We got up late for breakfast, which is served until midday at this hostel, mainly to cater for the Buenos Aires party crowd, who seem to stay out until 5 or 6 in the morning. Today we decided to have a leisurely day and wandered into the centre of town. BA is huge, with wide streets reminiscent of an American city, but with a distinctly European flavour. Many of the buildings look more European than South American and the cite feels very modern. We went to the Congress building, which was apparently modelled on the White House, but looks nothing like it and is in desperate need of some love and attention. The area outside Congress is a busy road and the park is full of homeless people living under sheets. We then walked to Casa Rosada, the Presidential palace, from where Eva Peron wowed adoring crowds from the balcony, and after that walked to Puerto Madero, the newly-renovated docks area. Puerto Madero is lined on one side with converted red-brick warehouses, much like London's Docklands, and with glass skyscrapers on the other side. There are also several old ships moored in the docks and we went aboard one of them, the iron-hulled frigate ""Presidente Sarmiento", which was a little reminiscent of HMS Warrior but smaller and with more mod-cons. After that it was back to hostel for pizza night and all you can drink beer in the bar. We got chatting to some of the other guests staying at the hostel and ended up getting to bed at about 2:00am after getting our money's worth out of the free booze.
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| Casa Rosada |
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| The docks |
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| Jon having fun aboard the frigate |
Day 74 - 17th February
After the excesses of last night we got up very late. Jon seemed to be spared the hangover, but I was suffering. After finally dragging myself out of bed, an obligatory McDonald's was called for! We had high expectations for the burgers, this being Argentina, the home of the world's best beef, but we were very disappointed – it was even worse than in the UK! Feeling much better we went to Confiteria Ideal, a famous old tango venue in central BA to find out about their tango shows and classes. We discovered that it seems mostly aimed at rich tour groups as the show was very pricey. The lessons were much more reasonable and the last one of the evening is followed by a Milonga – a free-for-all tango dance for members of the public. We took down the details and thought we might give it a try tomorrow evening. We decided to head into San Telmo for dinner. This is the area near our hostel and is one of the oldest barrios in the city, famed for its tango shows and cafés. We walked quite a way to two of the tango venues listed in our guidebook, only to find that they were similarly out of our price bracket. With tired feet and rumbling tummies we decided that a tango show was not to be and that we'd treat ourselves to a steak dinner instead – well we are in Argentina! We found a lovely restaurant and tucked into a magnificently tender sirloin steak each, with side dishes and a rather tasty bottle of malbec, all for the bargain price of £20. The steak was everything we'd hoped for – tender, meltingly smooth, plentiful and delicious. We were just about to ask for the bill when some tango music struck up from a room behind us – the restaurant we had picked at random had a tango show on for only 20 pesos (less than £3!). Fate was definitely smiling on us, the show was fantastic and lasted well over an hour, with 2 male singers, a band and a young tango-dancing couple. The skill of the dancers was amazing, I have no idea how they manage to move their feet so quickly and yet remain so gracefully still above the waist. We were now seriously doubting our abilities to cut it at the tango class tomorrow! Full of steak and wine, and happy after our surprise tango show, we headed back to the hostel.
Day 75 - 18th February
today we set out to explore more of Buenos Aires, and walked a very long way. We took the Metro to Recoleta cemetery, in the ritziest part of town, where the great and good of Argentina have been buried for generations. The Cemetery is like no other I've seen – the dead are housed in elaborately decorated granite, stone or marble mausoleums, crammed in next to each other in narrow streets that pack the walled cemetery until it feels like there's no room left – indeed, the more recently deceased are interred in a series of small granite drawers lining one wall of the cemetery, that is if they don't have a family tomb to join. The most famous grave here is that of the Durante family, where Eva Peron (Evita) is buried. The tomb is covered with flowers and various plaques that have been donated from Argentina and beyond, some commemorating her life and some, bizarrely, seeming to relate to productions of Evita! the musical. After spending an hour or so soaking up the tranquillity of the cemetery, we walked up to Palermo to spend some time in the city's largest parks. We spent a little time sitting on the edge of Parque Tres de Febrero, although we were besieged by ants and decided to move on. We wandered into Palermo Viejo, an area with small squares and cobbled streets that now houses some of BA's trendiest bars and shops, and stopped for a couple of beers in the sunshine. Having walked so far our feet were very tired and the evening was really hot, so we decided to give the tango lesson a miss and chill out in the hostel for the evening.
