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Published: January 27th 2009
Border Crossing
Iguazu River, Brazil to the right, Argentina to the left, Paraguay in the distance...We arrived from the Brazilian side on the bus from the Paudimar hostel. It was pretty handy, since it took us straight from the hostel, through the borders and all the way to the national park in Argentina. The smoothtalking Antonio (Antonio Banderas as he introduced himself) was our very helpful and friendly driver... an avid Boca supporter.
We got to the park early enough in the morning, and left all our bags in the bus with Antonio (there was a group of about 25 people doing the same thing as us)... he was going to take us to another hostel in the afternoon.
The national park was huge, and we had a boat ride in the falls booked for 12:45, so we started with a walk around the top fo the falls. It was amazing!...waking just over the falls through the jungle and the river, and an incredible roar all over the place. When the time came we went to our boat trip, and travelled up river after a short drive through the thick vegetation. When we got to the falls we just went straight into the mist, thunder and waves (making sure we put away all cameras
Into Argentina
With our Boca fan bus driver into the dry bags). There was water all over, flooding the boat floor and even coming over the sides. I don't understand how the driver could see where he was going, becuase we could hardly even open our eyes.
After going into the falls about three times, we were most definitely soaked! and it was fortunate the sun came out to dry us off. We then had some overpriced sandwiches (take your own if you are planning on going!) and continued heading to the Devil's Throat on the little train ride.
After a nice walk above the river on the boarded bridgewalk, we got to the amazing gorge. There was so much water and so much noise, that taking a picture of the rainbow in the falls was pretty difficult. But it was so hot, that it was quite refreshing getting wet again.
On the way back from the Devil's Throat, we rushed to make it back to the exit of the park at 6pm. Antonio (Banderas) was there waiting for us in his bus to take us to our hostels. We didn't have a hostel booked, but fortunately Antonio told us he found places for us at the Hostel-Inn.
Unfortunately, these places were in a 8 bed dorm, with 6 other unknown smelly guys, so Lorena was the only girl in the room.
Nevertheless, the hostel was amazing, probably the best one so far, with an incredible pool surrounded by palm trees and deck chairs, and a great lobby area with bar, pool tables, restaurant, etc... It felt a bit like a 5 star hotel. So we spent the rest of the evening in the pool, relaxing, talking to some new friends, having dinner and a few beers (the sun did not set until about 9pm).
The next morning we got up early and also spent the whole morning relaxing by the pool (unfortunately Lorena was still hiding from the sun to protect her Varicella scars). After lunch, we left to catch our bus to Posadas.
MISIONES Posadas is a large town in the Misiones region, which is known for 15th century ruins of villages built by the Jesuits in order to educate and provide protection to the Guarani indians from a worse kind of exploitation by the Spanish and Portuguese colonialism.
Our bus to Posadas was a whole 5 hours stopping wherever possible, and once there, we took
Iguazu Falls
Argentinian side a taxi to a hostel we booked. It was a bit of a ghost hostel, with hardly a soul in sight, but it was cheap and comfortable, and there was a great restaurant on the bank of the great Parana river. We had some nice steaks at the restaurant before going to bed.
The next morning, after breakfast by the Parana, we took all our bags and left them at the bus station to go on our day trip around the various Misiones ruins nearby. We first went to San Ignacio Mini, about an hour away. The ruins were only a short walk from the bus stop, which was fortunate considering the sun and the heat.
The ruins have mostly been reconstructed, following their total destruction after the expulsion of the Jesuits by the Spanish crown and the various wars between Argentina and Paraguay. San Ignacio Mini has the highest level of reconstruction, and you can clearly see the streets, living blocks, main square, church, and other buildings that formed part of the community. After an intersting guided tour, we had a quick lunch and took another bus to Loreto. This time the bus dropped us in the middle of
the road, about 2-3km away from the ruins. We debated whether to make the walk in the middle of the sweltering heat, on a road that seemed to have no traffic at all. Fortunately after about 5 minutes, a small truck picked us up and gave us a lift. Loreto was not much more than a pile of rocks, but you could make out the same structure and arrangent as San Ignacio. From there we took another bus to the last set of ruins we visited, Santa Ana. These were of a similar standard as Loreto, with a rather spooky cemetery that is still partly in use. After that it was time to go... we made it back to the Posadas bus station to wait for our bus to Buenos Aires that was leaving at 9pm.
BUENOS AIRES Our overnight bus to Buenos Aires was by far the best in the whole of our trip. We were pretty exhausted from the whole day, walking around in the heat, and that was just what we needed for a good night rest.
It was almost like a first class flight (not that I have ever been on one), we had welcome biscuits,
whiskey, wine, champagne, chocolates, magazines, good food, and a great bed seat with individual tv screens.
So we got to Buenos Aires Retiro bus station pretty relaxed at about 9am after a nice breakfast and coffee on the bus. Unfortunately we had to wait until about 1pm in order to get our keys to check into the apartment we booked.
