January 2012

Buenos Aires is different from the South America we've seen so far, it's a bit like a European city, only friendly, subtropical and with some wierd bureaucratic practices (which we felt when we needed US dollars to pay for our apartment). There are a few indigenous South Americans here, but I think there are similar numbers in London. Most people seam to be descendants of Spaniards or Italians and after many years of living here have developed their own culture. Porteños love to party! It seams here that to eat before 9pm and hit a club before 2am is a social disgrace and there are many nights when we don't leave the party till 5am.

After spending our first night in a hostel in 'downtown' and taking the opportunity to cycle around much of the city while roads have their Sunday quiet moment we decide that our original idea of staying in Palermo Viejo is a good one. We book an apartment and move in on Monday - to the 20th floor! Our views over the city are fantastic! There is one hiccup as only cash payment is accepted and it will take us at least three days to get enough money out of the ATM (apartments like this in BA aren't the bargain they once were) and then we find that we can't change this into US$ due to a new rule the government has brought in...but tourists need pesos and I need dollars and I use this fact and 5 sets of tourists later we have changed all that we need

The first night in our apartment we go for a wander to check out our bit of town and then flop into a pizza restaurant. The waitress is super friendly and answers our multitude of questions - nearest swimming pools, best bars and clubs...And then M bumps into a chap called Carlos who just happens to be one of the few people in BA who does triathlons. Carlos is there with his family, including his 7 year old son Mateo and 3 week old daughter Luciania (very cute!!). Laura doesn't speak much English, so we converse with my strained Spanish while M and Carlos chat away in English. Carlos asks who we will be spending Christmas with and then when he finds out we have no family here he insists that we join them! Their food arrives and Carlos and M arrange to meet for a run the next day

We're a bit apprehensive about intruding on their Christmas, but Carlos is insistent and arranges a ride for us out to a friends country house with his brother, Christian, and girlfriend, Cynthia on Christmas Eve. The day is filled with lounging around the pool, playing football with Mateo and chatting with the other family members who arrive throughout the afternoon and evening. We light a bonfire so that there are coals for the parrilla and Laura's parents arrive with the meat. Laura's father wastes no time in shovelling red embers up under the grill and getting the meat cooking. He also does some asado pizza (BBQed pizza), morcilla (black pudding) and smaller cuts of meat as nibbles to keep us going. Yummy! I chat away to all in a mixture of English and Spanish while M tends to prefer to stick with English, which luckily most speak fairly well. Well into the evening we sit down to eat. The cuts of meat come one after another off the massive knife of Laura's dad. As midnight approaches fireworks start going off and we wake Mateo. Christmas is celebrated at midnight with Sidre (Sweet Cider) and Mateo finding a wheelbarrow full of presents! Most are for him, but there are a few for the adults and Luciania too, which Mateo reluctantly hands out.

Finally it's time to pack up and head back into town. The fireworks continue as we're driven along a jam-packed motorway. Aparently driving home at 2am on Christmas morning is normal here - luckily we haven't found the Argentinians to be big drinkers, but their driving leaves a lot to be desired!!

Back at our flat we have a panoramic view of the city's fireworks, which are not showing any sign of finishing. We crash out before they do.

Christmas Day is a more restful affair and M and I spend the day together, chatting with family, eating a beautiful steak that our local butcher has provided for us and drinking a fine, rich Malbec and Argentinian 'champagne'. We venture out to the park just before sunset to find it filled with rollerbladers, cyclists, strollers and families picnicing.

On New Years Eve M ran an 8km race with 3200 others! It's the biggest race in BA's calender and Carlos was comparing M did amazingly well, coming in the top 10%!! Especially as he'd barely fitted in any training and it was super hot!!

We'd been told that New Years Eve is another mad night for fireworks, but that it's a family celebration more than a grand party with friends. So we decide to keep our celebrations relaxed with a lovely meal followed by watching the fireworks from the roof of our apartment. This is just perfect as most of the fireworks are let off by individuals or families here in BA, so the spectical isn't just in one location and we had a great view of it all.

