Dos semanas en Buenos Aires

Note the Spanish title, ey?! And more importantly the correct use of the versatile preposition 'en', commonly used to mean 'on' or 'in' but which can also be used with certain verbs to mean blah, blah, blah...... Basically, we went to Buenos Aires firstly in an attempt to try to fast track our Spanish learning by having private lessons with a tutor for a few hours a day and secondly because we heard it was one of South America's most vibrant cities so we needed to see it. We knew it was going to be quite hard work with all the lessons and homework and given our love of big open green spaces coupled with neither of us being blessed with a great sense of direction and there being certain areas where it probably wasn't best to end up late at night, we were approaching this part of our trip with slight trepidation. Even saying that however, our introduction to Buenos Aires still wasn't quite how we'd expected it.

We arrived on a Friday afternoon hoping to find somewhere to stay before heading out to a town 2 hours north of the city for what is referred to as 'Tradition Day' - a festival of cowboys and there are literally 1000s of horses ridden through this little town and all the horsemen show off their riding skills and there are loads of street BBQs (asados) and lots of meat and steaks to eat around the place. Me, Tim and Jasmijn had found a hostel in Buenos Aires through hostel world online that looked OK so headed that way on the Subte (tube equivalent) from the main bus station only to be told when we got there that they were full and so were pretty much all the hostels in the area because there was an electronic dance festival on out of town - Creamfields - and it was a massive deal so basically good luck with finding somewhere was their general advice. We grabbed a beer and a pizza from somewhere with WiFi and searched online for somewhere else to stay. It turned out there was one hostel right in the middle of the city - the only one with any rooms available. We wondered why, but it was our only option so we booked it online there and then. We had thought about pulling an all nighter at the gig with our backpacks on, but it was £70 and apart from Underworld, no other acts we knew. So we got paid up, got our bearings and headed back to the tube, holding onto our things even tighter after seeing a man get strategically mugged for his watch by 2 guys - one doing the beating up and mugging and the other waiting for him on the getaway motorcycle just up the road. Apparently, quite a common approach. Great!

Anyway, we found the hostel and it was fine. Huge and grubby with cold showers, but a bed for the night and full of other nice people in the same situation as us of not having anywhere else to be! We had an early night as we had an early start to get to San Antonio de Areco for the big festival day tomorrow.

San Antonio was beautiful and quaint and our hostel there was amazing. It was in an old converted whitewashed barn, with huge ceilings, a swimming pool and crickets chirping. Also, before we went out, Tim set up skype and I was able to speak to my Mum on her bday which was awesome and it was nice to hear that everyone was together at home celebrating her bday.

The only downside to the day was the festival had been cancelled! We found that out when we got there. Apparently they had had too much rain a few days previous and the ground was too wet for the horses. Still a great day out though and the 3 of us had a mooch around the place, which had still managed to muster up a half a festival - stalls and tango and food etc, just missing 10,000 horses or so. There were still a handful of horses about though and I managed to get a 10 minute ride in. Galloping hatless around the block on some random horse whose saddle was slowly slipping off, with a gaucho at my side telling me which way to go. Awesome. Also we were in the lucky position that me and Tim could come back next week to attempt the festival again. Jasmijn however had to fly back to Holland unfortunately after a few more days back in Buenos Aires.

Typical Asasdo

The lovely horse I rode

This guy was the person most like a cartoon we had ever seen

Traditional Tango dancing. Tim reckons a mix between ballroom, tap dance and hanging out washing.

