Oh, I forgot
... All the remaining photos should be uploaded in a day or two. Whether I'll have the stamina to invent captions for all of them is an entirely different question.
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
To conclude
Well, yes, we got home safe and sound, of course, so it's back to our "everyday" UK existences from now on. We'll round this blog off with some sort of nifty closing statement soon - that is, when there's a bit of time to spare.
Monday, February 16, 2004
Sunday, February 15, 2004
Buenos Aires: Vol. 2
So what else have we done in Buenos Aires? We've eaten out at nice restaurants a couple of times - there's a strong Italian influence on Argentinian cuisine, so it's easier than usual for veggies -, and gone shopping. Yesterday we went out to the famous cemetery at Recoleta where posh porteños are buried: finding Evita is easy - just follow the hordes of American tourists. D F Sarmiento is also there. In the afternoon we watched Lost in Translation at a nearby cinema. The title in Spanish is "Perdidos en Tokio" - which is kind of ironic if you think about it...
Today - our last full day in Buenos Aires, in Argentina, in South America - we took the Subte south of town to San Telmo to visit the traditional Sunday antiques market, and then we walked even further south to La Boca, where we looked at the stadium of Boca Juniors, a famous Argentinian football team, and strolled along the colourful streets. There must be a Juniors game tonight, because there were lots of noisy blue-and-yellow football fans wandering around.
We caught the bus back to the Plaza de Mayo, where we stumbled across the shooting of an advert for something called Kas, a fizzy orange drink. Downtown, we finished our souvenir shopping (gotta spend those last few pesos!), watched some tango - and we're now on the way back to our hotel, exhausted. Hunger has struck, so we're going to grab a pizza en route.
Tomorrow we'll catch bus numer 86 from Avenida de Mayo out to the airport. Our plane leaves at 16.10, taking us back to Heathrow via Frankfurt. Back home soon!
Friday, February 13, 2004
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Buenos Aires: Vol. 1
We spent the morning checking out the historical sites - the Plaza de Mayo, for example - and buildings - the Casa Rosada and the Cathedral, resting place of Argentine Libertador San Martín. The Plaza de Mayo is famous for the demonstrations by the "Mothers of the Disappeared"; the Casa Rosada, "The Pink House", is where Evita (and Madonna...!) made her crowd-pleasing speeches from the balcony.
There are loads of cinemas in downtown BA - we've counted three within five minute's walk of our hotel -, and so we decided to have a movie afternoon. Yesterday we went to see The Last Samurai; today we took advantage of the 2-for-1 offer and saw Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Seabiscuit one after the other (interesting combination :). Tickets were ludicrously cheap, of course - 80p for each of us.
Time is ticking away, so that's all I've got time to write for now... Bye!
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Back in Argentina
And so we're now back in Argentina. The port is convenient for downtown - just a few minutes walk away. Getting to and from Uruguay from here is much more efficient over water than over land - check your maps!
We'd pre-selected a fairly posh hotel from our Lonely Planet, as a kind of going-away present to ourselves. It's three-star, and very nice: a/c, cable TV, buffet breakfast and so on. It's lucky (!) the Argentinian economy collapsed or we'd never be able to afford it!
That's that so far. We've got four days here (as you can see from the rather unsettling counter on the right...), but there seems to be plenty to do, and it's by far the most cosmopolitan place we've been to in South America. We spent this afternoon walking along Avenida Florida, the classy pedestrian mall, packed with shops like Zara, Mango, Harrod's, C&A, Nike, Tower Records, blah blah. Prices are pretty cheap - we haven't bought anything yet, but I fear it's only a matter of time :). New music CDs are about 5 pounds each here - we're very tempted by the latest Dido album... We had lunch in McDonald's (yeah yeah, I know) - I wanted to see if the meat in an Argentinian Royale with Cheese tastes different to that in a UK Quarter Pounder (it doesn't really).
OK, that's it for now. We'll let you know if we manage to see any tango or Evita posters or Falklands propaganda etc. etc.
Monday, February 09, 2004
Uruguay indeed
We took a bus from Posadas to Montevideo, Uruguay, via Buenos Aires - which doesn't make much sense geographically, but there's no other way to do it. We arrived in Buenos Aires Retiro terminal yesterday morning - after our last overnight bus journey! yay! - and took a day bus into Uruguay. Border crossing was trivial - we gave our passports to the driver and about five minutes later he gave them back all stamped with our tourist cards already filled in. Easy.
We arrived in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, at about 7.30pm, took a taxi to the centre and checked in to a hotel. Uruguay's capital city is just as small as - but much more attractive than - Paraguay's. Everything is considerably, well, shinier. The bus terminal into which we arrived is smarter than any Greyhound station in America, the streets are clean and there are a few international brand-name stores (mostly McDonalds, actually, but still...). We spent a quiet day exploring the city, out along the banks of the River Plate.
The next morning we took a bus to Colonia, a few hours west of Montevideo, and a popular spot for day-tripping tourists from Buenos Aires. It's a very attractive little town, an old smuggling port, originally founded by the Portuguese. The streets are cobbled and shaded by sycamore trees. We stopped for lunch in a restaurant, where I got to try one of Uruguay's national dishes: chivito al plato. This consists of a slab of beef, with some slices of ham on top, with some melted cheese on top, with a fried egg on top of that (plus chips and salad :). Horribly unhealthy, but also delicious - the beef in Uruguay is fantastic, just as good as Argentina's.
