Route Update

From Mendoza I travelled to Salta, a nice place to relax if the weather is nice but for me i think that there were better locations we could have been if given the time and route.

I met up with Claire and Melissa (both from the Antarctica trip) and Jamie and Liz and we finally left Chile and headed to San Pedro De Atacama.

As the name suggests, this town is right on the edge of the Atacama Desert, it is the driest place on erath, with 330 days of nonestop sun a year!! this makes for great activities and really dramatic landscapes.

We did sand boarding (which I loved) and also took bikes out in to the desert - that was madness!! it must have been 30+ in the shade!! we also did a star gazing tour which was really great fun, i will post something more about that in a bit!

The basic reason to go into Chile again was to be in the Desert but more importantly it is the southern launch pad for the Salar De Uyuni trips. these trips take you into the most mind blowing salt falts in the world. more about that later too!!!!

Mendoza - not your typical copa de vino!!

Well from the tranquility of El Bolson I left to travel to Mendoza. Known to the world for being in the centre of South America winelands and grape growing region, Mendoza is truly blessed with amazing weather, scenes and mountiains.

With all this in mind I arrived fully expecting the jaw dropping beauty that we witnessed travelling through the New Zealand wine making regions, however I can honestly say it wasn´t to be!!

The town is perfectly pleasent, with large spacious parks and plaza´s, but the wine region is more about manufacturing and factory production. A winelands bike tour would take you out on dusty roads sharing the path with large trucks full of grapes - not something i was up for therefore i spent more time in the wonderful resturants that cover this town.

Also its at times like this you are thankful for meeting up with friends. Jana, Phil and Dom (Friends from Antarctic trip) where already there, i also met Jamie and Liz and James from El Bolson, great times!!

We had a fun lunch and then went on to the Vines of Mendoza tasting rooms - a sepcial afternoon!

A concert ticket for Milk...

This is the best form of charity I have seen a long time...

I was walking around the historic centre of Mendoza looking for intersting stuff to do, and came across a poster for the annual Mendoza Wine and Music festival, knonwing nothing about it, but being interested in getting a bit of muscial culute in, i headied inside searching for the ticket office.

My Spanish is pretty rubbish to be honest but I managed to find the security guard and ask him (somehow!!!!) where the ticket office was. He was a little confused but seemedd to know what I was on about. however his reply threw me right off, he told me to follow him, and kept talking about LEche Leche. Now from my basic Spanish - mainly from the coffee con leche, i knew this was milk...

Milk???? what was he on about??? Finally after much climbing we arrived at the office of the director of culture for Mendoza, umm worrying, was i gonna get a telling off, what!!!??

It transpired that the concert series was sponsored by the Rotary club of Mendoza and if people donated 800gms of milk powder, you could have 2 free tickets to withever performance caught your eye. Inspired!!!!

After much searching for a supermarket that did not honour the standard half day siesta, i finally got the 2 boxes of full fat milk powder, handedthem in and got my tickets, from the director no less!!

The performance chosen was wonderful, it was in a converted wine factory, where the owners have done half of the warehouse and production plant up, so the space was really dramatic and moody the group were a famous (not to me!!) Argentine male singing quartet, who sung in both Spanish and English. they did a mix of classical songs thatthe whole audience apart from me understood and enjoyed hugely, and also a range of gospel greats in English, that whole audience apart from me were lost too!!!!

All in all the concert was really fun, and the singing high quality. more than that however i was glad to have been able to contribute to a good cause. that made the gospel singing even sweeter!!!!

El Bolson - the art of relaxation

My first stop after saying good bye to Urvi was the small encampment in the Argentinian lake district called El Bolson. Located perfectly between two mountian ranges, one of which were the Andes, this town is pretty, artsy and perfect for relaxing. There is some outstanding trekking around these parts but despite arriving with the intention to explore I just was taken by the easy pace of the place and the hostel I stayed at.

Located 3kms outside of the town, el publieto was a cosy cottage of a place, the creaking wooden main house could have come straight from a Laura Ingles Wilder novel such as a little house on the prairy, the mountians towered around us and once you arrived you found it hard to leave. Of course what made the stay here perfect was the community feel. It was not a big hostel so pretty much immediately on arrival I found myself talkin to new folks and sharing travelling experiences. I found it was not a place that attracted the wide eyed gap year traveller, so there was something special about each of the people who found themselves there. This was really exciting and made for hugely interesting conversations.

Funnily enough I bumped into James (from El Chalten) at the hostel, and met some of the friends he had met on the 26hr bus journey - Jamie and Liz, and Tyrone all from London. Together with Lindsey and Jennifer from the US we formed a really nice group. Together with a number of people the stay in El Bolson was super cool and relaxed. I really felt that I had time to think and really reflect on some major issues in my life.

