Salta, Jujuy and Bolivia

I´m now in the white city of Sucre, ready after two false starts to finally begin tomorrow some work out in the countryside.  As far as I can work out, I will be putting the finishing touches to a hacienda, half an hour from the city, before the British owners begin to run the place as a B&B. Having been promised beautiful scenery, glorious night skies and the chance for this hopeless townie to learn some genuine practical skills, I´ve been looking forward to this for weeks. Obliged to fit in a decent stint of work here before arriving in Peru to teach by the end of May, I´d been wary of taking too long over my journey North from Mendoza. I therefore gave the beautiful North of Argentina only a week, and by the time I´d had an inauspicious start in Bolivia I was already thinking that had been too much of a rush. Said beginning had me shackled to Sucre for two weeks anyway, although fortunately that´s not been too much of a chore.

Salta 1 Apr

Despite Argentina´s reputation (and price) for comfortable buses, faulty air conditioning meant that I spent the baking hot 18hr journey to Salta not only hungover as sin, but with smoke curling out of the vent above my head (as well as my ears). The Sunday of my arrival preceded the ´Malvinas Liberacion´ bank holiday, so after my day of sightseeing (one pretty colonial building after another, the pavement-pounding interspersed with breaks in shaded plazas) the streets were filled with people out for the night. Salta is famous for its ´peñas´ – Argentinian folk music+dancing performances. Having arrived at a block lined with bars, each chock-full of people, we picked a door and headed in. Possibly the wrong one, but the tackily glitzy show was still good fun: I won´t be buying any Argentinian folk music CDs, but twirling skirts and scarves made the dancing theatrical enough.

Provincia de Jujuy 2-7 Apr

After Salta I headed up to San Salvador de Jujuy to catch up with some ´old friends´: two of the girls who´d hosted me in Córdoba were back in the family nest for Semana Santa (Easter week). A couple of nights in a proper ´home´, with the charming and warm family, were a hugely appreciated chance to pause and get my breath back. My tour guide(s) took me to the Termas de Reyes to swim in the warm spring water, and a visit to the city museum allowed me to start to put stories to a few of the street names I´d seen in each Argentinian city. Each feature the same set of thoroughfares named after one of numerous ´libertadores´ and other national heroes; occasionally leading to confusion when you try to remember if your hostel was on Avenida San Martin in this city or the last. More research is needed to decide who of Lavalle or Rosas was the goody (that apparently depends on which side you were on for the civil war – Rosas if you like a winner), but at least I now know they weren´t mates.

Continuing the metaphor of anthropomorphic landscapes, my journey up the Quebrada de Humahuaca saw the scenery literally waving at me: now in Wild West country, the hillsides were lined with the classic three-pointed cacti . My trusty tent (picked up and carried for three nearly months from Buenos Aires) got its final outing in Purmamarca, where I got up at first light to watch the sun rising over the spectacular cerro de siete colores. In hindsight, I´m not convinced it actually looked any better at the crack of dawn, but watching the shadows roll their way down the technicolour mountain was certainly dramatic.

Next stop was Tilcara, for an afternoon´s gorge(ous)-walking and a return route presenting a beautiful view of the valley and the town. Journeys within the 40km quebrada were a real treat, with the rugged hillsides boxing in the buses as they made their way along the valley floor. I´d been tipped to go to the achingly picturesque village of Iruya; for which the buses then had to climb 1000m up and out of the valley, stop for a breather (and some photos) at the summit (at the border between Salta and Jujuy), before winding back down the next valley on dirt roads. The trip and the views were stunning, up to and including the first glimpse of the town, tucked in amongst the gorge walls by the river. With the journey having been further enhanced by the atmosphere generated by a great bunch of folk on the bus, I was already regretting my decision not to stay a night there when I left my camera on the return bus. 

Having always considered picture-taking more of a chore than a pleasure, I´m not one of those tourists who´d regard that loss as earth-shattering. I am already enjoying the sense of liberation that comes with being able to drink in views without feeling obliged to put a lens in the way. But with my own idiocy to blame, and the nagging feeling that I could/should have taken more time over my journey, I couldn´t help but kick myself up to La Quiaca and the border with Bolivia.

