TravelStream™ news feed for member warty007 on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/warty007 en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:44:22 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/warty007/1/1244174400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/warty007/1/1244174400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/warty007/1/1244174400/tpod.html Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:44:22 -0400 World tour

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São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

We took a 6 hour bus back to Sao Paulo and went to the same hotel as before. All we did was go out for a meal at a rodizio restaurant which is a Brazilian speciality. you help yourself to a huge salad buffet then skewers of barbequed meats are brought to your table and a piece carved off for you. We tried every single cut of beef there was, pork kebabs, spicy sausages, chicken and some tasty little hearts. We ate til we were nearly sick, squeezed in a couple of beers and called it a night. Next day we stocked up on a cachaca and coffee to take up the last remaining space in our rucksacks and reluctantly headed to the airport to fly back to London. On the night flight we drank as much free booze as we could, the stewardess kept bringing us gin whenever we rang the bell so we started going up to get it to save them the hassle. We flew round not over the area of the Air France crash, which sadly we believe some French people we knew from Paraty were on. That combined with all the gin, no sleep and drizzle at Heathrow while we sat on the runway waiting to get to terminal 5 made it a very depressing end to the 9 months of fun.

We went round the world in 268 days using:

74 local buses
73 metro/subway/undergrounds
65 taxis
63 coaches
42 minibuses
33 colectivos
30 boats
25 car trips
23 ferries
17 planes
16 trains
16 tuktuks
13 4x4's
9 cable cars
9 funiculars
6 water taxis
5 rickshaws
5 motorbike taxis
5 sangthaews
4 trams
4 monorail/skytrains
3 longtail boats
3 surfboards
3 bikes
2 speedboats
2 rowing boats
2 horses
1 ute
1 raft
1 kayak
1 moped
1 sandbuggy
1 sandboard
1 elephant
1 modified hot rod
1 unmarked police jeep

and 213 world beers.

Can't believe it's all over and can't wait to go again. Thanks for being interested in our travels and as they say, it's been emotional.
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Rio de Janeiro, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

We got the bus 4 hours along the Costa Verde to Rio. The main bus terminal is in a dodgy port area and a taxi to our hostel would have cost loads, the metro station wasn't close, so we jumped on a local bus against the advice of the guidebook. Rio can't be that dodgy can it? The hostel we had booked is in one of Rio's favelas or shantytowns, made famous by the film Cidade de Deus - City of God. Apparently it's safe for backpackers and sounded our sort of place, plus it was cheap! The directions off the internet were very complicated. We got off the bus near Largo de Machado metro, found a little VW combi bus to take us up into the favelas and got out at a dead end as the directions said. When we tried to walk up the path into the favela, people stopped us and said what we believed to be in Portuguese "where the hell are you going!". The waving hand signals confirmed this. In our mixture of Spanish, French, Italian and English we worked out they had no idea where Pousada Favelinha was and we should defo not go into that favela and try the one on the next hill. After a long scary walk in the dark, downhill and uphill with our rucksacks we got to the next favela where lots of friendly people confirmed we were in the right place. After meeting the owner Andrea and a German neighbour called Patrick who spoke English and helped us, we found out all the double rooms were full despite us having booked. We stayed in the only dorm with a really nice girl Marie from Denmark who was an actress so got on well with Lucy. Check out the photos of the view from our room. We went out to the nearest restaurant as the favela snack bars (basically peoples houses) were deserted and had a great meal of German sausages. As we went out two small kids ran down the dark alleys, straight past Lucy who was saying Hola! and one gave me a massive hug round my legs.
We went to the Pao de Azucar or Sugarloaf mountain as most tourists do. The cable car cost about 14 quid which was a fortune to us but was worth it. The view over Rio was amazing, north to the city centre, west towards Botafogo and our favela behind, and south-west towards Copacabana. The wind up there was strong and cold and we hadn't come dressed for it at all. We saw some tiny little monkeys and took some photos then went down again. We bumped into the Aussie tourists we met in Paraty up there, small world as we have learnt many times.
We got the bus from there up to Lapa which is the main nightlife district but it's other attraction is the Stairs of Selaron. Selaron is a mad Chilean artist who has tiled 104 steps up a hill with coloured tiles including ones sent to him over the last 25 or so years from 128 countries. He can be found there most days replacing tiles with new ones and Lucy had a good chat with him about Chile. From there we got the last remaining tram back up through Santa Teresa to the favela. In Lapa is a tall viaduct which the tram goes over. As we turned up the tram was full so we had to stand on the footplate and hang on, which is what people do legally to get a free fare when the tram is going along the streets. This was fine with us until the tram went over the viaduct and we were looking straight down about 6 storeys with the tram bumping along nearly bouncing us off. I hate heights so scared just isn't the word. Terrified is. That evening we ate at the hostel as the owner Andrea had her mate Nadia from Germany come over to visit for the first time in many years and they offered Marie and ourselves tojoin them which was sweet.
All I wanted to do in Rio was go to the Maracana. I knew there was no game on, Adriano having just scored a couple for Flamengo, one of the four teams that use it, at the weekend. The metro took a while to get us there, then when we got there we found the museum shut and guided tours cost more than we had as Lucy had to feed her postcard addiction on the way. The ATM didn't work and all Lucy really wanted to do was go to the beach, so we got back on the metro disappointed. When we had to change lines, as if by magic, an ATM appeared in the middle of the station. We took out some money and headed back, and by another stroke of luck a tour started in 1 minute! It was brilliant, we went to the royal box where the world cups were lifted, the press room, the dressing rooms with practice pitch, through the tunnel and out onto a sectioned off area next to the pitch next to the dugouts. We couldn't go right onto the pitch but as the ground is round, we were right out away from the stand and it felt like we were on the pitch. The ground is now all seater and holds about the same as Wembley so the record 189,000 will never be beaten there.
After that we headed to Ipanema expecting a beach full of beautiful people. It wasn't quite full but everyone on it was beautiful. That is because we were the only people on it! After a while a guy walking his dog and a couple of English backpackers came along, but the high winds and massive waves meant it wasn't quite a day for relaxing on this beach, So we walked round the corner to Copacabana and found that deserted too. The sun had sunk below the skyscapers behind but it was still warm. We sat at a cafe on the beach and got pestered by bums and drunks wanting money and fags so got the hell out of there back to our lovely favela. We had promised to cook for Andrea to return the favour, so went to the supermarket for food and beer and knocked up a feast after the plumber had got the water back on. The plumber stayed for dinner too. Afterwards Nadia persuaded us to go out to a samba club down in Lapa. The huge club used to be an antiques shop before they changed it, but kept all the antiques. The place was cool but I found the samba a bit crap and very repetitive, Lucy loved it though.
I wasn't that keen on Rio, the Maracana and the view from Suagrloaf mountian were cool though. The best bit by far for me was staying in the favela. After seeing many parts of the city it seemed like the safest place. Many other favelas are very dangerous though so make sure you don't wander into any of those. Like we did.
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Paraty, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