On New Years Day everything was closed, so we thought we'd enjoy wandering around some of the touristy parts of town...which were rammed! San Telmo's antiques market was up and running, a tango band provided great music and we enjoyed a coffee con leche and submarino (dark chocolate bar that you dissolve in hot milk - M's favorite!) in an historic bar. Wandering down to La Boca, we walk along the waterfront and then find the famous Caminito area with it's beautiful colourful buildings. On our way home we passed the Casa Rosada, the parliament house, from which Evita Peron amongst others rallied the masses with speeches from the balcony.

The other key even we had while in BA was Louise and Mario's wedding. Louise is a friend of M's who went off travelling around the world, met Mario in BA, fell in love and came back to stay! The wedding was so much fun We met Sarah and Remy (friends who had come over from London) and headed over to meet up with Louise's family. The ceremony was at 8pm in a beautiful church in an ecological reserve. We then headed to the reception where there was great food off the parrilla, speeches (got to bring a few English traditions over), singing and dancing. In the early hours a tango song was played and M and I took to the floor...and found we were joined by Louise's parents...none of the Argentinians at the wedding danced tango. So we had quite an audience! Several sets of ochos, some heros and a couple of gauchos later we were being praised for our tango skill...phew!

And this leads me to one of the main activities of our time in BA...bailar tango We take lots of lessons lessons, from a variety of teachers (not really the best way of doing it when you're a beginner, but it was fun...) and go to lots of milongas (this is a social dance, there will be a DJ or some live music and the tables and chairs are placed around the dancefloor so that men can easily invite the ladies to dance). Some of the milongas are full of amazing dancers and I don't get asked to dance, either because they don't know my ability or because M is sitting next to me, but we're happy to watch and enjoy a drink. Other milongas have more of a mixed bag of dancers and are less formal. These suit us much better!us much better and I'm up dancing most of the night. M dances mainly with me - it's much harder for an inexperienced guy to ask ladies to dance than the other way around as the man has to lead, watch out for other dancers who may cut you up and keep the rhythm. The more I dance the more admiration I have for the male lead. But even when he's not dancing M has a great time watching, enjoying the music and chatting to the friendly Portenos.

We also go to some great bars, a couple of clubs, a few yummy restaurants and eat A LOT of helado (italian style icecream, Mmmm). We meet up with some couchsurfers for coffee, beer, tango, language exchange and general chit chat. And we meet lots of other travellers who are having a ball, just like us!

(PS. More photos to follow once we get a chance to download them onto a laptop that works!)

Our tour of SW Bolivia finished, we take a jeep through the night to the border crossing and head to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, followed by Salta, Cachi, Cafayate and Tucaman in Argentina where we get an overnight bus to Buenos Aires.

It's 1:30am and we wait in the hotel corridor for our ride. I poke my head out the door to make sure he doesn't miss us, and soon we are piling into our jeep to the border. We're a bit disappointed as this jeep isn't anywhere near as comfortable as the one we had for our tour, and we realise that sleep isn't going to be easy to get as our heads bounce around. And then the cold creeps in...the heating doesn't work and we grab as many clothes as we can to huddle up in. Ice crystals form on the inside of the windows from the moisture in our breath and we brace ourselves for a cold ride. Finally, the sun comes up over the volcanoes, the ice melts and we start to warm.

We've made good time and so stop at the hot springs. These are the same ones we visited on our tour, but this time they are rammed! There are about 30 jeeps from Uyuni - which made us very grateful that we had started from Tupiza. With no time or room to get in, we warm our hands and chat so a few people wallowing in the steaming waters.

At the border crossing we show the exit stamps that we were issued with in Uyuni and change vehicles for the last stretch to San Pedro de Atacama - on a tarmac road!! (It had been a while...) The road was all downhill and as the altitude approached 2000m we enjoyed deep breaths of oxygen.

We found San Pedro to be a well organised, clean and tidy town with some great food (although prices reflected the fact that we were now in a much more developed country). The four of us cycled to Vale de la Luna, had a great meal together accompanied by live music and M&I even managed a run!

But the time comes for us to part ways - Ben and Tanis were heading back to Lima for a flight and we were heading to Argentina.

