Salta (Argentina) - Week 32

23rd - 28th April

So we got on the bus from Puerto Iguazu at 9.30pm very tired and had a surprisingly good sleep overnight. We woke up at 7.30am very pleased with ourselves that the journey was only 26 hours and we had already done 10 - no probs! Then the coach stopped at about 10am and we looked out of the front window to see a line of stationary traffic and a couple of tractors blocking the road ahead. It was the cotton farmers on strike and they were holding the traffic up until someone came to discuss the situation with them. And so we waited, and we waited, and we waited. After a couple of hours we were starving so Katie befriended a local Argentinian and her 3 year old daughter and gate-crashed an asado (very embarrrassing because I thought they were selling sausages and they were actually for the protesters but they gave me one free anyway...).

Note the 15+ mile queue behind our bus.

At 2pm we eventually had news that someone was coming to negotiate with the farmers at 4pm so we had to wait until then. 6pm came and apparently the negotiations had not been successful but it was okay because the bus company was sending another bus from the other direction to arrive at 8pm and we just had to carry our bags accross the blockade. And then 10pm came and no bus so everyone went to sleep. We all woke up at 7am and finally at 10am, 24 HOURS LATER, the tractors moved and we were on our way!!! Absolutely unbelievable. The wierdest thing was the reaction of the locals on the bus, ie: none. They all just slept through practically the whole thing and no-one batted an eyelid.

Anyway, the journey continued without note from then onwards (oooh, except for James winning a bottle of wine in the bingo!) and we arrived in Salta 25 hours late at 1am - 51 hours after leaving Iguazu. Crazy.

We stayed in a nice hotel on the main plaza (called Hotel Plaza, originally enough) and spent our first day sorting out some tours and visiting the churches and museums. In one museam there dispalyed Inca mummies found in the high andes. Apparently they used to sacrifice children to their gods, mummified them and buried them on top of the highest mountains in the andes at almost 7000m asl!!

On Friday we went on a tour with two other people to the north of Argentina in the Jujuy Region, through Humahuaca Gorge - which was gorgeous, whey-hey!! Salta and Jujuy are in fertile valleys at about 300m asl but as soon as you go north you climb quickly through the clouds to about 2500m and into the gorge. Without the clouds trapped in the valleys below the gorge is very dry with lots of huge catus and little dry villages with people scavaging around trying to grow crops and raise llama. The gorge runs 150km all the way up into the Andean plateau at the Bolivian border with beautiful rock formations. The most famous is in Purmamarca called, imaginatively, the hill of seven colours:


We then carried on north to Humahuaca, where the locals put up a big battle against the spanish when Argentina fought for independence. They fooled the Spanish armies travelling south from Bolivia by evacuating the town, burning everthing to the ground, destroying all their food and water supplies, and best of all, putting their ponchos and sombraros on the catus growing on the surrounding hills. The spanish thought it was the locals waiting to fight and so wasted all their ammunition firing at cactus!!

That evening we had to move hotels as there was a woman with healing hands coming to town and everywhere was packed with argentinians that had travelled far and wide to come and see her! After checking into a nice hostel round the corner, we went out to one of the peñas (pub, basically), for a lovely parilla and live folkloric music which was pretty entertaining.


Our next activity was very out of character. We were recommended at HORSE riding tour in the hills south of Salta by a Irish couple we met in Paraty, Brazil. They said they weren´t horsey but really enjoyed it, so we thought that if we were going to get on a horse on this trip, we might as well do it here.


The farm, owned by Enrique, a real-live gaucho, was in a beautiful setting surrounded by tabacco and vegetable fields. He gave us two very docile horses and so we felt at ease straight away. Also, the thought of coming back at lunchtime to a huge outdoor parilla (Argentine BBQ) with lots of wine softened the blow!


We walked along the lane with the guide through some fields, but soon the guide was getting bored with slow pace and was urging us to try trotting. Well all i can say is i hope i still can have kids - multiple blows to the goolie region is not my idea of fun!! Apparently you are supposed to rise and fall in time with the horse, in a beautiful symbiotic partnership. That was not what happened - just pain. Katie got the idea well and wanted to go faster, she didn´t have the pain to deal with i suppose.

