Advertisement
Published: October 3rd 2007
Edit Blog Post
Buenos Aires, Uruguay and Iguazú - 15 September to 30 September 2007
After a night on the plane and a short stopover in Santiago, Chile, we arrived in Buenos Aires ready for anything. We were bemused by the blasé attitude of Argetine customs who waved us through as if they were surprised and even mildly irritated to see us, even though they'd made us fill out all the forms! We then avoided all the calls of 'taxi? taxi!' and ran for the bus to our hostel in the San Telmo area, so our long trip down to South America started with a plane, then a bus, then a van, leaving us to walk the last few blocks with our packs on our backs.
Buenos Aires is basically a big city with lots of people, cars, tall buildings and coffee bars. One of the first things we noticed was that very few people speak English and we were desperately trying to remember everything from our seven Spanish lessons in Sydney with a Chilean teacher who told us about our 'psychology' by comparing us to our favourite animals. But we get better by the day. It seems obvious, but you forget
how much you have to say to people in day to day life! Initially we kept to the words ´si´, ´no´, ´por favor´ and ´gracias´ but now we´ve become reasonably good at ordering food where the most important words are ´sin´ (without) and ´con´ (with).
We eventually got used to the fact that Argentinians eat late (there's not really any point in showing up at a restaurant until 10pm) and became quite fond of a cosy little pizzeria called La Moderna, which had a great desert called English Soap (?!).
After a few days in Buenos Aires seeing things like the Avenida de 9 Julio (the widest street in the world), the Obelisk (a big... well, obelisk), the Plaza de Mayo, the Casa Rosada (literally a pink house) and so on, we decided that we had had enough of the cold and rainy weather and would go to Uruguay for a few days.
We saved a few pesos and caught the slow ferry then a bus to Montevideo, a much smaller and quieter city than Bueos Aires. In Montevideo, the rubbish is collected by horse drawn carriage and bank security guards carry shotguns and submachine guns. We
Asado
Barbequed meat in Montevideo. took the time in Montevideo to explore the old city on foot, taking in a lot of the colonial architecture and seeing inside some of the old houses.
Three especially interesting things happened in Montevideo. First, it was interesting to see Montevideo turn itself inside out for Hollywood, shutting off streets and replacing real rubbish with stage rubbish for the filming of a Julliane Moore and Danny Glover movie (At the moment it's called Blindness, so look out!). We paused long enough to watch a scene being shot, craning our necks with the locals to see if we could spot a famous face. They second thing was that we were invited to participate in spontaneous art in the main Plaza Independencia. A scarf wearing Uruguayan artist was inviting strangers to kiss on camera in the middle of the plaza for a few seconds for a montage that was being broadcast from the window of an art gallery downtown. We gladly participated! The day after doing our duty for art, a third interesting thing happened to us; we had two of the biggest steaks we had ever seen! We went down to the port market which is mostly filled with
Cobblestone street in Colonia
One of the original Portuguese streets in Colonia from the 17th century. parilladas - restaurants that cook their food over wood fired bbq´s. The steak was beautifully cooked and very tasty and we didn´t eat much for dinner that night!
After Montevideo, we caught a bus to Colonia, which was founded by the Portuguese as a fort against the Spanish at Buenos Aires. The old city is very picturesque and easy to walk around. The place is pretty simple and we were glad that we only planned to spend one night there. We were lucky enough to see a primavera (spring) parade down the main street where school kids had put together floats based on different themes (greek mythology, superheroes, mimes etc). So finally, we saw some authentic South American culture!
Back in Buenos Aires, we were pleased to see that the weather had improved, although it was still quite cold. This time we spent more time at the lively San Telmo antiques market, and the shopping districts of Defensa and Florida avenidas. We also took a few rides on the squashy subway to see the Congreso building, where we took a tour of the Senate, and to the Recoleta Cemetery, which is a beautiful old necropolis of mausoleams and
Recoleta
We managed to find a few cats reclining at Recoleta. They added a living charm. family crypts (and we took a look at Evita´s burial place).
On the last day, we saw the colourful buildings and artists market at the poor suburb of La Boca and we left Buenos Aires rather worn out by the big city noise, mess and pace. We set our sights north, for the natural beauty of Iguazu falls! Traveling in first class lie-down coach with dinner and champagne, of course (it´s only $4 more than sitting up straight for the whole 18 hours!).
And Iguazu has been pretty good. Well, that´s the understatement of the century! Although when we got to our hostel room, Chela managed to break the faucet of the bathroom tap and caused a minor flood. She held the tap in the wall with all her might til the handyman arrived. We got a new, bigger room after that.
We spent two full days at the Iguazu National Park, and went everywhere where there was a path to go. The falls (plural) go for a long way, and we went to the bottom of them, the middle of them, the top of them and to islands and through forests and via boat to see
La Boca
Some famous Argentinian faces, including Gardel, a singer, Evita and Maradona. them! The Devil´s Throat was magnificent and the falls just went on and on. They were all over the place and rough feeling after the clean-cutness of Niagara, which suited the hot and steamy weather. There was one nice walk that was a bit of a trek (six kilometres or so), but it lead to this little waterfall that you could swim at the bottom of. We really enjoyed that.
The Iguazu National Park is also home to a huge variety of wildlife. At one point a picnic area was swarming with coatis, sort of like cats mixed with monkeys. We also saw big groups of colourful butterflies, including a whole flutter of bright yellow ones feeding around a mud puddle in the sun.
Next is Posadas with the ruins of Jesuit missions.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.092s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 9; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0421s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
shem
non-member comment
ooooh
lots of water everywhere