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| Tomb drawers |
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| Cementario de Recoleta |
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| Evita's tomb |
Day 76 - 19th February
We checked out of hotel in the morning and chilled out for a bit checking our e-mails etc. In the early afternoon we walked into San Telmo to wander around the famous antiques market. It's a bit like an Argentinian Brick Lane, with street performers, cafes and stalls selling antiques, crafts and bric-a-brac. There were also free tango shows on in the main square so we stayed to watch a bit of dancing. After an empanada and a coffee we went back to the hostel to collect our bags before boarding our night bus to Puerto Iguazu.
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| Tango in San Telmo |
Day 77 - 20th February
We arrived at Puerto Iguazu 12:45 after an uneventful night bus. The buses in Argentina are far more expensive than in the rest of the continent but at least the food served was good. By coincidence we were to be in Iguazu at the same time as my friend Bethanie from work, who is travelling for exactly the same dates as us and visiting the same places but in the opposite order. We had found out yesterday that we had booked the same hostel on the same dates and were looking forward to catching up. We arrived, checked into our dorm and went out for lunch. Imagine our surprise when we got back to our room to find Bethanie and her sister Claire had been put in the same dorm! We had a lovely evening with a dip in the pool followed by dinner and beer and a lot of chatting.
Day 78 - 21st February
We all decided to visit the nearby Iguazu Falls together and got up early to catch the bus there, hoping to have at least some time before the tour groups arrived. We nearly didn't come to the falls as it's a major detour from our planned route but I am so glad we made the effort. I've never seen anything like them. The falls straddle the border between Brazil and Argentina, with most of them being in the Argentinian Parque Nacional Iguazu, which has several kilometres of well-marked trails, a small railway and offers boat trips close to the bottom of the falls. Set in acres of jungle, with many birds, plants, butterflies and monkeys as well as hoards of Coatis, a small animal that looks like a cross between a lemur and a raccoon. We had been condor-spotting since the start of our trip, catching the odd one or two, but here there were flocks of them swooping and gliding over the falls. The falls are made up of many individual cascades that fall from the same great river, creating a huge bank of waterfalls that curve majestically round in an almost semi-circle. The sight of them is spectacular and the noise they generate is incredible, especially when you get close. The walkways take you right up close to some of the larger falls, from where you get a good drenching in the huge clouds of mist they spray up. Beth and Claire took the boat ride and said it was brilliant, we decided to save our pennies and ate our sandwiches while watching the falls and waiting for them.
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| Coati |
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| Iguazu Falls |
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| Me and Beth at the falls |
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| Monkey on the Macuco Trail |
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| Garganta del Diablo |
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| Getting soaked |
Day 79 - 22nd February
We checked out of the hostel and hung around with Beth and Claire until our bus at 12:45 to Santa Fe. This was the first stop on our journey to Mendoza, which would have taken over 36 hours on one bus, so we decided to break the journey half way. Our 17 hour night bus trip was ok, although there were no blankets or pillows so we didn't sleep as well as we had on other trips. The bus was so empty (there were only 8 of us on it) that they obviously decided it wasn't worth bringing food along and we were all ushered off the bus at 11:30pm for dinner in restaurant!
