Buenos Totally Worthwhile

Upon our arrival at the Portal del Sur hostel that would be our home in Buenos Aires for a week, we went through the usual checking in routine of filling in a few forms and making small talk with the guy behind the desk. Upon hearing we were from Manchester, we got the usual flicker of interest from the guy behind the desk that is then normally followed by the words "Manchester United" or "David Beckham" (which we were still getting last year when in Nepal despite the fact that he had been in Madrid for nearly three years at that point - I guess he'll always be associated with Manchester to some degree). This time however, we got a response I've never heard before, what the guy behind the desk really wanted to know when he heard we were from Manchester was "What do you think of Liam Gallaghar?"

In a way, the entire city if Buenos Aires was like that, it always offered something a little different to what you expected. The city itself feels like a very modern capital, with huge new skyscraper office blocks, very lively shopping district, and an energetic pace, but it also has some wonderful old buildings and huge parks and is keen to still highlight it´s history. We stayed in a great hostel in the north of the San Telmo region of the city. It was only a few blocks from the Casa Rosada and so was very close to many of the tourist attractions - we were a little early to check in when we arrived so left our bags in the left luggage and went on a walking tour of the city taking us along Avenida De Mayo, and then north to the Recoleta region of the city where we visited the cemetary where Evita is buried. The cemetary is something else that is slightly different, rather than being buried underground, the bodies are kept in tombs that are above ground and all very decorative, almost minature versions of some of the old large town houses that you find in Recoleta itself. After visiting the cemetary, we the made our way back towards the city centre, stopping on the way for a coffee and a sandwich, but also then being tempted into a brownie and ice cream desert that was delicious (we very quickly found out that finding fantatsic food at great prices was not going to be a problem in this city!). We took in a few more of the parks and the torre ingles (English Tower) which is a mintaure version of Big Ben and then turned south again to return to our hostel in San Telmo.

The hostel, like many of the buildings in the San Telmo region was an old mansion house that had been converted. The mansions here have been converted into shops, bars, restaurants, apartments, and even multi storey car parks! I don´t think any of them remain as privately owned mansions. We managed to spend some time exploring San Telmo which is a lovely part of the city along with taking time to visit La Boca (only the touristy part as advised it´s not a good idea to go off the beaten track down there) which was very lively with bright colourful buildings, couples tango dancing in the street and even a Diego Maradonna look-a-like posing for pictures. I resisted the tempation to ask the look-a-like if he´d mind having a picture taken of me standing on his right hand!

Buenos Aires, however, also has it´s downside. We visited the Palermo region which is supposed to be one of the nicer parts of town but it seemed quite run down, and the zoo there wasn´t nice at all, with most of the animals kept in what appeared to be very poor conditions. I wouldn´t let that put anyone off visiting the city of course, in fact I´d highly recommend that everyone visit as we enjoyed it so much, but at least visiting places like that helped show that, like most places, Buenos Aires is not perfect - which after a few days in the city centre eating fantastic food, visiting great places, and relaxing on our hostel rooftop in 30 degree sunshine we easily could have thought that it was!

Overall, as mentioned, I´d recommend everyone to visit Buenos Aires, it is a fantatsic city with lots to see and do, with a few nice differences such as tango classes and milongas and of course, factastic food! Oh, and if our experience is anything to go by, coming just before Christmas could prove beneficial as the weather is fantastic, but also, there are a lot of bargins to be had in the shopping district here - much better to be buying presents in the Buenos Aires sunshine than fighting the crowds in the Trafford Centre back home!