Our bus took us over the Andes, through the 'Paso de Jama', down switchbacks, through the edge of the Quebrada de Humahuaca (some very prettily coloured rocky hills) at Purmamarca before we arrive at Salta. By the time we get to Salta it is late, wet and we can't get any Argentinian pesos as the ATM isn't working...luckily we'd pre-booked accommodation and find the hostel's representative at the bus station and he puts us in a taxi.

The following morning is much nicer with the sun out and I get chatting to the woman in reception in Spanish and the next thing I know she's helping us out by phoning the bus station for me and making other tourists wait. It's amazing what some polite chat in Castellano can do!

We wander around Salta (which is a pretty town, but isn't making us want to stay any longer than we need to), get ourselves some pesos (the banks have massive queues), buy our bus tickets to Cachi and do a book swap.

On the bus to Cachi we befriend Cindy, a Greek/American lady travelling on her own while she attempts to meet a friend who's motorbiking South America. Soon we're heading up into the hills (which seem to have a lush tropical side and a dry desert side covered in cactuses). But the rain comes pummelling down again and we spend much of the journey wrapped in cloud. Just before arriving in Cachi the clouds lift and we drive through miles of flat cactus fields and get a brief glimpse of Nevado del Cachi (6380m) which towers over the village.

Cachi is gorgeous; pretty plazas, whitewashed buildings and a laid back vibe. Our first lesson in Argentinian timings comes as our tummies rumble for dinner - nowhere opens before 8pm and so we have to wait. It's worth it though as we eat steak and local dishes; locro (a meat and corn stew) and tomales (corn and dried llama meat wrapped in corn husks and steamed), and drink a fantastic organic malbec from the Nanni vineyard in Cafayate.

There are no buses between Cachi and Cafayate so our choices are between hiring a jeep, hitch-hiking or going back to Salta and getting a bus from there. We opt for hiring a jeep and get a guide thrown in to show us the sights along the way. This is a great decision as we stop in more pretty villages, clamber through the craggy desert landscape, eat a yummy lunch of goat and stop at a bodega (vineyard) before being dropped at our hostel in Cafayate.

Dinner is our first parrilla (argentinian BBQ) - yum! Loads of different cuts of beef, sausage and black pudding accompanied by a small bowl of salad :-)

We fill a day with wine-tasting at the nearby bodegas (vineyards). Nanni gets a look in and we walk away with a couple more bottles to try.

Moving on, a bus takes us over another mountain pass and to the lush fields of Tafi. The scenery is pretty, but we want to get to Buenos Aires, so stop the night and move on first thing to Tucaman. Tucaman is the home of Argentinian rugby, so while most people still follow football, when I say that I'm from "Nuevo Zelandia" I get the response of "El All Blacks! Numero uno en el mundo! Bravo!" which keeps me happy despite sweltering in the 40degree plus heat (not fun with a backpack).

The train to BA is full so we decide to treat ourselves to the best bus possible - a full cama ejectivo! The seats recline to a flat bed and at midnight, we're offered champagne, whiskey or tia maria...nice. An easy 12 hours later we are pulling into Retiro station in BA!

(PS. More photos to be added at a later point - computer problems are hindering their addition now...)

Day 1

Early on Sunday morning, all 4 of us, Ben and Tanis, Deb and me, head down to load up the 4x4 Toyota jeep that will be our transport for the next few days. We meet our guide, Alan, and our cook, Carmen, and hit the road. Glad that we decided on a trip for only 4 of us, we all get a window seat, though the back seats are a little cramped, especially for 6 foot 4 Ben! But we stop often for photos and keep swapping around.

First on the trail is the Luna landscape of El Sillar a dry craggy wind scarred landscape of red sandstone.

Entertainment during a tasty lunch (arranged amazingly quickly by Carmen) was an exploding Coca Cola bottle. Tanis did not get much sympathy, only laughter, but she took it well! During the afternoon, other than many long miles on the road, we explored the desserted ruined town of San Antonio. Here we saw what appeared to be an overgrown rabbit with a curly tail, known as a Viscacha, almost wallaby like in appearance with the way it bounced along. Apparently they are quite tasty, and they clearly knew that as they kept their distance!