We spent a beautiful Sunday at the local lake which had crystal clear and super cool water, together with a simple packed lunch we had a great deal of interesting am funny conversation, it really reflected the value of having friends and doing stuff with them. It a simple and yet memorable day in a memorable and special place. El Bolson is the type of town that holds you safely and let's you think, play or simply be.

Sent from my iPod

Arrival to the end of the world

We have now left BA after 10 days of really enjoying this city. We could have stayed there longer and Urvi may well go back, but it was time to move on and get down to one of the highlights of South America for me – Patagonia and the far far south. We took a flight to cover the few 1000 kms that stretch between the capital city and the southern most tip of the country, the continent and pretty much the world! And as we arrived on the final descent you traverse mountains and mist, and see glimpses of the wild southern ocean – it really feels like the end of the world. We have only been here a for a day but first impressions are that Ushuaia is pretty rugged, and reminded us a bit of Listvyanka in Russia and Lyttleton port in New Zealand. This is a town full of the southern blues – it is basically the southern most town in the world, housing the southern most library, newspaper office, Main road and railway line. Ushuaia airport is the southern most civil airport in the world too!

The town is in the centre of the Tierra Del Fuego national park, and its pretty spectacular with the sea on one side and the snow capped mountains on the other side. There is a real hill station, vacation town kind of feel with a heady mix of rich western tour groups, people departing on once in a life time trips to Antarctica and intrepid backpackers all making it here and sharing the same special town. Regarding the backpackers, I think it is clear that Ushuaia is a place that is a considered destination for backpackers, by that I mean that its not on the main well trodden path and not full of 19 somethings looking for the next party. We really enjoyed the people that we have met so far and have picked up a few more good friends.

The weather is notably colder and as we arrived, the rain was drip dripping around us, this is a windy old place and we will have to get used to this type of climate as we travel on north. We plan on being here in Ushuaia for a few days and then the only way is up so we will track back up through Patagonia and cris-cross over the Chile – Argentine border a few times.

I will update more very soon with pics of this amazing place!

Buenos Aires – cultured and colourful

I don’t know why but we arrived in South America with a totally naive assumption that it was a huge wild west, full of dusty ragged towns and tough people. If there is one thing I have learned on this trip it’s that most of my preconceptions have in one way or another been totally blasted out of the water! This is of course a good thing and really happened in Buenos Aires. BA is nothing like the Wild West and it is not at all dusty. BA is full of wonderful architecture, amazing culture buzz and great great people. In our travels so far we had heard many good things about BA but really I think it exceeded our thoughts and expectations many fold.



So what makes this city so great? I guess it is many things for many people but the biggest thing for me was feeling that I was back in a big city full of culture and substance. By this I mean that there is a confidence to the place, without being overly arrogant (most of Argentina thinks that people in BA are very snooty!), there were things to do and see, and places just to be. I felt that we could be ourselves and it was ok, and we never felt that things were boring or dull. It felts familiar and safe in my head – the city is a combination of Europe, America and South America in feel. Things seemed to work well, and the infrastructure is good and cheap. Mostly (as ever) the people are the thing that makes the city. BA people are nice, cultured, colourful and really good fun to be with. All in all a wonderful place to start, end or continue your trip!



We spent 10 days in total in the city, and loved every moment of it. Sure you find annoyances here, but where don’t you? The Weekend markets that are raved about in the guidebooks were a tad touristy but to be honest that was the only let down from my part and more about the guidebooks than BA. It is big place but never did wee feel overwhelmed by it. The residential suburbs really feel like small towns in them selves and the small cosy trattorias (Italian for restaurant) are everywhere. There are 5 main areas that we spent time in in BA and as with any great city, they were all very individual in feel.



La Boca – Honest working class, reputed to be a little unsafe, but full of colour. A really important place for Tango and FOOTBALL!! We saw the tango; we missed the football, (Shame)
San Telmo – Arty and crafty, full of antiques, and cafes, it was an awesome place to sit by and watch the world go by.
Central city – Jaw dropping architecture along huge avenues and boulevards, full of nice shops (and some not so nice!) we spent a fair bit of time here trekking between airline offices and great buildings.
Recoleta – the posh end of town, amazing houses, great cafes and restaurants and the world famous recoleta cemetery. The cemetery is full of very large very famous family crypts, some more than 2 floors tall, and all very individually designed and crafted. This is the Knightsbridge of cemeteries, and in addition to housing the crypt of Eva Peron (argentines most famous first lady) many many famous clans are here. The cemetery is amazing for 2 main reasons, firstly because of the scale and grandeur of the architecture and the very non cemetery feel to the place (there is no grass, there are paved streets and it has an almost residential suburb feel). It amazes me secondly because of the stories behind the people there. There were many famous and not so famous people here, but there were stories everywhere. The most interesting crypts for us were the ones which were almost derelict, what happened to thouse families? What are their stories? Fascinating.