We got the 6 hour bus from Sao Paulo to Paraty on the Green Coast. We stayed at the Paraty Bed and Breakfast which was great, best of all owned by a Norwich fan! The town of Paraty is a Unesco hertiage site as the old buildings built by the Portuguese are still there in the Historic centre. By a stroke of luck there was a festival on for Pentecost or something, the Espiritu Santo festival. A huge stage had been built in the historic centre and bands were on every night for 8 days. Food stalls and beer and caipirinha stands had been set up all round the area and there was a party atmosphere. The first night we went out expecting samba and found a band of old guys covering Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and Pink Floyd.
We got the bus to Trinidade for the beaches as recommended by Claudea at the hostel. We had to go up and over a small mountain during which the bus full of screaming schoolkids almost ground to a halt and rolled back down again. As soon as we reached Trinidade the sun went in and a cool breeze got up, typical! We walked the length of the beach and through the rainforest, climbing round a dangerous rocky outcrop on the way, to a "natural swimming pool" which was just a bit of sea with big rocks blocking the waves. Very pretty and not too cold, but when it started to dump it down with rain it got a bit chilly. Wanting to keep my only clothes dry, I walked back through the slippery rocky rainforest to the village as most jungle guides would (definitely not) recommend; topless, barefoot and carrying your girlfriends large pink shopping bag. Back in the village we had some lunch and Lucy discovered her favourite ever dish combining her favourite things; mashed potato stuffed with prawns and covered with a creamy tomato sauce and crisps! A bar of chocolate and a beer and she would have been in heaven but sadly we only had enough money for the bus back. We sat and watched Barca take the Mancs apart then the bus turned up and we missed the second half!
We checked out the old fort on the hill, built by the Portuguese to protect against pirates and other countries stealing the gold and precious stones they shipped out of Paraty from the interior of Brazil. The fort wasn't very interesting but the views were great. We sat on the deserted town beaches and got sunburnt before the clouds came in and it rained torrentially, as it did most afternoons. We tried some Brazilian food from the popular all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants and the clever pay-per-kilo buffets. The food was very bland not spicy and tasty as we expected and it gave me bad guts both times, so we stuck to cooking our own at the hostel and covering it with hot sauce made from Amazonian chillies. I hit the double-century of world beers!
On a day we knew would be rainy all day, we booked a jeep tour into the rainforest to visit waterfalls and cachaca distilleries. In the back of a jeep in the rain with three Canadian girls and two older Aussie tourists we went to a waterfall like a slide where I removed a large chunk of skin from my back by going too fast down it, taking off, then slamming back down onto the rock. We went to a couple of others and didn't really have any warm clothes to wear once we got cold, so the girls all put on these giant waterproofs we had been given over their bikinis and looked hilarious. We warmed up by drinking loads of flavoured cachaca at the distilleries though.
We went out on Saturday night to see the famous Brazilian samba singer which half of Brazil had arrived in Paraty to see. We were drinking caipirinhas from the stalls, which were so strong, but tasty. We thought the Brazilians were seriously hardcore til we went back to the stall for more and watched the guys making them. Several people ordered at once so they made up a batch, and everyone stood open-mouthed at how much cachaca they put in, a bit of ice, a bit of sugar, a chopped lime and the rest cachaca in a decent sized glass. The singer came on about 11.30, 2 hours late, and she was rubbish. Hundreds of rudeboys in full bling had turned out and stood there waving their arms in the air with families and old people to slow lovesongs and other crap which defo wasn't samba.
Next day we went out diving with a hangover. Only the two of us had booked with a small dive outfit Kyrie Dive and at 9am we waited at the jetty alone. The bay has loads of old schooners for taking people out on day trips to the 65 beautiful islands and 300 beaches, our dive boat turned out to be one of these. Just Jefferson the captain, Marco the dive guy and the two of us went out on the boat so we had a VIP trip. Barely still alive after the caipirinhas, Lucy fell straight asleep on the deck. The area was beautiful and the diving was good. A few big dive boats full of people sped past us as we chugged slowly and quietly along. At the first dive site we saw a small sunken Christ the Redeemer and a masons symbol, plus loads of fish at both. The area isn't a marine park and there is not much coral so the number of fish was surprising. Marco took a camera along and claiming to be no underwater photographer, gave it to us to use at no extra charge. We managed to get hundreds of blurry photos as the fish are fast and scared of divers. The diving was nothing like the Caribbean or Thailand, more like Vietnam where I learnt but good fun and not too expensive. We did two dives and sailed round some islands before the rain came in and we headed back. Marco was great even though he spoke little English, but the gear was a bit dodgy. The VIP trip made up for that though.
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Sao Paulo, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil

We arrived in Sao Paulo mid afternoon after flying right over the city and being amazed at how big it is, it looked even bigger than Mexico City. We got on a local bus from the airport as the taxis and shuttle buses cost a fortune. Then we had to get on the metro to get to the city centre. We stayed at the Hotel Joamar which I had booked ahead, a nice hotel in a dodgy area, but on a pedestrian shopping street. We arrived at dusk on a Sunday and a small market of crafts and stuff was packing up around Praca Republica, then when we left the hotel for food a bit later, stalls selling porn had sprung up everywhere, homeless people slept in every doorway and crackheads and drunks staggered around like zombies. We decided not to hang around and got on the metro to Liberdade, which is the largest Japanese community outside of Japan. We just missed the sunday market there too but went to one of the many restaurants for some authentic food. The whole area could have been Japan, only a couple of Brazilians walked around looking for food and everyone else was of Japanese origin. I'm counting Japan as another country visited.
Next day we went sightseeing. The guidebook features a whole 4 pages on Sao Paulo, one of the worlds biggest cities, 2 of which are maps, and an entire chapter on Rio. We quickly realised this wasn't an oversight on their part and there is bugger all to there unless you speak Portuguese. To us Portuguese sounded like a teach-yourself-German tape played backwards and we struggled. Luckily Hola and Por favor are the same and cerveza is cerveja so we survived. All the museums and anything cultural were shut on Monday too so we really had nothing to do. We walked round the shopping streets amazed at how expensive everything was. We saw the outside of the monastery where Sao Paulo was founded on St Pauls day in 1554. The cathedral in Praca Se was impressive but the area was massively dodgy. So we stopped there for lunch obviously, in a snack and juice bar which are on every corner. We had no idea what we were ordering but ended up with grilled ham and cheese sarnies and some great juices made of Amazonian berries.
After that we were bored so headed to the park on the metro, where all the museums are. We knew they were all closed but the park is supposed to be nice. It looked close to the metro station on the map, about 2 inches, which in Buenos Aires or Santiago meant a 15 minute walk. It took us nearly 45 minutes though and when we got there the park wasn't very good. We saw an obelisk much less impressive than the one in Buenos Aires. We did a lap of the lake in the sun then walked all the way back uphill to the metro station.
That was it really, we got the hell out of there next day. Sao Paulo was crap and scary. It is the second city we have been to since Mexico City which I hated, and I even got to like Mexico City once we got over the culture shock. Don't bother going to Sao Paulo, unless it's for the airport. Which is crap too.
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Buenos Aires, Capital Federal District, Argentina

