Jun 2007

Suffered the 36 hours round trip to the falls at Puerto Iguazu, right on the northern border with Brazil. Took a luxury bus there and back, so it wasn't all bad. The buses in Argentina are great.

The seats basically recline to horizontal if you pay a wee bit more, and you get fed and DVD's to watch. A far cry from the buses in Bolivia that are like you're sitting on a moving toilet. Also, the farters and snorers seem to prefer the cheaper buses here which is the real bonus. We also got a glass of wine with our meal on this trip, and choice of champagne or whisky on the way back down. Felt like royalty. Not a lot to Puerto Iguazu so when we arrived early in the morning we just got a place to stay then headed straight to the falls. At the bus station we met up with a Norwegian guy called Lussef and spent the day at the falls with him.

He had very good English which made things easier as my Norwegian isn't up to much.

The falls are incredible. Really worth a visit even though it was a long way. There are loads of walkways that let you get right over the top of most of them, and you can see them from all different angles. There's even a free boat out to an island to get closer to the falls. We came prepared with the ponchos to avoid getting wet. The place is really naturally picturesque, and you walk through rainforest to get to the waterfalls. The falls themselves are a series of waterfalls running right the way round a cliff. The main waterfall is the gargantua del diablo - devil's throat. It's really spectacular.

You have to walk quite a way to get to it, and all the way there you can see what looks like smoke billowing up into the sky, caused by the spray from the waterfall. The sound and amount of water pouring into this part of the falls is really amazing, took loads and loads of photos. Lussef had a camera that was so old and battered that when the flash went off a puff of smoke came out the top of it which was interesting. Jenny got her wildlife fix here too, as there were coatis - or snout raccoons as Lussef liked to call them - and capuchin monkeys all over the place.

The snout raccoons liked stealing crisps off the tourists. We stayed one night in Puerto Iguazu and headed back to Buenos Aires the following day.

Haven't done much since then other than bum about in Buenos Aires. We went out for Jenny's birthday on Thursday which was good fun. Went out for a Thai which was nice.

Had a very very late one that night, didn't get back til about 8am. Easy to do here, as nothing ever seems to shut. We started in a strange little place full of quite old people who were all very very drunk and kept pestering us to dance.

We watched Argentina destroy the USA in the Copa America and I wore the argentina strip that I'd picked up in Cordoba, which got a good reaction off the locals, even in the swanky club that we ended up in.

During the day we had gone to the zoo (where else) where Jenny was very excited about the fact you could buy food to feed to the animals. Unfortunately it was only the crap farmyard-type animals that liked eating the dogbiscuit things that we bought.

Would be a lot more fun with steak. There were funny little beaver/rats that had free roam of the place chasing tourists about looking for food.

As zoos go it was ok.

The food here in Buenos Aires needs another mention as it's so great. Other than the steaks and red wine that are standard issue, you can get just about anything you want. Tenedor libres - all you can eat joints - are very popular here. We went to one the other night. Was really good. You pay three quid and can stuff your face with just about anything. They had various chefs on hand to cook basically anything you wanted. Would be very easy to turn into a very big fat person out here. Probably just as well we've only got a few days left here. Had another Parrillada last night.

This is basically a barbeque for two. Unfortunately we went for the cheapest version, and got served up all the most disgusting bits of the cow - liver, kidneys, intestines. The intestines still had some strange creamy substance inside them that you could squeeze out lik toothpaste. It didn't taste very good. Jenny didn't eat any of it.

Today we took a trip to la Boca to see el caminito. This is a famous little street with loads of brightly coloured painted houses and street performers. Lots of street tango and even a diego Maradona look-a-like.

Staying in quite a strange little hotel at the moment, very cheap, but very strange. In the lobby there is a very old picture of Gwyneth Paltrow from a magazine framed on the wall like a family photo?? Also Tomorrow we're going to stay on an estancia/ranch 200km from Buenos Aires. Jenny's very excited. I've been told that they have a nice calm horse for me. I'm hoping it might be a rocking horse. I'm also a bit nervous about our flight to Chile in a few days, as Lussef helpfully drew our attention to the fact that it is the same route that the film Alive is based on. Bit worried if we do crash because I've become so accustomed to eating 450gram steaks, I don't think Jenny would keep me alive very long.