Once we arrive, tea, biscuits and dulce de leche are out for us. Dulce de leche is a sticky sweet caramel spread made from milk and sugar, and very more-ish! As dinner took a little while to arrive, we hit the sack shortly after, all anticipating the tough day ahead!

Day 2

And so the challenging day had arrived, the climb of a volcano over 6,000 metres, Vulcan Uturuncu. After a very bumpy, stoney and steep ride to the starting point, we commenced our climb. Immediately the climb was steep fine scree, painfully difficult to make progress on, as for every 2 steps upwards you made, you slipped back almost as much. We were impressed that Carmen and Alan decided to join us, even though we had hired a local guide. She even brought us snacks for one of the many stops that we had to make along the way. Being above 5,000m was new for all of us, and it soon showed. We were stopping every 10 minutes or so for a rest, and even when climbing, it was slow steps, that lack of oxygen was starting to take its toll. But we persevered, and were eventually rewarded with all of us managing to reach the summit, and wow, was it worth the climb. Being the highest volcano in the area, the 360 degree view we got was awesome.

After plenty of photos, and snacks to keep the energy up, we started our descent, significantly quicker as we 'surfed' for want of a better word down the scree slopes. The noxious sulphurous fumes soon made us all feel nauseous, but thankfully that had passed by the time we got back to the hostel, and at a mere 4,200m, we were gulping in the oxygen!

Day 3

After exploring the Dali Rocks, bizarre shaped wind sculpted rock statues sticking up in an otherwise barren sandy landscape, we chilled by Laguna Verde, the first of many different coloured lakes, this one being an impossibly light green. Before lunch we visit some hot springs, a great place to chill - in fact Deb and I were the only ones in the hot spring. After lunch the lake we visited (Laguna Colarado) was a deep red/copper colour, and much to our delight, full of flamingoes. While for most of the time, they had their heads in the shallow water feeding, the lake contrast to the pink birds was quite something.

We also got to explore some active geysers, making Deb feel very much at home, with the eggy smell reminiscent of Rotorua in New Zealand and our night's stay is next to another lake full of flamingos.

Day 4

More lakes full of flamingoes today, and new scenery to explore, each seemingly more amazing than the last, and lots of photo stops again! Lunch was spent in the shade of more bizarre rock formations, listening to Elvis from the jeep (not that our guide was a secret Elvis fan...it actually came from Deb's Zen...), and feeding apple cores to grateful local viscachas. The afternoon was equally eventful with not 1, but 2 tyre blow outs, apparently a regular occurrence, and nothing to do with Alan's driving, which thankfully we are all very happy with (he was definitely not a taxi driver in a previous profession!). Our accommodation tonight was in the Salt Hotel on the edge of the Salt Plains. A building, yes you guessed it, made entirely of salt, even down to the tables and seats! And more importantly for all of us, our first shower for 4 days!

Day 5

We had all agreed on an early start to catch the sunrise, and it was so worth it. There is simply no where on earth quite like the Salar de Uyuni. At over 4,000 square miles, it is by far the largest salt plain in the world, estimates put the actual quantity of salt at over 10 billion tonnes, and in parts it is 140 metres thick! But perhaps more astonishingly is that over the entire area, the height variation is no more than 1 metre. On the plains are a few craggy islands, and Isla Incahuasi is where we had our breakfast. This outcrop is covered in Cacti, and the elevated summit gives us the perfect place to contemplate the extraordinary sight of the Salar de Uyuni. Incidentally the cacti grow at only 1 centimetre a year, and many are around 8 metres tall! Yes 800 year old cacti!

The Salt Plains were the perfect surface for driving on and, as many of you know, world land speed records have been acheived on similar surfaces. We took advantage of this, and made our way to the volcano on one side, where we saw some old mummies in a cave. They were left in sitting positions, still have hair, and included children, bizarre and chilling! On our journey back across the salt plains, we stopped off at another salt hotel, played a game or two of twister (yes Deb brought that all the way from England!), and took some fun photos of each other using perspective to confuse the mind's eye!

