Argentina - Southbound

Hello, hello, hello. So, we meet again..

I left you in the heat and humidity and random rain of Foz, Southern Brazil..

If you remember we had just been to the immense Iguazu falls on the Brazilian side. If you remember, I said the falls and the resulting river form the border between Brazil and Argentina. If you remember, I said we were going to go see the falls the next day from the other side..?? Well that's what we did.

Don't worry, I'm not gonna do this whole blog in the style of a shit 80's pop song...

So yeah, the next day we headed over the border with relative ease and went straight to the falls. I think on redflection the Argentinain side was better. the view wasn't any better but you got much more platforms and walkways to see all the different falls. There's also a little train that you can take to bring you up to the top (my inner child was as excited about this as the waterfalls!) so you get to see them from ground level as well as look down from above and also get around close to them. We also got to take a boat which goes right up close and you get absolutely soaked which was great craic except for the fact that I wasn't smart enough to bring spare clothes so was chaffing from wet underwear by the end of the day. Oh and we also met a crazy German lady when we were taking the train down who the second we said we were from Ireland she reeled off these Irish poems whilst staring at Sam with a weird psycho look in her eyes and then was shocked we'd never climbed Croagh Patrick so started saying Poetry again while we tried to pretend we were interested. Apart from that it was awesome: big waterfalls, boat trip, train rides and crazy Germans; dam good day!

We stayed the night in the town of Iguazu and then began the journey south towards Buenos Aires. A couple of bushcamps later we arrived. There's a lot to tell about this great city. Firstly, it's very European. The Spanish influence along with a fair bit of immigration in the past means it's full of western influence with recognisable brands and coffee shops with croissants and all that shit everywhere. After a much needed shower after 3 bushcamps the first thing we needed to do was get money as we had no Pesos. Now the thing is you can easily go to the bank and get money out but you're only going to get a rate of 7 Pesos to the dollar and even worst for euros. However, if you go on the black market you're going to get closer to 11 Pesos to the dollar. So, men went to hunt and gather the better rate.. 5 of us boys went forth to bring home the bacon. We brought the two young lads with us so the rule was only those with beards were aloud to do the talking. You have to go along the main street where people are shouting "Cambio! Cambio!" at you and then you have to negotiate a better rate with them whilst they're shouting at you trying to get you to go with their rate, then you agree a rate and they bring you over to another guy who miraculously has got the wrong end of the stick and thought you'd agreed a different rate and you have to argue with this guy sho says "Not possible, not possible!" a million times. Anyway, eventually we agreed a rate through my rusty Spanish and then they bring you one by one into the back of this newspaper stand which has MILLIONS of notes in it and a dodgy guy pays you your money and then you have to check them to make sure they're not fake and then you walk back to your hostel real quick to ensure you don't get robbed! Serious craic!!

We had 4 nights in BA. Here's a few things we did:

1. Tango Night. Amazing night out. It was a show with a dinner and free wine included with a Tango lesson as well. The Tango show was amazing and the women dancers were smoking hot! I really enjoyed the lessons as well it was loads of fun especially after the first bottle of Malbec! Sam got pulled up on stage and was made dance with one of the dancers so funny, she was like totally morto' On the way back from the Tango show we nicked the left over wine and were slugging it from the bottle on the bus back to the hostel.. Oh yeah...

2. Bike Tour. We did a big group bike tour of part of the city. This was fun as it took us to different areas of the city that we might not have visited. We went to a famous area working class area called La Boca, home to the Boca Juniors football club and had a great little colourful town centre.

3. The Cemetery. This might seem like a strange place to visit but it was very interesting. The graves were massive and it was also home to Evita's grave so we paid that a visit.

4. Markets. The Markets in BA are huge and are full of really cool stuff. We made a few needless purchases. My favorite was my new puppet, Manuel!

 5. Steak and Wine! Since getting here I've become a red wineaholic. We went out for a couple of amazing Steak dinners.

Sad to leave BA we started the journey south and after a few camps found ourselves in Puerto Madryn. I had this place in mind from the beginning as this was the place that we swam with Sea Lions. It might sound like a strange thing to do but Sea Lions are playful inquisitive creatures and it was like swimming with puppies. You go in a group and swim in a line with linked armsand then you turn around and there's 4 or 5 of them there coming to see what the fuss is about. They come right up to your mask and sniff you and then swim around you. This was so frickin cool and one of the best things I've ever done.. Screw swimming with Dolphins when you can swim with Sea Lions, that's my motto!!

We then had a long journey south to the southern most city in the world: Ushuaia. Man it was cold. There was one day on the journey down that I started in shorts and flip flops and finished it in every item of clothing in my bag. This is real see your breath weather! The long journey was broken up however by a trip to a Penguin colony. The Penguins were in for nesting at the time so they were literally just sitting around waiting for the young to get big so we got really close and saw literally thousands, much more than St Kilda beach!

Ushuaia was a cute little town with plenty to see and do. We took a boat trip down to the most southern light house in the world which we later found out wasn't the most southerly lighthouse in the world. We also went out for a group meal for King Crab. This was a great experience. It was one of those restaurants where you can pick the one you want out of the tank, I gave the waiter this job as I didn't want to seal the fate of the poor thing, I didn't want to end up like Homer Simpson crying over Pinky.. But hell he was a frickin tasty crab and it's what he would have wanted..
Here we also went on a Beaver evening.. I suppose you want a bit more of an explanation than that.. So basically we went out to this crazy inbred family's house in the country and they took us down to the nearby river and show you the Beaver families in the area. What can I say about this? Well all I'll say is Sea Lions are more interesting. It's not the Beaver's fault that they're no fun they're just doing what they do I'm the dumb tourist who expected them to entertain me.. Duh. However the evening was saved by the crazy lady who cooked us dinner. They lived in this wooden cabin, very Canadian style and they feed you Steak and wine but she was a nut job in a good way. She stood at the door as we entered and gave every single one of us a big hug that lasted 10 seconds too long and then was very cooky during the dinner. She forced everyone who didn't eat their salad to eat it all or else you had to do the washing up before getting another big hug on the way out after much nervous laughter... The nicest crazy old bat I've ever met, aside from Mum hahaha..

