And so begins Part II of my journey. Goodbye to South East Asia, and Buenos dias Buenos Aires, Argentina and South America!
After two and half months of Asian delights, I´ve dropped myself off into a completely different arena. South America couldn´t really get any more different, and I love it already.
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BUENOS AIRES
My first stop was Buenos Aires: the most exciting and cosmopolitan city in Latin America, famous for its colourful buildings, delicious steaks, and beautiful people. As the capital of Argentina, it stands out as a hub of activity and fun; a city that, literally, never sleeps.
After some sad goodbyes, it was time for a hysterically happy hello with none other than Tash Ozeren! I was reunited with this friendly face, after the longest of journeys, and I was so happy! Tash was full of excitement, nerves, and energy...and despite my jetlag, I mustered up some of my own.
We filled our days with Buenos Aires sights. Firstly, we headed to La Boca, the birthplace of Tango, and home to one of Argentina´s big football teams, ´Boca Juniors`. The streets were lined with colourful, quirky buildings, with artesanias and restaurants filling the area with people. It was refreshing to recognise the language at last. After five years of Spanish at school, I had enough knowledge to get around, albeit not easily. Yet, instantly, I felt at home with the latin culture. Argentina as a South American country is very European, especially in BA, so it was all a little bit more familiar for me.
La Boca claims to be the birth of Tango, due to housing many immigrants, who needed a universal language to communicate. This is where the world famous dance was said to have begun, and walking along the streets of La Boca, we were entertained by many different Tango dances, with women in heeled shoes and flowing skirts, erotically wrapping themselves round their male partner. However, back in the early days of Tango, the dance was traditionally danced between two men, as it was deemed improper for women and men to be in such positions in public. How I wish I could see that version...
Of course, Tango is not the only famous thing from La Boca, as I said before. The stadium of CABJ (Boca Juniors fútbol team) was a main stop on the walking tour. As the first team of the national hero, Maradona, Boca´s stadium is also a museum, Museo de la Pación Boquense. As our guide explained to us, Boca fans (and generally all Argentinian football fans) are crazy, and by that she meant insane. Though, she was a River Plate fan, and that´s like me as a Spurs fan, hosting a tour of Highbury. Still, in Argentina, one of the most important debates is "Who is the best player in the world: Maradona or Messi?". I don´t really think there is one true winner, and most of us wouldn´t really care, but this is Argentina and football is life...
We also explored the markets of fashionable Palermo, and authentic San Telmo. These markets were full of treats, in the form of the irresistable Alpaca knitwear, hand crafted jewellry, woven bags, and antique jewellry. It was difficult to walk past, but we had been reliably informed that Argentina was the most expensive place to buy such goods, so we should wait until Bolivia. Yes, it was torture.
Buenos Aires is a lively city at the best of times, but we happened to be there during a protest in the middle of the main political street, Avenida de Mayo. This also happened to be where our hostel, the party filled ´Milhouse´ was situated, so we were right in the thick of it. This protest was to do with a land issue up in the north of Argentina, but also collided with the May Day Political protests. For someone who had never experienced a protest before, yet alone in a South American country, this was pretty cool. Most of the days we´d simply walk past quickly, shielding ourselves against the cold wind, but occaisionally our plans were disrupted due to the marches from one end of the Avenida, to the other.
Food in Buenos Aires was wonderful. Argentina prides itself on its meat dishes, whether you choose a juicy steak, the meatiest choripan (chorizo sandwich) or a warm and filling empanada de carne. Top that off with an impressive selection of red wines, and I was in heaven. After two months of mainly veggie dishes of fried rice and noodles, meat was what I craved. We were, of course, concerned about our figures, but with empanadas at about 40p each, it was an easy choice.
And of course, the main thing that stands out about BA is the nightlife! The capital takes its reputation as "the city that never sleeps" very seriously, and we were thrown right in the deepend by staying at a party hostel like Milhouse. Every night there was a party at the hostel, ending in a different club. We made it out 3 of the nights, which was tough with my jetlag, but obviously a necessity. Each club we went to was different, but equally as lively. I found that BA is one capital where we actually felt quite safe walking home in the dark, as the streets were still full of people! For the first time in my life, I had a McDonalds at 5am along with fifty other people (who weren´t so stupid as to put sugar on their fries...). Buenos Aires was crazy, and in turn, it made us crazy! Running across the streets shouting "TOURIST!" is not something one would normally do...but it happened. Sending drunken facebook messages at 7am back at the hostel is not something I would see myself ever doing...but it happened. We were having what our friends would call a "nervy B", but it was fun.
To make it all the more wild, my twenty-second birthday occurred in Buenos Aires, and what better place to party?! We celebrated during the day with a trip to the match between Boca Juniors and Independiente, where the fans were more impressive than the football (in everyone´s opinion) and the atmosphere was electric. No alcohol allowed, or needed, at all. Once safely home, from this supposedly dodgy area, we had a juicy steak, and copious amounts of wine. Then followed more fiesta. I won´t go into all the details, as their funnier for me than for you, but it was a night to remember (mostly anyway).
It was hard for us to leave the bubble of BA, but we had a lot to do, and so much more excitement to come. Sadly for us, we couldn´t cover Argentina like we´d wanted to. Money and time are not our friends here, and Argentina is expensive. The bus system in Argentina is famous for being luxurious but pricey. So our time in the country was cut short to include the world famous Iguazu falls, and a week of Spanish lessons in the University city of Cordoba.