Arrived in Mendoza early in the morning. Absolutely freezing cold. Had to trapse the streets for quite some time looking for accommodation which wasn't much fun. This place was quite a bit more pricey thananywhere else we'd been. We asked in one really dodgy looking place with black lighting and luminous furniture, to be told that they only rented the room by the hour. Gave that one a wide berth. Eventually found a reasonable place with a gas heater which I thought was nice. Jenny thought we were oing to be gassed to death in our sleep as she was convinced she could smell gas from it even when it was off. To be fair had there been any sort of leak we may well not have woken up, as the room had no windows.

Didn't really do very much in Mendoza. It's a pretty place, with loads of plazas dotted about the place. Neither of us felt very well. Both choked with the cold, and the decongestants that we bought made us both feel unwell which helped enormously. We went to the zoo here. We got a lift off a guy who spotted us looking at the map like a couple of idiots. Drove us up there in his battered old car that felt like it was held together with elastic bands. He gave us a bit of a guided tour on the way up to the zoo which was nice of him. At the zoo I spent the entire time feeling like I was going to either collapse or throw up. Some of the cages that the animals were kept in kind of made me want to throw up anyway. Wasn't a very good zoo.

Huge enclosures for the llamas and other stupid farm animals, (in fact even had some monkeys and llamas wandering freely about the place) and tiny wee jail cells for the big cats which were all just pacing up and down the place. You could get right up to the cages though. Jenny was sticking here fingers throught the gaps at every opportunity, even touching the lion who wasn't well impressed. Spent the rest of our time here sampling the many different wines from the region and eating steaks. Can't emphasize enough how great the steaks are here. Got a 450gram one here for a couple of pounds. So so good. Building up for a big daddy one before we leave. Have seen 700grams on some of the menus but not quite ready for that yet. From Mendoza we headed for the capital, Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires is amazing. Really good looking city. Absolutely massive. Got the usual colonial stuff that every Argentinian town/city has - central plaza with standard issue statue of General San Martin who liberated Argentina - but it's all much grander and on a bigger scale. Really trendy, cosmopolitan place.

We've spent most of our time here just wandering about the place looking at stuff and shopping. Lots to see. Monuments all over the place. Also lots of evil pigeons.

I dragged Jenny to see La Bombonera, the football stadium of Boca Juniors.

It's in a pretty dodgy area of town, La Boca. Quite a few interesting characters lurking about here. Really wanted to see a game whilst we were here, but the season just finished. We did however watch Boca lift the Copa Libertadores, a South American wide club cup competition. We watched this in a pub/restaurant in Mendoza, full of Boca supporters. It is the 6th time they've won it, thrashing Gremio 5-0 on aggregate over the 2 leg final. Unfortunately the Cup hadn't made it back to the ground for us being there as the final was played only 2 days before we went there. The ground is amazing.

Gutted we couldn't see a game because the atmosphere would be immense. It's called the Bombonera because it looks like a chocolate box from above. It was built in 1940 and holds 60,000. The tour guide told us that when it's full the ground actually shakes, the top of the third tier moves back and forward between 4 and 5 centimetres. It's also built in such a way that the visiting team's dressing room is directly underneath the most mental part of the boca support. Got to go in the dressing room and see all the players lockers etc. Juan Roman Riquelme's was about the most exciting name there, he scored 2 in the recent final and is a local hero.

Diego Maradona played for Boca and is the real hero here. Was a bit disappointed that he wasn't there, even more disappointed that they didn't have a bit more stuff in the museum celerating him, given that he's only the best footballer ever. What they do have for him is a his very own box, right on the halfway line in the posh stand with his own big yellow bench/throne.

We went out for a few drinks the other nigh, and saw a bit of traditional dancing and tango, which was quite impressive. I'm not really fussed by dancing. I hate strictly come dancing, although that's maybe as much to do with Bruce Forsythe stupid face than anything else. But this was very impressive. The tango was especially so.

