Land of Big Steaks, Wild Dogs and Other Crazy Stuff

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Buenos Aires

The capital of Argentina and what a great place to start our big trip. We were lucky enough to arrive on a Sunday when the weekly San Telmo antiques fair was on. It´s held in Plaza Dorrego, and we happened to be staying around the corner. With the market came lots of live music, and we even caught some live tango later in the evening.

First impressions of Buenos Aires, is that it´s so European - the buildings, and just the whole feel of the place.

Things that struck us though are the broken footpaths, and lots of holes in them! I´m not really sure how blind people would manage in the city. The other danger of course is the wild dogs. There are so many! Apparently they don´t bite, but leave their poo all over the place!

We just spent two nights in BA as we wanted to get further into the heart of South America.

We spent a morning exploring La Boca, and an afternoon at La Recoleta. La Boca is a colourful (literally), artistic neighbourhood, and home to Boca Juniors soccer team (they love their soccer here).

Recoleta is a rich neighbourhood, within which is La Recoleta. This is basically a city of tombs where the rich and famous are buried. (Didn´t see any wild doges here but lots of stray cats!) It´s a huge cemetary, and so many of the burial places are more like private churches with elaborate designs. The most famous tomb is Evita´s.

Rosario

This is the birthplace of Che Guevara, and situated on the Rio (river) Parana.

As the bus drove in Rosario, we started thinking uh-oh! The outskirts are littered with plastic bags and all sorts of rubbish. Quite disgusting! The poor of the city live in slums around here. The city itself is, well, just another city. Nothing special. Although it was interesting to see the building where Che Guevara was born, and the views from the 78m high ´Monument of the Flag´ (yes, a monument dedicated to the creation of the Argentina flag - people here are extremely patriotic with flags on almost very building) were good.

Salta

Elevation = 1200m
What a difference a few hours (17) north makes! Salta is very different to its southern city counterparts. The city has much less of a European look and feel to it, more of a big country town vibe. It ¨feels¨a lot more south american - a little more Andean and a little more ¨cowboy¨.

Nestled between two mountain ranges, Salta´s expanse can only best be appreciated from a higher vantage point. We decided to take the ageing cable car up the mountain which was a heart starter! We took in the view for a bit then strolled down by foot.

Argentina is known for it´s steaks so we decided to indulge. We were served about a half kilogram of tender beef each for $5. Washing that down with a couple of long neck beers for $2 each, this was a kings feast for a paupers price!

Sean had his shoes restored to new by a shoeshine boy. He got $3.00 for his troubles - a little more than he was expecting..

Humahuaca

Elevation = 3000m
The scenery on the bus journey from Salta to Humahuaca was amazing. We had front seats, along with a couple from Ireland, so we really got to enjoy the views.

Humahuaca is a mainly Quechuan (native South Americans) village, and here we started to feel like we were in the ´real´South America. All the buildings are made from adobe. These are clay-like bricks, which we saw being made alongside the river on the way into town. The streets and roads in the town are unsealed dirt roads. There are lots of cacti growing around the town and the views of the surrounding mountains are fantastic.

It´s warm during the day, but gets quite cold at night - as we found out when the clothes that we´d left outside to dry were frozen in the morning!

We just chilled out here for two days, enjoying the local food and music. We had llama one night for dinner which was pretty good.

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Photos

Monument to the flag
Rosario

Comments

[Don]

Wow!
Nice Pics! I's cool that you took the time to write up! I'ts still bloody cold in Melbourne!