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Published: April 4th 2008
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Hello!
After a long bus journey from Cusco we arrived in La Paz for a short stop of a few days before catching our flight to Buenos Aires. We visited the witches market where they sell dried Llama foetuses which are supposed to be buried under the front door of a new house for luck - very bizarre indeed these Bolivians. Also went to the interesting coca museum, which documents the use of the coca leaf from harmless and surprisingly useful coca tea/leaf chewing to habitual cocaine use. Quite an interesting experience that sort of shows up Western stereotypical views of other cultural norms for what they really are a lot of the time-ignorant. On our last night in La Paz, being a little overwhelmed by all the culture we´d been absorbing for the last week we decided to go for a good English Indian Curry at a British owned curry house in the city-it was beautiful!!
Next, a short flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Buenos Aires is undoubtedly one of the loveliest cities either of us have ever visited. Janice and I both agreed we could easily live there for a while if given the chance. We
visited San Telmo market which features street Tango performances and you can pick up an antique Gramophone for next to nothing. Recoleta, the most ornate graveyard in the world is home to Evita´s grave and many other wealthy aristocrats from the city. We also visited Caminito Market in La Boca which was similar to San Telmo but in a poorer part of the city and has beautifully decorated shack-like houses and shops.
La Boca was also the setting for a strange incident for us. Whilst walking along looking like the incredibly naive tourists we are in one of the shadier neighbourhoods in South America a pleasant chappy walked up to Janice and ripped our camera straight out of her hands, she screamed and so both in flip flops we chased our slightly "Gordo" (chubby in Spanish) assailant across a busy street. When he realised we were catching him and hearing us abuse him with a mixture of fluent Spanish mixed with English obscenities he got scared (possibly because of my rippling muscles and imposing stature) and threw it back to us!!! Janice and Adam save the world fighting crime one fat-Argentinian-at-a-time! After our heroic efforts we started to trundle
back home when some of the worst football violence we´ve ever witnessed started to kick off in the area. One fellow walked past us with blood literally painted all over his body and a face a little similar to that of the Elephant man. Needless to say we left along with every other sensible human in the area to see on the news that around 180 people had been arrested shortly after we left! Phew that was quite some day!.
After Buenos Aires we headed to Uruguay with 4 others that we had met in a hostel (2 Aussies and 2 Geordies) and rented a nice little apartment close to the beach for a week of sun. It was a perfect contrast to the hustle and bustle of Buenos Aires and a great place to relax.
We headed back into Argentina after our holiday within a holiday via the delta of the Rio de la Plata (the River Plate in English) to the nice little town of Tigre where we relaxed for the evening, the river made for a lovely way to cross this particular border.
Our last site in Argentina to visit before heading into the
final country of our travels(!) was the spectacular Iguazu Falls. There are nearly 300 seperate falls at this one site and all are beautiful, the National Park that surrounds the falls is home to a massive variety of bird life and mammals including Eagles, Vultures, beautifully coloured Jays, Jaguars, Coatis (a type of raccoon) and many others. We spent a total of three days just visiting the different areas surrounding the falls. We also did a boat ride up the Rio Iguazu that took us directly under the falls just in case we didn´t realise that it is water that falls from those cliffs! We were suitably soaked.
Our third day at the falls was spent over the border in Brazil which is home to a more panoramic overview of the entire area around the falls and gives numerous photo opportunities.
After this last glimpse of Iguazu and a little showing of how incredibly insignificant humans are in the face of Mother Nature´s other creations we jumped on an overnight bus up to a town called Campo Grande in the Central West of Brazil where our final leg begins.
Tune in again for more exploits, until then
hugs and kisses.
We´ll see everyone very soon.
Lots of love
Adam and Janice xxxxxxxx
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Jasper
non-member comment
thanks
He Ad and Janice, I don't know how many blogs you're going to place after this one. But I want to thank you for having a nice trip with you guys!! See you in the Netherlands or somewhere in England! Jasper