked out fine and 15 minutes later we were in the cozy Aonikenk hostel with Dom checking the football scores on the internet while I was being shown round the kitchen. That night I fell into bed exhausted but full of relief that everything had worked out ok.

Next day when we went down to breakfast we were bowled over by the view from the hostel. We were up on a hill and had breakfast gazing out at the town below us and the Beagle Channel and mountains in the distance. The snow was still falling and we agreed we were so pleased we had come here and were able to see the place covered in snow and looking beautiful.

We found that we had come to Ushuaia at a slightly odd time. The ski season had just finished (I don´t know why as there was so much snow about!) but the Antarctica cruises don´t start for another 6 weeks so lots of places are either shut or things don´t happen unless there are enough people (boat trips for instance). However we did find a good museum to visit. Ushuaia used to be a penal colony and the museum was in the old prison. It was very interesting but the main reason we went was to see the exhibition on Antarctica. However this was a big disappointment as the British and Irish explorers were conspicuous in their absence.

The rest of our time was spent trekking in the mountains and forests behind the town. It was great to get lots of fresh air and there were plenty of walks we could do on our own. It was funny to walk in the snow..sometimes we were knee deep in perfect fluffy snow! Most of our walking was to try and get to the glacier up on the mountain. The first day there was too much snow and it was impossible to get there in the time we had, plus we couldn´t see a path which made things tricky. The next day there was far less snow and we were able to see where to go. However it was still a bit hazardous. At one point Dom stepped off the path to do a snow angel, he took two steps and suddely found himself up to his waist in snow. I laughed until I realised he actually couldn´t get out and needed my help to pull him out. After that we stuck to the path! We climbed the mountain, it got very steep at the end and we had to use our hands to get up to the top. The views were incredible though and it was a great place to have a picnic. However we couldn´t see the glacier anywhere, until we realised that of course all the snow was covering it and we were standing on it! Coming down was good fun though!

I´m so pleased we made it all the way to Ushuaia, I had wanted to go there when we planned the trip but we didn´t know if we would be able to do it. It was amazing to know we were so far south when we had started all the way up in Ecuador. And given we had had such a long journey to get there, and had arrived in a blizzard, it felt even more of an achievement to have got there. It also felt strange to know that after all that travelling South for months and months there was nowhere else to go, and we would now be starting to travel North, it suddenly started to feel like we are nearing the end of our trip. However, there is still a lot to do before we come home (like catch up with my blog entries for one!!)

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1222788060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1222788060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1222788060/tpod.html Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:46:19 -0400 South American Adventures

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Puerto Madryn, Patagonia, Argentina

We left Buenos Aires on an 18 hour bus journey to Puerto Madryn, quite quickly the scenery changed to become flat and green. We were treated to an amazing sunset...but some terrible films. Dinner was still served at 11pm but I was ready for it this time so there was no need for a hungry, tired strop!

We arrived in Puerto Madryn at 9.30am after a pretty good sleep. We went to a hotel and Dom managed to bargain a third off the room. We noticed that the place was empty so knew we had them in the palm of our hand! At 12pm we met Toby and Louise and a hire car, they had gone to Puerto Madryn the day before us and sorted a hire car for the 4 of us for 2 days. It´s great when a plan comes together! So off we headed in our lovely Golf, it felt great to be going out on our own (and I´m pleased to report we only ended up on the wrong side of the road once!) We went to a small village called Gaiman to have afternoon tea. You might think it´s a bit odd to drive for two hours to have some tea, but we were Brits who were missing their tea and would have done anything! But seriously, this area of Patagonia (the region of Argentina we were in) is famous for its Welsh settlers, who arrived in 18 something and have given the area a very Welsh feel. There are lots of villages where the signs are in Spanish and Welsh, there are even some Welsh houses with slate roofs and lots of Welsh flags are flying. All the street names are things like "Jones", "Dyfed" and even "Juan Evans"!!! These villages have set up Tea Houses, with all sorts of homemade cakes and tea. I had even heard rumours of unlimited tea so, as you can imagine, was ridiculously excited about going to Gaiman.