However, we now have to move on, I´m now sat at a computer in El Calafete following our 36 hour bus journey to Rio Gallegos followed immediately by another 5 hour bus trip to get to this small town near the bottom of Argentina and the Moreno Glacier - not a journey we´re recommend - pay the extra and fly instead! We´ll be posting another update after we´ve visited the glacier and crossed the border into Chile. It was hard to swap our nice room in San Telmo for the uncomfortable seat of a Via TAC bus, but I think, in the end, we were ready to get out of the city and back to the great outdoors. Before leaving the hostel though, I did manage to have one more conversation with the guy behind the desk (never did find out his name though), and he was telling me about his trip to Liverpool and how he liked a lot of the bands from there. I told him about another up and coming band from that city called The Joy Vegas and showed him there site which has a few songs on (for anyone who doesn´t know about them, go to http://www.myspace.com/thejoyvegas), he really enjoyed their music and began downloading a few songs whilst telling me how he hoped to go back to Liverpool at some point in the future. Although Liverpool is a great city, I couldn´t help but think he had it the right way round, it would be nice to visit Liverpool on holiday, but spend a lot more time in the fantastic city of Buenos Aires!

Steve

Backpacker Travelling? Whatever!!?!

Just have to add to Steve´s description of Iguacu falls that we did the moonlight walk to the falls as we were lucky enough to be there during the 5 days of the month covering the full moon period - highly recommend it. The falls were even more dramatic at night - not something we could capture on camera but a memory to last a lifetime!

So to Buenos Aires. I have to retract my earlier comment re us not being big city people. I thought the only city in South America that could potentially take over La Paz as my favourite on this continent would be Cartagena in Colombia, which unfortunately we haven´t got time to visit on this trip, but Buenos Aires has surprised me and is definitely going to be a close contender!

Our day yesterday consisted of our 5 hours of Spanish school, (which we´re doing all week - and then will just about be able to call ourselves beginners!) followed by a lunch of gorgeous smoked salmon and cream pasta with easily the best wine I´ve ever tasted, and the best cappucino, sitting opposite the one and only perfect man (although that is not down to BA but my miraculous good fortune of course!) walking in the 30 degree sunshine back to our lovely home for a week, via a watch shop with the friendliest salesman ever (who also gave us a free informal Spanish lesson!) and finally a Argentinian tango lesson which is such a cool dance and we had a fab teacher (not as good as our salsa teacher Gary or Lindy teachers Ian and Sheila of course!!) - I´m going to run out of superlatives, so suffice to say if I don´t get a healthy dose of cockroaches and amoebic dysentry soon I will continue to feel a complete "backpacking" fraud!

We spent a day in Colonia in Uruguay on Sunday which is also a beautiful place - we think the Lonely Planet sums this region up well - "... people think ´real´backpacking is all about varying degrees of discomfort - maybe they should avoid Uruguay. It´s hard to feel hardcore when your hotel is spotless, the buses are roomy, the streets are immaculate, you´re eating homemade pasta and sipping espresso coffee and nobody is hassling you to buy a half-plucked chicken."

It is a good job we are already carrying all our trekking/climbing gear as the shops in Buenos Aires are fantastic - anyone into designer stuff should come with lots of room in their suitcase as there are some beautiful shopping centres, with predominantly designer shops and significantly cheaper but still genuine gear! Even the way the Argentians speak is lovely - a softer accent than other parts of South America. This place has gone onto our potential places to live list and is right near the top of the come back to list! It is a good job we have a plan to vaguely stick to, or we would probably stay here for months and not see anything else! We´re inclined to agree with Mr. Lloyd Webber´s "beautiful town, I love you" lyrics - a sensation that may be slightly affected by the amount of Argentinian wine consumed!

Note to self - question for Spanish teacher tomorrow: is there a Spanish equivalent for "wax lyrical"?!

Mandi

Big Thunderous Waterfall

Wow! The waterfalls at Iguazu are amazing. I´m not really sure how I can describe them and still do them justice, but one thing I will say is that, having seen them, I´m even more surprised how few people we spoke to before we left had heard of them, especially considering how many people have heard of Niagra. Not trying to take anything away from Niagra falls, but I just don´t see how it can compare to these. They have to be one of the most impressive waterfalls in the world, and although as yet I've not been fortunate enought to see Angel or Victoria falls they would have to be something extra special to top the Iguazu falls.


