Rosario. (The city that didn't like us)

Rosario will always be most memorable for being the place where we spent 8 hours hanging out at the bust station, at the tail end of which my day pack got stolen. But let me start at the beginning....

After Iguazu, we decided to head to the city of Rosario. Why? No real reason, just that it was another city we'd heard about that was a reasonable bus trip distance from Iguazu, with a bus service departing at a convenient hour. So several reasons really, just none specifically relating to why this city might be a good place to visit.

We spent the first two days just wandering around the city. Nothing too exciting to see or do, except for the Monumento de los Banderas (monument to the flag), which we discovered on the first day and liked, but didn't have the camera, so we went back the next day to get some pics.

We also had our first Che Guevara encounter. You can find the building where he lived when first born. It has a sign out the front that tells you so. And that's all. Thrilling, Here is a picture of Mick, excited as he was.

On the first night, although obviously a big and well-serviced city, it managed to keep all its supermarkets hidden from us so that we spent an hour or more walking around looking for one - frustration no. 1.

On the second night, on the advice of the hostel notice board, we went to check out a classical guitar performance at a cafe. Dinner options transpired to be a range of over-priced toasted sandwhiches, but we thought "hell, the entertaiment's free, we may as well stay and make do". Half way through eating, still waiting for the music to start, we were informed that if we wanted to stay to watch the music, we had to pay $12 each. Otherwise, could we please hurry up and finish and leave (well that's probably not exactly what she said in spanish, but the message was clear enough). How hard is it to put a sign out the front?? Of course, we just accepted that we had to pay, seeing as by that stage the prospect of enjoying the music was the only thing left to save the night. In the end, the music was alright, but a short performance, and the cafe didn't have a good atmosphere, the few other people there were obviously all just friends of the performers. And it was once of our most expensive dinners so far on the whole trip. Frustration no. 2.

Had reasonably sunny weather these first two days, so by the third we were ready to jump on a bus and check out the rather popular river beaches to the north of the city. They looked nice in the tourist publicity photos. Of course, our luck held and this day dawned cloudy and cold. We stubbornly got all ready to go anyway and were literally standing at the bus stop where we made one last useless survey of the rapidly worsening sky and admitted defeat. Spent the rest of the day hanging around the hostel. At least I can say I made something of the time by learning to play chess. Frustration no 3.

On both days, we'd tried to go out for a coffee in one of the many numerous nice cafes we'd noticed whilst walking around at other times. On both occasions, similar to the supermarket incident, the city managed to hide them away when we actually wanted to find them, so we'd walk for half an hour and end up in a fairly uninspiring establishment with stale croissants. Frustration no. 4.

We'd pretty much decided by that stage Rosario wasn't going to work for us, and decided to leave the next day. On the last night we headed out to a jazz bar, thinking we might get one good experience out of this city yet. And it wasn't too bad, but it was far from great. The 'trio' advertised turned out to be a guy playing classical jazz guitar, mostly with one other guy on bass, and a few songs with a guy singing which were more tango in style. Not really the kind of jazz we're used to. This headlining act was followed by an unadvertised act consisting of another guy on acoustic guitar, a double bass and a female singer who was, quite frankly, awful. She sounded like a farcical Barbara Streisand impersonation, and the tight, low cut black number on middle-aged figure didn't help. The locals seemed to love her.

So the next morning it was with some relief that we headed to the bus station, which was a fair way out of the town centre, only to discover that all services to the place we wanted to go, Mendoza, were not until 7 or 8 that night. Long storey short, we spent a very boring, tedious day killing time at the bus station. At around 5.30 we headed into a phone/internet place to do our second web session for the day. We were at a computer right by the door, it was really busy, and Mick's mum ended up calling so I answered the mobile and after handing over the phone to Mick I realised that my day pack had disappeared. It was sitting right by my leg, but somebody obviously saw me momentarily distracted by the phone, the quick exit straight out the door and took their opportunity. It could only have been a few minutes afterward that I noticed, so Mick immediately had a look around, but they'd successfully disappeared. Luckily, there was a police station at the terminal, so I was able, using my limited spanish, to explain what had happened and get a report out of them in time to still catch our 8pm bus. It took a while, but there was plenty of action to keep Mick entertained while he waited - we don't know what exactly went down, but they caught some poor smuck doing something and brought him in. He made the mistake of hitting the female officer who first caught him. Once safely in the police rooms, the male officers clearly felt they needed to even the score.