However, we arrived at 2pm only to find that the whole village was having it´s siesta and none of the Tea Houses opened until 3pm. We thought that all was lost as we had another place to go to that day and couldn´t hang around for an hour. So we started to drive out of Gaiman and as we did so saw signs for another Tea House and thought we should just check to see if it was open. We followed all sorts of tracks and tiny lanes and eventually ended up at the enormous " Lady Diana Spencer Caerdydd Casa de Te Gales", which was about to open. Perfect! Turns out that Di had visited the place and now it was practically a shrine to her. The tea room was the quaintest thing I have seen in a long time, it felt like going into a very old lady´s dining room!

This was no ordinary afternoon tea though, this was the biggest tea I have ever seen in my life. There were sandwiches, buttered bread and different types of jam, and more cake than even my brother Tim could manage! I think there were about 24 slices of cake between the 4 us! And the rumours were true...there was unlimited tea! Our waitress quickly realised to keep the pots coming to our table. It was proper tea, so good, and they knew to bring the milk too, they didn´t need to be asked. There was none of the usual conversations I have to have in South America: "I would like milk with my tea please...yes, I know it´s weird but it´s how I have it...no! not that much...oh, now it´s ruined!" We ate until we had headaches from the sugar high and then waddled back to the car clutching a parcel of left-over cakes.

We then drove for another couple of hours until we got to Punta Tomba National Park, where 15,000 penguins were waiting for us! It´s a small area of land by the sea where, every year, Magellanic penguins come to breed. The penguins were the funniest and cutest things I have seen. You were able to wander around with them and get really close. They were very inquisitive and didn´t seem to be bothered by us at all. We had a great time walking around and laughing whenever a penguin tried to run and watching them go in and out of the sea. We stayed until the sun went down and somehow resisted the urge to pick one up and bring it back with us.

The next day we met up bright and early for a day of wildlife watching. At this time of year Southern Right whales come to the area to give birth and raise their young until they are strong enough to leave. We drove along the coast to a beach where we could see a mother and calf just off shore. It was amazing to walk along the beach and see them so close. Then we saw a viewpoint up on a cliff so drove up there thinking we could get a better look. It was good to see the whales from above and we watched one swim in front of us round the cliff. As we followed it round we looked into the next bay and saw lots more whales. I counted 15 but there could easily have been more under the water. We spent some time watching the whales from the viewpoint and then down on the beach. They were so close, sometimes as close as 10meters. You felt like you could just wade out and be with them. We could hear them singing to each other and the puff of air as they breathed. The whales were having such a good time, the babies were playing and the adults were teaching them to roll over. Lots of the adults were lying on their backs, fins in the air and bellies in the sun, you could almost hear them going "aaaaah! that feels good!"

Next we had a long drive to the Peninsula Valdes. Fact fans will be interested to know that this Peninsula is the place where my all time favourite bit of David Attenborough wildlife footage was filmed. It´s the place where killer whales come up onto the beach to grab seals! I was so excited when I heard this but then found out that we were coming at completely the wrong time of year, and even if you come at the right time you have a 3% chance of seeing the killer whales rush on the beach. When we got onto the peninsula we went to the visitors centre and saw from a chart that it would be highly unlikely to see any killer whales at all as they don´t arrive in the area until October (today was Oct 1).

We drove for some time until we got to a hamlet by the sea. The peninsula is so big that most of the time you can´t even see the sea. We had a lovely picnic lunch by the sea and then headed off to the beach where the killer whales have been filmed. It was a really exposed beach and the sea was a choppy as I had imagined it would be in this area. We scanned the sea for killer whales but gave up very quickly. There were however elephant seals on the beach. They were so big, like massive lumps with faces; just lying on the beach. All the wildlife in this area just lies around and relaxes! It was funny to hear them barking and growling occasionally and watch them flick sand on themselves.