The falls sit on the border between Argentina and Brazil, at the point where the Igauzu (Iguacu in Brazil) and Parana rivers meet. Legend has it that they were formed when a forest god became enraged as a warrior and his lovers tried to escape dowriver by canoe. In his anger, the god caused the riverbed to fall away in front of the couple creating the huge "Devil´s throat" falls over which the girl fell, and upon hitting the bottom turned into a rock. The warrior survived, and to this day remains at the top of the falls as a tree that still looks down on his fallen lover below. The geological explaination for the falls origins is a little less dramatic. In southern Brazil, the Rio Iguacu passes over a basalt plateau that ends just above its confluence with the Parana. Before reaching the edge of the plateau, the river divides into several "cataratas" which tumble over forming the impressive falls.


The most impressive of them all is the "Devil´s throat", this huge horseshoe shaped falls is incredibly loud and gives a real feeling for the power of the falls as the huge quantities of water thunder over it´s edge and disappear into the mist below - and thanks to some Argentinian engineering, it is possible to get a very close up view of this in action. There is a collection of walkways that have been built a few feet above the river allowing you to walk all the way out from the Argentinian side of the falls to a viewing platform right on the edge of the devils throat. The view, and the sound, when you are stood there is incredible. We tried to capture some of it in picture and on video, but I doubt those clips will do it justice - of course it didn`t help that we could only film for a few seconds before having to hide the camera away again to prevent it getting a soaking from the spray that erupts up from the falls!

In total we spent 2 and a half days visiting Iguazu from both the Argentinian and Brazilian sides. You have to do both sides to see everything. The place works very well with good cooperation from both countries meaning neither has exloited the falls too much. Most of the original jungle environment still remains with only a few paths cut through it to allow visitors to get to the falls from the modern welcome centers, restaurant and hotel that are on offer a further kilometre away on either side. After a helicoptor ride over the falls, jungle walks to get the best view points from both sides, and getting very wet on several viewing platforms (along with the devils mouth platform, there are viewing platforms at 7 or 8 other point in the falls), I think we`ve finally managed to see most of it, and it was a fantastic experience - definitely somewhere I`d like to come back to again and would highly recommend to anyone - especially if you´re currently thinking of heading to Southern Ontario or New York state to see the alternative on offer up there ;-)

Steve

Bus That Waited!

We decided to leave Rio a day earlier than we originally planned having done everything we wanted to do and also because, beautiful as Rio is, we just aren´t big city people and couldn´t wait to get to Foz.

With the exception of availability of non meat sandwiches, Rio hasn´t changed at all in the 7 years since I was last here - big contrast to our last trip to Delhi when we noticed big changes in the space of 2 years! It has a bit of Miami about it and a bit of Monaco, but with the favelas dotting the hillside. Always hard to see such poverty so close to such wealth.

So we headed up to Corcovado in the morning planning to catch the lunch time bus to Foz. The statue is just as serene as I remember, and just as swarming with people. But he does look like he is trying to protect his city as best he can. Our plan was to get back to the bus station to catch the 1.30pm bus to Foz and it will come as no surprise to those who know us to hear that we didn´t leave nearly enough time and ended up running into the bus station 15 minutes late, suncream pouring down Steve´s bag due to breakage number 1, waving and shouting at the bus company people as we saw our bus pulling away and finally managing to reach it, Steve banging on the door as he ran along side, when fortunately the very nice mr. bus driver stopped for us. The driver and staff seemed to think the "inglés loco" amusing at least and we accepted whatever jovial abuse we received gracefully, seeing as we couldn´t understand any of it!

Couldn´t wait to get to a country where we stand a chance with the language - Portuguese and Spanish may be similar if you are fluent in one of them - not for us! We´ve noticed all too often in our own country that many people have a habit of assuming people who can´t speak English are less intelligent - it is only fair if people here assume the same of us until we can speak Spanish - just hope they take pity in the meantime!

The bus journey was nearly 24 hours but a very comfortable bus and plenty of stops. We arrived in Foz and found a hotel pretty quickly and after some general faffing to sort money out we headed straight to the helicopter pad to get a flight over the falls, thinking the late afternoon light would be the best time to see it.