The good news is there was really nothing valuable in the back pack. Let me give a taste of the thief's spoils:

- 1 rather weighty hardback volume of Hemingway classics, taken form the hostel we left only that morning after much deliberation as to whether it was worth carrying around. Fortunately, in order to fit in my pack, many more important items had been removed and were safely in Mick's instead, including the Lonely Planet and our recently acquired and much loved thermos.

- 1 grapefruit

- 1 bottle of tap water

- half a packet of crackers

- a mate, the special cup used to drink the herbal drink that everyone lives on here, and a packet of the herbal stuff. We bought it in a mood of "let's do as the locals do", but we'd only managed to use it twice and can't say we've missed it yet. They're a dime a dozen, I'm fairly certain the theif would already possess one if not many.

Obviously there were a few items that were of more importance to me, made more annoying by their lack of value to the theif - spanish course notes and phrasebook, for instance, as well as my personal diary, which I'd been really enjoying putting together and had saved some good stuff in. I've already replaced it and started again, but that's 6 weeks worth of memorabilia gone.

So I can tell you it was with some relief that we finally boarded our bus that night and said goodbye to Rosario.

Cataratas del Iguazu (Iguazu Falls)

Our first fall, not really knowing what was awaiting us.

The real thing.

Salto Bossetti (Bossetti Fall) from the top and the bottom.

Salto San Martin (above and below), the most awesome part of this part of the falls.

From over 1km wide at the top, this fast flowing little river is all that flows out.

Garganta Del Diablo

(The Devil´s Throat)

What you see as you approach. The catwalks take you right out to where it happens. Below shows the mist that is created.

Hard to fit in due to how close you get, but this is the second part of the falls (above and below, with above on the right), and is by far the most fiercesome part.

The falls are split into two parts. The first part (the one with San Martin) has catwalks up the top and down below. There is also a island in the middle of the falls that you can explore (this is the bit in the San Martin pictures with the catwalk on the other side). Garganta del Diablo is the second part. You can only see this one from the top. They are a reasonable distance apart and there is a small train to carry people around the park. All in all, amazing. We saw most of it in one day but came back for a second day just because.

One happy and thoroughly impressed camper.

Uruguay

It´s on the coast between Brasil and Argentina for those of you who don´t know. We headed here direct from Buenos Aires.

A Small History Lesson

We headed to Colonia del Sacremento. A tourist town chock full of history. It was originally established in 1680 as a neutral territory between the feuding Portuguese (Brasil) and Spanish (Argentina), both of who were busy discovering/colonizing the world. This town was fought over for centuries and changed hands 9 times. As a result, the town has been built and destroyed many times, but what is left is quite amazing. Eventually the Spanish won, probably due to their allegiance with England.

Anyway, it´s a cool little town with cobbled streets and a lot of very old buildings, with both Portuguese and Spanish influence.

Bella on the original City Gates, complete with drawbridge and canon. The town is built on a penninsular and this stone wall went across the pennisular to protect its residents.

A typical street and portuguese house.

A street leading up to the Basilica.

We were lucky enough to have a local guide in this city. Sabrina, a girl Benson (Bella´s brother) met when he was here about 18 months ago. She took us out on the town and introduced us to the local drink, mate (ma-teh). A herbal drink that the Uruguayans drink all day. Walking down the street, driving in the car, shopping. Always with a mate in one hand and their thermos tucked under their arm.

We then decided to head up the Western border. Uruguay is known for it´s beaches up the eastern coastline. With us deciding to travel in the middle of Winter, we decided to skip the East and head up the West. We headed to some small towns and get a change of scene from Buenos Aires. We definitely got off the gringo trail, as there were no hostels, and we stayed in some kooky old hotels, complete with pink satin bedspreads with matching curtains. We ended up spending 10 days in Uruguay. A good change and a worthwhile experience, although I would recommend travelling in Summer.