This morning we caught the ferry from Colonia to Buenos Aires. We had to choose between the high-speed catamaran that leaves at 9am, or the slightly slower ferry that leaves at - wait for it - 4.30am. The crucial deciding factor was price - $11 for the ferry, $25 for the catamaran. And so up we got, at 3.30am! The ferry was very plush and comfortable, so we were able to doze off the early start.
San Ignacio
We visited some Jesuit ruins near Posadas, in the small town of San Ignacio. The Jesuits came here shortly after the Spanish did, and set up various missions to try and educate (and convert) the indigenous Guaraní people. They were too successful, and the Spanish got jealous and kicked them all out. The ruins are impressive - although not up to Inca standards ;) - and are a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Jesuits had good architectural taste, and it was nice and relaxing to sit in the sunny, grassy "Plaza de Armas" surrounded by the ruined red-stone buildings.
Friday, February 06, 2004
Graf Spee
Interesting to read that a German warship is being dredged up from the River Plate. We're planning to visit Montevideo in a couple of days - wonder if we'll see anything.
Paraguay - Brazil - Argentina (phew! three countries in one day!)
I was maybe a bit mean to Paraguay the other day - it's just we'd become so used to travelling in 'civilised' Argentina and Chile that it came as a bit of a shock to the system. I'm sure it's a perfectly nice country really!
We caught the bus from Asunción directly east to Ciudad del Este ("City of the East", aptly enough). After a five hour journey in a clapped out old Volvo bus - with air conditioning, barely, and they had to turn it off to drive uphill! - we arrived, were bundled off and collapsed into a local bus before we knew what was going on. After my internal GPS failed we went a little too far, so swapped buses and finally arrived downtown. We got another luxury hotel (a/c, minibar, cable TV, the works) - Hotel Munich, run by Germans (hmm, what could Germans be doing in Paraguay...?). After basking by the air conditioning for a couple of minutes we headed back into town to find an ATM, a supermarket and a way of getting back to Argentina the next day.
Ciudad del Este is famous for being one of the most corrupt cities in South America, and it apparently turns pretty nasty after dark, so we hid in our hotel room for the rest of the night.
The next day we had another great breakfast in our hotel, and then walked through the city centre to the international bridge that connects Paraguay with Brazil - there's no way through directly to Argentina. Since we were only going to be in Brazil for a few hours we weren't sure if we needed a passport stamp, but to be safe we got one anyway - and that gave me a chance to practise my Portuguese (I don't speak Portuguese ;). As we walked over the bridge youths with suspicious looking cardboard boxes ran back and forth past us - before they got to the other side, they chucked the boxes over the side of the bridge to their waiting partners in crime below and headed back.
We'd thoughtfully torn out and thrown away the Brazil section of our Lonely Planet, thinking we wouldn't need it, so we got a taxi straight to the bus station (paying in Argentinian pesos), and then got a bus straight out from Brazil to Argentina.
Inevitably, we forgot to get a Brazilian exit stamp before we left the country - Argentinians don't need to bother, so our bus just sailed through customs, and we had to trek back 2.5km to sort that out. We got on the next bus (transferable tickets, you see) and got our new Argentina stamps. We arrived in Puerto Iguazú at about lunch time, checked into a hotel (our second choice, the first being full), and had a rest!
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Trivia
Oh, two more things about Paraguay:
- Their flag is different on each side.
- PJ O'Rourke wrote that 'Paraguay is nowhere and famous for nothing'.
Córdoba, Argentina - Asunción, Paraguay
We stayed two nights in Córdoba, although most of the first was spent sleeping off the effects of overnight bus travel. We explored downtown the next day. It's pleasant enough, though nothing special. There are a lot of attractive churches - the population are strongly Catholic. More excitingly, we spotted another high-ranking political figure (our third, after Kofi Annan and Hugo Chavez!): José de la Sota. He's the dashing, charismatic governor of Córdoba - the crowd that was waiting for him outside the legislative building was mostly middle-aged women - with some controversial economic policies. Of course, we had no idea who he was when we first saw him, but a woman turned to us and said (to Katherine :) "isn't our governor handsome?", so that kind of gave it away! (This is true, I swear!).
Yesterday we caught an day and night bus to Asunción, the capital of Paraguay. That involved a change of bus at 1.15am and a border crossing at 5.30am - pretty gruelling!
What do you know about Paraguay? If you're anything like us, nothing! If you're clever you might know that the capital is Asunción. If you're a genius you might know that it was a military dictatorship until 1989. Oh, and if you think it's got something to do with the World Cup - you're wrong, that's Uruguay (where we're off to soon!).
The currency is the guaraní, and their economy has collapsed, so posh hotels are cheap! It looks small on the map, but it's actually the size of Germany (or California for our US readers). It's also horrendously hot - you know you should be worrying when your bus arrives at 6.30am and it's already 29°C outside! Landlocked too, so no beaches :(.
We've just done a (sweaty) walking tour of Asunción. Everything's a bit grim, although there are a couple of nice government buildings. We stopped by the Presidential Palace (and got whistled at by a guard when we accidently stumbled onto the Presidential Helipad ;), and visited the Pantheon of Heroes. I don't think Paraguay has ever won a war, but the building is still pretty big. It's all too hot for us poor Brits (now accustomed to Patagonian temperatures!), so we're off back to our hotel to cool down in the swimming pool or with the a/c in our room.
Tomorrow, we're taking the bus east to Ciudad del Este, gateway to the fantastic waterfalls on the Brazil / Argentina border. Excellent! More groovy stamps in our passports!