The other stuff involved a lot of stamping and jumping by the guy, landing on the outsides of his feet which was pretty amazing as well given if I tried that I'd end up in a cast. Was good to see. Drank quite lot of wine that night and saw some live music in another place. Got chatting to the first Scottish people that we've encountered so far here, which was a good laugh.

Heading for Iguazu falls today. It's an 18 hour bus journey which I'm not looking forward to at all. The falls are supposed to be well worth it though. Hope so.

Spent a few days in Salta recovering from lots of drinking and steak eating. The steaks here are ridiculous. Can get a 350g steak for a couple of quid, and a bottle of good wine for about 4 quid. You can also buy a 5 litre jug of crap wine for 2 pounds.....which is nice. From Salta we got a bus to Cafayate.

Cafayte was quite a cool wee place. Big wine producing area. Not a lot to do other than visit the wineries. We're still travlling with Eva and Joe, and went with them on a free wine tour. Started at 10.30am which was dangerous. First tour was a bit crap. Second was quite good, because they gave us a lot more free samples. Drank a few glasses of wine then bought a bottle for later. I got a bit of a taste for it at this stage and ended up drinking right through. Even had one of the local delicacies - wine flavoured ice cream. Was more of a sorbet. Had one white and one red scoop. Both tasted pretty nasty, so reverted back to the litre bottles of beer which was just fine. Had goat stew for lunch here which was quite nice, although it smelled like live goats do which was a bit offputing. Jenny fed most of her goat to the dogs which then followed her about the town for the rest of the day, even into the shops and the bars. This is nothing new on our travels however. Jenny is like the pied piper for dogs. Only she doesn't lead them into the river she wants to have them stay in our room. There is always a pack of smelly, flee-bitten, limping dogs chasing us wherever we go.

We spent a couple of nights in Cafayete and then headed further south to Tucaman.

Not a lot to say about Tucaman. Not a lot to see or do. Jenny wasn't well so I went wandering about in the drizzle. Not much fun. Only stayed a night here to break up the journey to Cordoba.

Cordoba is a nice city. 2nd biggest in Argentina. Spent the last few days there. It's the second biggest city in Argentina, and a there is a big University population, so the nightlife is very good. We stayed in a pretty run down hotel. Nice enough, with TV that kind of worked, can't really complain at 3 pounds a night. The toilet was very strange though. The room itself was about the same size as the main room. It was tiled from ceiling to floor, and felt a bit like being in a gas chamber. Also to flush the toilet we had to reach into a dark cavity in the wall that was the systern and pull a lever. All a bit reminiscent of Bolivia. We again met up with Evan and Joe here. Eva went to school near here so we went out with a few of her school friends for a night out. Got introduced to a new drink that the Argentinians love, Fernet Branca. It's very alcoholic. Was a really good night although didn't get to bed til 7.30am and someone helped theirselves to my jacket in the club.

Next day we struggled out of bed at 2pm and went to see a football match - Belgrano de Cordoba v Banfield.

Wanted to try see Boca Juniors but didn't get to Argentina in time. Got to Cordoba for the last game of the premier division season though. Unfortunately Belgrano - nicknamed los piratas/the pirates - are a bit crap and we went to watch them get relegated, but it was quite a good game. They make Scottish footballers look like their playing in glue, so much quicker. None of them are frightened of the ball. They like to run with the ball and pass it to each other, as opposed to booting it into the stands, which was nice to see.

Belgrano have two grounds a small 28,000 seater one and a bigger one for the bigger games 48,000. We saw them at the bigger one - Parque Chateau Carreras. Atmoshpere was pretty good although it's an olympic stadium with running track so we were miles away from the pitch. Think it might have been better at the smaller ground. I also wanted to go in the "popular" section but bought posh tickets by mistake. The popular section looked mental. Every 15 minutes or so a gap would appear in the crowd and a bomb would go off and fireworks and flares were lit after the goals. There was a big riot police prescence. Was good though. There must have been about 30,000 odd belgrano fans. Only about 10 Banfield fans. A lot of the Belgrano fans around us were not very impressed with what they were watching, even though they won 3-0, and rather than cheering on the team were hurling abuse at their own players - "hijo de puta" being the favourite insult. Even the little boy behind us was shouting this regularly. Very familiar. Just like being at Tynecastle. Was good day out although the ground is way out on the outskirts of town and we had to walk for miles in the freezing cold back to town.