After the overnight bus through flat fields full of cattle, we arrived at the massive Retiro bus station in Buenos Aires. The sheer size of the station was incredible. Many people use the buses to get round this huge country as they are clean, comfortable and cheap and the place was packed with people and buses headed everywhere. We went back to the Hotel Bolivar in San Telmo, dropped the bags and changed into shorts as it was almost as hot as Puerto Iguazu, unlike the previous visit to BA. We went out to the Plaza Dorrego for a beer and to watch Tango. We went into the famous Bar Dorrego but everyone else was outside, inside was cool and retro though.
In the evening we had to go out for one last steak so went back to our favourite place El Desnivel as it was cheap and great. The ones even closer to our hotel claim to carve their steaks with a spoon but are more expensive. At El Desnivel Lucy ordered the bife de lomo or tenderloin again, the most expensive at £6, and I had the bife de chorizo which supposedly was a T-bone. Different places call in different things in the translation but what I got was a boneless slab of meat as wide as the plate and an inch and a half thick, The photo shows me looking slightly scared at the sheer size of it but by only having a couple of chips and a token pice of lettuce I polished it off, It was incredible, not as tender as Lucys but just as tasty. I want to move to Buenos Aires just so I can eat this steak every couple of days with a glass of malbec.
We stocked up on as much mate as I could fit in my rucksack and headed off to the airport on the painfully slow local bus in the morning.
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Puerto Iguazu, Litoral, Argentina

We left Colonia Carlos Pellegrini at 4.30am, all 5 of us crammed into a pick-up driven by the son of the hostel owner, headed for Posadas. In the headlights we saw some kind of rare fox, although only the girls, already hyperactive and talking about capybaras, were enthusiatic about it. We got to Posadas bus terminal and had some brekkie before all piling on the same bus headed north at 7.30am. We all immediately fell asleep and woke up to say goodbye to the Belgians who were stopping at San Ignacio to see the Jesuit missions ruins. We carried on 5 hours more to Puerto Iguazu.
There we were hounded by touts outside the bus station who for once, we listened to and headed to a little resedencial which was much cheaper for a double than a dorm in the big party hostels everywhere. We left the bags and went straight back to the bus station to book our 17 hour overnight bus back to Buenos Aires the next day. We chose a company called Kurtz and were the only ones booked on the bus, so chose the front seats on the top deck. The young guy at the desk gave us some mate, made with cold orange squash rather than hot water, and chatted to us for ages. In the evening we headed down to the Rio Iguazu for a beer. The town is right near the confluence of the Rio Parana and Iguazu, so we sat in Argentina, the opposite bank was Brazil and a few hundred yards away on the other side of the Parana was Paraguay.
In the morning we got up slightly later than we had planned and got the bus to the Parque Nacional Iguazu and the famous falls. We got the little train from the entrance to the falls rather than walk, then headed to the furthest and biggest, the Garganta del Diablo or Devils Throat. Here the river drops into a horseshoe shaped chasm creating a cloud of spray that can be seen a long way off, and a kilometre long bridge crosses the wide river above the falls taking you right to the edge. It was pretty amazing, I can't really describe it. We got pretty wet in a short space of time.
Back at the other end of the bridge near the station were a huge cloud of butterflies of all shapes and colours. Nobody seemed to be paying them much attention as they were near a toilets but we stopped to get some good photos (of the butterflies, not the toilets). The little gay train took us back to the main part of the falls where a walk through the rainforest brought us out above them. We saw a bunch of wild coatis which harass tourists for food and spent ages trying to get a decent photo of the hyperactive little buggers. Then a walk down to the bottom, past lots of viewpoints with incredible views and a boat ride over to a little island in the middle of the river. After a steep uphill climb in the heat and humidity of the rainforest we came close to the bottom of the falls and a window in the rock where hundreds of vultures hung out. We left the park just before closing time when it was virtually empty which was cool.
We had to get the bus at 7.30pm which was great, I had been dreading it but the front seats were great. It got dark about 6 so we couldn't see much til the morning. All the seats on the bus went back to almost horizontal like the ones we took in Peru and Mexico but these seemed more comfy. We got dinner, loads of wine then after everyone had gone to sleep about 9 the stewardess, who clearly fancied me, got out a decent bottle of scotch and poured me a couple of massive glasses (in real glass whisky glasses)! Brilliant. I never really sleep on night buses or flights but after a load of booze and staring at the dead straight dark road ahead I slept like a baby.
Iguazu was amazing. I really didn't see the point of coming so far to see a waterfall, especially as we couldn't just carry on to Sao Paulo and had to return to Buenos Aires thanks to British Airways. But I'm so glad we did, the place was great, properly in the rainforest and stunning scenery around the falls. The whole park was cool just to wander around. The town was nice too, a little overpriced but you have to expect that at one of the worlds natural wonders. The bus back was great too, cheaper than the other ones we have taken and with free booze!
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Carlos Pellegrini, Litoral, Argentina