Juan, Enrique´s mate doing a guacho trick - hmmm!

The food when we got back was fantastic, the wine flowed, the scenery dazzled. We impressed our hosts with our gluttony, pounds of top beef eaten. These people really take their meat and red wine seriously. Katie practically got a standing ovation when she picked up the ribs and started gnawing the bones!! James asked Eduardo to teach him the secrets of Argentinian BBQing - so get ready for some top quality BBQs when we get back! Being the geek he is he took a series of photos to build himself an exact replica of Enrique´s BBQ set-up when we get home...

...serious business the Argentinian BBQ!!

We got back from the lovely day in the country absolutely rat-arsed and Katie can't remember going to bed. James wasn't too much better and managed to set the alarm for 6pm rather than 6am so we woke up at 6.35 am the next morning with 10 mins to get dressed, pack, check-out and get a taxi to the bus station. JUST made it and Katie had to have a sick bag for the first hour of the journey...!

Books we read: Mr Nice by Howard Marks - fascinating book about the famous cannabis smuggler but was intensely annoyed by his views, don't get me started!

Iguazu Falls (Arg/Brazil) - Week 32

21st to 23rd April

We cannot believe we are finally at Iguazu Falls. It seems a long time ago in Reading when we were planning our trip and really looking forward to seeing what is thought of as the most impressive waterfall in the world - and now we are here!

These photos says it all really...

We decided to fly from Sao Paulo to Foz de Iguazu as it only worked out 10 quid each more for a 2 hour flight verses a 15 hour bus ride - easy choice. The falls are shared by Brazil and Argentina, and so the first day we visted the Brazilian side. The Brazilain side has a better overall view of the main section of the falls, the Devil´s Throat. The Argentinian side has a large section of forest you can walk through, looking at the falls from many angles. You find yourself ooohing and aarrhing every few minutes when you see the falls from another angle.

The Devil´s Throat from the Argentinian side.

So a few stats. The waterfalls comprise 270 falls along a 1.7 miles of completely flat plateau with the Iguazu River discharging over. Some of the individual falls are up to 82 metres (269 feet) in height, The Victoria Falls in Africa are a little higher (108m to 82m) and discharge more water in flood (9.1 million litres per second versus 6.5 million), but the overall spectical and shape of Iguazu is unsurpassed.

On Monday we were on the 8.30am bus to cross the border into Argentina to see the Argentinian side of the falls and carry on our travels from Argentina. Bye bye Brazil! It was quite sad - Brazil was excellent, we're already planning a holiday back for Carnival in Salvador - anyone want to come?!

As said before there were more things to do on the Argentinian side. One of the things was to take a boat along the lower level into the waterfalls. The boat went right under the waterfall so you couldn´t see anything, a complete white out. Needless to say we got soaked through to the pants but it was lots of fun.

At the end of the day, we took the local bus from the park to the centre of Puerto Iguaçu to find out if there were any buses that night. There was one going in 3 hours time at 9.30pm, great, that meant a super 26 hour bus journey without having had a shower after sweating all day. Never mind, nothing to stay in Puerto Iguaçu for so we might as well get straight on the road...

Sao Paulo - Week 32

19th - 20th April


And so onto Sao Paulo. We were more than a little apprenhensive about going to SP with the reputation it has, but we thought as we were passing so close by it would have been rude not to stop in and see what the place was all about. So after an uneventful 5 1/2 hour bus journey from Paraty we arrived in Sao Paulo at about 4pm. We dumped the bags at the hostel and went on a mission to find the pizza restaurant we had been recommended by a New Yorker we met in Rio. It was apparently dangerous to be walking around the area we were staying in after dark so the race was on! We speed walked for 1/2 hour only to find the restaurant closed! We hadn't eaten since breakfast so couldn't wait for it to open so we settled for the 'emergency burger' solution. We then took a taxi back to the hostel for the night.