Then we drove some more and found penguins again, but we didn´t stay there too long because we´d seen so many the day before. We drove on and arrived at another elephant seal beach just as the sun was starting to go down. It was an amazing place, and no-one else was there! There was a path which took you much closer to the beach than the other place and this time there were lots of seal pups as well. One of the pups was very new born (I won´t go into the gory details, but it was probably hours old) and we watched it trying to feed. We saw it trying and trying and the mother moving to try and help and eventually it managed to get to the milk. That was a pretty amazing thing to witness.

We were completely bowled over by the area and the fact that we were so lucky to have the place to ourselves. Dom was taking photos and Toby, Louise and I were looking out to sea and watching the changing colours as the sun goes down. There was even a rainbow out at sea and the seals were in front of us. It was perfect. The tide was coming in pretty quickly and the beach was very rocky, it was almost like a reef because waves were breaking at the edge of the rocks about 30 or 40 m out at sea. Toby started saying that perhaps the seals on this beach were safe from the killer whales because the rocks might make it difficult for them to drive up onto the beach. He said "in fact, if I were a killer whale, I would not come here". No sooner had the words come out of his mouth when, in front of us at the edge of the reef, the unmistakable tall, black fin of a male killer whale rose majestically out of the water!!!! We could not believe our eyes and all started gasping and jumping up and down in excitement!! We yelled at Dom to look out to sea...and there it was again! We could see that it was swimming along the coast and so ran along the coastal path with it. Eventually it stopped and we could even see it´s distinctive white markings with the binoculars. We kept watching until the fading light meant we could no longer see it. We walked back to the car still not believing what a special thing we had just seen, but laughing about the timing of it all after Toby´s declaration that killer whales would not come here!

We then had a long drive back to Puerto Madryn and arrived back at 11pm. When we gave the car back we had done 625miles in two days but didn´t think anything of it. That´s the equivalent of London to Penzance and back!!

Next day we had a final lunch with Toby and Louise, they are running out of time so we have to take different routes from now on. We were so sad to say goodbye to each other as they had been great Argentinian travelling companions and wish we could have spent longer travelling with them. We waved them off to the mid-West of Argentina while we prepared to head South the next day...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1221860940/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1221860940/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1221860940/tpod.html Fri, 03 Oct 2008 10:59:38 -0400 South American Adventures

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Buenos Aires, Argentina

Feeling sad to leave the hot weather in Iguazu we boarded the bus to Buenos Aires at 4pm for our 20 hour trip to Buenos Aires. We watched the jungle slowly disappear and enjoyed a beautiful sunset at about 7pm while having some empanadas as a snack. I was rather hoping that dinner would come out shortly after that, but it was not to be. Time passed and I got hungrier and hungrier and then got sleepy. Finally dinner came out...at 11pm!! However it ended up being worth the wait...by far our best food on a bus to date. Chicken lasagna and even some red wine! After the food I was about to settle down for the night when the conductor bought round some champagne...in plastic champagne flutes!

The alcohol helped us to get a good sleep on the bus and I woke up just a breakfast was being served. We got into Buenos Aires at just before 10am, having been on our first bit of motorway in South America!! We hopped in a ludicrously expensive cab and made our way to our apartment. We are staying in a very posh area of Buenos Aires called Recoleta and our apartment block seems to be full of old ladies! The flat itself was fine, nice and homely and had everything we needed. The place felt massive after having stayed in small rooms for months and months. The first thing I did was unpack every last thing in my bag and hide the backpack away in cupboard! We went for a stroll around the blocks near to our flat to find our baker, butcher, veg shop etc. Everyone was dressed very smartly and walking around with little dogs. I suddenly felt very out of place in my quick-dry travel trousers, fleece and big walking shoes. I really needed a pair of jeans and some heels if I was to fit in!