Dinner out with Jasmijn

We spent the next week at a pretty stanadrd, cheap but not particularly interesting hostel. The place was nice and the guys that worked there were all helpful and pretty cool but the people staying there were all a bit weird. There was a big communal area with tables and chairs but everyone was plugged into laptops and didn't converse much. One man sleeping in our 5 bed dorm room was the weirdest though. He was there for a whole week too and seemed to have massive OCD. He kept lots of his things in little plastic bags, strolled around the place with his chest stuck out and on show, and his swimming shorts slightly exposing his bum. He had the appearance of a right douchebag. He obviously loved himself but he didn't say a single word to anyone. He slept on the bunk above me and not so much as a good morning or good night, a nod or even a slight bit of eye contact. The clincher came one morning when I was in their on my own doing a bit of Spanish homework on my bottom bunk when he got out of bed with only his pants on and against the wall next to my bed, he stood on his head with his feet against the wall and started doing these arm press-ups kind of thing, whilst making the huffs and puffs like those weird guys in the gym. I'm not sure if it was meant to impress me, freak me out or what. But I just picked my things up off the bed and awkwardly sidled past him to get to the door and ran downstairs to recount the weirdness to Tim. A week passed and he said nothing! We worked hard on our Spanish that week. We had 3 hours of lessons a day with our private tutor who lived an hour's walk away. She was a lovely lady - Vero - about our age I think and she patiently put up with our strained attempts to talk about anything. Anything at all! The writing and reading came along nicely and I think we have quite a good grasp of a lot of the theory behind how the language works. Having a real life conversation though is something quite different. Given I find it hard enough listening in English, often mishearing or not being able to hear someone over say, the noise of a kettle boiling, I was and in fact still am finding it impossible to understand anyone. I quite like trying to talk to them though. I just have to realise that often the conversation will be one way. No matter what the person's response is, I just bypass it and say something else. Obviously whilst still trying to guess what they might have said, but chancing it rather than actually hearing it. I reckon I maybe get it right 10% of the time. After a shocking realisation on the Monday that we were pretty hopeless at the whole speaking bit, we built in time for a beer every day before the lesson at 2, to give us a bit of Dutch Courage whilst trying to talk, and it worked. Have to give credit to Chris Jung in London for that one - cheers Chris! Tim's coming along pretty well with the listening though, so we're getting there, poco a poco (little by little)! We didn't do much sightseeing coz we were working a lot. We walked to Vero's place every day for a bit of exercise and spent the evenings doing homework over dinner and a beer or 2. 

Going a bit crazy with the homework

Friday was exciting as we had no school over the weekend. We went back to San Antonio, back to the hostel we had previously stayed in. It was amazing and this time there were over 10,000 horses to fall in love with. I have never in my life seen sooooooo many horses. There were probably more horses there than I have seen in the rest of my life put together. Groups of horse and gauchos marched through the street in a parade that lasted a good half day, carrying flags representing their region. They rode with such bravado - it was captivating. Their horses were impeccably looked after and trained. All generations of a family often rode together. There were loads of women riders and there were also cowboys parading through on a load horse with herds of yet unbroken horses following at their side. They would get to a point in the street and then they would spin in circles with the herd following suit. They made Palomino horse tornados! For the rest of the day we drank beer and took photos of cowboys and watched as they demonstrated herding skills and attempted to break in horses in the main arena. An absolutely amazing day.

So many horses...

Palomino tornado

 

An idea for next year's staycation.

On Monday we returned to stinky city for part 2 of Spanish learnings. After spending a week with physco weirdo man sleeping above me, we had decided to treat ourselves to a private room in a hostel for this week. We booked online but when we got there on Monday morning we realised why our new room had appeared such good value. Although only 5 blocks from our old hostel, this particular street was a bit sketchy. By that I mean it was a bit nearer the more unappealing area of Constitution - fine during the day but a bit dodge at night, and already even in the morning, there appeared to be more people just hanging about looking bored or stoned or whatever. The hostel itself was musty and a bit oppressive and we were shown up to our room by an old guy, who was quite pleasant but spoke no English and had manky warty hands and swollen fingers. Our room had a bed and a little table for 2, which, if both of you were sitting at, one of you was obstructing the door. It had a tiny window above the door onto the hallway but no other natural light. It felt like a prison. I voiced my concerns about the area to Tim, not knowing if I was making a big deal over nothing. We agreed that it would probably be a better option to pay a bit more and stay in a place where we didn’t have to get a taxi to or from if it was dark. Plus with nowhere secure in the place to store our stuff, we'd have to take everything with us all the time and that would be a real ball ache too. The only problem was we were there now and in order to leave and be free again, we were going to have to endure a very painful and awkward interaction with the old man in Spanish. We didn't even know what we were going to use as an excuse... the room wasn't nice, the area was a bit muggy... what did we say? We went downstairs with our stuff and tried to find him. Even that was hard. He was hiding in a dark corner somewhere probably. We attempted to say we couldn't stay. I said something about having a lot of stuff, it being a bit peligroso (dangerous), he just looked confused / hurt, I'm not sure. Anyway, it resulted in him having to phone his English speaking daughter as he didn't have a clue what these 2 babbling English people were trying to say. Good interaction! In the meantime I had thought of a less offensive approach and explained to the daughter that we had friends in a different area who had already booked and paid for a room for us, we hadn't realised and therefore we had to go. Really sorry. Did we owe any money? I told her to please reiterate this to her Father. We had to pay for one night, that was the deal but then we were free. Hooray. We paid and then we got the hell out of there. 

