TravelStream™ news feed for member marc-patty on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/marc-patty en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:07:33 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marc-patty/marc_patty/1168095600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marc-patty/marc_patty/1168095600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marc-patty/marc_patty/1168095600/tpod.html Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:07:33 -0400 Marc and Patricia's around the world overland adventure

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Buenos Aires, Argentina

Buenos Aires

A 5 hour bus trip from the seaside resort of Mar del Plata, and we arrive in our biggest metropolis since Mexico City. Buenos Aires is a huge, European styled capital with some 12 million people living in it's metropolitan area.

As you'd expect with a city of this size, there are several different areas to stay in, each with their own character and atmosphere. We opt for Palermo, which is described in the Lonely Planet as one of the city's trendiest areas.

We are hoping that BA's size and status will make is easy for us to get off the meat/pizza/pasta trail that so dominates Argentinian cuisine. On our first evening, we track down a South East Asian restaurant, but unfortunately the food turned out to be disappointing and unauthentic. After dinner we go for drinks in the hip Las Cañitas area, and finish the night off relaxing at a table outside a bar and enjoying a beer in Palermo's Plaza Serrano, which is said to be ground zero for BA's nightlife. Maybe we went on the wrong night, maybe we were out too early, I'm not sure, but although the area was atmospheric, the bars didn't exactly rock like they would in a European city of this size.

The next day we check out of our Palermo hostel, the shared bathrooms were just too disgusting, and check in to a city centre hostel, a stone's throw away from Avenida Corrientes, a main thoroughfare famous for its theatres. We spend the day exploring the city centre's sights by foot, including Avenida 9 de Julio which, with 16 lanes, is claimed by locals to be the widest street in the world. What's true is it's impossible to cross it in one go unless you run, so you get stuck somewhere in the middle, waiting for the traffic lights to change again.

That evening, we head out to an area called San Telmo, an atmospheric area, full of cobbled streets, colonial houses, and full of cafes and bars which just ooze character.

Before we know it, it's New Year's Eve, and we meet up with Patty's brother, Iñaki and his girlfriend, Andrea, who have traveled down from Brazil to join us for a few days.

We were disappointed to find out that Argentinians tend to see in the New Years at home with their family, rather than out with friends in a bar or restaurant. So there are none of the big street gatherings that you get for example, next to Big Ben in London, or in La Puerta del Sol in Madrid.

We see in the New Year at a Spanish Restaurant, doing the typical Spanish thing on the 31st of Dec, and that is to eat 12 grapes, one for each dong of midnight, after which the restaurant put on an impressive flamenco show.

Before we know it, it's 2am and the Argentinians have started to come out. We've got tickets for a club called Opera Bay, a very large and impressive nightclub, built in the city's regenerated docklands, and slightly resembling Sydney's Opera house.

As we dance the night away in this amazing disco, just before the sun comes up, they retract the roof from over the club's largest dance floor, which also faces the water. It was so cool to be dancing there in the open, next to the water, in the shadow of the city's skyscrapers, as the sun came up and shone brightly over the hundreds of clubbers, something we'll never forget.

After arriving home at 8am, the day was pretty much a write off, so we put our sightseeing on hold, and the next day we visit La Boca district. La Boca is a traditionally poor working class neighbourhood which is extremely colourful and atmospheric, with several street Tango shows.

The next day we say bye to Iñaki and Andrea and finish off our sightseeing, which included a visit to the Evita Museum and a visit to see the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

The Plaza de Mayo is famous for it's gathering every Thursday of the mothers of people who went missing during Argentina's Dirty War. Since 1977, these mothers have gathered here to protest and demand to know what happened to their sons and daughters. I first learnt about the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in a Spanish course back in the UK, so I really wanted to come here to see and meet some of them. We really admire their stamina and their determination and it was hard to hold back our emotions as we watched these old ladies, some of which can barely walk, march in a circle around the centre of the square.

Summing up Buenos Aires.

We had high expectations for Buenos Aires, believing that it would end up being amongst the best cities that we've ever seen. However, for a big city to impress us, it either has to be extremely varied, or have something unique. Buenos Aires really didn't have anything we haven't seen before, nor was it as cosmopolitan or varied as a European city of this size. So I suppose, in this respect, we've come away slightly disappointed.

Our favourite things about Buenos Aires were the huge and characterful cafes, which seem to occupy the corners of almost any major thoroughfare, the ornate shopping arcades, the Opera Bay nightclub, the colourful La Bocas neighbourhood and of course the excellent quality-price ratio.

In our opinion, Buenos Aires' biggest blemish is it's poor walk-ability. The drivers seem to have no respect whatsoever for pedestrians and tend to come at you with speed, or swerve around you whilst you're walking across the pedestrian crossing. The pavements are narrow, crowded, in pretty poor condition and littered with continuous obstacles like advertising boards, newspaper stands, and poorly positioned lampposts. They are also covered with omnipresent dog shit and rubbish from the nightly bin-scavenging. The locals don't seem to look where they are walking, and there is a continuous line of air-conditioning units dripping out their evaporated deposits from the high blocks of flats and onto your head.