We spent a lot of our time in BA wandering round the different areas. BA is really nice, people from BA think of themselves as European rather than South American and this shows all over the city. Somehow BA feels like the best of every European capital city with a big chunk of New York thrown in as the icing on the cake. As capital cities go I think it is up there as the best (Anna C, please note the word "capital", this means that NYC is still at the top!) Palermo was very nice, anyone who likes shopping would love it. It was very chic, full of boutiques and cafes, once again I felt very out of place in my old clothes. It seemed that the order of the day was shop, have a coffee, shop, have some lunch, shop, have another coffee and finish off with a bit of shopping. I wasn´t included in this as our dwindling budget meant I couldn´t buy anything! We also wandered around the parks and went to the Japanese gardens which were beautiful.

On Sunday we went to San Telmo, another area in BA, and went to the famous antiques fair. Here the streets were cobbled and the whole area is full of antique shops. The main square is packed with antique stalls and there are street performers and tango dancers. The whole area had a great atmosphere and we wandered around for ages looking for a bargain (which we could carry easily!). We also met up with our friends Toby and Louise and had a coffee in the main square and caught up. Whilst we were sat there, all of a sudden people started to clap slowly. It was very strange and soon the whole square was clapping. We didn´t have a clue what was going on and thought it was a social experiment to see how people would react if one person started clapping! We found out from our waiter that the main square is going to be demolished and the antiques fair will stop so the clapping was a protest. It would be incredibly sad if the fair stopped...so we joined in with the clapping for a bit! The 4 of us wandered around for a bit and looked for bargains, Louise and Toby were also renting a flat so they invited us back to theirs for tea. We all got stupidly excited about the fact we could do this, it really made us feel like we were living somewhere and had put down roots!

Next couple of days Dom had a cold and we were a bit lazy. I went for a few walks and got my haircut. That was a bit scary, I didn´t know any Spanish for that situation and didn´t have a clue what I was being asked some of the time. They would ask me things like "how do you wear your parting?" and I would just look at them and smile. I got through it and don´t look like a freak, but I will need another cut as soon as I get back! I also went to the Evita museum (not Dom´s cup of tea) and enjoyed that, though I did have the Evita soundtrack in my head for about a week afterwards!

Once Dom was better we wandered around the city centre. It was full of shops and businesses and was very crowded. We saw the Malvinas (Falklands) War memorial and felt a bit guilty at the large number of names of people who had died. But on the up side I did see the building my Dad worked in several years ago! We also saw the pink palace where the presidents have traditionally lived and saw the balcony where Evita made all her rousing speeches.

We also went to Recoleta Cemetery, which is the number one attraction in BA! It was unbelievable, there were no gravestones as such, they build houses for families. It was like a city in itself, there were even streets and street names! Some of the "houses" were really well kept while others had fallen into disrepair, it was very interesting and we ended up walking around for far longer than we expected to!

Towards the end of the week we walked around La Boca, where tango started. It´s near the docks and all the houses are made of tin and beautifully painted in bright colours. The central bit is very touristy, there was even a Maradona look-a-like you could have your picture taken with, but I saw Dom´s face darken so we moved on from him pretty quickly!! If you went just off the main tourist streets though it had a very different feel. The houses were still tin but weren´t painted and there were stray dogs everywhere and burnt out cars. There was even a burnt out bus on one street! It had a bit of an edge to it but I still felt safer than I had done in places like Lima, and we felt like we had found the real BA.

The only thing that happened to spoil things a bit was that Dom had his camera pick pocketed on the subway. So we spent Saturday at the police station getting a report for the insurance company. That day we also had to go to an Emergency Clinic because Dom had a really bad pain in his tooth/jaw. Police and Casualty in one day! He´s ok though, the Dr couldn´t find any swelling so gave him strong pain killers. The annoying thing about the camera is that electronics are twice as expensive here than in the UK so it´s not worth buying another one. That means that from now on, if you read both blogs, our photos will be the same.