We found instead, a great hostel, imaginatively titled, 'Hostel Inn' and booked ourselves in a double room for the rest of the week and celebrated the fact that for an extra £5 a day between us, we weren't going to die! We managed to recount the story to our tutor later that day. A good sign that the lessons were paying off and our Spanish was slowly improving. There were a few kahunas in there, such as, Tim saying that when we arrived we immediately had a bad feeling but instead he said when we arrived there we immediately sat down badly, but Vero's English is good enough that she soon realises and corrects us when needed!

That week was much more social and the hostel was fun. We met some people and we out a bit more. We visited Palermo - yuppie central. Lots of rich looking people with big sunglasses, walking dogs along sidewalks and tree lined avenues. But also lots of colour and markets and parks. We opted for sharing a beer in the park purchased from a shop rather than an overpriced street bar and we watched everyone mill about with their dogs and drink their mate - this tea like drink that is herbs and hot water drunk in an often ornate cup with a metal straw and requires you taking round a flask of hot water to constantly top up your cup. EVERYONE drinks this. From teenagers through to yuppies to the elderly. It must be highly addictive and I'm sure halogenogenic or something. It acquired this drug like appearance to me when I saw a discarded bottom end of a carved up plastic coke bottle on the street filled with mate herbs and a plastic straw. Obviously someone massively had needed a mate fix at that point. A bit weird!

Palermo (aka Camden in the sunshine)

 

On Friday we finished school, no more lessons. We had a celebratory lunch out with some beers and later that night had a few more at a recommended bar called The Gibraltar in San Telmo, but it was run by an expat and had a very English feeling. On Saturday we wandered the city and around our area of San Telmo quite a lot. Probably one of the nicest, more bohemian areas of the city. A bit more laid back, more bars and some nice cafes and restaurants. And an antique market that was like stepping back in time. We also needed to print something out so tried to locate a printers which we were told by our hostel was around the corner. I don't think we found the right one, unless this city is really behind the times (see photo below). 

One restaurant had these awesome old-school adverts on the wall for companies such as Philips and Ford and Meccano! We also that night managed to find a bar called Puerta Roja (red door), which we had tried to find the day before but had totally been looking in the wrong area. It was on the second floor of this big warehouse type building. It was cool and gave us the opportunity to have a few drinks, play some pool and look back and gibber about what we had thought about our time in Buenos Aires.

The main road through the City - I think this is Evita on the building. She glows at night.

San Telmo antique fair

How about this for old skool stuff

 

This surely can't be the printing place around the corner?

Some cool city graffit

They love cat graffiti in San Telmo

Good grub and interesting wall art

 

Buenos Aires is probably a great place if you like Cities. At the weekend, Palermo is quite cool. It's like Camden with nice weather. San Telmo is also quite a laid back district with some nice hostels. Travel is cheap and if you hunt around you can find good value places to eat and have a drink. The thing is, as with many cities, big buildings hide the sun, it's noisy and polluted and all a bit hectic. Oh, and there aren't any beaches or half a million penguins - a feature of where we're going next. Tomorrow is a 20 hour bus journey south to sleepy seaside town Puerto Madryn. I'm coming for you Pinguuuuuu!

Water Falls and Butter Flies

Before heading down to Buenos Aires for 2 weeks of Spanish lessons, we would be foolish not to visit the famous Cataratas – the waterfalls in Iguaçu National Park. It is said to be a wonder of nature and many have quoted it the most awesome thing they’ve ever seen. The waterfalls stretch from Brazil through to Argentina and at least a day is recommended on each side.

