Round the World with Ann and Katie

I finally decided it was time to leave Salta after spending 10 days there.  After 8 months of travelling it was nice to stay somewhere for a bit longer than normal and not to be constantly packing and moving on.  I got to know the city quite well and i think the Spanish lessons I had there have helped.
From Salta I travelled south to the small town of Cafayate, a big wine producing area in the hills.  The bus journey there was only suppossed to take 3 hours and for once I was looking forward to it as it passes through a gorge with amazing scenery.  It took a bit longer than planned though as we were travelling on a dirt road and a little bit of rain in the morning had flooded parts of the road.  But I arrived eventually and then stayed there for a couple of days.  The first day I went back to the gorge for a guided walk around the cliffs, cave and rock formations carved in the sandstone by water and wind.  The second day I went to Quilmes a prehispanic fort in the hills near the town and then went for a walk along the valley to a waterfall.  For once the many knee deep river crossings were a welcome relief as it was a really hot day.  And when I went back into the town I tried the local speciality of wine flavoured ice cream, I can´t see it catching on anywhere else.  In the evening I went out with 3 Argentinian girls I met in the hostel and tried the local wine, which was a big improvement on the ice cream.
From Cafayate I carried on heading south to Tucaman, where I just stayed a night so I could get a bus to Cordoba the next day.  I had heard on the news that farmers had been protesting for the last couple of weeks about increases in taxes, but in the north it didn´t have any affect.  But here I found out that the farmers road blocks had been causing chaos with many buses getting stuck or cancelled.  Luckily the day I went they were letting buses through so we were only a bit delayed arriving in Cordoba.  When I arrived at the hostel I met a lot of people who had been stuck there days trying to get a bus and heard many stories of prople getting stuck on buses for more than 12 hours and then just ending up back where they started.  Also found that here the strikes have been starting to affect fresh food supplies making it more difficult than normal to get fruit and veg.
I have spent the last few days in Cordoba.  Although it has been raining almost constantly since I got here, I have looked around the main sites in the city, a lot of colonial and Jesuit buildings and churches, a few museums.  Yesterday I went to Alta Gracia, a small town near here where Che Guevara grew up.  In his house there was a really interesting museum and photo gallery that covered his whole life.  Cordoba is also a big student city with 7 universities, so the nightlife is a big thing here, the hostel even employs someone just to take people out to the bars and clubs everynight.  At the moment the city is also really busy beause the world rally championship is being held here.  The other night when it started was absolute chaos and even walking anywhere in the city was difficult.  The cars were doing a parade around the centre, thousnads of people were on the streets to watch that, there were farmers demonstrating in the streets and the roads were still open to normal traffic.  I tried to go out for a bit but you could hardly move because it was so busy.
Tonight I am moving on to San Juan, a town near Mendoza.

From Salta I had a short bus journey to Tilcara a small town in the far north of Argentina only a couple of hours from the Bolivian border. It was noticeably very different from the rest of Argentina, very little European influence, traditional style adobe buildings, cobbled streets and very few descendents of European people. Hardly anyone there spoke a word of English, whcih was good for me as I´ve got very lazy with speaking Spanish when there are people that can speak English. The hostel I stayed in was really nice, a group of cabins around a central courtyard with hammocks. I was sharing with 3 Argentinians so even there I had to speak Spanish.

I arrived in the town in the early afternoon and soon realised it was going to have to be a very relaxing few days. Here they seemed to have a siesta which lasted from midday to about 6pm and everything would shut. THe next day I went to Humahuaca, another small town a bit further north. It was similar to Tilcara and it was interesting jsut top walk around the main square, and I went up to a big statue on a hill overlooking the town. In the afternoon I went back to Tilcara and had a good walk up to a waterfall on the edge of town and then another walk to a small lake the other side of town.

The following day I went to see the Pucara, a partially restored pre-hispanic fort on a hill over looking the town. THen I went to the archaeology museum where a lot of the finds from the fort were displayed.

In the evening I got the bus back to Salta so that I could get another bus further south the following day. But I´ve had a bit of a change of plan. As it is a really nicecity and I´m staying in a nicehostel, I´ve decided to stay a bit longer and have arranged to start some Spanish lessons tomorrow.