Spent yesterday hanging about waiting for a night bus to Mendoza where we are now. Seems like quite a nice place so far, although getting more and more expensive the further south we go. Even colder here which is not funny. Mendoza is the biggest wine growing area in the country, so going to get involved in a few more sampling sessions.

Spent a few days in La Paz getting used to the altitude before heading south. We were there for the carnival Gran Poder, which basically involves the locals all getting dressed up in shny costumes and dancing about in the streets from sunrise to sunset. They all go mental. Never seen so many drunk people. Was great. Felt it would be rude not to join in so got involved in a bit of drinking that night as well.

From La Paz we got another overnight bus to Uyuni. Cheeky bint at the bus terminal tried to con me out of 10 bolivianos but I asked a local how much she paid and she came clean, but went bright red in the face. Wish we'd taken the train. Another ridiculous road made of rocks, bus jolting about for 13 and half hours in the freezing cold. Ended up in Uyuni at 8 am ish. Uyuni is a horrible place. Absolutely baltic, and in the middle of the desert. We had to spend a day there. I don't know how anyone can live there. There was absolutely nothing to do. Lots of manky dogs running about the place. We booked a 3 day tour of the salt flats for the next day, then moped about in the square. Couldn't go back to the room because we'd have died of hypothermia. Had to stay in the sun as much as possible. We slept in all our clothes agan that night, which was good practice for the tour anyway.

Next day we set off into the salt flats in an old clapped out toyota 4x4, with others, our driver and cook. The driver who was supposed to be our guide as well was crap. He didn't speak any English and only told us about 5 things in Spanish the whole trip. Thought the trip was gong to be a nightmare, as about 30 minutes in, the jeep broke down, and we all had to get out and push. This happened 2 more times within the first couple of hours, but after that was ok. Tour was quite good, although a lot of driving. Had a broken arse by the end of the three days. Our group was good as well, two other couples who were a good laugh. A Brummy and a girl from Lima who'd been going out for 3 weeks. She spoke nearly no English apart from being able to whine "Jason" at him every couple of minutes, and he spent most of his time slagging her off and calling her "estupido" which was about all the Spanish he knew. He was a good laugh though, and was good to talk football to someone for the first time in ages. We have been travelling with the other couple, French and South African, since the tour.

The Salt flats were pretty incredible. It is the biggest salt lake in the world. Just a massive expanse of salt, that looks like an ocean of snow, perfectly flat. Quite surreal. Especially the giant chickens that live there that we rode just before lunch.........

We went to the isla de Pescados which is an island with giant cacti, in the middle of the salt lake. Very bizarre.

On the first night of the tour we were supposed to be staying in a salt hotel, but instead stayed in a hotel with salt beds. Absolutley freezing at night. The hotel was in the middle of nowhere. Another ghost town.

(I'm not actually as fat as I look here, don't know what's going on with my big fat face in this picture)

We sat and played cards and drank wth our group. Glad we weren't in the other group who were there. Their conversations were dominated by a guy who we overheard starting two conversations with - "I'm very good friends with a woman who only paints cows...." and "Did you know England has the most varieties of flavours of crisps in the world...." - don't think I could cope with 3 days in a cramped jeep of that. He was a dick.

On the second day we drove all morning and ended up having lunch at a lake with flamingos which Jenny enjoyed.

I enjoyed watching a fully grown adult man of about his late 50's early 60's entertaining himself by throwing chunks of ice at the flamingos. Jenny didn't like him at all. From here we drove some more, to another lake with flamingos in it. The scenery on the way was really spectacular but it was a lot of driving. We saw a "tree rock" on the way which was interesting.