Right, Sao Paulo in one day:

We got up early and had done the Lonely Planet walking tour around the centre by 11.30am. There were some pretty churches and buildings, the most beautiful building being the Teatro Municipal. There are lots of green areas all around the city and it was much nicer than we were expecting.

Next stop was the Italiano tower which is the third highest (or something) building in Sao Paulo. The very top (41st) floor had the best view but was a classy restaurant and the snotty maitre d' wouldn't let us in without ordering but we managed to get a pretty good view from the 37th floor:

As you can see the most overwhelming (and perhaps most interesting thing!) about SP is it´s size - it´s flipping huge. All we could see from the Italiano Tower were skyscrapers in all directions. Around 19.7 million inhabitants live in the greater Sao Paulo metropolitan area, making it the fifth most populous metropolitan area in the world. A local bloke we were chatting to in the while waiting for the ATM said that you can drive 2 hours from the citycentre and still be in the city!!

Next we hopped on the metro to go to the 'Memorial do Immograntes' which also had a museum about the massive immigration to Sao Paulo from many different countries all over the world. The building was very interesting and you could see where the immigrants arrived on the train and the massive rooms that were filled with hundreds of beds, sleeping up to 10,000 people while they waited to be moved on to work on the coffee plantations.

After a bargain lunch of meat, rice and chips we got back on the tube to go to the art gallery on the other side of town. Once we got there it was about 3.30pm, very expensive to get in and we were knackered. The thought of wandering round an art gallery for an hour did not appeal so, heathens that we are, we skipped it and went to see '300' at the cinema! (Which was very good, btw).

And after another quiet, safe (!) night in the hostel, we got up early to get the tube/bus to the airport and were on our way to Foz do Iguaçu - so exciting!

Book we read: The Post Office by Charles Bukowski - sad and funny story of a down-and-out in the States.

Ilha Grande & Paraty - Week 31

12th to 18th April

We left Rio on Thursday morning with Pablo and two american girls and after two buses, a taxi and a boat we were at Ilha Grande and it was WELL worth the journey! There is a small settlement at the main beach where you arrive and that's it apart from rainforest and 100s of beautiful beaches.



We stayed at a lovely hostel right on the water called Aquario:

On the first night there was an eat-as-much-as-you-like bbq which we duly attended (have to be sociable at these occassions, you know) and then we headed into 'town' for more drinks at the locals bars:


On Friday we turned left out of the hostel and walked and walked along more and more beautiful, deserted beaches until we arrived at the perfect one for a swim and a rest. Lovely day. In the evening we went out to the bars again for some live music and drinking until 4.30am. Saturday was a bit of a write-off... We did manage to raise ourselves (with no alcohol) to go to the opening of a new 'super-club' in the town but only lasted until about 1am - poor show.

On Sunday we did the beautiful 2 hour walk to Lopez Mendez beach on the other side of the island. The views on route through the lovely rainforest were great as were the beaches. Nothing beat the final destination, however, it was gorgeous! Spent a lovely few hours swimming and sleeping.

Lopez Mendez beach

Can't believe James put this photo on - he said it was for the Brazil-flag sarong...

On Monday we caught the boat back to the mainland and the local bus to Paraty along the Costa Verde. It was a lovely drive but we also strangely passed a huge nuclear power station - wierd. Paraty is a very pretty colonial town in a bay with lots of islands all around.



We stayed in a nice HI hostel and met lots of people who we joined for a Thai meal and a funny local club in the evening. Katie tried to dance with the locals again but was one more shamed by the excellent dancers. The thai food wasn't enough for James so he sneaked off for some 'street-meat' kebabs that he thought were little sausages. When he got back to everyone in the bar and described them, he discovered that he had actually eaten 10 chicken hearts!! You should have seen his face!!!!



Tuesday morning Katie woke up at 5am with huge stomach pains so settled in bed for the day, not too far away from the toilet!! Horrible food poisoning of some description. (And it was James eating the chicken hearts the night before!).

Feeling better on Wednesday we took a really good boat trip for 5 hours around the islands stopping at various beaches for a swim and great spots for snorkelling. It was really idyllic.