Hopefully had my last long bus journey for a while when I travelled from Iguazu to Salta, another 17 hours. Salta is a city in the north west of Argentina, it has a strong colonial influence with a lot of interesting original architecture but is also one of the first places I´ve been to Argentina with a large indigenous population.
I spent a few days in the city seeing the sights and going to a few museums. I also went up in a cable car to the top of a hill overlooking the city.  There were good views at the top and it was a nice walk back down to the city.  I went to a really interesting museum about high altitude archaelogy and how they discovered 3 mummified child sacrifices on the top of a mountain near Salta on the border with Chile. I also spent a day going to San Lorenzo a small village just outside Salta where I had a good walk through the jungle.
I  spent the next 2 days doing tours organised by the hostel. The first one was a trip up to the alti-plano and salt flats. It was a really good day as the scenery was constantly changing. We started off travelling through the rainforrest in the valley, went up into the dessert where there was loads of cacti, and amazing rock formations. Each layer of the rock is a different colour because of the different minerals they contain. We stopped for lunch at the town of San Antonio de Cobres, which is a small mining town on the edge of the altiplano. On the way here we were giving coca leaves to chew as they are suppossed to help prevent the effects of altitude as we were up at about 4000m. They taste disgusting, like really bitter tea and I don´t know that they had much of an effect although I didn´t feel ill.
After lunch we crossed the alti-plano hundreds of kms of flat land with very little there except llamas and wild donkeys. Then we reached the salt flats which were very impressive as they covered such a huge area. After that we started heading back to Salta , stopping off on the way at Pumamarca, a small town famous for the hill of 7 colours, a rock formation by the town with different coloured layers in it. It was a long day as we left Salta at 7am and didn´t get back until 9pm, just in time for a big BBQ organised by the hostel. I had met a lot of people in the hostel over the previous few days so it was a good evening with lots of very good steak. We ended up going out to the area of Salta where all the pubs and clubs are for a few drinks and we saw a local folk music performance. But it turned into a bit of a late night. Ended up getting back to the hostel just in time to have breakfast before going out for the day on the next tour. This was a trip to Cachi, a small town a few hours drive from Salta. For me the highlight of the trip was driving through the Cardones national park. There were literally thousands of cacti either side of the road, in a valley surrounded by more amazing rock formations. We stopped here for a while to have a look round. The area also has a lot of spiders, didn´t manage to find any tarantulas but we did see a few black widows.
Went out to another BBQ that evening but managed to get back to the hostel in time for a few hours sleep before getting the bus the next morning.

Well I can’t follow that really and I apologise in advance for the rapid decline in the spelling, grammer, typing mistakes etc.  So after waving Ann off to the airport I had a couple of hours to spare before getting the bus out of BA.  Most of this time was acually spent trying to sort out our on going problems with Western Union, which I thgink we finally managed.  The only good thing about Western Union is that they have given me lots of practise in complaining about things in Spanish.  I’m sure this will be useful in the coming months.

So, after another long overnight bus journey I arrived in Puerto Iguazu at about 9am.  After finding the hostel, having a shower and breakfast I decided I was going to have a relaxing day doing not a lot.  The town itself is quite small so it didn’t take long to find my way around.  Just outside the town is the Tres Fronteras where the borders of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil meet by 2 rivers.  Other than a nice view and a few stalls selling souveniers there wasn’t a lot to see.  But after the chaos of Buenos Aires it was good to have a quiet day getting used to the tropical heat and humidity.
The next day I had an early start so I could to the national park before all the big tour groups arrived.  This was worth it as it meant I arrived at one of the main sights, the Garganta del Diablo before the crowds.  This is another place where it is impossible to describe and photos won’t show the true scale of it.  Its about a 1km across bridges over the river to the top of the falls.  From the start of the walk you can here the noise of the water but you can’t actually see it until you get a lot closer.  The walkway goes right to the edge of the falls where there is a huge mass of water plumitting over the edge of the cliffs.  Because of the amount of spray it’s impossible to see the river at the bottom.  On the walk back across the river I spotted a cayman.  I spent the rest of the day doing various walks to different areas of the waterfalls.  Despite the number of views of waterfalls I had, even at the end of it they still seemed impressive.  In the afternoon the main area of the park was very crowded so I escaped to a less visited area on a longer walking trail through the forest.  As it was a bit quieter there was a bit more wildlife around including Coatis (a kind of racoon?), a lot of lizards, birds, butterflys and strange insects.
Today I decided I still hadn’t had enough of waterfalls and went to Brazil for the day to see the falls from the other side.  On the Brazillian side ther is just one walking trail that you can use without a guide, but it gives a better panoramic view of all the waterfalls, which you don’t really get on the Argentinian side.  This gave a much better perspective of the area and it was well worth the trip.
After thinking of various plans on where to go next, I’ve decided to stay in Argentina and travel to Salta.  Unfortunatly this means yet another long bus journey tomorrow, another 23 hours.

