Buenos Aires

In my opinion the city of Buenos Aires isn't a city with a lot of iconic sights. Now before I get slandered for this let me try and explain. Sure there’s historic monuments which the city holds dear but there’s nothing that screams out uniquely Argentina. My claim is (most) probably ignorance on my behalf but to the unsuspecting tourist, without doing too much research the architecture and city lay out has a distinct European feel and you could be forgiven for mistaking Buenos Aires for any other city within the EU.

Not to say that Argentina isn’t worth visiting, on the contrary I would recommend it to anybody thinking of a South American holiday. After being here for around 5 days I think that was probably enough time to do and see the things that I wanted. Majority of them being walking tours, with, I think, the main reason to experience the atmosphere that is Argentina. Be absorbed by the city life, share a coffee at a cafe, take a walk through a park or a local neighbourhood.

Buenos Aires is quite a lot different to Rio and is exactly the reason for my extension in South America. Aside from the fact that I may possibly never be around this side of the world again I figured I might as well make the most of my South American proximity. Also having traveled, then volunteered (subjectively speaking) without making excuses I probably wasn’t ready to head immediately over to the UK and resume the daily grind (euphemism for procrastination perhaps). That being said, I think my intentions of a vacation in Argentina was exactly what I wanted and needed: Eye-opening experience and a nice way to wind down my travels.

Food wise there were only really a handful of things that I gorged myself with. You can’t come to Argentina without (diet warranting) trying an authentic Argentina BBQ piece of meat.

Cravings

The latest from my end is that I have indeed arrived in Buenos Aires. I'm only here for a couple of days so I've unconventionally decided to draw up an itinerary for my short stay in Argentina. Yesterday was pretty much a write-off, spent the half day I had becoming acquainted with the Argentinean lifestyle, the local food, my neighbourhood, the public transport system and my hostel, Palermo House.

My morning began rather well, waking up on my own accord after having experienced one of the better sleeps all trip. However this was no ordinary morning, for this morning I had woken up with a particular craving for Asian Food. It has been almost been a month since I had Chinese food in New York; and its absence from my diet had dawned on my stomach this morning. It was then and there I decided to make it today's mission to find some Oriental Cuisine. With a new objective (coupled with my already planned day) I grabbed the complimentary hostel breakfast and caught the metro downtown.

Since I had gone to the effort to plan my daily activities I had borrowed some suggested Walking Tours from the Frommer's website. I managed to complete two of the walking tours around Historical Calle Florida and around San Martin. The main features of today's exploration around Buenos Aires were:

Círculo Militar, a historic building now owned by retired military officers:

Casa Rosada, where from the main balcony Eva Peron addressed the Argentinean workers:

After a juicy steak for lunch I strolled through the cobbled-streets of San Telmo which was littered with Tango clubs, cafes and bars. It was 4:00 pm and I had completed all that I the sightseeing I had planned for today. It was then I decided to relieve me of my morning craving and immediately headed for Barrio Chino or Chinatown. First and foremost, Chinatown in Buenos Aires is definitely pushing its stakes for the acclaimed title. The area stretches for the best part of 400 metres and has a couple of Chinese Grocery stores, a couple of (at the time) closed Japanese and Chinese Restaurants and a sprinkling of Asian residents. This place made Chatswood look like China and I'm quite sure my presence alone increased the Asian population by at least 10%!

Dejected and disappointed I headed back to the hostel to freshened up and research tomorrow's activities. Couple of hours later I set out to find some dinner. It was then as I walked through the streets of Palermo that I stumbled upon this greasy Chinese restaurant, Asian nonetheless.

Now anybody that knows me, knows that my Chinese is terrible. Terrible being an understatement. In order of preference of linguistic ability it would be: English, Cantonese, Mandarin and finally Spanish. The only time I would speak Chinese would be to humour the people who had to listen to me or if I wanted food. This was clearly a case of the latter. So I tried Cantonese, they were mainlanders that didn't understand English, so I brought out some ad-lib Chinese and managed to order the MOST stereotypical dishes on the menu: Take away Fried Rice and Won-tons. Mission accomplished.

You can see my take away fried rice above. It was served in a take away container (without the lid), a piece of plastic over the rice and then wrapped in butcher's paper. This goes to show that Chinese takeaway containers have yet to reach the shores of Argentina.

Iguazu Falls

I boarded the Kaiowa bus at 11:00 am on the 8th May. At 11:15 am the bus roared out from Rio de Janeiro Riodoviara and started its journey towards Argentina. What was “supposed” to be a 22 hour bus ride ended up being a monster 25 and a half hours. Now you might say “what difference is 3.5 hours on top of an already long 22 hours?”. Not much, but when you’ve mentally prepared yourself (and your ass) for 22 hours worth of sitting down each extra seated moment is amplified.