We arrived at Foz do Iguaçu Wednesday lunchtime after spending nearly 24hrs on a coach and found a hostel. There were 3 of us as we bumped into Jasmin at the bus station, a friend from our hostel in Rio and who we travelled to Ilha Grande with before going our separate ways. I was very excited because our hostel’s sign had a toucan on it – my favourite bird. I remember having a toy toucan for most of my childhood. It was touch and go for the toucan a lot of the time and he would find himself in some precarious and often dangerous situations sometimes, like floating off down the river in Norfolk having been accidentally dropped overboard by his irresponsible young owner. Luckily Dad was at the ready to rescue him with his fishing rod. I’m not quite sure what happened to him, but I was hoping his spirit maybe alive somewhere here in the forests of Iguaçu national park and apparently if I was very, very lucky I might catch a glimpse of him!

Our hostel was very plush, well plush as hostels go. Just 3 of us in one of the many rooms, with a swimming pool in the courtyard and an amazing outside cooking / eating area and cheap beers to buy. We ditched our rucksacks and headed off to the Brazilian side of the park. Apparently the Brazilian side gives a great overall view whilst the Argentinian side allows you to get ‘up close and personal’ with the falls, whatever that means.

It was beautiful and the falls looked amazing from a distance. What was equally as amazing was the amount of butterflies everywhere! I’ve never seen so many and they were so tame, they just came and landed on you! So many different species and colours. I even managed to put one on my nose. 

Brazilian side of Iguaçu Falls

 

 

A Coatis

There were also lizards – really big ones which were amazing and the biggest I’d ever seen, along with little geckos and coatis (possum like creatures). We walked the 1km circuit through the forest to the foot of one of the largest falls. Until this point, it had obviously been stunning but I think I was equally as excited about all the creatures. However, after turning the corner and seeing this gigantic mass of water fall and crash right in front of your eyes, spraying everyone and roaring continuously, I was blown away. I laughed and laughed and was transfixed. It seemed unnatural to be so close to something so powerful. I hadn’t ever seen anything like it. (Little did I realise at this point, what was to come tomorrow mind you).

This whole scene was a bit crazy!

Me Tim and Jasmijn, our mate from Holland

A weird butetrfly

Big mister lizard

Me with a moon face and a butterfly on my nose

Just in case you are unsure what I mean by 'moon face', here are some other people with moon faces....

Tony 'moon face' McCoy

An actual moon face

The following day we headed to Argentina. Hooray. Spanish speaking territory. Even the border control officers looked more cool and beautiful, people seemed more laid back, I could understand more signs and they sold ice cream at passport control. I liked Argentina a lot already. We were still together with Jasmin and found a great hostel, named Timbo Pousada in a town called Puerto Iguaçu – the nearest town to the Argentinian side of the falls. This was a hostel we had researched and planned on finding, for obvious reasons and it was great. Me and Tim treated ourselves and got a double room and Jasmin grabbed a bed in a dorm. Due to the previous day’s magnificent waterfall experience, we thought we’d find a few other things to do around the area and visit the falls the following day, before heading off to Buenos Aires.

We visited a wildlife rescue centre called Oguira Oga a little out of town that looks after unwanted animals that people think they can keep as pets such as monkeys, big cats, road runner type birds, but soon realise they can be either a bit bitey or are totally unsuitable. Funny that. They also look after injured animals, orphaned babies and run breeding programmes for endangered species. Carlos who showed us round has worked there 3 years and said he never once regretted swapping the big city life of Buenos Aires to brush crocodiles’ teeth. He loved the animals so much and was very ashamed at what humans are doing to the animals. We watched the eagles eating their lunch and much to my pleasure, got to see a couple of toucans! Again, unwanted pets but now to domesticated to release into the wild. I took a few photos but not many. Capturing a photo of an animal in the wild is fantastic, but I felt really sorry for these little creatures, so taking photos didn’t feel right. But I had to get a toucan and then right at the end, we saw a stick insect. He was so funny. I totally thought it was a stick! See if you can tell where the insect ends and the tick I placed next to him starts.

Friendly domesticated toucan

Just such a dude bird.

