Northern Argentina

---

Northern Argentina travel update

After two and a half months travelling through Peru and Bolivia, it was a bit of a culture shock (a very pleasant one!) coming over the border into Argentina. The change in living standards is like chalk and cheese between Argentina and these two countries! Once again driving on sealed roads, having toilet paper in toilets, cafes with decent coffee, rubbish bins to throw out rubbish, no stale bread, and decent sized supermarkets and pharmacies to name but a few.

Anecdote: Apparently drug trafficking from Bolivia into Argentina is a big problem. We saw this first hand on the bus we took from the Bolivian border to Salta. Around midnight, half way to Salta the bus was stopped next to a little hut in the middle of no where and all the passengers had to get off the bus, collect their bags from the hold and present them to these uniformed officers. Not really knowing what was going on, and still half asleep, we worked out that they are narcotics police. As we are standing in the line waiting our turn, we watched some of the Bolivians in front of us getting their bags searched. The police had absolutely no respect for their belongings. They were pulling handfuls of clothes from their bags and just dumping them on the ground. They searched through the entire bag like this until it was empty, and then kicked what was at their feet out of the way and went on to the next bag. The poor Bolivian then had to go and pick everything off the ground and pack it back into their bags. Patty watched this all with a look of horror on her face, as she had spent the best part of an hour neatly packing all of her freshly washed clothes into her bag, and then sitting on it to get the bag closed since it was that full. The closer we got to the front of the line, with everyone being searched, she began cursing under her breath that these guards had better not do to her bag what they were doing to the people in front of us. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see any fireworks from Patty, as the guards only checked our passports, and seeing that we were tourists, didn’t even open our bags, and Patty got to breath a huge sigh of relief.

Our first stop in Argentina was Salta. This was a beautiful colonial city in the north of Argentina. Getting back to a more civilized country, we made the most of the historic plaza and outdoor cafes to wine and dine ourselves almost every night that we were there, trying to find the best Argentinian steak and wine. Although we didn’t find it, we did discover the best media lunas (translation: half moons), a typical Argentinian glazed croissant that they have for breakfast! Delicious! We also did a couple of day trips from here through the regions to the south and north, which was once the bed of an ocean. During these trips we saw some amazing sedimentary formations where wind and rain have eroded away the deposits to form incredible valleys with multilayered colors and bizarre shapes. The only bad part about the trips was we were stuck on a little bus most of the day to get to the different sites, and then at each site you only got 15 minutes or so before you were loaded back on to the bus. So by the end of these two days of this we were well and truly over buses and vowed not to do another tour on a bus for the rest of the trip, as they are just too rushed and you feel like a sheep getting herded around.


Anecdote: Our arrival in Salta almost got off to a super bad start. In the first hostel that we checked into, Patty had taken a shower and managed to drop her pyjama bottoms on the floor and got them wet. Outside our room was a gas heater and so Patty decided to dry her pyjamas out by draping them over the gas heater for a short time. However, typical of Patty, she got distracted and forgot all about them and it wasn’t until I came out of the room ten minutes later to go have a shower that I was hit by the stench of burning material. I quickly saw what was causing it and grabbed Patty’s previously light blue pyjamas, now a crispy brown color, from off the gas heater, which wouldn’t have been more than a minute away from catching on fire and burning down the hostel! I’m not sure the travel insurance would have covered that one.

From this point the distances between sights we wanted to see became quite large. Rather than flying, we decided to give the overnight buses a test run and see how we went, first up with a 22 hour bus journey from Salta to Puerto Iguazu, on the border of Argentina and Brazil. We found that the bus trip wasn’t difficult to handle at all, as they had big comfortable leather reclining seats (similar to a business class seat in a plane), they played numerous recent release movies throughout the trip, and even had a bus attendant to serve food, drinks and entertained us by hosting a bingo game! We decided that any places we could get between in under 24 hours, we would be willing to do by bus since we both managed to get at least 9 hour sleep.

We spent a couple of days at Iguazu Falls, checking them out from both the Argentinian and Brazilian sides. The falls were an amazing sight to see! The falls are almost 3 kilometres in length with two main sections, both in the shape of a U, where the majority of the water flows, absolutely breath taking! You could get quite close to both these U sections, and the thunder of the water over the falls with huge sprays of water mist made talking difficult it was that loud. The first day we went to the Argentinian side, which offered an up close and personal look at the falls, with quite a few walking tracks and bridges at the top of the falls and also down the side and front of the falls. This took a full day to get to all the viewing platforms, especially as you had to battle the multitude of other tourists for prime positions to take photos. We also took a boat ride which took you UNDERNEATH one of the smaller waterfalls, so we got completely drenched and had to spend a couple of hours drying off. The second day we went to the Brazilian side which provided a more distant, panoramic view of the falls. There was also a long bridge over the top of one section of the falls to a viewing platform which gave a very close view of the devils throat, the largest of the waterfalls, and where we once again got a bit wet from the sheets of water spray coming off the falls. We were very fortunate that both days were beautiful and sunny, so we got to really enjoy the 2nd largest waterfalls in the world (Victoria Falls in Africa is the largest.)

Anecdote: Upon arriving in Iguazu Falls, on the border of Argentina and Brazil, we found out that Australians require a visa to enter Brazil. This took a day to organise, and the whole time Patty was teasing me about needing to pay for a visa, while she didn’t, as she had her Colombian passport. (Normally it is Colombians that need a visa to get into most countries outside of South America.) After organising the visa, the following day we decided to do the day trip across the border so that we could see Iguazu Falls from the Brazilian side. So we get to the Argentinian border and go to immigration to exit the country. It is at this point Patty, who has only brought her Colombian passport with her, realises that she entered Argentina on her Australian passport, and needs this to be able to exit the country! We find out that we are able to pay a fine to get the exit stamp from the country (which was much easier than trying to get back to the hotel and get Patty’s Australian passport) and so we pay this fine. So after all the teasing I received from Patty regarding the visa I had to pay for, we ended up paying pretty much the same price for her fine! So then it was my turn to tease her.