The bus from Rio to Sao Paolo was quite empty with a total of 3 passengers (inclusive of me). Only 2 other people were crazy enough to take on the monster bus trip. I had no problem with this, traveling alone on a bus is one thing but the less people on the bus meant for a smoother trip. As the bus made its way south of Sao Paolo more and more people boarded and soon enough the bus was at least 50% full. Every 3 or 4 hours the bus would stop and pull over for a refreshment stop at the local diners. Funnily enough the two people who started the journey with me didn’t make it to the end, I was the only person with enough patience to last out the trip!


The bus was actually quite comfortable. Also known as a “sleeper buses” the seats are capable of reclining almost 170 degrees; it was the king of coaches, all that was missing was an in-bus movie. Having the option to recline as well as plenty of space to stretch out and move about it sure beats flying (if only it weren't so slow). I remember constantly checking the time and breaking the trip into eighths, then thirds, quarters, then remaining hours. Here’s the breakdown of my bus ride activities: Sleeping (At least 50%), listening to music (30%) and reading (20%).


A major portion of time was spent daydreaming, I admit it. There were periods where I sat staring out at the Brazilian country side just thinking about nothing whilst bopping my head to music. Ask me now what I was thinking about and I can’t remember but for some extended chunks of time I was admiring the landscape that I had taken the bus trip for. It was quite impressive and rivals that of my bus ride through the hills of Takayama.


So at 12:45 pm the next day I finally arrived at Foz Do Iguacu Brazil. I had survived the longest commute of my life and was eager to get to the hostel. I grabbed a taxi and for 50 Reals he agreed to take me across the border to Argentina to the town of Puerto Iguazu. Once we had past the Brazilian/Argentine border he pulled up next to a fellow cabbie and asked directions in Spanish. We drove around for around 20 minutes and he must have asked at least 4 people for directions, a young boy, another taxi driver, a business man on the phone and finally a shopkeeper. Finally he pulled up next to my accommodation Timbo Posado, funnily enough it was here where he had asked for directions only moments before.


With less than half a day left I settled into my new room and immediately caught a cab back over the border to explore the Brazilian side of the Falls. Iguazu Falls is a series of 275 waterfalls along the Iguazu River, the falls are shared by both Brazil and Argentina. Most guide books and people say that the Brazilian side should take no longer than a couple of hours so I thought this would be the perfect way to get some sightseeing done. The price of admission was 20.5 Reals in total, funnily enough me being Australian made some impression on the final ticket price.



I won’t try to describe the falls as a list of adjectives or any number of photos will to do this place justice. Put simply, it was pretty amazing! I spent a total of just over 2 hours in the National Park.


For some reason there’s a power problem at this Hostel. The lights in my room keep flickering on and off. Actually for a period of time I was typing in complete darkness with only my laptop screen running off battery power providing light. The concierge then comes running in after 20 minutes of blackout. “Hey, I think there’s something wrong with the power”. I couldn’t help but laugh and agree with his astute observation. Went out and grabbed some chow and headed to bed early. First impressions of Argentina? Things are cheaper, place feels safer and they have Australian compatible powerpoints!


3:00 am (10/5). I am awoken by Spanish Dialog, I can’t tell if it’s two people having a conversation outside my door or if somebody is watching a Spanish TV show. I forgot to mention that my room is adjacent to the hostel lounge room, with the TV less than a metre away from my window. In fact, I can hear most of the TV shows that they watch. I drowsily drift back to sleep.

Woken by the alarm clock on my mobile phone, which seems to be the only function of my phone these days. It’s bloody freezing here in Argentina, a far cry from the tropical weather that I had gotten used to in Rio. Ducked around to the hostel kitchen and grabbed some complementary breakfast; it’s nice to have something a little more continental for breakfast.


Having bought my bus ticket to the Argentinean National Park and picked up a tour package I sat at terminal 9 waiting for the bus. A small crowd had gathered that must have also been waiting, majority of the people had long trousers, denim, walking shoes, runners and long sleeved tshirts. There I sat in a t-shirt, boardies and thongs, I felt like I had missed the group memo on what to wear. Soon enough we were at the Park, I won’t bore you with the specifics, but the tour package for 120 Pesos included a 4WD ride through the national park, pretty boring.


The next part of the tour was a boat ride down the Iguazu River. I was looking forward to this and I had invested in a waterproof poncho as I had heard “you get absolutely drenched” (Which was the reason for the flip flops and board shorts). The people on my boat all had jackets and waterproof gear, all except one, he had definitely missed the memo. Shoes and socks were instructed to be taken off and put into a waterproof bag along with our other belongings. The boat sped down the river with the driver deliberately getting as close as possible to the waterfalls. The poncho had served me well as I disembarked from the boat almost complete dry, except my face. Spent the rest of the day checking out the falls from Argentinean side.


Just finished packing, having problems with the LAN web-check in, mostly because it's in Spanish. Off to Buenos Aires tomorrow, I have a sinking feeling that it's not going to be a smooth check in at the airport...