After the early morning start to cross back into Argentina we ended up in the dead end town of Colon. We waited a couple of hours for a bus north to Mercedes which we reached around dusk after an 8 hour trip through flat boring grassland in a bus that stopped at every town. When we got there a lady from the Hosteling International hostel accosted us and got us to stay there, the free taxi ride sweetened the deal. There she gave us the hard sell on a tour of the nearby wildlife reserve which we had planned to do ourselves. At this point I was really pissed off, I didn´t see the point of even coming up this far into Argentina and after that Lucy had a further 8 hour trip north to the Iguazu Falls planned, with a night bus back to Buenos Aires. At 400 pesos or 80 quid for the two day trip it seemed about 395 pesos more than I was prepared to spend on a bit of birdwatching. I was so tired and hungry I just gave in to whatever she was planning. Over a bit of dinner and some wine we met three Belgians, the only others staying at the hostel, Christoph, Eva and her brother Tijs who were all cool and had booked on the trip too.
Next day we set off at lunchtime in the local bus that goes the 120km to Colonia Carlos Pellegrini in the Reserva Estero de Ibera. It wasn´t so much a bus as an ancient Ford Transit minibus with a shattered windscreen, comfortable enough but after a while we noticed the exhaust somehow seemed to be directing the fumes inside and we started to choke. Only another two hours though!!! When we got there we dropped the rucksacks at one of the few hostels there. We all had the same dorm which we shared with what can only be described as a cloud of mosquitoes. We went straight out on a boat trip of the lake next to the village. I had expected on the trip, apart from a few birds, maybe we would see a caiman (a small South American crocodile) and a capybara, the worlds largest rodent. Within minutes we were within a few feet of huge families of capybaras, chilling by the waterside next to loads of caimans. We also saw a marsh deer, giant birds called screamers, rheas which look like ostriches, vultures and countless other species of birds we can´t remember the names of. We saw a great sunset and had a tasty dinner at the hostel although it was a while before we realised the starter wasn´t a starter but the main course. Cristoph and Tijs taught us a Belgian card game called Truuf which we had an epic battle of.
Next morning after a skimpy breakfast we went horse riding. Unlike last time we rode a horse, Lucy got the old nag and quickly had to have a whip fashioned from a twig for her. We went out of the village, down a track, saw a few birds and a dead cow killed by a snake then turned round and came back. It was fun all the same. Our guide was wearing a traditional gaucho hat and didn´t say that much. My favourite was when he randomly stopped his horse, felt the wind and said in Spanish, ¨North wind, brings in the vipers¨and rode on. Cool as Clint Eastwood he was. We met Nathan, an English guy from the boat trip yesterday, who had also been horse riding that morning but not as part of a package tour like us. His horse had bolted when he dropped his water bottle, throwing him off with one foot stuck in the stirrup and dragging him a short way. He was still in good spirits though.
After a lunchtime beer fetched from about half a mile away in the baking heat by us guys while the girls sat off and sunbathed, we all went for a walk near the visitors centre across the causeway. The girls had bought little wooden capybaras off a kid and were behaving strangely. First thing our kid guide showed us was a small anaconda about 2m long sunning itself by the lake. When it didn´t look like moving Lucy climbed down and got within an arms length for a quality photo. We then walked in the forest and saw families of howler monkeys. Unlike the ones we saw in Guatemala they were used to humans around so didn´t start to roar or run away. Finally back at the visitor centre a capybara was cutting the lawn, and the girls, who had now gone completely capybara crazy and were planning to take some home as pets, got up close for photos.
We got back to the hostel about 5, too early for more cards and drinking so we decided to go piranha fishing after seeing some locals at it on the way back. After a quick grapefruit juice, freshly squeezed from fruit from the tree, we grabbed my gear and some beers for luck, plus a fat wedge of bloody steak the hostel owners gave us and hotfooted it back to the lake before sunset. When we got out onto the causeway over the lake, we met Nathan again who with a few Aussies we met, had got the local bus to Mercedes a while ago. The bus got a few hundred metres out of town onto the causeway before breaking down!
I managed to catch a small piranha before dark and everyone headed back to the hostel apart from me and Tijs, who armed with headtorches, a penknife and insect repellent, felt adequately prepared to face the crocs, snakes, piranhas and dengue fever carrying-mozzies surrounding us which we could no longer see. Fortune favours the brave however, and despite losing a lot of hooks, weights and steak to the thrashing piranhas razor sharp teeth, we kept all fingers intact and caught 4 yellow bellied piranha and a small catfish. We hadn´t fully thought through what to do when we caught them and getting them off the hook was proper scary. We were under instructions not to bother bringing them home as the piranhas are too bony according to the hostel owners, plus they couldn´t be arsed to cook them up for us which is fair enough. Locals we met on the way back thought we were completely nuts though, throwing good fish back in the lake.
We could have done the trip ourselves as Nathan and a few others we met did, but it seemed like a lot more hassle for a little less money. There is a bus that goes daily between Mercedes and Carlos Pelligrini, although getting out to the north is expensive. There are plenty of hostels there and a couple of place to eat. The activities are not cheap and if you add it up you may as well book a tour. The all-inclusive two day trip was well worth it, the food was definitely not enough to fill us up but was tasty all the same. The guys we were with were brilliant we all got on well and the tour was one of the highlights of South America, if not the whole trip.
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Fray Bentos, Uruguay