Here we also met people travelling by both motorbike and amazingly, bicycle! All with incredible stories to tell, and crazy distances covered! Before we knew it we had arrived in Uyuni, our final destination on this tour. And so we grabbed some lunch, and said our goodbyes to Alan and Carmen, the trip ending all too quickly.....

On a bright sunny morning I meet my guide Jose (who only speaks spanish and is a youthful 16 years...), get given a cowboy hat and chaps and get taken a few streets away to where Don Rico, a Bay gelding who will be my stead and Mora, a grey mare who Jose rides. The saddle is a metal frame with layers of blankets placed under and over, and topped with a piece of leather. Rather than buckles for the stirrups and girth the leather straps are looped around and through themselves - it took me a couple of times to get used to the hang of it (very different to the wintec saddle I used to use).

We start out riding along the road and railway track. The first trot we do I feel that Don Rico has a slight limp and point this out to Jose. He tells me it's just because the ground is hard. But when we hit the softer desert track the limp remains...hmmm, riding a lame horse for two days isn't cool for either of us.

We arrive at the first sight - a rock archway followed by a canyon of red rocks. I dismount to explore the canyon on foot and leave the horses with Jose.

On exiting the canyon I see that a number of other riding groups have arrived, including an older guide (on a beautiful chestnut stallion - although that's not the point of this story...). Jose asks him to take a look at Don Rico and a few minutes later he's given me another horse to ride - a grey called Moro who happens to be Mora's brother. We leave the canyon to a tourist calling out "Oi! That's my horse!", I reply "And, you've got mine" and leave the confusion to the guides.

I like Moro. He's cheeky and has spirit. Within minutes Moro gives his sister a nip on the rump and jumps out of the way to miss her kick. Jose throws a concerned glance my way, but when he sees me both still on Moro and laughing it sets the tone for the rest of the ride. I kick Moro on into a canter and when Jose joins me both horses pull forward. I let Moro rip and we start racing along the desert track. We politely stop as we pass another tourist and her guide only to start again when we're a hundred meters ahead of them. A few moments later the sound of horses hooves gets stronger and I notice we're being followed. The four of us stop for lunch and I get chatting to the Dutch girl. She tells me how she wanted a bit of speed but her guide had said no, but when she saw us she decided to go for it, and now she was grinning from ear to ear!

After lunch we part ways - my Dutch friend heads back the way we came while we use the wide, and mainly dry, river bed as our highway. Lots of racing dispersed with some sedate plodding to take in the scenery follows.

A storm is brewing as we arrive at Quiriza and the heavens open shortly after we've watered the horses and I'm inside enjoying a cold beer. Perfect timing!

I try to teach Jose the 'game with no name', despite my spanish for card games requiring some development. I thought he would help me out a little, guessing what I was trying to say, reading my exuberant sign language, but no, apparently 16 year olds are the same in Bolivia as anywhere else in the world - with few words, a distinct stroppy side that is hard to hide, and bad taste in music (which was at this point blaring from the TV). So after the storm has passed I head out for a wander through this small village. Ten minutes later I'm on the other side...but there are a few points of interest; rocky outcrops, goats being fed their dinner and a church.

My dinner is a groaning plate of panfried chicken, potato chips, beetroot and tomato that friendly Santina has prepared. Well fed I give my leftovers to the dog, bash my head on the doorframe built for exceptionally short people and decide it's time to get an early night.

Day 2 is fairly similar to day 1...lots of riding and some great desert scenery. We do a bit more on the road, until I spot an opening onto the river bed and head down there ignoring Jose's protests - it's the right direction, looks safe (certainly safer than a road containing lunatic jeep drivers) and apart from the word 'no' I can't understand what he's saying anyway.

We finish the day with a race along a deserted railway line (where I enjoy an unexpected ditch jump) and splashing through a not so dry section of riverbed to cool down again. A thoroughly enjoyable couple of days!

We travel from Copacabana to La Paz by bus, with a short break in the journey to cross a narrow channel of Lake Titicaca. The bus goes on a barge alongside cars, cattle and anything else you can think of except for passengers (we jump on a separate little boat).