Sticky and his stick friend

After this we headed to the Jardin de Picoflores (Humming bird gardens). I found it out through trip advisor and it sounded beautiful. A garden you could visit, owned and maintained by a local family who have feeders out and you can watch / photograph the humming birds! We arrived and didn’t really know what to expect. We were let in by a little old Argentinian lady who had a beaming smile and led us to her little garden where she has put out all these feeders for humming birds. The garden was full of them, zipping about and she was beaming from ear to ear. It was so sweet, she must see these little fellas all day every day, but she was so happy and enthusiastic pointing out how beautiful each one was, it was like she had never seen one before and often she seemed close to tears she was so happy. A beautiful lady with a beautiful garden. For a small donation you could sit there as long as you like and snap away. She also bought out books for us to look at to try to identify different types together with mosquito repellent as the little blighters were in force in the shady garden. She was laughing at how fast the humming birds were, repeating ‘muy rapido’! Between me and Tim, we must have taken at least 1000 photos, perhaps more. They are impossible to photograph! 

As the light diminished, we headed off back to the hostel, stopping for a few beers on the way. This town was great. Loads of hostels and bars lined the streets but everyone was so laid back and it wasn’t too touristy either. Just colourful and chilled. 

In fact, I probably had one of my favourite ever meals there later that night. We found a road at the top of town, where all the locals appeared to go. Tables line the street, but rather than restaurants, they are just shop fronts that have opened their doors to the street and have set up BBQs. The shops look like they all sell oils / olives / tapenades of sorts and they use all this produce on their BBQs. BBQ smoke and smells billowed from every entrance and waiters darted around bringing plate after plate to our table of meats / cheeses / rice / other delicious stuff. You could hear shouting, chatting, live music in the distance, plates clinking. Me and Jasmin polished off every dish including a plate of black pudding and sausage, a loin of pork and a steak each! It was an amazing place and ridiculously cheap to boot.

This was just to start! Meat feast extraordinaire.

 The next day we visited the Argentinian side of the falls. We had 6 hours to do it in, before our bus for Buenos Aires left. There were 3 trails we wanted to walk in the park. For the first we needed to take the train halfway up – like one of those little trains you have at theme parks to get you around. Again, the number of butterflies around this area was overwhelming. 

Billions of butterflies

We then continued the walk on foot. What was waiting at the other end was jaw dropping. It was like the world was falling away in front of your eyes in slow motion. The very expanse of this one fall was nearly too big to take in. It made you feel giddy. It was like a giant plughole and the amount of water plunging to the depths of the fall, amidst an eruption of spray was just incredible. Sometimes, standing there, the spray coming back up at you was so strong that you had to just hold onto the rails at the side of the walkway. Everyone was drenched. And it was so loud, you had to shout to be heard. It was incredibly scary. I kept thinking what if the walkway collapses! This particular fall was called the devil’s throat and it’s an experience and sight I will never forget. I’ve attached some pics Tim took with his weather proof camera. It was too wet for me to even think about getting my non waterproof snappy cam out. 

One of the most awesome thing's I've seen.

After this, we hiked the upper trail for a few more panoramic scenes and followed this with the low trail. This took us closer to the foot of different falls. On both trails, we were gifted with rainbows at every turn. It was paradise. 

Igucu Falls - Argentinian side

The fauna was incredible too and I had to stop to talk a shot of the bluest little bird I’ve ever seen. I called for the other guys to wait. It was only after stopping here for a minute or so when something big and black flew through the bush in front of me in which I was looking. Then I saw a flash of yellow and red. It was a toucan! A real life, wild toucan! I was stunned and didn’t really know what to do with myself. I froze whilst I think my eyes widened to twice the normal size they usually are as I hissed at the others ‘it’s a toucan!’ I watched and took a couple of shots. He looked around and then hopped onto another branch and became a little more obscured. 

Real life, wild as they come TOUCAN!

 

Steadily the number of people around us grew as the penny dropped as to what we were watching in the bushes. Before long there must have been about 20 of us, crouched low to the ground, in silence with all our cameras at the ready waiting for the Toucan to appear! But he never reappeared and so we walked on. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. It was like the toucan came and found us. It was just us and him for a good few minutes before the crowds gathered. 

I can’t believe just how crazy this place is. It’s like you take all the most colourful and kooky looking works of nature there are and you put them in this incredible place full of waterfalls, turn on the sun and whack the temperature up to 30C. There is no place on Earth that could beat this.