From Buenos Aires we took the urban train to Tigre, a suburb an hour north. There we found the ferry to Uruguay didn´t leave for another 5 hours. We sat by the beautiful river which could easily have been somewhere like Henley along the Thames or possibly Holland, it looked so unlike the Argentina I had imagined. We went to the Naval museum there which wasn´t on a boat like the other one in the city centre, but much bigger and with more weapons which I liked. Also loads of model ships and quite a few bits off the Belgrano which I hadn´t realised the Brits torpedoed in an agreed safe zone during the Falklands War. No wonder they are pissed at us, we didn´t even fight fair.
The catamaran over to Carmelo in Uruguay went through the islands of the delta of the Rio Parana and then across the Rio de la Plata formed by various large rivers. We arrived after dark and stayed at the first hotel we found. Next morning we went for a walk and saw some wildlife in a reserve from outside the fence as it was shut. We tried to get the bus before lunch but found it left at 7am and 3.30pm so had to kill a few hours in a pretty but boring town. Eventually we made it to Fray Bentos, again after dark, stayed at the Hotel Colonial a good 10 block walk uphill from the bus station. We noticed that everyone in Uruguay drinks mate all of the time, in the streets, in shops, on motorbikes, everywhere. The Argentinians tend to drink it in the morning and around tea time, if they are on a day out somewhere they´ll take a thermos and constantly refill the mate with hot water. The Uruguayans do this every time they leave the house regardless.
The only reason we went to Fray Bentos was so Lucy could get a pie. The famous food of students and pensioners the pie-in-a-tin originates from this very backwater of Uruguay. You can imagine how disappointed she was when we found they don´t serve pies anywhere in town, and even more so when we found out they had selfishly stopped production there 35 years before we were able to visit. Then we read in the Lonely Planet that the Museum of the Industrial Revolution, the ony tourist activity was closed on Sunday, the following day. In the morning we had checked what time the buses go to Argentina in the bus station and the Lonely Planet, so we went for a walk for a walk to the Barrio Ingles anyway. The area is a small self-sufficient town built for the workers of the beef extraction plant in the mid 1800s and was pretty cool. When we got to the old factory, now the museum, we found it open, and not only open but free to celebrate 150 years of making dodgy tinned beef products! The lady on reception said don´t be stupid, why would we close Sundays, it´s our busiest day! The plant was built with German and British money and their products such as corned beef and OXO were used by both sides in the wars. The museum was good but I never found out how they condensed 36kg of beef into 1kg of ¨beef extract,¨or what the hell goes into corned beef! Or why it looks like cat food. Back in town we went to catch our bus to find that the bridge to Argentina closed 3 years ago, over a year before the Lonely Planet was published. They did manage to write correctly about the rock garden and the piano in the huge empty bus station but not that the buses don´t run to Argentina any more. At this point the Lonely Planet was almost thrown at the piano and rock garden, but we decided to hang onto it as toilet paper is a valuable commodity when backpacking. We have spent the last 9 months looking for post offices, bars, restaurants and hotels which locals have informed us closed 15 years ago, were never there, or are in another town.
Instead we had to wait 3 1/2 hours for a bus north to Paysandu a couple of hours to the north and have a crack at the simple task of getting a mile or so across the river to Argentina tomorrow. Paysandu was, like the other towns, completely average, not nice and not nasty. Again we arrived after dark and found a random hotel which was OK, grabbed some fast food and beer and spoke to some of the thousands of crazy kids sitting getting drunk in the square and riding around on noisy mopeds. Unlike British kids they were all well-behaved, drunk but not wasted and around 11 they all started packing up and going home. Next morning we finally got a bus to Argentina!
Uruguay was not very exciting but certainly not dull. It was worth visiting, even if it was a pain in the arse getting round on the two buses a day, and even more of a pain in the arse to leave again. The land is flat and grassy, lots of cows and really nice people. I wouldn´t advise travelling to South America specifically to visit Uruguay though. This is probably all you need to know about it.
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Buenos Aires, Argentina