The last day it absolutely poured, our first rain in almost 6 weeks! We planned to walk around the docks but it was a bit miserable in the rain, though I should imagine it´s beautiful on a sunny day. We spent our last evening having a steak dinner and going to the cinema. We saw Tropic Thunder which was hilarious, but the funniest thing was that sometimes the jokes didn´t translate very well in the subtitles. There were two occasions when Dom and I laughed out loud and were the only people in the cinema to do so!!!

I loved BA and am really pleased we spent such a long time there. The areas are all very different and it´s not too touristy so you get a good idea of what the city is really like. The people work hard but don´t seem to do silly hours, colleagues have a coffee together after work before eating out with their families and I really like their attitude to life. However at the same time I was looking forward to moving on to the next leg of the trip; Patagonia, which promised to be full of wildlife and spectacular scenery....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1220908680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1220908680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1220908680/tpod.html Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:47:21 -0400 South American Adventures

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Salta, Northern Argentina, Argentina

So, when I left you I was finishing off in Bolivia and looking forward to getting into Argentina. We were up at 3.15am to get the bus to the border and it was fitting that our last bus in Bolivia was the oldest, bumpiest and coldest bus to date. We bounced our way to the border and arrived just as the sun was coming up. We were grabbed by representatives from a bus company who sorted us out with bus tickets in record time. Feeling as if we had just been ripped off we followed a lady through the freezing streets to carry out the formalities at the border. The Argentinian border guards weren´t the friendliest people in the world and frankly were pretty mean to some of the Bolivians and treated them like dirt. However we made it through without trouble.

We suddenly remembered the time change and realised that we had virtually no time to get our bus. We raced to the bus stop in a taxi and managed to grab a couple of pastries for the 7 hour bus to Salta. We sat back and congratulated ourselves on another successful border crossing and generally making it through Bolivia. We had gone about 2000m when the bus stopped, we could not believe it when we looked out and saw a road block!! We had made it all the way through Bolivia without running into a road block but we got hit with one as soon as we were in Argentina! We sat there for THREE HOURS! Every now and then the driver would go out and talk to the police and then come back and nothing would happen. I could not believe that there was only one road out of Villazon. Eventually the bus turned round and we started to head back to the bus station. Villazon is a small town and no-one stays there because everyone gets a bus as soon as they cross the border. So we were beginning to panic about whether we would find a place to stay if everyone was stuck in the town. However to our surprise we drove past the bus station and then appeared to be taking another route out of town! So why didn´t we take that route 3 hours ago!? I was a mix between being cross that we had sat at the block for 3 hours but also pleased to be finally on the road to Salta.

We made it into Salta at 7pm, having had to go slowly for the last 45 minutes because the bus kept overheating! We were really tired and headed straight for the hostel, only to find it was the wrong one! There are 2 hostels of the same name but only one in our book which I didn´t realise. However they were really nice and said we could stay there and move to the other hostel in the morning. We went into town to get some dinner and found the whole thing a bit of a culture shock. Having been in Bolivia for a month it was very strange to suddenly be in a place with proper paved roads...they were even painted! The houses looked amazing and there was a huge variety of more modern cars. There were no indigenous people but lots of people everywhere and it really felt like we were in Europe.

We wandered around for a while and found a restaurant which seemed expensive but after the day we had had we didn´t care and fancied treating ourselves. It was just after 8pm and the restaurant was virtually empty (apart from a huge tour group), we quickly ordered our first steak in Argentina...and what a steak it was! It was huge, by far the biggest steak I have ever seen. It was delicious, like the best roast beef you have ever had. We washed it down with absurdly cheap, but great, red wine. We decided that with food of this quality we could forgive Argentina a little trouble with the buses. We left the restaurant at about 10pm and even though it was a Monday night the restaurant was only just beginning to fill up!