This is when it all started to go wrong. We decided to kill some time in the station, checking the internet, getting money, etc... so we found a spot to sit while we were there. After I quickly went to check the internet, I came back and Lorena was panicking, telling me she almost got robbed! It seems like some guys were looking at her to see what they could grab, and the security guard warned her. So I stayed there keeping the bags while Lorena went to the internet, and I witnessed someone else getting robbed right in front of me. At this point we went straight for a taxi to go La Recoleta, the posh neighbourhood where we had the flat booked. We found a nice restaurant nearby and waited there to have some lunch until the time
came to get the keys. Again in the restaurant, the manager told us that three guys had been in looking at us to see what they could steal from us. Now we were really panicking, this was supposed to be the nice area of Buenos Aires, and we were inside the restaurant!!!
At this point we also discovered that the taxi driver had given us a fake $20 peso note. We were not having a good time, and were not really in love with Buenos Aires and our tourist look with all the bags was not helping.
We finally got into our lovely little flat and once again felt safe and almost at home, and ready to plan and enjoy the rest of our stay in Buenos Aires. The rest of the afternoon was quite relaxing, we went out for a walk around Recoleta and around Calle Santa Fe. We did some food shopping to have things for breakfast and some light cooking at home, and that evening we stayed in and had some nice wine and Rissotto (we were also trying to make up for all the expenses in Iguazu, which turned out to be quite significant).
We spent
a whole week in Buenos Aires, but at the end we did not quite manage to see as much as we were hoping to. I think all the build up of over 9 months travelling around the world was starting to take its tall. Lorena had also recently recovered from her Chicken Pox (Varicella), and the incredible heat wave that hit Buenos Aires at the time did not help either (temperatures near the 40C). There were probably also other factors that we were not aware of at the time that meant we were pretty happy staying in at home the whole morning, enjoying the air conditioning and breakfast in bed.
The whole area of the Recoleta was beautiful, a lovely residential area with lots of nice shops and restaurants, where we enjoyed many walks visiting various art galleries, museums, cultural centres, parks and of course the famous Recoleta Cemetery. Here we saw the tomb of Evita Peron, and we also met an english tourist which almost had his gold necklace ripped off just outside the entrance (be very carefull in the whole of Buenos Aires, especially if you look like a tourist!).
During the whole week we also visited the
Boat Ride
ready to get wet... city centre area of Calle Florida, La Casa Rosada, Avenida de Mayo, the obelisque, etc... Other areas such as Palermo were also great to walk around and go to bars and restaurants. We met Franziska and Laura (the German girls we met in Paraty) one evening for a really good meal in a restaurant in Palermo.
Caminito in La Boca area was another tourist place worth seeing, full of colourfull buildings, it was a bit of a tourist trap, but we enjoyed the athmosphere and the tango shows in the street acompanied by a cold beer and some good food.
On the last two days in Buenos Aires, we booked a tango show at the Cafe Tortoni on Saturday night, a classic and cozy venue for tango shows, and also quite inexpensive compared to some. After a nice meal with a bottle of wine before the show, we enjoyed the tango band and the dancers in the little theatre in the Cafe Tortoni with another bottle of Malbec. After the show we went to meet Franziska at her flat and had a few more drinks there. The plan was to go out with them to some night club, but by
Iguazu Falls
on our way in the time we left at about 1am, I had had a bit too much to drink, and Lorena was quite tired.
The next morning, Sunday, the plan was to check out of the flat and go to San Telmo to see the street market, but the drinks from the night before definitely did not go down well in my stomach, and I needed almost the whole day in bed to recover. Fortunately the ladies who owned the flat let us stay there until 6pm, when we had to leave to catch our bus to Mendoza.
MENDOZA The overnight bus to Mendoza was nowhere near as good as the one to Buenos Aires. We got there at about 8am and we got a taxi straight to the hostel in the city centre. After a bit of a rest and a quick shower, we went out for a walk in Mendoza. The city centre has been designed carefully to a regular grid of 8 blocks x 8 blocks, with a grand central square taking over the four central blocks, and another four squares in each of the four quadrants of the city grid. The streets are wide and spacious, with huge Maple
trees lining the whole city providing much needed shade, and also a generous pedestrian street along the central axis. Anyway... enough urban architectural talk... the city has a great relaxing athmosphere, and you can see how the people enjoy just walking around with their families and couples in the parks and steets. They even go out to restaurants with their small children at 11pm!... their timetable is definitely wierd, going to bed really late and waking up late... and siesta of course!
The second day in Mendoza it was time to go wine tasting, so we took a bus to the Coquimbito area in Maipu, and we rented some cheap crappy old bikes from an old lady and took off with a little map of the area.
We went to a couple of vineyards and visited their museums and tried their wine. The museum at La Rural was excellent, and the wine at the small Di´Tomasso was great... Lorena was really into their Malbec. We had some cheap sanwiches on the way, and also visited an Olive Oil factory, which was not that inspiring.
The day was pretty long, and the heat was quite exhausting, so at the end we
Iguazu Falls
after getting soaked on the boat decided not to pay the inflated prices of another vineyard, and went back another 8km to return the bikes and get the bus home.