We cheated and flew over to Buenos Aires from Santiago, it was already booked before we left the UK as part of the ticket though. We got the 2 Peso bus into town which took 2 hours but the taxis and shuttle buses all take 1 hour and cost 90 pesos, nearly 20 quid, so we did it the backpacker way which was fine. We met a couple of Kiwis on the bus, the only other foreigners, who had just arrived from NZ after a long flight with no sleep. The bus only took coins and between us we only had 3 pesos in coins and a few notes. All the locals got their cash out and started swapping and dealing to get us the fare before the driver kicked us off. They were all really kind and we lost out on a few pesos in the process but avoided the expensive shuttle bus, which wouldn´t have picked us up on a motorway anyway.
We stayed at the Hotel Bolivar which was the cheapest place I could find on the internet, cheaper for a double than a dorm in many other places. It was secure and comfortable with great staff, and clean but has to be the most run down place we have ever stayed. It used to be a grand old building but the paint has peeled off the walls and never been repainted, except in the rooms. It was fine for us though. The first night though we had a room with balcony which was great til we realised it was on a bus route and they thundered by all night, also pulling away from the traffic lights outside and shaking our bed. We changed first thing in the morning to a quiet room out back. We met a Welsh guy and his Kiwi girlfriend and got drunk at the Gibraltar English pub which has pictures of Paris all over the walls and absolutely no apparent connection to England, or Gibraltar for that matter. We went for a long walk the next day to get rid of the hangover in the wildlife reserve the other side of the old port, land which was filled in to extend the city but then left to nature to take over. It was cool, wetlands with tons of birds and pampas grass, so peaceful away from the noisy city but so close to it.
We went to lots of cafes for tea and cake, notably the two frequented by Borges who Lucy tells me is a famous (dead) Argentinian writer. Turns out I´d unknowingly read one of his books at the start of this trip. It was rubbish, but the cafes were good. We went down to La Boca and El Caminito which is tourist tout hell but a pretty little area where the immigrants from Genoa settled and the site of the first docks. The Boca Juniors ground is nearby but its too unsafe to wander off the main strip so we just saw it from the bus. We watched a bit of Tango in a tourist bar and posed for photos but Lucy went for a lesson at the Argentinian Institute of Tango for the real thing. I politely declined to attend.
Argentina is famous for its beef obviously so we ate at parrilla restaurants as much as possible. El Desnivel in San Telmo near the hotel was the best, the bife de lomo or tenderloin was incredibly tender and cooked just how I like it, burnt on the outside and bleeding in the middle, jugoso as it´s called. Although in parts it was still cold in the middle as it was so thick, but still great. We tried various cuts but the tenderloin was the best. We drank lots of Malbec wine with the steaks which was superb unlike the Argentinian wine I´ve had at home. We also went to the El Cuartito pizzeria, 75 years old this year and recommended by the Argentinians we met in Bolivia. Needless to say it was spot on, great pizza, old school decor and pictures of River Plate football club and Maradona covering all walls.
We went to see the main sights such as the cathedral and the Casa Rosada where Evita used to come out and give her speeches to the masses in the Plaza de Mayo. There was a small protest of ex-soldiers about the Falklands going on, everywhere you see signs saying ¨Las Malvinas son Argentinas¨ - The Falklands are Argentinian. We avoided those fellas and to learn a bit more we went to the Naval Museum which is onboard an old ship the General Sarmiento in the old docks. It was cool and our Australian accents completely fooled the guy at the desk who not only let us in but let us in for free! There wasn´t much on the war but loads of interesting stuff and we could wander round the whole ship including the old engine rooms.
We bought a special gourd thing made of calabasa and some ¨yerba¨to make the Argentinian tea, matè. Lucy had been telling me how good it was for ages but when I tried it I decided she was trying to poison me and spat it back out. After a while I decided I liked it though, most people hate it at first and it is defo an acquired taste. Much better with sugar. I´m now hooked.
We went on a rainy day up to Recoleta and the famous cemetery there. The 4000 or so tombs and monuments to the rich and famous of Buenos Aires are incredibly ornate and arranged into little streets over a large area. We saw all the famous Admirals and Generals of history and of course Evita´s, which is piled high with flowers outside. I looked inside some of the gates and saw coffins piled high covered in dust as all of the owners family members are buried there too.
Buenos Aires was cool, I wasn´t all that into the Tango, cafes and antique shops. Lucy loved it though and it should be my Mums number one holiday destination from now on, take note Ma. But for me the steak made it all worth while.
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Santiago, Chile