After a lovely long sleep we spent the next morning wandering around the town in glorious sunshine. Salta is lovely, the main plaza is beautiful and there is a great feel about the town. It is also the most religious town I´ve ever been to. The cathedral is constantly packed, they even broadcast services on a big screen outside for those who can´t get a place inside. About 250 people regularly stand outside for the services, and that´s at about 2pm. Everyone has a little prayer book which they read everywhere, standing in the cathedral, standing outside the cathedral, I´ve even seen people reading them in cafes.

In the early afternoon we moved to our second hostel. It was gorgeous, one of the best we´ve stayed in so far. There was a pool and a great kitchen, TV room, pool table and the room was really nice. We had a lovely long lunch and spent the afternoon relaxing by the pool. We cooked for ourselves in the evening and were just heading off to bed at 10pm (a late night for us!) when all the Argentinians in the hostel were just thinking about starting their dinner (many steaks were being brought into the kitchen!). We realised that we were going to have to change our sleeping patterns in Argentina and stay up later if we were going to enjoy Argentinian culture.

Next day we took the cable car up the mountain overlooking the city and walked back down. It was a beautiful Spring morning and it was great to walk in the warm sunshine. Over lunch at the hostel we met another English couple, Toby and Louise, and got chatting. We all went to a museum together in the afternoon. It was another display of child mummies found at the top of mountains and amazingly preserved because of the cold weather. It was very well done but their version of things (why children were sacrificed) was very different to what we had been told in Peru which was interesting. Afterwards we sat in a cafe in the plaza for a while and enjoyed the early evening buzz (early evening is 8pm).

We then headed back to the hostel and joined some other people for a bbq organised by the hostel. We had a lovely evening, sitting outside under the stars, plenty of steak, salad and red wine and great conversation. I also met my first fellow Learning & Development professional, from Switzerland. We were chatting about our jobs and I realised that I no longer have any clue about how I do my job, I´ve forgotten so much....yikes!!! (Aside: I worried about this so much that I´ve been onto the intranet and read Inside Shared Services, the toilet article in the current issue caused me to have a giggle!! And why.... Argh! Stop! This is not the place!)

The rest of our time in Salta was spent mainly relaxing, wandering around town buying things for long lunches and reading and chatting to people at the hostel. So far Argentina has turned out to be a really friendly place. The people in the hostel were brilliant. At the bbq we had some great friendly banter about sport between England and Argentina. My favourite was when the owner, Fernando, said "and what about rugby, you´re terrible, we came 3rd in the last World Cup!" Us: "What?! we came second and won the last one" Fernando: "oh....yeah".

So all in all, Salta was a great start to Argentina. Yes, it is a bit more expensive than we would like but now we aren´t in high season we are finding we can negotiate on accomodation and we are self catering a lot more so the budget isn´t taking quite the beating we were expecting.

Next stop a 24 hour bus ride to Iguazu Falls!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1221425820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1221425820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1221425820/tpod.html Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:34:04 -0400 South American Adventures

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Iguazu Falls, Argentina

I wasn´t looking forward to a bus journey that would last almost 24 hours but it turned out to be ok. Usually when we get on an overnight bus it´s at about 10pm and I´m wide awake from having to get to the right place and guarding my bag at the bus station. However, this time, because we got on earlier we were able to relax into the journey and get some good sleep. We arrived in Puerto Iguazu at about lunchtime the next day and were pleased to find the place lovely and warm and in glorious sunshine. We found our way to the hostel and found it to be some kind of tropical paradise. There was a sunny patio surrounded by colourful flowers and plants, we were given a free beer on arrival and enjoyed that sitting on the patio outside our room. We had only planned to stay for a few nights but could tell immediately we would end up staying for more. We lounged around in the sunshine for the afternoon and went to explore the small town. It was the first time we have been in a place without a grid system for ages so we had a lot of trouble finding our way around town!