Obviously taking third world cities out of the equation, all of these above things combined to make Buenos Aires, one of the least pleasant cities to walk around that we have ever visited.

Let's hope that our next stop, Montevideo, will be a more civilized to explore on foot.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marc-patty/marc_patty/1171028880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marc-patty/marc_patty/1171028880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marc-patty/marc_patty/1171028880/tpod.html Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:28:30 -0400 Marc and Patricia's around the world overland adventure

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Barcelona, Spain

Going Home

Whilst sitting at the airport, waiting for our flight home, we too had the kind of mixed feelings that so many other long term travelers talk about. On the one hand, after more than 18 months on the road, we were excited about going home and seeing family and friends, eating our favourite foods, and relaxing with our home comforts, on the other hand, we realise that things won't be the same. This obligation free lifestyle, where you decide today what you're doing tomorrow is going to be very much missed, not to mention the excitement of arriving somewhere new, and exploring the place's charms, discovering new cultures, meeting new people, trying new food, partying or just spending the day relaxing.

Our head is full of memories, images, experiences, but we won't go into to much detail here as we'll save that for one big last summary entry.

Just to say that the flight back was comfortable, thanks to Marc bagging two business class tickets with his air miles. We ate and drank well, managed to sleep a good 8 hours, and arrived in Lisbon, relaxed and refreshed. We had a few hours to kill in Lisbon, before our flight to Barcelona, so decided to get a taxi into the centre, get some breakfast and have a quick look around.

It seemed strange to be back in Europe after such a long time. The first things that struck us were how orderly everything was, the amount of old buildings that were around, and that the streets were full of character. We enjoyed a coffee and some Portuguese pastries, before taking the plane on the final leg of our journey to Barcelona.

We arrive at the airport to a mix of tears and joy from Patricia's family who had come to collect us. It was hard to know where to start our conversation, we have so much to talk about after so long apart.

We'll be here in Spain for a few weeks until we see on the BBC weather forecast that the temperature in London has gone above 10 degrees:-) But on a serious note, we want to spend a few weeks here just catching up with people, relaxing, and thinking about what we'll do next. Which will of course, unfortunately involve the words of "work" & "job"!
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Lisbon, Portugal

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Curitiba, Ilha do Mel, Mococa, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Brazil has something that's lacking in the rest of Latin America, and that's a low cost airline. It's called GOL and we're hoping to use it to get to our next destination Curitiba, avoiding a long 10 hour bus ride. However, after booking our ticket, we've since realised that one of their planes crashed not long ago over the Amazon, so we're kind of hoping that low prices don't mean low safety!

After a finger crossing hour long plane ride from Foz do Iguazu, we arrive in Curitiba, where we are met by Patty's brother Iñaki, who has been living there with his Brazilian girlfriend for the past 5 months.

Brazil's Model city

Curitiba, is a pleasant city of around 1 million people, and is located some six hours south of Sao Paulo. With a relatively low crime rate, clean streets, good public transport, large green open spaces, good shopping, restaurants and nightlife, it is seen by many as Brazil's model city.

The area was mainly populated by Polish, Ukrainian, German and Italian settlers, and during our time here we visited representations of all communities. This included a Polish memorial park, full of recreated traditional Polish houses, and a huge Italian restaurant in the Felicidade area, which claimed to be the largest restaurant in the world.

Curitiba is also the starting point for the Paranagua train ride, one of south america's few remaining train lines which is now a tourist attraction and which takes passengers down through a dense jungle, hugging the side of mountains on the way to the coast. A tip for future train tourists here, the best views are on the left hand side of the train, overlooking the valley, so book early. We were outsmarted by the locals who'd completed booked out the left hand side, so we ended up on the right, with a view of a side of a mountain for most of the way! After a break in the colonial town of Morretes, we arrive at the coast and hop on a boat to Ilha do Mel (Honey Island) where we hope to relax for a few days.

Ilha do Mel, one of Brazil's many Small Islands.

Ilha do Mel was a nice enough place, though the beaches weren't as impressive as we'd hoped they would be. On the second day, we decided to hike across the island, the sun was strong, and despite regularly applying sunblock, we made the usual mistake of missing bits, and ended up with random red marks over our face and legs.

After 2 more days on Ilha do Mel, and staying well covered up to recover from our sunburn episode, we head back to Curitiba, just in time to hit the weekend party scene. So Patty's brother Iñaki and his girlfriend Andrea, rev up their motor, and take us out on a great bar crawl around the trendy areas of the city.

Relaxing in luxury in the Brazilian Countryside

From Curitiba. we headed to Sao Paulo, where we met up with a Brazilian friend, Francisco and his daughter Laura, who we met on our Tran-Siberian train ride many months back. From Sao Paulo, Francisco drove us up to Mococa, a small rural community some 3 hours away, where we relaxed in an old family style mansion in the countryside.

That evening we went out to try some fantastic local fish dishes, and the next day got up early to visit the family's coffee plantation.