There are mountains in the distance and villages dotted across the barren plains of the altiplano. One village is a mass of dancing people and we spot what we guess are the bride and groom in the crowd.

All of a sudden there are mud and brick houses as far as we can see - we've just entered El Alto. This is a city that has sprung up on the flat altiplano right next to La Paz and is the area that houses many of the Bolivians that come to La Paz in search of work.

And next comes La Paz itself. The initial glance takes your breath away - the whole valley is filled with houses, skyscrapers pushing up from the valley floor and mountains rise from the desert in the distance. It is an odd feeling being able to look down on the city from the top of the valley.

We've heard that there is great food in La Paz, but it's a Sunday evening and it seems everything is shut. Finally we stumble on a fairly upmarket 'French' restaurant called La Comida, which was a restaurant we'd been recommended, where we eat some great cheviche (raw fish), meat and chocolate mousse.

Unfortunately, something in that meal wasn't so great and the next day was a rather unpleasant one of being sick. Oh well, we hope that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger in the long run.

We decide to head to the town of Coroico - this is a lovely quiet town perched on top of a hill in the 'high jungle'. It's also a much lower altitude (only 1800m! The lowest we will have been since Lima!), so we figure it'll be more conducive to helping us get our strength back than busy, polluted, 3800m La Paz.

We spend our first night in town at a hotel with amazing views down the valley from it's large patio.

And the patio also proves to be a lovely location for a spot of early morning yoga But it's a bit pricey and I've seen some cabanas advertised, so we move a 20min walk out of town to them. There are two little cabanas available at El Rincón Pichilemino and Ben and Tanis, an Oz/Canadian couple we met at the hotel in town, join us for some rest and relaxation in the hammocks and cooking up some yummy, healthy grub

Town is ventured into for groceries, saltenas (a bit like little cornish pasties filled with meat or chicken, egg, olives and potatoes), and helado made by an Italian family (their liquor de naranja was also rather good, especially when mixed with some fresh orange juice, Mmmm) Oh and one energetic morning we hiked to the three waterfalls - which were fenced off with barbed wire and not too impressive anyway...maybe we should have stayed in the hammocks.

It would have been very easy to have whiled away a few weeks in Coroico, but as there seemed to be a gap in the blockades that had been going on (and off) and stopping traffic from flowing between north and south Bolivia for the last few weeks, we decided it best to press on south to Oruru via La Paz.

Our time in La Paz was short - just enough to catch the Sunday carnival and fill our tummies. Then it was a bus to Oruru where the plan was to pick up the train to Tupiza. Only problem was that the train (or someone running the train) decided not to run. It took us two days to realise that 'quizás mañana' meant 'you foolish tourists, don't you know that we're not going to run this train for weeks and you're much better on the bus'...so after a couple of days we caught the bus. But in the meantime we explored Oruru. It's a city for locals...there's a great big market full of useful things for around the house, such as buckets, sieves and blankets (which in hindsight would have been perfect for our overnight bus trip) and several pleasant plazas for office workers to have their packed lunch in...and a cinema with a really good icecream bar. I got very excited when I saw there was a Govindas in town - curry! My excitement soon dissipates when the menu turned out to lack anything containing chillies or cumin seeds...soggy veggie lasagne and other types of overcooked pasta were the food of choice for Oruru's Hare Khrishnas.

Anyway, one bumpy and chilly night on a bus later, we arrive in Tupiza.

Tupiza has been plucked right out of a cowboy movie, long wide dusty streets, and even a 'saloon' with swinging wooden doors. The barren desert landscape is striped beige and red and rugged cliffs rise either side of the flat river plain. And just like in those cowboy movies, there's lots of horses

It's the start of the wet season and we encounter a couple of short but torrential downpours. But as it's so dry, the rain is soaked into the ground almost instantly and an hour later you are left with just an odd puddle here and there, and maybe a rainbow...

We're starting our tour of SW Bolivia and the salt plains of Uyuni from Tupiza and have Ben and Tanis joining us in a couple of days...which gives me just enough time for an excursion in the saddle, YEEHA!