Next day we were up early and headed off to Iguazu Falls. We had done a lot of research the night before and planned our day very carefully so as to try and avoid most of the crowds; very English of us but it paid off! The only mistake we made was not to take our own lunch, the restaurants at the park were pretty expensive. It was great to be back in jungle terrain, although it was obviously not even close to being as dense as th jungle in Ecuador. The whole park has been done really well and has various different trails to walk which have been carefully planned out and give you great views of the Falls.

We started off by walking the "Lower Trail" which had good views of the falls from a distance and meant you could see almost all the falls (there are 275 individual waterfalls). Even from a great distance the first time you see the falls it completely takes your breath away. The path through the jungle took us right up to the falls and on the way we saw a surprising amount of wildlife, including Coatis, a bit like badgers, which came right onto the path in front of us! There were also plenty of lizards and I even saw a black and white one in the undergrowth which was at least 50cms long!

As you get closer to the falls you can hear the water all around you and as you get right up close the power of them is totally mind boggling. It was like walking through some enhanced, tropical paradise...or being in a shampoo advert! The morning light meant there were great rainbows and hundreds of swallows were flying in and out of the falls. There are some schools of thought which say that the ions (or something like that) in the water cause people to become happier at the falls; I´m inclined to believe them because we were like silly excited children most of the time, running around trying to take the perfect photo.

We took a little boat to an island in the middle of the park and wandered around there getting different views of the falls. We also went to a spooky place where there were lots of ugly vultures that didn´t seem to be scared of you at all. I just didn´t get tired of looking at the falls and could have easily sat in one place all day watching the same waterfalls.

After our overpriced sandwich we decided to go for a walk away from the falls but deeper into the jungle. It was a lovely walk but although we were really quiet we didn´t see much except for lots of butterflies and a rather large rat thing. At the end of the trail you come out of the jungle at the top of a small waterfall and can see the Brazilian rainforest spread out before you. (The falls are right on the border of Brazil and Argentina and you can see the falls in both countries). That was a pretty amazing sight and worth the long walk in the hot sunshine. I took some photos there which I could turn into a jigsaw puzzle that would send my Dad mad!

After our walk we took the little train which runs all the way through the park, stopping in various places, and eventually ends up near the biggest waterfall, The Devil´s Throat. We walked over a series of walkways over the water in the early evening light to this magnificent waterfall. It was truly amazing, it makes you go giddy when you first see it and you can hardly hear anything other than the thundering water all around you. The power of this waterfall was amazing it has a normal flow of 1,300 m³/s to 1,500 m³/s (350,000 to 400,000 ga/s). I was looking at the water for ages and it´s quite mesmerising, after a while it feels as if the water is coming towards you...very strange!
We had a great day at the falls and we headed back tired and slightly burnt but very happy. In the evening we met up with Toby and Louise (who we met in Salta) and went for a meal. We went to a very good steak house where the owner insisted on taking Toby and Dom to see the barbecue area and show them how good the meat was! I ordered a steak, I wasn´t quite sure what the cut was but thought I couldn´t go wrong, when it arrived it was about the size of your average steak back in the UK so I thought "great, that´s fine" and said thanks. But then the waiter gave me 3 more of the same sized steaks!!! It still wasn´t as much as Dom´s steak which was the biggest steak I have ever seen! Toby also had a huge steak, Louise is a vegetarian but was very good about the outrageous amount of meat on the table! She had a hard time explaining that she didn´t want meat in her ravioli...the waiter came back once to check if chicken would be ok!
The rest of our time in Puerto Iguazu was spent in very relaxed style. The weather was gorgeous and we spent every day relaxing in the sun and having very long lunches. It was there that we decided our next stop would be Buenos Aires, we thought it would be a good idea to rent our own flat for 10 nights. It was only slightly more than a hostel and we really wanted our own place for a while and to be able to cook for ourselves. We managed to negotiate a very good deal because it was very last minute.
I´ve also noticed that Argentinians are huge tea drinkers, I thought the British were the biggest tea drinkers but the Argentinians take it to a whole new level! It´s a herbal tea (called yerba mate) and it´s drunk from a gourd through a metal straw. I think it makes everyone look like wise wizards! It´s drunk everywhere, people stand in the street chatting holding their gourd in one hand and their thermos flask (to keep topping the tea up) in the other. People drink it on buses, in shops, wandering around Iguazu Falls. I think people either get very attached to their gourd or have their own way of drinking the tea (herb to water ratios) because you can´t get it in restaurants. I don´t think people like to share their tea because we learnt that it is very rude to turn someone down if they offer you some of their tea. Someone at our hostel offered us some; it was ok, I can´t quite see what all the fuss is about, sort of across between camomile and mint tea, but the whole gourd/straw thing makes it quite fun.

