One week into the trip

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The Supples are on the road again. We thought we´d worked enough in Santiago (3 months, that´s plenty!) and after our trip to the south of Chile for Christmas thought our backpacks needed another airing for a few months. Santiago was ok for a few months only, but inner city living and travelling on the crowded public transport system all over the place for work started to get us down. So we chucked in our job, gave up our apartment and hit the road!

Left Santiago a week ago by bus. We hadn´t really planned a direct route as such, all we´re going on at this stage is the amount of money we have, and the amount of time - around 10 weeks. So first stop was Santiago to Medoza (Argentina) by bus, yes that lovely little town where John got eaten alive by mozzies, we had a hotel with a broken toilet and had a bag stolen before Christmas. Ah, the memories.....The bus was by night from Santiago, we had great seats right at the front of the bus, great for amazing mountain views, but naturally it was dark (being a night bus and all) and we were snoring our heads off by around midnight.

Mendoza was only a stop off point for around an hour and a half to get our connection. We spent that time in a cafe, me clutching my bag furiously and looking out for my friend who had offloaded my luggage at the bus station previously. (I saw plenty of people who looked like him, there were a few dirty looks given.) Back onto the bus then for 12 hours, stopping in every god forsaken town between Mendoza and our first stop, Cordoba.

The hostel was pretty non-descript and so was the town. Added to the fact that we had started to experience the side effects of our yellow fever shots (symptoms of cold and a sore arm) we weren´t too enamoured by the place and I spent most of the first day sleeping, wiped out from the long bus journey and the heat, which was a lot more humid than the dry air of Santiago (but cleaner, granted).

After 2 nights in Cordoba we were back on the bus again, to Rosario, another 6 hours away. Whilst we had managed to get a quiet little hostel in Cordoba, Rosario was the place where we were going to feel our age. We decided to go rough (no double rooms anyway) and got 2 beds in an 8 bed dorm room, sharing with 6 blokes from the UK, Ireland, Oz and Brazil. Blokes who went out til 8 in the morning types.

Rosario had more to offer than Cordoba in terms of sites (a huge memorial devoted to the bloke who designed the Argentinian flag, I mean HUGE, all for a guy who thought to put 2 stripes of blue and stripe of white in the middle and a picture of a sun!) and a nice riverside area. Back at the hostel we made some dinner and met a few people, including a young British guy who knew everything there was to know about South America (despite not having been to most places), spoke great Spanish (despite not being able to string much of a sentence together) and had had his debit card stolen from Bolivia - in his sleep. "man, they´re good in Bolivia...and I´m a light sleeper!" After day 1 John and I affectionately named him "the rat" as he seemed to just be in every corner of the hostel, latching onto people and eating their leftovers (as long as they were vegetarian, even though his dinner of choice seemed to be pasta, cheese and lashings of balsamic vinegar. Hold me back.)

So a bad nights sleep in the 8 bed dorm as we anticipated the nocturnal return of our roomates and sweated away in the stifiling heat. I claimed the bottom bunk (yes, bunk beds people) so John had the top of a different bunk. During the night (before our friends had come back) he got up to go to the toilet and, not realising he was still asleep, tried to get out of the bed, from 6 feet up! I heard a huge crash and came back into the room to find him on his hands and knees without reaction, looking under his sheets for his ¨book and backpack¨only then actually waking up and realising his knee was hurt. Needless to say I slept in the top bunk that night and the next, and he developed a lovely rainbow bruise on his knee.

The next day we walked around the town and I had a lesson in making "mate" (mah-tay) - the drink everyone has in Argentina. We bought ourselves the special cups and straws from the supermarket and the woman in the hostel showed me how to make it, with just enough leaves and water. Everyday and on just about every street corner you see people sucking away on a mate, refilling it over the day. It´s essentially a really bitter kind of tea, looks like pieces of grass in a cup that you drink through a special straw with a strainer at the end. It´s kind of an acquired taste but we´re starting to get into our mates now.

2nd night of the hostel saw us again spending time with the rat, and offering him some spaghetti bol that John made ("nooooo, en Argentina, yo soy vegetarianoooooo" was the response, despite the fact that he looked like he needed more nourishment than pasta with balsamic sauce.) We had enough left to feed the guy on reception and an American guy that we met who was travelling alone and seemed to be sick of cooking by himself. He called us "the mom and dad of the hostel" when he came home from a day at the beach chasing a local girl, still hungover from his all night bender the night before (age is setting in). Our lads were out again all night and went to the Argentinan answer to carnival, so we had the place to ourselves, save for a new Argentinian guy who joined the room. He latched onto me straight away, almost as quickly as the rat, and started trying to speak Spanish to me. We could kind of communicate in a mixture between Spanish and English and I brought him out to the lads watching footy as I thought he might have more chance bonding and also being able to speak Spanish. Thinking I was rid of him I went back into the room and he followed me right in, this time to play me music from his phone (Britney Spears, Guns and Roses) When I pretended to read my book (a stupid book that I had no interest in, but anything to get away) he insisted on looking at it and was amazed that the "whole thing" was in English. Due to his lovely fuschia coloured shirt, we promptly named him "pinky" and spent a lot of time amusing ourselves with tales of Pinky and the Rat.

Pinky proved to be a bit of a dark horse (funny considering he was a vet!) and didn´t come back to the room again until 8a.m. after quickly becoming the sidekick of the Brazilian guy in our room, but as soon as head hit the pillow, was snoring in all his clothes. We meanwhile got up and packed, after another bad nights sleep, and headed for the bus to Buenos Aires (4 hours)

Another city, another hostel.....our 2nd time in Buenos Aires and what a delight. We wandered around the city and saw live tango on the street, samba bands and a carnival-type show. The place seemed to be more alive than it had before, a real summer vibe about the place. It was like coming back to see an old friend, the first city we had visited on the continent all those months ago, with the hindsight of Santiago to compare it to (and oh how much better she faired over Santiago) We decided to go all out and get ourselves a private room (bunk beds again! romantic!) and were impressed with the hostel until Mr Dj cranked up the disco and turned down the lights at 7pm and we couldn´t hold a conversation from the noise nor see our food in the dark. Feeling old, very old. We went and had some oldies time then back at a bar we went to when we were first in the city, and I tried the local tipple, fernet with coke, which basically tastes and looks like herbal medicine (so it must be good for you!).

What had planned to be one day in B.A. turned into 3. Our plan to come to Uruguay yesterday was foiled when we realised the boats only went early in the morning and late enough at night. So we changed hostels, took a day trip to nearby Tigre, did a boat trip down the delta and made our break for the border today.

Got the fast boat from Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacramento which is a lovely little port town in Uruguay. The crossing only took 50 minutes in a great modern ferry, we were here by midday. The town itself is old, wide, tree lined, cobbled streets on the river. Plan is to head north tomorrow, maybe another 7 hours by bus, to cowboy country. Hopefully survive tonight in another 8 bed dorm.....needless to say I have the top bunk.

Photos to follow....as soon as we can find a computer which isn´t an antique!

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Photos

Tango
Tango in the streets of Buenos Aires

Comments

[clair madden]

ha ha
right im liking it, seems like typical hostel life . its getting me all excited. im noting the tips that u give anyway - u modern day drifter u!! cant wait to hear more!!!

[Lyndal]

You need to work for Lonely Planet, you two! Very engaging writing! Or maybe you could just send the finished world blog into Harpers and claim the whole trip as a tax offset. Your whole life could actually be claimed as a tax offset! Maybe i should change my name.... i am starting to embarass myself. Miss you and hope you have a safe and fantastic roundabout trip to Melbourne!!! love Dubvegas dweller xx