Stevo and lel’s adventures

We are now in Iguazu.  Iguazu is an exceptional jungle waterfall area on the Argentinian  /  Brazillain border.  Parque Nacional Iguazu contains a series of gorgeous walkways throughout the jungle designed to provide amazing views and bring you into close contact with nature and the waterfalls. That description really doesntdo it justice. In truth I just  dont have the words to describe properly the place, the sights, the sounds. When I finally get around to posting some pictures you´ll get what I mean.

Okay so we are again in a Sheraton in the Iguazu national park    http://www.starwoodhotels.com/sheraton/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=1152&EM=VTY_SI_iguazu_1152_overview.  We arived just after 3pm and after checking into our very comfortable jungle balcony room we headed out to experience the park. The walkways close at 6pm every night and dont open until 8am the next day so we wanted to make the most of what time we had. We chose the Upper circuit (all of the walkways are 5 mins from the hotel!)  this network of steel and bamboo paths lets you enjoy wonderful panoranic fall views. With the jungle on all sides and the sun splittign the trees we felt really close to nature.Well, plant nature not  so much the animals as they are mostly nocturnal however certainly with the beautiful, colourful  plants and flowers  butterflies and birds. There were a few animals, I dont have a name yet for the tame snufflers (as we called them), a racoon kinda creature which is very curious and friendly which would walk right up to you in the hope of a snack.   

We then headed back to our room for some drinks. Once again the Sheraton knowing we were on honeymoon provided some gratis fizz – Chandon this time which Stevo polished off quickly ( I stuck to the Premier Malbec!).  I am, I think turning into an alcoholic!  We ate dinner in the hotel resturant (the only one – you have to go a bit of a distance for another resturant, into the wee town and we were just too tired tonight) however the meal was lovely. Pumpkin soup with balsamic reduction followed by rare sirloin and sauted veg for me and a chicken, beef and corn and cheese (?)  empenadas for stevo with salsa followed by a speciality dish, pork marinated in a wood fired local sauce (sweet) with fried yucca. It was really, really nice, we were stuff ed  🙂

After two flights to get here and much hanging out in airports we crashed early as we were knackered! Tomorrow we have booked a jungle tour and a rapid ride on the Parana river. Were also off to Garganta del diablo (devils throat)  which is a spectacular set of falls you get to via a scenic railway tour and then a river tour back ending with a relax in the hydrothermal pools in the hotel which are meant to replicate the falls  (we´ll see haha!) more later xxx

We are in Mendoza!!  And honestly, this place is great!

After a short flight, private collection and shuttle to the hotel once again  (you really have to love Kuoni!)  we have arrived in Mendoza. We are staying at the 5* Sheraton http://www.starwoodhotels.com/sheraton/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=1733&EM=VTY_SI_1733_MENDOZA_PROP_OVERVIEW . The hotel is gorgeous, we thought the Buenos Aires hotel was good however this one has lots of cool stuff. A full blown Casino for one. There are also two water walls and live singers at night.  One full wall of our room on the 11th floor is window which is pretty amazing. The views over the city at night when we arrived were spectacular, you could see for miles and miles… Come morning and sunrise the view got even better  – a huge  pinky red sun breaking through the cloud  –  we have some amazing photos, the sky a mix of blues greys oranges pinks and red. 

Another nice thing about this hotel was their wee gift – after 5 mins in our room we recieved a complimentary bottle of champers! Woo hoo!!

Mendoza is beautiful, and personally, I really think it´s  way superior to Buenos Aires (BA).  BA  is such a large metropolis. Mendoza is smaller, quainter, prettier, more relaxed. The buildings are largely older (although there are a good few modern ones, especially where our hotel is in the heart of the financial district).  You never walk far without coming across a square or a park. And all the parks have all of their main buildings surrouning them (town hall, church etc) I would actually love to live here given half the chance…. 