Eight months we have been travelling and we have had no trouble whatsoever. Since arriving in Buenos Aires we have been the subject of repeated attempts at daylight robbery. As soon as we got off the bus someone plastered our bags with chocolate and then helpfully produced some toilet paper on the pretext of helping us to clean it off. He tried to take Katie´s small bag and anyway we had read about this sort of scam and told him to …….. off PDQ. Then later the same afternoon two men actually stole my camera while I was taking a photo. You are obviously off guard for a second or two while you focus on your picture but that was all my photos of South America gone as well as some from NZ – about 500 in all. We chased them for a while but they dived down an alleyway and we thought it wasn´t safe to pursue them any further. It took us an hour to find the police station. They have a special department for tourists who have been the victims of theft and believe me they do a roaring trade. I got a chitty for insurance purposes but clearly that was all they were prepared to do. Then today (Tuesday) while we were on the subway someone tried to steal things from my bag. But I didn´t have much in there and anything of value was at the bottom under a huge Lonely Planet guide and a litre of water. Thieving bastards! I don´t feel safe anywhere here.

However, we have done some sightseeing. On Sunday after we arrived we had a bit of a rest and then went to a market a short distance from the hostel. There were lots of stalls selling craft stuff and tourist knick knacks as well as clothes and antiques. Several groups of musicians were playing tango music in the street so the atmosphere was very lively. I bought a couple of things before we went back to the hostel for some lunch. We had not taken our cameras with us in the morning so decided to go back to the market in the afternoon, which is where my camera was stolen. Needless to say that put an end to our exploration of Buenos Aires for the day. We bought a very decent bottle of red wine for 6pesos (£1) to drown our sorows.

The following morning (Monday) we set off after brekky at the hostel (there is always chocolate cake here for breakfast) to explore the central areas of Buenos Aires on foot. First we went to Plaza de Mayo at one end of which is Casa Rosada or the Pink House where Evita used to address the crowds from the balcony. It is a rather nasty shade of pink. The square has the usual collection of pigeons and fountains and is surrounded by grand buildings including the cathedral, a neo-classical building. There was something military going on in one of the chapels, as there were lots of soldiers in long black shiny boots and red jackets stomping about in a Ministry of Silly Walks kind of fashion.We then walked down to the Plaza del Congresso which, surprise, surprise, houses the Congress building. We had wanted to do a tour of the Teatro Colon, which was the largest theatre in the southern hemisphere until they built Sydney Opera House, but it was close for renovations.  Next on the agenda was Galerias Pacifico, a huge shopping mall full of designer shops – just our scene! But in the basement they had a food hall where we had a Chinese-style lunch. I had discarded my hiking books as they were falling apart and only had sandals so I bought some new shoes to avoid frostbite on my return to the UK.  On our perambulations we had spotted a Western Union office so went back to the hostel to get the paperwork to try to sort out our money transfer. They said that they could neither amend or cancel the transfer so that was that. Take a tip from us: never use the Western Union. But we bought some tickets to watch River Plate play America ( a Mexican club) in the Copa Libertadores, which seems to be the equivalent of the Champions League and we booked some tickets on the ferry for a day trip to uruguay, which is only an hour away across the River Plate.

On Tuesday we tried to swap all the books that we had read for two new ones but after a 20 minute hike to the book shop we found that it didn’t open until 2pm. So we caught the subway to a district called Recoleta. The main feature of the area is the cemetry where Evita is buried.  There are hundreds of marble mausoleums, in some of which you can see the coffins on shelves. There are also lots of cats which have homes amongst the coffins. We also visited the Museo Nacional de Belles Artes. One floor has works by European artists, from 14th century onwards. It was interesting to see the changes in style as time progressed. The other floor was devoted to Argentinian artists and was mainly 19th century onwards and had a lot of really modern stuff which doesn’t do much for me. Lots off different coloured squares don’t seem to be all that different to a Dulux colour chart to me! About 2km further we found the Evita Museum. This was interesting as we didn’t really know that much about her, not being big fans of either musicals or Madonna. It was all rather one-sided of course although it did mention that she had her enemies. The exhibits focused on her work for with women and children, setting up homes for them, and schools and orphanages etc.