Whilst Patty trotted around the extensive estate on horse back, Marc ran behind, saying that he needed to get some exercise, that all worked out well until we got down to the bottom of a valley where it was very muddy and we had to cross a wide stream. So as Patty rode through the mess like royalty on horse back, Marc got both wet and muddy. Patricia got dirty a bit later on though, after being dragged into the cow shed to help out with milking time.

After a great lunch, we chilled out in a hammock on the balcony terrace of the main house, over looking the estate's chapel and the accompanying impressive gardens. This was really living it up after the last few months in hostels.

The family's country estate was really spectacular, the surrounding countryside beautiful, and the hospitality that we received from Francisco and Laura was great. Thanks to both of them for making our stay comfortable, enjoyable and memorable. It's a bit of a coincidence when we think that they were amongst the first people we met when our trip commenced back in August 2005 and that they will be the last people we meet before we take our flight back to Europe.

Sao Paulo, one of the world's largest cities.

We returned back to Sao Paulo, in a much more relaxed state after our few days in the country. Sao Paulo appears to be as extensive as London, but even more dense, so I can quite believe it when they say that more than 10 million people live just in the city boundary area.

In Sao Paulo we decide to splash out on a comfortable 4 star hotel, this ensures we'll be staying in a nice area, something important in this city, which can be dangerous if you stray in to the wrong place. Our hotel was in Higienópolis, a lovely, clean, and safe area, with a ultramodern indoor shopping centre hosting all the famous world wide chain stores.

In terms of Sao Paulo sightseeing, we visited the wide skyscraper lined Avenida Paulista, the Italian district of Bixiga, and the Asian district of Liberdade.

Whilst in the Asian district, we noticed a rock band playing in the street. Of the 4 members, one was white, the other black, the other asian and the other indigenous latin american. We took a picture as we thought this kind of summed up Brazil's ethnic makeup, a complete mix of everything, and although the ancestors of most of today's Brazilians came here a long time ago, and most people now only speak Portuguese, this ethnic mix still lends a cosmopolitan feel to the air.

With the sightseeing complete, and just two nights left before we go home, it's time to party. So on the first night we headed out to Vila Magdalena, a trendy area with loads of restaurants and bars, and on the second night we popped in to Vila Olimpia, which is further out from the centre, but certainly seems to be the place to dance in this city. As it was the last night of our trip, we did of course get completely plastered, and Marc certainly seemed to be getting the hang of Portuguese, well at least his drunken Spanish/Anglicized version of it, by managing to argue about football with the taxi driver, all the way back to the hotel:-). N.b. Comment from Patty: "but Marc, you don't even follow football!"

It's strange to think that we'll be flying back to Europe now, after so long on the road. After a total of 18 months and 18 days since we left London, we'll be checking out of a hotel for the last time tomorrow, and heading back to Europe. A Europe which is hopefully about to shake off winter and head in to spring.

We'll be writing a further entry to sum up our thoughts and experiences of our trip. So here are just a couple of paragraphs to sum up Brazil and then South America.

Summing up Brazil

We haven't seen enough of, or spent enough time in Brazil to warrant a very long entry but would say for the most part, the people have been very friendly and helpful, and even though we can't speak Portuguese, we've had less communication problems here than in some other Latin American countries where we speak the language:-) If you have money here it seems like you can live a very good lifestyle, not dissimilar to that in Europe.

The country's infrastructure and facilities, along with Chile, probably lead the way in Latin America. However, there is a very big disparity between rich and poor, they say one of the largest in the world, probably the cause of a lot of the crime problems which the country is notorious for. However, don't let crime put you off, if you are sensible, take care of your belongings, don't stray in to the wrong areas, and take taxis at night, you shouldn't have any problems. We had no trouble whatsoever in Brazil, although we heard stories from fellow travelers who hadn't been so lucky, but in most cases it was their own stupid fault.

South America's Turn

We have kind of semi-looped this large continent, starting at the tip in Colombia, where it joins Central America, and heading down the Andes spine of the continent, all the way to Torres de Paine in the South of Chile. From there we started to head back up, seeing the north of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and the South of Brazil. It's involved an incredible amount of bus journeys, and because of the Andes mountain range, we've traveled on our fair share of bendy roads.

To us, there have been three marked major differences in South America, the distinction between the Indigenous/Mestizo dominated countries of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay and Bolivia, the European dominated countries of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay, and Brazil, which because of it's different language and origins, is distinctly different to the rest of South America.

Our favourite? It's hard to say. Chile has the most amazing and varied scenery, Argentina the great price/quality ratio and Colombia the feeling of discovering somewhere exotic where there are still very few tourists. On this trip we haven't managed to see Venezuela, the Amazon or the central and north coast of Brazil, so hopefully one day we'll revisit this great continent.

Two travelers, two backpacks, two day packs, into a taxi! The airport here we come!!
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Sao Paulo, Brazil

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Mococa, Brazil

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Sao Paulo, Brazil

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Curitiba, Brazil

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Ilha do Mel, Brazil

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Train to Paranagua, Brazil

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