Today after breakfast we walked for 3 hours around the town. The sun was  shining, there was a lovely breeze, it was heavenly. There are many small wineries, boutiques and specialist shops. I bought my first piece of holiday  jewellery today from a wee silvermiths – a pair of silver dragonfly earings, they are very pretty and delicate. A bit like Mendoza.  We spent a good chunk of the morning meandering around  parks (Plaza Independcia and the very large Park San Martin) dotted with sculptures and statues. Very relaxing . We also had a strong coffee in a delightfully posh wee coffee house in one of the more affluent areas of older ladies made up to the nines reading daily papers.  We visited the Italian and Spanish squares .. lots of squares!

I am currently in the Sheraton bar catching up on this lest I forget.  The lighting is subdued, the air is filled with the aroma of Orchids and ambiant music is playing in the background.  I am tempted to have a drink however am saving myself for later – we have booked a private wine tour for this afternoon, wine especially Malbec I believe is what Mendoza is primarly famous for. I am so looking forward to this tour as I am rather partail to a wee vino or 10  😉  More to follow on our return …

So we went to two vineyards, Norton and Alta Vista. The tours are not unlike the whisky tours in Scotland. Large vats, casks and vaults.  The highlight of both was obviously the tasting after each tour  😉   Argentina didnt really export wine until about 10 years ago, not so much anyroads. Then, due to increased beer, soft drink advertising consumtion internally dropped from 90 to 30 litres per person and they looked overeas. This is good news for us as the wine is good. We sampled a Norton fizzy and a premier Malbec. We came away with a pink Norton fizzy which you cant get in the UK. Alta Vista was smaller, french owned. The tasting there was unusal, I dont generally like white however there was an unsual white (Torrontes) which smelt like it should be sweet but was in fact very dry. There was a premier Malbec (light) and another older aged malbec.  What a wonderful way to spend the afternoon!  There are thousands of wineries and vineyards in Mendoza and we really wished we had more time to visit them… 

Tonight we headed down to the Sheraton resturant for a Brazillain night, live music and Brazillain food. Early start tomorrow ( 6 am  🙁 ) so quite and undescriptive short blog tonight.  

Hola! 

And a very warm welcome to our honeymoon travel blog! We’re travelling  around South America (Argentina, Brazil & Cuba) over a period of about 3 weeks and have set this up as a reminder of where we’ve been what we’ve done. Getting on a bit afterall and the memory’s not what it was ;o). There are no pictures as yet however I’ll add them when we get back **promise**.

Okay, where to start? The holiday got off to an amazing start with Stevo chancing access to the BMI lounge and fluking upgrades from Edinburgh to Heathrow (go Stevo!). Terminal 5 was, as always a complete delight with way too much champagne,  too much food, coffee overload… etc etc etc and  the London / Argentina flight (which I was really, really dreading as I’m very bad on anything more than the 1.5 hour Edinburgh / London commute) was actually okay. Surprisingly better than expected.  Stevo even scored some honeymoon champagne which was an unexpected bonus 🙂  And a sign of things to come…!

After 13 odd hours flying, a stop over for AGES in Sau Pauo and 4 in flight movies and a private pickup and chauffeur  we have arrived at our first location; Hotel Madero http://www.hotelmadero.com/ in Puerto Madero, Argentina.   So we’ve arrived, have been here four days now, and have done all the usual touristy things. Our hotel is in quite a posh exclusive bit, and though absolutely lovely and very contemporary chic,  you couldn’t really say it was overly Argentinian. Save the location not  veryArgentinian at all really! We are flanked by pristinely manicured lawns, spacious walkways, a chocolate brown (sediment) river and sparkling high rises. In this area there is, apparently, 1 policeperson to 5 people. In the rest ot the city it’s 1 to 500, or maybe even 5000?!?! I forget.  Anyway, its something ridiculous and it goes to highlight that its really safe around here.