On our last night we had a parrillada (barbecue) in one of the restaurants, these are hugely popular in Argentina. They bring the grill to your table and all the meat is kept warm over the hot coals. There is a huge amount of meat on there, too much for me and Dom. There was steak, ribs, sausage, black pudding, kidneys and chitling (small intestine)! It was quite an experience and very tasty...even if the texture wasn´t quite to my liking!

So far we were loving Argentina and really looking forward to getting to Buenos Aires and having our own apartment.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1220460900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1220460900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/georgeharper/1/1220460900/tpod.html Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:11:44 -0400 South American Adventures

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Tupiza, Bolivia

The train from Uyuni to Tupiza left at 22.15, taking the train was a lovely change from the bus (however was nothing like the wonderful overnight trains in France!) Our carriage was packed with locals and when we got on they were all enjoying an English prank show! I could see why it had never been shown in the UK. The train turned out to be really cold, the locals were chatting and we knew we had to get off at 4am so sleep wasn´t really possible.

Arrived at exactly 4am and after a little detour by me (my map reading skills aren´t great at 4am!) we checked into our hotel and got some sleep.

Tupiza is a lovely little town, nice and warm, the locals are very friendly and there is a good atmosphere. We were hoping to stay for just a few days and go for a hike, or maybe even a horse ride(!), in the surrounding countryside which is supposed to be like the Wild West, only better. It was just outside Tupiza that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their end. However, our tummies had other ideas.....

Yes, we have both been ill. We had one relaxing day in Tupiza and then Dom was struck down, then just as Dom was getting better I got the bug. So we haven´t been able to do much in Tupiza apart from buy each other antibiotics (ah!), have meals on our own and watch loads of TV. Luckily we had cable so we´ve watched lots of sport and films and I saw my first Grand Prix since I left the UK!

In other news, the riots in the east of the country are continuing (so we never did make it Sucre). People are now blocking the airstrips so places are running out of provisions and lots of towns don´t have diesel so buses are stranded. There has been a road block around Potosi (mines place) so we got out of there just in time! And what, I hear you ask, is Evo the President doing...well...Evo has been on a trip to Iran of all places!!! He´s gone to discuss how Bolivia can help Iran with it´s energy programme, Bolivia has lots of Uranium to sell...yikes! The USA said it took "a very dim view of the trip", which Evo said meant he was "now in the axis of evil". Uh, oh...Evo, you really don´t want to go around saying things like that!! I think Bolivia is trying to get back in America´s good books though, because the other day there was a proud news story about how the army had seized 118 thousand kilos of cocaine (yes, you did read that correctly!) that would have apparently ended up in the States. All the restaurants we have dinner in have TVs and all the locals are glued to the news channels. The news channels are so good that we have been known to get our dictionary out in restaurants so we can keep up with current affairs!

Didn´t take any photos in Tupiza though.

So tomorrow we leave Bolivia and head to Argentina. I have loved Bolivia, despite the tummy troubles, we have met some wonderful people (except the spitter in La Paz!), seen some truly amazing places and had plenty of "only in Bolivia moments". I will really miss the Andes and the indigenous people; but I can´t wait to get to Argentina, safer water, no roadblocks and....steak! steak! steak!!
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