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IGUAZU FALLS
Iguazu was simply incredible. Way up on the border with Brazil, Iguazu are a collection of the most humbling and stunning waterfalls in the world. It was a long way out of our route, but everyone calls it a necessity. We made the long but comfortable bus journey up to Puerta Iguazu, a small and quiet town, cashing in on the main tourist attraction just an hour away. The park was full of wonderful white waterfalls, dotted about all over the place. Garganta del Diablo (the Devil´s throat) is the most awesome and humbling, as it spreads out over a vast space and its thundering falls can be heard from hundreds of meters away, and the clouds of spray can be seen in the sky for a mile. Tash and I were hysterically excited. We´d read that people believe that ions released from the falls cause people to feel happy, and we completely believed it. Standing at the waters edge, looking down into the seemingly bottomless clouds of spray, with birds circling round in the mouth of the falls, we felt so small. It´s those things that I love to travel for...I love to be made to feel insignificant and small, like nothing in my bubble of life really matters. That is how we both felt, and it felt so good.
The rest of the park was beautiful too. The falls were much smaller, but could be seen from further away. It was a Kodak dream for me. Tash has a love for butterflies, and I have a love for rainbows, so put those two things together with stunning waterfalls and a bright blue sky, and its just MAGIC. Honestly, we felt like we were in a fairytale, and we were delirious with glee.
We took the thrilling boat ride into the mouth of one of the falls. It was pretty scary, but amazing too. We were taken right into the spray of the falls, which felt less like spray, and more like twenty gallons of cold water being thrown over our heads. It was exhiliarating, but very, VERY cold. We dried off in the sun, fending off the racoon-like caotis from our lunches, and headed back to Diablo for one more chance at feeling completely worry free.
It was the perfect day, and we slept soundly in our beds that night. We´d had our little dose of natural magic at Iguazu, and we promised each other, that if we ever felt stressed or worried at home, we´d think back to Iguazu, and we would have our perspective back again.
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CÓRDOBA
Córdoba, Argentina´s most populated city after the capital, and our home for a whole week. As a university cirty, with around seven different universities, Córdoba seemed to be the ideal place for us to study Spanish. Despite having learnt Spanish at school, I am extremely rusty, and I love the language, so one of the main reasons for my trip to South America was to become fluent. Tash could not speak a word more than "hola" or "gracias", so it was very important for her to learn the native language, not just for necessity but to be more cultured. Also, back in Buenos Aires, there was an ´incident´ where, due to the language barrier, a pair of Argentinian men had to resort to a version of pictionary to hit on Tash and me (it consisted of two stickmen girls, with an arrow to two stickmen outside a house with a question mark and love hearts...classy).
Córdoba, as a city, does not have that much to offer tourists. It is a pretty city, and has a good student based night life, but other than that, unless you are having daily spanish lessons, there´s little else to do. We signed up for our week course from our "Baluche" hostel, a chilled out, comfortable and sociable home for us. We met lots of lovely people, all travelling in different directions, and studied Spanish during the day with our tutor Monica.
It turns out that Argentinian Spanish is very different from the Spanish that I learnt at school. Argentinians have a very different accent, where they pronounce the ´ll´ with a ´sh´ sound, and have different tenses for the verbs. This explained why I struggled to communicate so much with the locals, but also made me concerned about Tash learning this Spanish. Considering we were leaving Argentina straight after Córdoba, and spending the majority of our time in countries that speak the normal Spanish, it seemed pointless. However, it turned out to be ok, as I explained the difference to Tash, and she found it easier to remember anyway! Also, it was more of a crash course that we had, as you just can´t learn Spanish is a week. Tash as a beginner was put in the same class as me, which was tough for both of us at times, but it gave Tash the basics, and refreshed my memory of verb endings. I found it really useful, remember how to use the different tenses, and Tash learnt the basics of pronounciation and useful vocabulary. Monica was also very entertaining; we were taught about different cultures in Argentina, as well as the different meals, and customs.
So we were being educated, and this was important to us. I´d taken a knock back after discovering that my funds were depleting a lot quicker than I anticipated, and we decided to skip the beautiful wine country of Mendoza. I was really disappointed, as people passing through our hostel kept telling us how lovely it was, but I decided that it was more important to make it to cheaper Bolivia and all the delights that awaited us there.
Every little helps, so in Córdoba we kept to strict budget, and cooked for ourselves in our lovely little hostel. We spend barely anything, which was all important, and it was good to have a base. We ventured out of town to Alta Gracia, to visit the childhood home of Ernesto ´Che´ Guevara. The tiny little museum, in memory of Argentina´s most famous political persona was really interesting. Despite Che´s main influence being in Cuba, Argentina is still very proud of the educated, charming, and inspiring revolutionary. I already knew a bit about Che´s personal life, from watching the dramatization film, ´The Motorcycle Diaries´, but did not know as much about his political life. It was fascinating for me, and I like to think that he was a kind spirited man as well as a revolutionary, who loved his family, and believed in freedom. Argentina does right to be proud.
So after finishing our week long course, I felt a lot more equipped to deal with travelling in Bolivia and Peru. Tash and I said goodbye to our German friends in Baluche, and got ready to get down and dirty in poorer and more "South American" Bolivia.
One last juicy steak, and we are ready for the next exciting country. We got our last luxurious bus with our beloved "Expresso Singer" bus company (on this occasion without the champagne and ´inflight´ movies) and headed up to the border...
Argentina, we´ll be back for more, as Buenos Aires is just too good, and the beautiful south of Patagonia needs to be explored. So for now...hasta luego amigo.
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