The final area we spent time in was Palermo. This is the ultra chic part of town. There are tonnes of hugely expensive boutiques, awesome bars, and restaurants that blow your mind. Having said all this there was such a relaxed neighbourhood feel to this place. I loved it and Urvi wanted to stay a month more!!!



Generally speaking Urvi and I know we are city people, we love the buzz and the action, the jostling and the congestion. It makes us feel connected and alive I guess. We were therefore always gonna like BA, but it was a surprise just how much it took us. I loved the ambience and the sights and sound all around us. We could go back in a second but again there is much to do and see on this trip and another major highlight awaits us in Patagonia!

Cuban Embassy - A Lesson in Not Judging a Book by its Cover

I have been to quite a few embassies, consulate offices, and border crossings before and during this trip, and we have had quite a few interesting experiences! I recall the Mongolian embassy which was a tiny cubby hole in the cellar of a Knightsbridge mansion; the Laos embassy in Saigon, where they took so long to process a simple visa that we really got a taste for how laid back Laos the country would be. I recall crossing over into Nepal, only to realise that we had no papers and after 15mins we had to go back! I recall the scary Chinese, and the wonderfully polite Japanese border guys. There are so many stories.

However when we started thinking about going to Cuba, we were kind of filled with a bit of worry regarding how we were gonna get the visa. We had heard stories of people having to get the visa from the country they lived in and also that visas were only valid from when they were issued. If these rumours were true we were scuppered!

To cut a long story short, the Cuban embassy in BA is the best embassy I have ever been to. People are friendly, polite and were there to help you. It didn’t feel that they were doing you a favour in any way, and to be honest it was the quickest process ever, 5 minutes and we had our Cuban Visas! Hooray we are going to Cuba!!!! All the rumors were unfounded and the visa is in hand.

BA Fly Drive

Ok, so the bus trips we have taken so far have mainly been in South East Asia, and have been of varied quality to say the least. They were pretty cheap, but pretty ropey in the main! I mean travelling 12 hours over night in a rickety ‘air conditioned’ bus with really loud movies was not much fun. So when we heard that travelling in South America by bus would involve travelling for 30-50 hours filled us with a little worry! However I have to say that the trip from Rio to Iguaçu calmed our nerves, as the bus was awesome, comfortable and on time!



You can therefore imagine our anticipation when we heard about the Suite buses they have in Argentina! Yup just like first class suites on planes now a days, these buses have video on demand, full food services, totally lay flat beds, in individual suites and ample space and service. The 17hours it took from Iguaçu to Buenos Aires flew by on our fly drive! Even better than everything else and rare even for Japan, was that the bus had Wi Fi!!!!



Who said South America was a total dust bowl, where travelling was horrific! I know this is just one of the journeys we will take, and I am sure that we will have many, tougher trips, but it really does pay to revel in this kind of service once in a while.

In The Throat of the Devil

I have been to Niagara Falls in my youth, and I remember feeling completely tiny under next to the immensity of the water and the roar of the falls; however the Iguaçu falls that fall between Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina make Niagara look like a dripping tap. There are over 200 falls in total and the main fall – the devils throat – has twice the amount of water cascading over it than the whole Niagara complex. It is huge and looking over it and into the mist makes you feel as if you are really looking into the throat of the devil. The falls of Iguaçu are totally bewildering in their complexity and force, as I said there are many many falls, and so you are treated to the intense curtain of torrents and winding rivers, that then drop of the side of the earth all at once. Everywhere there is water and everywhere there is noise.





We saw the falls from both the Argentine and the Brazilian side, this is really popular way to do it, but if the budget is tight or time is an issue, go straight to the Argentine side, no question. It is one the most impressive natural wonders I have witnessed.



You walk around a massive national park, with a fascinating array of flora and fauna in its self, and all you hear is the roar of water, then close on the horizon you see the spray, the mist the breath of the devil. The falls are all around and just awesome.



We didn’t do the boat tour up to the falls, but to be honest they were impressive enough from the viewing walks below and above the cascades. I didn’t think that I was gonna be so impressed by these falls, and that was mainly because they don’t hold any ‘records’ of being the tallest or largest etc but they are one of the most impressive collections I have seen. We will be going to Victoria Falls too in Africa and if Iguaçu is anything to go on they will be jaw dropping.



On an aside, does anyone know why falls seem to be placed on borders so often?? Niagara – US and Canada, Victoria – Zim, and Zambia etc?? Maybe one of unknowns of the world!