Hasta Luego Argentina!

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Where to start?

I´m sitting at Salta airport about to head off to La Paz. There tiresome overnight buses got the better of me so I elected to buy some energy and fly into Bolivia.

Only a week in Argentina was obviously not enough and sometimes regretting trying to shove so many destinations into such a small amount of time really as it has only been a small sample of each place. Anyway, enough of the tired whinging. Vive Árgentina!

Buenos Aires
I know ive written about this place before in the last post but i was pretty hungover and probably didnt do it too much justice. BA and the portenos (people of BA) are truely amazing. I really didnt know what to expect from the first south american city i arrived into but I was pleasantly surprised. Its a massive bussling city of great contrast between the rich (palermo, recolleta etc.) and the poor (le boca). Despite having the top rating soccer club for god knows how long, Le Boca is a struggling community of poverty and has many dangerous neighbourhoods, hence I stayed on the main rd to go visit the tourist area which was filled with colour, tango, artists, restaurants, bars against a bleak shady port. The soccer stadium glows from a distance but also looks like it could fall over at any moment! Palermo/Recolletta on the other hand are squeeky clean rivalling the beautifully sculted ¨´The Rocks¨´ of Sydney. Bars full of young beautiful suave argentinians, where some were able to speak fairly good english after I had met a group at club Pacha one night. the people are very gregarious, confident, proud of their heritage and country, and have passion for life and each other that goes well above some of the equivalents in Aus. This passion is one of the main reasons for my travelling part of this trip, to understand how these people live and how they show their passion for each other. BA is definately a place that you could spend a lot of time, maybe even work, and i only touched the surface. I met some great people in the hostel also, mostly irish hence the 3 day hangover. but i had to take myself out of that scene to discover the city.

Mendoza
14 hrs later on an overnight bus that isnt too bad if ur paying first class rates and get a flat bed, but its still pretty expensive about AUD 100 for this trip. Mendoza is known for its wineries however when i got there, it wasnt quite like the yarra valley or mornington peninsula that i had been to but rather a much bigger town. a few things to see in the town but an hour bus ride out to the vineyards was the reason for my visit. there you can hire bikes for $10 and ride about 30kms in total to see around 5 or 6 wineries, sample some wine, chocolate, liquers, and there was even a local brewery with shady beergarden. i had met an irish guy who came along and two kiwi girls one of which could speak spanish which was very very handy. just on that point, its so hard to to things when you cant speak to the locals who have very varying levels of english, so a little help from a spanish speaking traveller is well appreciated. after the thunderstorm had passed the sun came out for us on the ride and despite a few near misses with cars and trucks on the rd from being a little intoxicated, it was a great experience with great wines!

Salta
Salta was my next most appropriate place to go on the way to bolivia that surpirsed me with its great colonial architecture int he city. After heading on the overnight bus on Route 40, the road that Che Quvera took on his journey along the ridge of the Andes, arrived in salta. Some bungy jumping (about 100m!), puenting, and walks up the mountains was awesome.

Reflections on Argentina
- great diverse place with a passion for life despite class or social position.
- very healthy confident attractive locals
- the language barrier isnt so bad in BA but is a significant problem if you really want a full argentinian experience.
- huge country with so much to do and see
- havnt been called a gringo yet (like i was in mexico!) even though people know i couldnt possibly be from argentina.
- big city, massive population breeds diversity in people, shops, bars, clubs etc. which is always busy!
- south americans tend to whinge a lot, hence the public protests all the time!
- As Arni says, ¨´hasta la vista¨´ or hasta luego, ill be back!

J

ps. sorry no photos this time... even though i dont think a photo could ever do this place any justice!

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