We stayed 12 days in Santiago with a couple of days away in Valparaiso. We stayed with our friend Emma, Lucys housemate from Uni, in her lovely flat in Providencia. It is the second most wealthy area in Santiago and very nice, only if you are a pensioner according to Emma, which is partly the reason she has sold up and is coming back to England soon. She is nearing the end of her thesis too and we tried not to distract her too much, going out every day but ending up coming home earlier and earlier each day.
We went round the Patronato, the clothes district with a hangover after drinking Pisco the first night. We went to the Starwars exhibition which was brilliant, loads of costumes and models from all six films, including the original Darth Vader and Boba Fett ones. We went up Cerro San Cristobal, the main hill in the centre of the city, by cable car and down by funicular. The incredible layer of smog which covers the city daily was even more apparent on the way up there. The city is ringed by the Andes so it gets trapped in a bowl, a grim sight. You can see further at night towards the city centre from Emma´s apartment than during the day as the lights just about get through the smog. We saw the Moneda where the President Salvador Allende ¨died¨ during the military coup which saw Pinochet gain power in the 70´s. We went to the central fish market a couple of times and ate there, a massive plate of raw shellfish, and bought food for dinner as well. We went to find Lucys old flat in Barrio Brasil which brought back memories for her. We also headed out to Pirque, home of the famous Concha y Toro vineyards, to visit Lucys old flatmate from Santiago, Tanya.
We didn´t visit the vineyards at Pirque as the day before we went out to the Cousino-Macul one which is much smaller and less touristy. They produce 3 million bottles a year compared to 250 million at Concha y Toro. The place looked just like Newmarket with tall oak trees and horses inside white fences. The visit was cool, just the two of us and a guide. It is more a museum, only the top quality wines are made there in small amounts, the rest at a plant elsewhere, but we did see the very last grapes of the year being sorted and put into a fermentation tank just as we arrived. We got to try some nice wines, got some free snacks as we were the only ones there and the guide was cool, and got to keep the tasting glasses which I am now carefully carrying round South America.
We went out to Franklin, a suburb of the city, to a flea market. Emma suggested it to get us out of the house on a Saturday as we had pretty much run out of things to do and our flight wasn´t for a few more days yet. Problem was she hadn´t been there for a few years and it has now turned from a flea market into a massive scally market like the one in Liverpool. Except the stuff is cheap in Liverpool.
On a Friday evening we went to the races at the Club Hipico de Chile. We had no idea what to expect, and got out the smartest clothes we have, which could never ever be considered as smart anywhere but at the Club Hipico de Santiago it seems. It was free to get in and the stand was an amazing classic European style, looking straight out of 19th century France or something. There were a few people there, most of who had been there since the start at 2pm and a lot of families. The races were roughly every 20 minutes with a total of 19 in all but we only saw about 8. It was more like the dogs in England than the races. We met up with Kamal and Emily again which was cool and all had a good time. As far as winners go though, we lost the first race then Sherlock Holmes won some money for us. I had just finished reading The Great Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Lucy was now starting it, so that should have been an omen to lump on it. We put a grand each on. Pesos that is, about 1.15 in English money so we won an absolute fortune, 9000 Pesos. Next up was Bahia Dublin, another omen so we stuck our 3000 peso stake back on and won 12 grand. We had now made 20 grand (about 23 quid) and got the beers in for everyone, then lost the next 6 in a row. We didn´t lose out though and it was free to get in so we had about 4 hours fun and got a free beer out of it. After that we went for a great meal at a posh restaurant the name of which I have forgotten and will never remember.
I tried the Chilean speciality Charqui, which is like beef jerky but made of horse. It tasted like cardboard. We drank lots of wine from the supermarket, generally picking up the cheapest bottle we could find, for about a quid each time. Every single bottle was great. Why can´t we get cheap wine that tastes great in England?
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