Tupiza and Sucre (7-22 Apr)

I therefore viewed my crossing over to Villazon as a fresh start, and the opportunity to forget about those regrets and concentrate on enjoying a new country. Growing six inches by walking over the frontier (Bolivians are short) certainly helped, as did meeting up with a lovely British couple on the train journey to Tupiza, who ended up staying in the same hotel as me. Outdoors hub Tupiza acts as start point either for explorations of the beautiful local countryside, or for journeys through otherworldly altiplano landscapes (volcanoes, multi-coloured lagoons and salt flats) up to Uyuni. My plan was to spend a day or two exploring Tupiza´s surrounds, while looking for some nice people to spend 4 days in a jeep with on the way up to Uyuni. I was well over halfway through both objectives, when my trying to find a way up a nearby hill (for a view over Tupiza) put a spanner in the works.

My route to the hills took me through some scrappy suburbs at the edge of the town, and it was while following a (relatively) promising-looking path that three big black dogs ran barking out of the ramshackle houses. Dogs, whether street dogs or pets (it´s hard to tell which are which), are everywhere in South America, and many will run up to within a couple of metres, barking loudly until you´ve moved on and out of their ´territory´. Sadly these bastards didn´t, running out to fill the path behind me and then carrying on. I´d been knocked to my knees once, taken several bites and was definitely losing by the time their owners, drawn by the barking and my panicked cries for help, arrived to drag them off. Significantly kindlier than their dogs, the family dusted me down, showed me the route I should have taken (I´ll know for the next time but won´t bother – the easily accessible Corazon de Jesús, within town, has views plenty good enough) and wished me luck with getting medical treatment.

So I spent my Easter Sunday afternoon heading to Bolivian A & E with my Spanish dictionary. ´Festive opening hours´ meant that treatment was limited to cleaning out my wounds, and I was told to head to a different hospital the next day to sort out rabies vaccinations and antibiotics. Bolivia turns out to be a pretty cheap place to get bitten by a dog (not that I´d recommend it), with my prescribed course of rabies vaccinations paid for by the state. Frustratingly, the course consists of ten shots, the first seven administered daily, which ended my hopes of doing the salar tour to Uyuni (now added to the already-lengthy list of things to do “la proxima vez” I´m on this continent). And they didn´t they have the vaccines in stock in Tupiza, necessitating I travel on to Sucre to start getting jabbed.

So I headed to Bolivia´s constitutional capital (it´s NOT La Paz, as the tour guide in the city museum vehemently explained) much like any other tourist: off to visit lots of grandiose white buildings. Only in my case, specifically hospitals. As well as taking on(in?) all the precautionary needles, the other task has been to get the heart rate down at each dog sighting – in Sucre, just as in every city, the blasted things are everywhere. My rehabilitation on that front got off to a pretty intensive start, with a particularly friendly alsation-cross following me to my first doctor´s appointment. It´s hard to tell a dog that he´s caught you at a bad time, meaning that I had canine company for my whole twenty minute walk to the hospital. A guy in the street asked me if the dog was mine, only to be told by a nearby shopkeeper that ´nah, he´s just the dog that follows gringos´. Sangrienta típica. Whilst I´d entertain hopes of escape every time my new friend paused to scratch himself, or go nose-to-tail with other dogs; in no time at all he´d be back, trotting along at my heels. Often literally: the touch of paw on the back of my flip-flops causing me to jump six feet in the air. Fortunately I did arrive at the end of a nerve-shredding walk in significantly better shape than my breakfast empanada. Whilst I still give each dog I see a second glance, Sucre´s ´gringo dog´ certainly helped.

The sheer number of dogs means that bites aren’t uncommon: within a few days of my own misadventure I’d already met four others who’d been bitten by man’s supposed best friends. Frustratingly, while I was committing myself to Sucre to get something done about it, each of the others had done sod all and are still drawing breath. Oh well. Sadly lacking ahead of the event, I’d also soon received, from numerous sources, plentiful advice on how to deal with aggressive perros. Apparently the local trick is to pick up a stone and shape to throw it, which will cause any number of the beasts to run away with their tails between their legs. I´ve seen the tactic in action since, and can testify to its effectiveness: the folk at the Lonely Planet need to make some urgent revisions.