Day one

Ah, this one was a bit of a non starter as after the long long flight as we both really tired.  Stevo, poor poppet suffered a it as I was really narky (whats new  haha!).  We had a wee rest then were picked up again by our personal tour guide and driver at night to go to a Tango show we’d  booked – Tango Los Angelos. It’s a meal / tango show deal and the meal was AMAZING!  I had a massive succulent steak accompanied by wee roast potatoes cherry tomatoes and and, for once was unable to finish it all which is absolutely unheard of for me!  Stevo had steak too which surprised me as he doesn’t generally eat read meat but then, this IS Argentina and the meat is exceptional. If you are going to eat meat this realy is the place to do it! The show was okay, very staged and overproduced. The Tango dancing was really fast, complicated and just plain  fantastic.  The show however seemed to be punctuated by some weird singing where some old bloke and then some middle aged woman would come on and sing, I think, about an acordian?!? I’m assuming it was an accordian as there was one centre stage with a light shining on it? All very strange and all conducted  in Argentinian so we were pretty clueless!!. Thats another thing about B.A, English isn’t so common, its all Spanish so if you’re coming I’d at least try to cover off the basics. We never and it was a bit of a struggle at times! 

Other eventful first night stuff – my Tom Collins (gin, lime, sugar) super strong cocktail in the hotel bar &  our executive superior room (lush!)

Day 2

A scrummy breakfast – fresh melon, pineapple, grapes, kiwi, oranges – all the fruits you’d want really.  Cold cuts, cheese, many breads – brioche, cooked option (stevo had a fine herb omlette, whats the difference between fine and normal herbs I wonder?), freshly squeezed orange all served whist sitting at cool wee low tables ( I want one!) – was followed by collection  by our tour guide and driver for our private city tour.  Buenos Aires has a really busy thoroughfare, there are tons of massive lorries importing and exporting and few in city travel restrictions making car travel challenging!

We saw:

Plamero with it’s beautiful French buildings (e.g. The white House) and its spacious parkland which, at the time of our visit seemed to be hosting an exhibition to some porn star!!   There is a massive steel flower sculpture in the park which is really cool and different.

Ricoletta which has  a beautifulwhite church, very clean serence and calm  with interesting sculptures (Indian / spanish faces) and the cemetry where Eva Peron is burried. Despite my best efforts I actually went into this graveyard in the end as I was unsurprisingly needing a loo stop and they were located in there (along with a rather pointed sign informing me that my tip was the attendant lady’s salary). Graveyards freak me out.  Like eggs there is just something  wrong about them however this one is just built up Mausleums – all concrete wee house things and statues. There was a poignant statue of a young girl and her dog, very eye catching, she apparently died on a sking trip in the 70s and her parents comissioned a likeness of her and her dog who, at home miles away died the same day….kinda  creepy stuff. Anyway..

We also visited the very very VERY wide 9th July street (named after Argentina’s independance date from Spain) and saw the massive white obleisk.  We saw the Plaza de Mayo (pink building where the president gets choppered to every day – we saw the chopper actually – very OTT can you imagine old Gordon getting away with that one?). St Martin’s Cathedral crypt thingy which is flanked by guards. I gave this one a miss. I mean I really dont get why people would want to visit dead bones. Plus it smelt really musty.  Haha I am such a philistine…

We also ha d a riveting visit to  La Bombarina?!? Is that how you spell it? A monstrous blue and yellow football stadium where the ‘Boca Juniors’ train and play. That was especially interesting, so glad I paid that a visit 😉

In the late afternoon we walked about Puerto Maderno scouting out the area, there were cool turtles which we originally thought were statues on an overturned rusty ship base, until they moved that is! We ate Empindas at a wee cafe for 3 pesos and had a look at an old clipper museum boat across the water. There is a real mix of French Colonial architecture and modern here .. the Customs house and the imposing military HQ building being great examples of the former.