Whoa that was supposed to be a short blog but ended up being a long one.. I need wine!!

Next week on Ben's blog: Hiking in Torres Del Paine National park. 75km, 3 days and 10kgs on our backs.. Will we survive? Find out next week. Same Bat blog, same bat channel!

Chao for now..

P.s If you ever need some inspiration to go traveling, think of this: this is the view you have to put up with:

I'm learning to Tango

Brazil

Greetings greetings greetings one an' all.. I hope this fine day finds you well and in the best of spirits. I am currently residing in Argentina (don't cry for me) and its sophistication and Europeaness has me feeling cultured and posh. But my dear blog readers, we are not gathered here today to discuss such worldly locations, we are here to discuss the journey south from Rio de Janeiro through the humidity and random rain of Brazil...

Anyway enough of that shit..

So we were off! Finally after months and months of planning we  got on the truck. Readers of my London-Singapore blog will know the format: 20 strangers in a truck making our way overland with a driver and a tour leader. It's over-landing baby and the only way to travel in my book. We went with Oasis Overland for this trip as they had the route we wanted for the most reasonable price. See the route below. Feel the excitement.

I don't have the time or the energy to describe all the people in the group so hopefully you'll get to know everyone a little better as you read. It's a slightly younger crowd than my last trip mainly English with a few Aussies, Irish, Welsh, Scots, Americans thrown in the mix with a guy from Thailand as well to make a merry group..

So our first stop was an easy 2 hour drive from Rio to a place called Parati. This was a small little country town and was a welcome break from the craziness of Rio. It was good to breath fresh air and not smell piss. We had our first group meal and we were settling down for a very civilized beer before we got accosted by a group of pissed up Aussies from a different overlanding company drinking "Jungle Juice" out of a kettle that they'd robbed from their truck.. The next day we all did a boat trip around the bay in the area. It was so hot you could jump off into the water and be dry in 5 minutes though the humidity was taxing. We had a great day on the boat with food and free Caprihanas all day (a rum cocktail mixed with sugar). Sam got beaten by the Caprihanas... Caprihanas 1 - 0 Sam.

Drinking Caprihanas in the water

From Parati we headed with a hangover to the Pantanal. This is a low lying wetlands area (which you can see on the map) which is famous for it's abundance of wildlife. What they don't advertise is it's the mosquito capital of the world. I've never seen so many in the one place those little flying dirty snidy basterds were everywhere. I committed mass murder on them a couple of times.. Aside from dealing with this we had a great time here. We stayed in a nice hostel with a pool and did lots of activities. We did a boat ride along the river and saw lots of wildlife including Caiman, Tucans, Woodpeckers, Monkeys, Vultures, an abundance of Parrots and colorful birds and the pet Peckerings that were kept in the hostel. We also went Piranha fishing which was great craic. You put a tiny bit of meat on your rod and next thing your rod gets ATTACKED and you think you've caught a bleedin' shark. We had them for dinner that night as well which I suppose can be described as a 'first..' The other guys did horse riding but I skipped this due to fear of death by asthma attack. It was a very fun couple of days in the Pantanal in which I must have sweated my bodyweight..

Chillin' by the pool

It was this big

Caiman

Monkeys..

Vultures or reincarnated bankers

From here we made our way south to the next stop which was a little place called Bonito. Another quaint little town, another nice campsite, another encounter with the lardy Ozzies! We were crammed into a small campsite with another truck of them and were kept awake by one of the classiest birds in the world gettin her hole in the tent near us, to which Craig (who's on our trip) shouted encouragement in the form of: "Go on son!" Then the bird stuck her head out of her tent and shouted to her friend "Do you have a condom?" to which Craig replied: "Don't worry about that mate, do her in the a***"
Multiply that by 100 times when alcohol is involved... And you get funniness..
Apart from that entertainment we managed a trip to Blue Lake Cave which was, well, a cave with.. erm.. a blue lake in it.. and managed to watch the second half of the Ireland France match which was AWESOME!
The next day we went snorkeling in a river nearby. We had 3 hours swimming through the river and seeing the awesome fish that live there.. very fun!

Snorkeling

look: Fish!

Does what it says on the tin..

A few bush camps later and we were at our final stop in Brazil; Foz. Sound familair? Probably not, it's the home of one of the largest waterfalls in the world: Iguazu Falls.

Now the falls and the river on which they lie marks the border between Brazil and Argentina so it is possible to see the falls from both countries. All guide books say you need to see them from both sides so this is what we did. There's not a lot to say other than they were obviously incredible. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

At the falls as well they also had these cheeky chappies coming up trying to rob your sandwiches...

Next to the waterfalls they had a native bird park with lots of birds native to South America. I made tge mistake of giving Sam the camera so we've 18 million pictures of birds. Here are just a few...

In Foz, we also celebrated Paddy's day. My cook group cooked up a Beef and Guinness stew which everyone enjoyed and then we had a big session with music and dancing on tables before the campsite manager came and said he was going to call the police if we didn't stop, a sign of a good Paddy's day!

To be sure to be sure

The Finished Stew

Dancing on tables

Well that's about it folks. We are now in Argentina. But that story, is for another day.

Chao for now..

Ben