Day 80 - 23rd February
We arrived Santa Fe at 5:40am and spent a good few hours drinking coffee in the bus station cafe until we felt human again. We headed out to explore the city, which is small and quite attractive, with the usual South American mix of grand colonial buildings, avenues and well-tended plazas. We found a nice park with some small lakes and lay in the sun reading our books and catching up on last night's sleep. After lunch in a cafe we went to another of the parks to repeat the morning's activities. We caught our next bus at 6:00pm - a mere 14 hours to Mendoza. This one was much better, with a hot meal service, all the waggon wheels we could eat and even a game of bingo (sadly I didn't win the prize of a bottle of chardonnay). With blankets and pillows we slept well.
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| The joy of South American bus travel |
Day 81 - 24th February
We arrived Mendoza at 8:30 and walked through the city to our hostel. Mendoza is a small-ish city in central Argentina, surrounded by mountains and the most famous vineyards in the country. After is was mostly destroyed by an earthquake in the 1860s it was redesigned with wide boulevards and large open spaces to collect any falling debris from future earthquakes. This makes it a really lovely city to walk around, with tree-lined streets and plazas, and a pedestrianised main street full of pavement cafes. We had booked a lovely hostel with a vine-covered patio, a small pool with hammocks and a sunny roof terrace. The hostel was really sociable and we spent the rest of the day relaxing there, using the internet and chatting with other guests. This evening the hostel put on a free talk - an introduction to mate, the tea-like infusion that all Argentinians seem to drink constantly. It seems we found a nation that drinks even more tea than us! The talk was very informative and we learnt all about the complicated social rituals that go alongside sharing a cup of mate in Argentina. We ended the day drinking wine on the roof terrace - brilliant!
Day 82 - 25th February
It's my birthday! We celebrated by heading out to Maipu in the Mendoza valley to cycle round some vineyards. We had been recommended Mr Hugo by other travellers we'd met and he certainly didn't disappoint. He runs a small company hiring bikes and he provides you with a map of the nearby vineyards. The best thing about the company is Mr Hugo himself - a larger than life character who plies you with free wine as soon as you set foot in his garden. We went with 4 other people from the hostel, another English couple and a couple from New Zealand, and we picked up a German girl on the bus, so there were 7 of us in our little group. It was great fun to share the day with a group of friends and we all had a blast cycling round the valley. Jon and I hired a tandem, which, after a few glasses of wine at Mr Hugo's before we set off, took a little while to master! Jon was in charge at the front, which meant that I could relax at the back without having to worry about steering or paying attention to where we were going - this came in handy after our first stop... We started at an olive grove, where they make delicious olive oil and tapenades as well as balsamic vinegar and fruit marmalades and chutneys. We paid 20 pesos and tasted a huge array of delicious foods before being given 2 shots each of home-made liqueurs, although being my birthday, I was given four! After the olives we headed to the wine museum, which was free and included a pretty large glass of wine. We then cycled onto another few vineyards, one was quite expensive so we decided to give it a miss and went onto the next one. Here we took a tour of the vineyard before settling down on the terrace overlooking the vines and enjoying a couple of bottles of wine between us. We had to get the bikes back by 6:30 so we went back to Mr Hugo's and enjoyed more free wine.
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| Enjoying Mr Hugo's hospitality |
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| Our tandem |
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| Happy wine tasting |
We got back to the hostel, where there was a free talk on how to make an Argentinian Asado (bbq), followed by a communal asado with about 20 guests from the hostel and more free wine. By luck there was a wine tasting festival in the town this weekend and we went down after dinner with some people from the hostel. Someone gave us their left-over tickets from last night so our drinks were free once more! After the festival we chilled out in the hammocks in the garden until about 3:30am, all in all a great way to spend my 30th birthday :o)
Day 83 - 26th February
Today we all slept late, missed breakfast and spent most of the day recovering from yesterday's excesses. As it was Sunday nothing in town was open so our plan to buy food for lunch and dinner was foiled. Happily the hostel had a pizza evening so we enjoyed a lot of tasty pizza, followed by a relaxed evening in front of the telly watching the Oscars.
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