We decided to have a sort of half day on Wednesday to keep our strength up for the footie in the evening (8.30pm kick off). So we went to Palermo, a very posh part of BA, which has lots of parks and gardens, including the Japanese Gardens, where they had some horrible carp with gaping mouths. We visited the Rose Garden and watched incredibly well off middle-aged lycra-clad women “keeping fit”. Most of them were walking no faster than us and we were just out for a stroll! We gather that style is the all important factor here.

Professional dog walkers abound in BA. They bring about 7 or 8 pedigree dogs each to the park, mostly large breeds like Alsatians and retrievers. We had a bit of a siesta and then went off to the footie at about 6pm. Our tickets included transport to the ground so it was really easy. The stadium is huge; circular with high terraces of seats and holds about 72,000 people. The home end was packed and the noise was phenomenal. The Coca Cola people were on strike so there were no drinks so we had to buy ice lollies to quench our thirst. No beer is allowed in the ground or for 10 blocks all around it. During the first half River Plate defended really badly and gave away a really easy goal. But they equalised just before half time to tumultuous applause. Their manager is Simeone, the guy that Beckham kicked to get himself sent in the World Cup. He must have had words at half time because the 2nd half was much better, played at a hectic pace and really quite exciting. But no more goals until about two minutes before the final whistle when River scored again. The noise was deafening, with flares going off and chanting and dancing etc. Quite an experience.

Thursday – my last day in Argentina and also of the whole trip. We had our day trip to Uruguay, to a small town called Colonia del Sacramento. It is an historic, quaint little place with little houses all painted different colours, a lighthouse and various fortifications. There were also some nice leafy squares to relax in, far away from the stress and bustle of Buenos Aires. And every other building is a souvenir shop. It was a very pleasant day and we got back to BA to find that they had had about 5cm of rain and lots of places were flooded. Then to mark the end of the trip for me we went out for dinner to a restaurant called Desnivel which everyone recommends. We had beautiful steaks, so tender and juicy, with salad and a bottle of wine. Followed by pancakes with dulce de leche, which is a local sort of caramel sauce, extremely thick and sweet and probably very bad for you.

After bidding a tearful farewell to Katie (anyone would think she was going to miss me!) I got a taxi to the international airport yesterday (Friday) morning. As I sat in the departure lounge I thought that this moment seemed a very long way off last June when we set off from Glasgow Airport at the crack of dawn. We’ve been to places that have been on my wish list for a long time (Siberia, China, Mongolia); places that I’d read about or seen films about. It didn’t seem possible to actually go to them though, certainly not all in one trip. We’ve been to places that I always thought I would go to one day, such as St Petersburg and New Zealand. And places that weren’t on my hit list at all, like Australia, Chile and Argentina. There are places that have lived in my imagination since I was a child: the Kremlin, The Great Wall of China, Ayers Rock (as we used to call it), Botany Bay, the River Plate, the Straits of Magellan. Also places that I became aware of later for various reasons such as Tiananmen Square, Sydney Opera House and Harbour Oridge, the WACA, Bondi Beach, the Milford Track. Places that feature in moutaineering and climbing legend (Mount Cook, Fitzroy, Cerro Torre, Torres del Paine). And now I’ve been to them all. We’ve followed in the footsteps of Captain Cook and Darwin. We’ve taken many forms of transport: buses, boats, planes, cars, trains. We’ve biked and hiked, climbed, kayaked, snorkelled, sailed and surfed. We’ve met some great people and the odd …………… (well, there is always one, isn’t there?) . We’ve seen kangaroos, emus, rheas, penguins, sharks, dolphins, whales, snakes, crocodiles, condors, sea lions, huge lizards and dingoes. Our perceptions of people and places have changed enormously and we’ve learned a huge amount about history and different cultures.

But it’s not all over! There are lots of places we must go back to and new places to go. And Katie is carrying on her exploration of South America. So if you want to follow her progress she will taking over the blog. I can accept no further responsibility for the quality of the spelling and grammar (it hasn’t been that good anyway!). So this is Ann signing off – except that now that I when I get home I will try to put some photos on the blog.