Again the helicopter itself was brilliant - would love to fly one! We had a more adventurous pilot than in Rio too, who enjoyed demonstrating the manoeuvrability of his machine! Added excitement due to the ´spatially challenged´gentleman who was told he couldn´t sit in the front due to seat belt girth and weight distribution (which meant Steve got in the front with the video again yey!) so had to sit in the middle next to me. But this meant they struggled to shut the door properly and when the pilot banked over completely onto the side, I was praying my seat belt was a good one!

The falls are amazing from any angle but the flight was something special. Having seen Niagra I am still at a loss as to why Iguacu falls are less well known - they are more impressive, more beautiful, and the surrounding area doesn´t even compare. Today we walked along the Brazilian side of the falls, but as that is all new to Steve I´ll leave it to him to describe!
Mandi

Brazil´s Terrific Waterfront

Liverpool FC look like they are in trouble, we haven´t been watching the whole game, but already we´ve seen them let 4 goals in. In their defence, they are up against the might of Brazil, but with a 10 year old girl playing up front, the samba kings shouldn´t really be causing Liverpool the problems that they are. We´re sat at a little cafe sipping fresh pineapple juice while watching the game unfold on the beach before us. Liverpool are made up of a collection of kids wearing tops of a variety of colours, but with the words Liverpool FC proudly painted on the red and white goal posts they are defending. The opposition, are almost all in the yellow tops of Brazil, again, they are a collection of kids running around madly chasing the ball except they also have ¨Dad¨ playing in defence, and that added experience must be making a difference as Liverpool have just let a fifth past them.

Copacabana´s mile long stretch of sand is the jewel of the Brazilian beaches, and although it perhaps isn´t fair to say that this one part of the country represents the best of the Brazilian coastline, it´s hard to think of something that could top it - and besides, the title of Rio´s Terrific Waterfront didn´t fit our BTW theme! We arrived in Rio De Janeiro early yesterday morning after an 18 hour journey from Manchester via both Heathrow and Sao Paulo. After navigating immigration, bag collection and customs we stumbled wearily into the arrivals lounge and got a taxi, with a driver who hadn´t heard of our hostel and consequently didn´t have a clue where it was - we´d also made the mistake of not printing the full address before we left the UK and as our Portugese is non-existent, had no way of telling the driver roughly where to go. Suprisingly our attempts at communicating by speaking slowly in English and pointing at the tiny map in our Lonely Planet guide didn´t help much either - good start! Luckily, Rio´s taxi drivers are a resiliant bunch, and after a quick mobile telephone call to his English speaking friend, we were able to let him know where to go (via the man on the end of the mobile) and we were soon speeding along around the bends and through the tunnels of this magnificent waterfront on out way to Copacabana.

We spent much of the rest of the day getting organised, i.e. exchanging money, buying supplies and catching up on sleep. Our hostel is a fantastic little place called ¨Stone of a Beach¨ which is just two blocks from the famous Copacabana Palace hotel. All the staff here are really friendly and only too willing to help you with anything you need. A great base for our exploration of the city and the start of our next 6 months of travel. After getting nearly 11 hours sleep last night, we woke up this morning a great deal more refreshed and headed to Sugar Loaf to look down over the panoramic coastline. Although there was some early morning cloud hanging around, we weren´t disapointed and managed to get some great shots of copacabana and botafogo beaches, and even some of the statue of Christ the Redeemer when he emerged from the clouds surrounding the Corcovado mountain on top of which he stands. After a break for some delicious food, the cloud cleared further so we decided to take a helicoptor flight to get an even better view, and it was well worth it. It only lasted 10 minutes, but it was the first time either Mandi or I had been in a helicoptor and it was a great feeling to be swooping over Rio and it gave us some great shots looking back over the city towards the ocean beyond.

After getting our feet back on the ground we caught the bus back to Copacabana and headed to the beach to relax and grab some dinner. We then sat there for a while just watching the world go buy and drinking fresh fruit juices as the football game unfolded before us. Speaking of which, Liverpool eventually managed a bit of a comeback and by the time we left, the score was Brazil 18 v Liverpool 15, and there was still a good hour to go until the sun finally set behind the mountains of this beautiful Brazilian waterfront...
Steve