Fortunately Sucre isn’t a bad place to kick your heels: the former colonial capital is a very pretty city, and its tranquil charm, abundance of cheap Spanish schools, and beautiful setting (being able to look out of the city and see mountains is a pretty big tick in my book. Sucre´s surrounded by them) have been sufficient to convince a number of gringos (for some reason, most of them Dutch) ´here for a week or so´ to stay on for months or years. Taking my lifetime total of comedy injuries to four has therefore provided me with the opportunity to brush up on my Spanish (and learn some interesting new medical vocabulary), visit some (varyingly) interesting museums and go out for meals with the ´expat community´.

I encountered this motley crew of Dutch, Australian and Austrian travellers/aid volunteers/dossers through the guy who’d answered my plea on couchsurfing : “can anyone recommend me a good hospital?”. A local tour operator, he was fortunately coerced by the gang into leading a two-day hike to a nearby meteor crater. With legs now recovering by the end of the week, it would have taken wild horses to keep me away, and the ten of us had a fantastic weekend´s walking. The Saturday night’s entertainment was provided by the Tarijan wine (Bolivia´s are allegedly the highest vineyards in the world) and Bolivian tequila we´d carried along the way. The latter, combined with our guide’s history with one of the Dutch girls, led to tears before bed time and our Fearless Leader storming off into the night with his tent. Fortunately for our prospects of making it home, we found him the next morning, and with the previous night´s drama forgotten, set happily to climbing out of the crater. Our route from Maragua to Potolo took in yet more beautiful scenery, and also some dinosaur footprints, set into the rock millennia ago and only recently revealed by rainfall. Our journey home was in the back of a cattle truck, with sacks of potatoes for seats and a sheep for a company. Bolivian hiking is awesome.

So despite the inauspicious start, I´ve quickly got to like Bolivia. The people are friendly, with most offering a word or two of greeting on passing you in the street, and by God it´s cheap here. Probably of greater immediate risk to my health than the dogs is the preponderance of tasty food (most of it either deep-fried, or some form of cake) available for a few bolivianos (i.e. about 50p) at every street corner. Allied to innate greed and gastronomic curiosity, feeling sorry for myself and needing to ´get my strength up´ (for my upcoming physical labour) have been compelling excuses to try every delicacy going. At least twice. I´ve also spiralled headlong into sorry addiction to the produce of one of Bolivia´s huge native industries. No, not cocaine: chocolate. Having missed out during Easter, discovering Bolivia makes their own stuff has had me indulging in several feeding frenzies of my own. The lady in the chocolate shop already recognises me, and I´ve pretty much established a ´usual´.

 I’ve paid the predictable price for such excess, with a stint of food poisoning further delaying my arrival at the hacienda. Cheap as this place is, the sheer gluttony means my wallet will be glad of a break when I finally escape into the country. Particularly as I´m now off antibiotics I desperately need to work, and nearing the end of a (well, nearly) dry fortnight. With escape beckoning, and the promise of some sense of purpose again, I cannae wait…

Football, Hills and Vino

I´m now in Sucre, Bolivia, having spent about a week each in Córdoba and Mendoza before travelling North to the border through Salta and Jujuy. Needing to arrive here in time to begin some work out in the sticks (before needing to head off again for a different job in Peru) inspired something of a rush through some genuinely beautiful parts of the world; and my so far mixed fortune in Bolivia has had me slightly ruing that haste. Details will follow, but having struggled to keep up with the blog I´ll content myself for now with summarising the highlights of my journey up to N Argentina:

Football in Rosario (18-20 Mar)

The match of my penultimate day in Rosario lived well up to expectations. Raucous chanting continued, impressively, from first to final whistle; with terrace-long banners and firecrackers providing the entertainment before and after the game. The football didn´t quite live up to the crowd´s passion: Lionel Messi´s former team could only manage a 1-0 victory over recently promoted Atletica Rafaela, although had Newell´s two strikers not squandered countless one-on-ones, the scoreline would have been more impressive. However, the atmosphere and such a comically inept forward display were enough to persuade to adopt a new team, and I am now a leper for life. After trawling the unofficial street vendors on my final afternoon, I eventually found an affordable pair of team shorts with NOB embroidered on them (it seemed funny at the time), and can now proudly wear my new allegiance on my, err, thigh. Job done.