We stayed the second nght at a hostal next to a red lake.....but we couldn't see the red properly because our guide had left late, so it was dark when we arrived. There was a heated exchange between the French element of our group and the guide at this point, as the tour was supposed to involve a sunrise and a sunset on day 1, neither of which we saw. The guide said this was our fault for not getting up, even though he never woke us and was nowhere to be seen for most of the trip.

We spent another cold night in the middle of nowhere in the freezing cold on the second night. Again though we got the bevvy in and that eased the pain. We got up the next morning at 4.30am whch was not fun and got back in the bloody jeep. By this stage we were all beginning to hate the jeep, and the guide. We drove up to 4,800m to see some massive geysers which was impressive.

From there we drove to some natural hot springs from a volcano. This was a bit of an ordeal, getting in and out, as the air temperature was below freezing, and there were no changing rooms. Was nice when we were in though.

After this we went to see a green lagoon......which was green. Wasn't that impressed by that. We then returned to the red lagoon, which was impressive in the sun, although there were a lot of dead sea gulls around the edge which wasn't great.

Saw loads of llamas and alpacas and vicuñas on the way there.

We then spent the next 7 hours in the jeep driving all the way back to Uyuni. I never want to get in a jeep ever again.

In order to avoid having to spend any longer than necessary in Uyuni, and the very real possbility that I might try to kill myself if we had to spend another day there, we got the overnight train south to the border with Argentina at Villazon. This started off very well, nice comfy seats that reclined, heaters at our feet and a video of a greasy haired guy singing lilting ballads on the TV. However, 10 minutes into the 10 hour journey the old, fat woman wedged into the chair behind turned into a pig and snorted the whole way. This wasn't any normal snoring either. It was as if she was trying to do it as loudly as she could. Eventually I turned round and shook her to try and get her awake. Tried this several times to no avail. She kept on for almost the entire journey. When she did eventually awake she was leaning forward and coughing on Jenny's head. Jenny thought there was mucus going in her hair. Then she shook Jenny's seat when we came into the station because she wanted to be the first person off. I thought Jenny was going to have an episode.

Crossing the border into Argentina was painless enough. The difference between Argentina and Bolivia is immediate. The roads have tarmac and painted white lines, the buses have toilets, the public toilets have a seat and systern as opposed to a hole in the ground surrounded by faeces, and the toilets don't have stinking bins full of used toilet paper next to them. Argentina is so much more developed than Bolivia. It seems very westernized/European compared with everywhere else we have been so far. We travelled by bus to Salta, where we are now. We are stayng with Eva and Jo from the tour. Went out the other night and had Parilla. This is amazng. For about 3 pounds each we sat and the chef brought out various different cuts of beef, pork and chicken to us, which we ate off chopping boards. Was so good. The Steak here is unreal. After about 15 rounds of this and 2 bottles of real nice red wine we went out for a few drinks in the swanky bars around here. Was good fun. Next day we met our waiter in the street, absolutely pissed out of his face, at about 12 noon. He took us to another restaurant for lunch, where we bought him some drink and he proceeded to slur Spanish at us for the next 2 hours. I told him I was a lawyer and he called me el Doctor for the whole time. He was very very drunk and strange. He kept looking at the ceiling and saying that he was getting messages from God that Jenny and Eva would have children next year. Very strange.

Had really good steak last night, more of the same tonight I think. It's so good and cheap. Going to end up a big fat bastard by the time we leave here. Going to spend a couple of days here, then head south slowly working our way towards Buenos Aires. Plenty of vineyards and steakhouses to stop at on the way.

Throughout central and south america we have had to endure the terrifying experience that is using a suicide shower. As far as I understand it works by pumping 220 volts through the cables (attached by selotape) directly into the shower head. This results in a combination of electricity and water inches above your head when you stand under it. This heats the water. It has also given both me and Jenny electric shocks throughout our travels. On our pampas trip we met a New Zealander called Mickey who is an electrician. He said that back home if he was to wire a shower up like this he'd be put in jail. Not so over here.