We spent a couple of hours in Florida – a pedestrian only shopping area, surprisingly I never bought anything save a hairclip! Stevo however fot some kinda football top (don’t ask me – it was blue and white striped) and we indulged in some heavenly icecream, chocolate & rum and bananna split for me toffee and coffee for Stevo. Mine was waaay better.

Due to the exessive walking we headed into a McCafe (McDonalds coffee) – yes seriously – and had an unusually nice coffee in there and we hadn’t really had any good coffees in BA yet. Which was surprising..  We then headed home where stevo went off for a run to an Ecological park up the road and I went for the more relaxing option of a sauna 😉    

We visited a Steak House at night – La Siga Vaca –  one of the recommeded ones from our guide book where I had the best steak ever, rare oozing blood and flavour. Stevo got served an intestine which was hilarious (he’s asked for chicken!). One thing to note is that when then ask you what you want to drink and you say red wine, you get the whole bottle!!! This place is great, the meat is exceptional and it’s well worth a visit if you ever make it out here.

Day 3   

After the ice cream / red meat excess I started the day with a roof top treadmill run in the gym on the top of our hotel. Breathtaking views. Stevo was still sleeping and I wasn’t quite brave enough to venture out alone. We then stuffed ourselves in the buffet breakfast ( came to be a bit of a regular occurance) with a certain someone haveing 2 omlettes!! Then hopped on the public bus to La Boca. Our hotel advised us against public transport but our tour guide had said it would be okay. It was, and it was super cheap – 2.2 pesos for both. You need to be sure you get off at the correct stop though as there are some bad areas surrounding the touristy bit and apparently a high likelehood of mugging!!

La Boca is a multicoloured chaotic collection of thrown together houses and bars and shops. It is meant to represent how the houses grew when the immigrants decended, there is a lot of tin. Its all very haphazard but pretty abnd bright. We stopped off to buy the usual magnets and postcards, the locals are a bit pushy but not overly so.

There are 3 or 4 wee streets in the tourit part of La Boca and on one of them you can sit and have a beer and watch the tango dancers. You can even get a photo (which Stevo did)! Another street is home to a myriad of talented artisits, we bought two painitngs, oils of La Boca, they are really beautiful and will have pride of place at home.  There is also a mural of the Boca Juniors which you can get your photo next to – not one for me ;o)

So far we’d done all the usual touristy stuff and I really felt that we hadn’t seen the real argentina, just the gloss covered version so after a quck shared pizza at a waterfront cafe near our hotel,  we headed across the river to  San Telmos. This is more representative of Buenos aires i think . We walked for hours up and down the cobbled streets with their bohemian shops and antique dealers. We visited Plaza Dorrego – the market square where there are many stalls and street artists which wasn’t so busy as it only is very busy on Sunday apparently  then had the best coffee so far at a little corner cafe opposite the youth hostel. San Telmos is beautiful, all Italian architecture and faded grandeur which makes it all the more enthralling.. the peeling plaster, the cracked windows….

We finished the evening with a bottle of very dry cava (lovely!) and a bit of a fight about where to get a late supper which ended in a call to room service by lesley – good call actually as I had an excellent club sandwich which came with a flower and soem mints!

Day 4 last day 🙁

Stevo started the day with a run around the Ecological park again – I just never felt like it so settle for a nice long breakfast followed by a pamper and a soak. We were getting picked up at 3.30 for our Mendoza flight so we didn’t go to far – across the rive to Hooters for beer!! We had a later lunch at a private university however this was jsut school dinner stuff and not so nice, filled a gap though. Then back to the hotel to write this up!  

So that’s Buenos Airea over. Other things to note – the weather – so hot despite it beign oficially  ‘winter’ – 28 degress today for example.  It’s a vibrant, pretty, dynamic mixed up city with lots to see and do. The only thing I kinda regret is not makingit to a Tango dancing club, a proper wee unstaged one.. mibbie next time ?!!