The next day it was action time, and we had to get up early for our rafting tour in the Mendoza river. It was our first time rafting, and we had a great time. The day was a bit cloudy and the water was freezing cold, coming down from the mountains, but the category 3 and 4 rapids was just perfect for our first time, and after 1 hour down the river we were pretty exhausted, but still wanted more! In the evening we went out for some nice food and a walk around the town, with lots of people around having a good relaxing time. It was the feeling of a small village at a large scale, but we were always keeping an eye out for possible thieves.
On our last day in Mendoza we decided to go on a tour to the Andes and hopefully see the Mount Aconcagua. This time the morning was amazing, without a cloud in sight, and you could see the snow caps all the way from the city. It
Iguazu Falls
with a little butterfly... was a pretty long 4 hour trip along the Mendoza river towards the border with Chile, but the landscape and scenery was incredible. We got to the Aconcagua National Park, and went for a long walk in the hills. It could not be a better day, and we were told it was snowing the day before, and you could not see a thing. The view of the Acongagua surrounded by green hills, rocky mountains, green grass and mirror lakes was just like a postcard picture, and the blue sky made it all perfect.
On the way back we stopped at the Puente del Inca, a natural rock formation over the Mendoza river, which was said to be used by the Incas to cross the river at this point.
Back in the city, we got some nice food from the market, and some beers to eat and relax in the back yard of the hostel. The next morning we were catching our bus to San Juan.
SAN JUAN The 2 hour bus ride to San Juan was quite relaxing, and Candela was at the bus station waiting for us. It was good to see her after all those months back in
Iguazu Falls
on the train to the Devil's Throat London. We walked to her house close by, and met her mom Alicia and her sisters Lupe and Paula, as well as Lupe´s son Juan Pablo. Candela´s familiy was really nice and welcoming, and after some delicious home made Lasagna for lunch, we made some plans for our short stay in San Juan. We were only staying about 3 days, so that afternoon we went straight to the Graffigna vineyard to visit one of the oldest wine makers in South America, and one of the most renowned in Argentina. They had a really good muesum and tour, and we also tasted some great wine... and it was all free!!!... they even gave us a little Syrah plant to take with us, which hopefully Alicia will be harvesting from her garden in a few years.
In the afternoon we did a little tour around San Juan, and visited a couple of local museums. We also met with Fernanda... another friend from London and San Juan. In the evening we went out for dinner with Candela and Fernanda, as well as Lupe, Paula and Gustavo (Fernanda´s fiancee) and Oscar (Lupe´s husband)... and in good Argentinian style, we had dinner at 11pm with
Iguazu Falls
Above the Iguazu River little Juan Pablo still on board.
At 1am (yes... 1 in the morning!) we went to pick up our car rental (they were open 24hours) to go to Valle de la Luna the next morning. It was a long day... and we went to bed at 2am to wake up at 5.30am for the 4 hour drive to Ischigualasto with Candela and Paula. But the mate drinking on the way kept us going without any troubles. We got to San Agustin del Valle Fertil, and picked up some food for lunch, and by the time we got to Ischigualasto it was after 11 am.
Ischigualasto is a national park that includes a large archaeological area, where the oldest dinosaurs in the world have been found, the Eoraptor Lunensis (225-230 million years old). The area is also known as the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley) for its moon like landscapes. It is a vast area that can only be seen on a guided tour by car. The variety of landscapes was incredible, and there also many strange natural rock formations such as the submarine, the mushroom, the sphinx and the 'Cancha de Bochas´(ball park) with some wierd perfectly rounded rocks
Iguazu Falls
The Devil's Throat just sitting there on the ground.
We had a great day at Ischigualasto, but we had to rush back to San Juan, for Candela and Paula to make it back to a wedding at about 7pm. We made it back almost on time! and we were exhausted... so after some juicy lomitos for dinner, we went to bed early while Candela and the rest partied hard all night long!
The next day, Sunday, Fernanda organised an asado (bbq) at the Ullum dam, a place about 30 minutes from San Juan, where people from the city go to relax and enjoy the weekend. Her whole family was there, and Candela, Paula, Lupe and Jan Pablo also came along. Gustavo was the bbq master, getting the fire ready and cooking all the meat, ribs, chorizo, morzilla and all the other delicious things we had. It was extremely hot, and the heat of the fire made it worse, so I just pretended to help out by the fire once in a while.
After all the food and a few glasses of a great Shiraz, we cooled off in the swimming pool for a while, until it was time to get ready to catch
San Ignacio Mini
Jesuit Mission ruins in Misiones our bus back to Mendoza at night, not before having some more mate in the late afternoon.
Our bus back to Mendoza was at 9:30pm so after saying good bye to everyone, Candela, Paula and Alicia came to the bus station to wave us good bye. We had a great time in San Juan, especially with the great company of Candela and her family as well as Fernanda and everyone else. We got to Mendoza pretty late, and went straight to bed in our hostel, ready to get the bus to Santiago de Chile the next morning.
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