Advertisement
Someone otherwise inconsiquential once recorded that the only two things of value his father taught him were to never make excuses for late letters or for bad spelling. Anyone who´s ever recieved a letter from me knows I´m in perpetual breach of the former and anyone who reads this blog is about to suffer the later - these blogs are speed typed at dusty and malfuntioning internet cafes, often on keyboards who´s key symbols lie to you. As a result I apologise if our spelling lacks something (Namely accurracy) and hope meanings are still there. As we have time we are steadily correcting our more creative entries. Plus Ian just down right can´t spell.- David
Sunday the 2nd of July , were still alive and in Buenos Aires. I'm writting this a coule of days behind but hay.
The most urgent thing we needed to get done was to cash some travelers cheques into the Argentine Peso. However it took about 2 hours and five miles of searching before we realised it was Sunday and subsiquently every bank was closed (We were shouted at once or twice by guards for trying to force doors open). As that took
Recoleta 2
A Street of the Deadup a large portion of the morning we decided to head to the famous Recoleta Cemetery where all the dead and famous of Argentina are buried. The cemetry is amazing and really is a city of the dead with thousands of tombs each containing multiple bodies. A lot of the tombs only have glass or wire mesh doors segments and through these you can easily see the coffins atop small marble plinths; the tombs also go down to a hugh depth and in some of them you can see tens of coffins down to the bottom. It´s an eary and creapy thought to be so close to so many dead bodies. There are also a hugh amount of cats just milling round the cemetary wandering in and out of the tombs.
After that we walked quickly down to San Telmo as they close off the main street on a Sunday and have a street party with Tangos and Mime Artists etc. They also had a huge arts and antiques market which we happily broused with no intent to buy. As we arrived here late it was dying down so we headed to the renovated dockland district of Peuto Malderno. On
Street Tango
In San Telmo on a sunday night the way there we stopped of to grab an ice cream since they have some weird and wacky flavours. This area is the young/hippish/city/yuppie people area where you go to be seen and look cool or otherwise. There are two main walkways that run either side of four large docking areas, with old warehouses that are now posh resteraunts and large apartmant buildings. They also seem to have a thing for large cow statues in improbable places or just lining the street that are, we think, a memorial to the beef trade that used to flow out of these docks. As the restaunts in this area are very expensive we decided to try and find a cheaper place by heading into town. We stumbled onto the main pedestrianised street which even at this lateish hour was buzing with people and open shops. One of the shopping centres was Galerias Pacifico which is a large indoor centre with a lot of upmarket shops and a painted gallery more reminicient of some renaisance church; a high cieling which is covered in a large murial of godlike people. We finally managed to get out and find some food which was less than great,
Shopping
Just your average shopping centre with your average frescos. a kind of mixed grill with everything including a bad black pudding, kindney, and things that just looked like intestines. None of these looked very nice, and upon investigation none of these were very nice. Afterwards we went back to the hostel and drank with some other travlers and the owners, none of which were good English speakers, then they all started having a go at England, not impressed, but we fought back and in the end everyone ended up producing the most absurd insults about each others countries; the final blow for the UK being that apparently we have bad shopping in Coventry and a game which lasts five days, after which foreigners still aren´t sure who´s won. - Ian
At present sat in a slightly smelly internet cafe in a place called Postados, around a 1000k from Buenos and waiting for a bus to take us another 1000 to a place called Salta (Famous for it´s salt - I sometimes wonder if leaving Ian in charge of the Itinerary was a good idea).
By day three in Buenos we definitaly had itchy (And blistered) feet - it seems you either see Buenos and decide you want to
Steaks
Steaks as big as me, how could we not be happy? marry it (Most people), or decide you need to see something slightly greener and breath air less than 50% pollution (Us). We tried to get an airline ticket for Rio but apparently the main airline is "Broken", meaning ticket prices have gone temporarily through the roof and we declined the chance to double the budget of our trip. Insted we booked a (Bus) ticket up to Igazu (on the Argentine/Brazil/Paraguy border) and found ourselves with half a day and little to do, so decided to vary our routine and head for a steak house. What we found however was a steak palace, on either side in the entrance were racks of cooking carcases which tourists were queing up to have photos taken next to. Taking this as a good omen I ordered the largest thing on the menu (Ian was slightly more reserved) and we boarded the bus shaking slighly but feeling pleasantly full.