From Iguazu we travelled through Brazil for about 3 weeks, before flying from back into Buenos Aires (BA) to continue our Argentinian travels (see Brazilian update). Buenos Aires was once again another large city, with a very European feel about it. There were innumerable beautiful, old colonial buildings / churches / museums and government buildings. There was a vibrant nightlife here with a whole street filled with theatres hosting various tango dancing, singing and performing arts displays.

One of the first things we did was go to a dinner and tango show. This was a very touristy affair, but very well organised and coordinated. The Argentinian steak we had here was once again below the standard we were expecting, but the show itself was very entertaining! The dining area was very beautiful, with high ceilings, terraces and decked out in colonial style with huge crystal chandeliers and mood lighting. The show was on a stage which overlooked the dining area, so once dinner was over, all you had to do was turn around to watch the performance. This also meant we continued to get drinks service throughout, so we both ended up a bit tipsy by the end of the night. Above the stage was a 12 piece orchestra including violins and the typical accordions that punctuate all tango music. All the dancers looked very sharp in their 1920’s suits and gowns and they were all stunning dancers! I reckon they must have double jointed knees to do the amazing kicks in and around and between each others legs, all while staring into each others eyes! It’s such an intense and sexy dance you don’t even want to blink while watching.

While in Buenos Aires, we did A LOT of walking! We were staying in a hostel in San Telmo, in the southern part of the city. This suburb had a grungy, working class mixed with an arty / bohemian feel about it (a bit like West End in Brisbane) and it was quite a cheap and central area to base ourselves. It is also the place where we found our favourite street market. Every Sunday the main street running between the city and San Telmo, more than 3km in length, is shutdown to traffic and an antique market ensues. This has grown over the years to include street performers, tango dancing exhibitions, very funky and creative arts and crafts and food stalls. The whole street is abuzz with people, many just enjoying the atmosphere drinking wine or eating in the open air cafes, mainly around the San Telmo plaza where the market first began.

Every day we would plot a route from where we were staying to an area of the city we wanted to see and then spend the whole day walking there, around the sights and back again.

Some of the more interesting places that we visited during our stay were the Evita Peron museum, the Recoleta cemetery the La Boca football stadium and Caminito in the Boca neighbourhood. Eva Peron was the first lady of the Argentinian president in the 1940 / 50’s, and was instrumental in improving the lives of the underprivileged (homeless / unemployed / elderly / sick / orphaned children) by bringing in welfare payment policies, starting charities and building hospitals and orphanages, and is seen as a hero by the Argentinian people. She achieved an amazing amount in her life which was cut short by cancer at the age of 32. The Recoleta cemetery is where all the rich people in BA are buried. There are these massive shrines and crypts where entire families have their remains kept. This is also where Eva Peron was buried, and it was a bit like a treasure hunt to try and find her grave amongst the rows and rows of tombs (well really, streets and streets, as each tomb was more like a little house!). La Boca stadium is where the most famous and successful soccer team in BA plays, where soccer is almost a religion since the fans are that passionate about it. The team is also famous as this is where Diego Maradona started his football career. We did a two hour tour finding out the history of the team and the stadium, and also visiting a museum housed in the basement of the complex. We got shown the section of the stadium where all the rough, super passionate supporters (hooligans) are contained, behind a 10m high fence. Whenever a goal is called, they all come charging forward to the fence and start partially scaling it, shaking it and roaring at the top of their lungs in celebration. Also in the La Boca suburb near the stadium is the street called Caminito, which is a quaint couple of streets where all the houses have been painted bright colours and every Saturday there are art and craft markets along its length, filled with shops and outdoor cafes with live music accompanied by tango shows.

Anecdote: Another funny thing we saw during our walks worth mentioning was the professional dog walkers! Around some of the parks we visited, there would be guys walking upwards of 30 dogs at a time. They looked like a cork in the middle of a sea of canines! It was amazing how well behaved the dogs were though, all with super happy looks on their faces, tongues hanging out and never fighting amongst themselves. The only problem with so many dogs was that the handler doesn’t pick up after the dogs, which meant the parks and side walks were littered with dog turds that you had to be constantly alert for. Both Patty and I got caught out not paying enough attention in BA and ended up with a stick scraping poo off our shoes on more than one occasion!

We spent nearly a week in BA and by the end of it, we were both well and truly over the hustle and bustle of large cities. Having spent the majority of the last month between Sao Paulo, Rio De Janeiro and now Buenos Aires we were both now really looking forward to the next part of our travels, the untouched and wild Patagonian region in the southern part of Argentina and Chile. Back to nature and some trekking! Until our next update, stay tuned!

---

Photos

P1110742
Beunos Aires - dinner and tango show

P1110652
Beunos Aires - mechanical flower that opens and closes on sunrise / sunset

P1110593
Beunos Aires

P1110596
Beunos Aires

P1110604
Beunos Aires

P1110615
Beunos Aires - Recoleta Cemetery

P1110618
Beunos Aires - Eva Perons grave stone in Recoleta Cemetery

P1110622
Oblisk in Buenos Aires

P1110624
Buenos Aires - professional dog walker

P1110631
Beunos Aires

P1100566
Iguazu falls