From a small town in Uruguay, we decided it was time to head to Iguazu Falls. One of the major 'to do's' in South America. We managed to have an alignment of the planets. With numerous stories of travel being notoriously time-consuming we were sceptical of what buses we would get and how long we would be spending in bus terminals. In 20 hours, we ended up travelling over 1200kms, via 3 buses, in 2 countries, with 15 hours on a bus. All with no planning. I love it when things work.

Next, Cataratas del Iguazu (Iguazu Falls)!!!!!

2 weeks in Buenos Aires

Our travels started well with a 2 hour delay at Sydney International Airport, which is surprisingly small after you go through customs. Although this did give me time to reflect about the great origin win the night before with a great choke by NSW and some Lockyer brilliance. It ended up taking about 23 hours door to door, from Sydney to BsAs. Needless to say we slept for the first couple of days once we arrived. The 12 hour flight from Auckland to BsAs was particularly painful but rewarding with clear skies for the last 2 hours allowing us to see the snow capped Andes.

It´s freaking cold in Argentina at this time of year. Two weeks earlier we had been enjoying 30 degree maximums in North QLD, in the first couple of days here, we had a cold snap and it was 4 degrees at 11.30am, with a maximum of about 6. We´ve sort of adjusted to it now but have ruled out exploring any further South, such as Patagonia.


BsAs is a great city to explore on foot. There´s an endless supply of plazas (parks) to explore, all with amazing buildings surrounding them and some significant historical occasion. We spend most of the time on the streets with our heads up looking at all of the buildings. Alternatively, once you find a nice plaza, you then find a good cafe. Cafe con crema con 3 medialunas (Short black with cream and 3 glazed croissants) for about $2 aussie is great for passing time.


Bella at a typical street corner in El Centro (the CBD).


We´re think we´ve just about seen enough of BsAs. We´ve done the touristy things such as Recoleta Cemetary (dead rich people), Cominito in La Boca (colourful buildings), weekend markets in San Telmo and Recoleta, gardens (managed to find a gum tree in the botanical gardens) and plazas (complete with obligatory statues with some guy on a horse). But we´ve also found some not so touristy stuff as well.

....................................................La Boca

A gum tree in the Botanical Garden

We´ve also had a very cultural two weeks with language course (Bella´s excelling, i´m lagging), Tango shows, live bands, art galleries, museums, cinema and even an opera. Although it does have to be said that our cinema experience was Pirate De Caribe (Pirates of the Carrebean) although we did have spanish subtitles. The opera was in an amazing theatre, we bought the second cheapest seats that cost us all of $8 aussie each. We were basically at roof level (5 levels up), on bench seats, in the dark. But it was good, even though we had very limited idea of the story line, with the opera in Italian with Spanish subtitles on a screen, although it was a fairly typical story of lost love. We saw a Tango show at Cafe Tortoni, one of the oldest in BsAs. A cool little show with 3 piece band (acordian, piano and double bass) and some live vocals.

Tango in Plaza Dorrego en San Telmo

We are now at our third hostel in 3 weeks. We´ve had a varied experience to say the least. The first was party orientated and full of English/Irish who wanted to drink each night away in some overpriced club. The second was at the other end and full of local South Americans studying/working. However the trend seems to be emerging. Don´t believe everything (maybe anything) you read on their website, don´t expect the internet to work and be grateful of breakfast, if and when you get it. On the food side of things Argentina has lived up to what we told. Pretty much every restaurant/eartery serves the same. Lots of meat (cooked on a parilla which is a BBQ), pizza and pasta. We´ve also discovered some local favourites that are great; choripan (chorizo sausage in a bun), super panchos (hot dogs for about 60c), dulce de leche (sweetened condensed milk but more condensed and more sweet and eaten with everything), facturas (pastries, Bella´s favourite), and i could go on.

There are also lots of other things i will remember BsAs for. Really wide roads, one way streets, lots of buses (all terrible drivers), dogs and dog walkers, street protests, obligatory horse statues, good food, great entertainment, cranky hostel owners (the second one).

...............................................Plaza Italia

Okay, I think thats about it. We´re heading of to a new city and new country in a few days. We´re just heading to Uruguay for a few days before we head up to Iguazu.

Hasta Leuga.