The busses in South America are unlike buses anywhere else. We were on the top floor in the front seats so had a panoramic view of the countryside - there we only three seats across the width of the bus and they recided to almost flat
Sleepy Mayhem
The Busses were so good, the flash woke me up though gurrrrrrrrrrrr with feets rests that come out aswell. What´s more you´re regularly fed, shown films and brought wine and towards the end of the trip champage awell. This considered a 17 hour bus journey seems much less of a chore.
Igazu is famous for its waterfalls which it claims (And I tend to agree based on personal experience) are the most spectacular in the world. But we arrived at 3pm so there wasn´t time to see them on day one, so we booked two nights and setled down by the pool. The hostel was more akin to the hotels in Kenya I stayed in with my parents than a youth hostel with the important difference that the pool wasn´t heated - thus having endured the ordeal of diving in and going about 20 seconds without being able to breath we were able to pick a good spot and watch other mugs repeat our mistake. We also got chatting to a couple of Canadians (Colin and Ginette), which turned into dinner, then drinking games and then bit of a hangover as we set off for the falls absurdly early (about 9) the next morning.
There´s not really much to write about the
Igazu hostel
You call this a hostel, wheres my Margaritta falls that can´t be better shown by the photos - just bear in mind that these things cover an area the size of a small town and there´s actualy a mini railway that runs from end to end and takes about 15 minutes. We also went swimming in the lee of an island at the bottom of the falls until a guard, seeing someone was having fun (Or fearing for our saftey, one of the two) started whistling at us to stop.
Headed back to the hostel and an all you can eat barbeque. - David
Seeing as Daves´ description of the falls lacks a little enthusiasium I will try to describe them a bit more. Firstly there´s the main fall known as the Devils Throat. Here thousands of gallons of water rush over the side of a level escartment and plunge around 200ft down into a steep gorge in a horse shoe formation with hundreds of birds swooping into the mist below. The site of a hugh wall a water just dropping away infront of you is epic, and could be described as similar to sailing to the edge of the world. The falls then send up a
hugh plume of spray that reaches far above the top of the canyon and soaks everbody that stands there to watch. With the noise created by the crashing water, we had to shout to each other when just standing a few feet away.
There´s another long walkway that leads down and past many other smaller waterfalls. The path led us onto the valley floor where we took a short boat across the river to an island in the river which is like being in a lost world in the middle of the waterfalls that strech all around you, any gaps being filled with the dramitic cliffs and exotic foliage.
We managed to get up early the next morning and pack all our clobber away in time to cheak out. We went outside to try and catch the local bus to town to avoid paying the higher taxi rate, but whilst there a taxi driver came up to us and offered to take us into town, we declined, but him taking this as a bargining technique offered to take us in for only 3 Pesos. We agreed and in town we paid the 3 Pesos and walked away to book
Lost world
Some more water. our bus, but after around 30 seconds the taxi driver came back and asked us for two more Pesos (30 seconds being the time it took him to count the money and then think "How about I annoy these rich tourists and get them to give me two more pesos"). We bluntly said no and walked off. Then he took my hand put the money we had given back in my hand and demanded 5 Pesos, more than a little annoyed we just put the money on the floor infront of him and left to book our buses. He with another with another, boss looking, driver and the two of them stood there arguing with us for 2 Pesos. They then pretended (we think) to call the police. At this point I suggested to Dave that we just pay them, but he said no, shrugged and told them to do as they liked. Luckly our bus arrived before the police and we left. A very tense half an hour.
We headed to San Ignacio where there are some Jesuit ruins. After looking round the ruins and a wacky museum we found a small place to have dinner at 50p a
And more water
Went swimming in the pool at the bottom. head, played chess (2-3 to Dave at the moment in our South America series) and hunted for a spot to camp. David wanted to rough camp but I suggested a small campsite, we investigated the price of a scooter (I think Dave has some strange scheme in mind) and went to bed.
Next morning got a bus to Postados where we change buses for Salta. - Ian
Advertisement
Tot: 0.124s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 13; qc: 69; dbt: 0.0723s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Lucy
non-member comment
Lucky buggers!
Hey guys! I have been following your journalness and I have to say it makes a very very good bed-time read! Keep it up :)