I then left Rosario literally under a cloud, with a heavy thunderstorm making my departure more-than-flatteringly dramatic. I found saying goodbye to the hostel crew more emotional than expected (have missed them, and particularly being told I´m beautiful by Brayan on a near-daily basis), and the weather served to further complicate leaving Rosario. The sheer volume of water meant that I arrived at the train station with about two inches of water for company in the floor of my cab. I was confused when the train guard said to expect departure at about 8am rather than the 3am journey I´d booked, but a glance at the now-submerged track revealed why. After a month of stifling heat and sunshine, the apocalyptic weather prompted me to look up the Spanish for ´bloody typical´ (Google says ´sangrienta típica´, if anyone´s interested). Having cheerfully contemplated the prospect of having to sleep on train platforms before I left home, I duly set to it, although I hadn´t before envisioned actually having a train to wait for.

Architecture and Hills in Córdoba (20-25 Mar)

Staying a block from the jaw-droppingly beautiful Los Capuchinos church, as well as the nightly sound and light shows at the Buen Pastor fountains, was a real treat. I did however, spend a good deal of time in the city of Córdoba trying to get out of it, heading out for walks in the beautiful countryside. I visited pretty Alta Gracia, where I enjoyed the irony of being priced out of the Che Guevara museum; instead visiting the highly-informative Jesuit museum before strolling up to the impressively adorned Lady-of-Lourdes sanctuary. Convents or religious monuments seemed to occupy the choicest spots in many of these small towns, and visiting one (after a trip to yet another waterfall) in Tanti allowed me my first glimpse of a condor. The nun I was chatting to said it was only a small one, but the huge wings looked impressive enough to me.

My trip the next day to see yet more at the Quebrada del Condoritos (an 800m deep crack in the sierras where the brutes give birth to their young) proved to be a real treat. A glorious undulating walk brought us to the top of the gorge, where we could see pairs and more of the magnificent things spiralling their way up and out into the sierras. We´d started too late in the day to have time to climb down and see them up close, but being too far away to make out their comically ugly heads may well have been for the better. I could spout clichés about the thrill of seeing them in flight, but will content myself to say that after seeing many more whilst working my way up the Andes; the sight of yet another big black shadow rolling over the ground, and the glance up to see the massive black-and-white wings still gives me a buzz.

As if I´d needed any more convincing that couchsufing was the way to travel, it had come in the form of an invitation from a beautiful girl in Córdoba containing the phrase “I live with my three sisters”. Staying with the family allowed me a number of opportunities to sit in on Spanish conversations, although a good deal of them ´soared majestically´ over my head. They were a lovely bunch, and a resultant boyish crush (given me, probably just the result of being fed for four days) made for some difficult goodbyes from Córdoba too.

Wine and Mountains in Mendoza (26 - 31 Mar)

While the view on bus journeys in the East of Argentina had been fairly unexciting (the flat pampas merely scratching its navel and staring back), the rolling hills near Córdoba had been much more friendly. The Andes though, glimpsed from within Mendoza, gave a definite saucy wink. Whilst conscious that a long day´s solo walk is not a good way to go about forgetting a girl, the chance to actually indulge in a love proved irresistible (to be ever-so-slightly melodramatic). I therefore took on the 10km wind from Las Cuevas up to the Libertadores pass on the border with Chile. Beginning the 1km high climb in stunning scenery, with initially just mountain hares and eagles for company, I arrived at the top to come face to face with Jesus Christ. The statue of Christ the Redeemer has been there since 1904, overseeing the peace at the historically fractious border (apparently without complete success – he must have nodded off). After commiserating him on his, by now, no doubt aching arms, I agreed he´d picked a fantastic spot but suggested he could have picked a better angle to overlook. The views all around were splendid: although the High Andes are desert, with not even patchy vegetation, the snow-capped peaks and multicoloured mountains are still breathtaking (and at 4,000m, literally so).

Though conscious of the altitude, the temptation to run down the descents proved overwhelming. Letting the legs play out, with the slope falling away behind and the valley rushing up to meet me, led to moments of sheer, exhilarating glee. Having had plenty of fun whilst remaining gratifyingly headache free, I called it a day about 3/4 of the way down, thumbing a ride from one of the tourist buses (cheats) to the Aconcagua viewpoint. Framed by a perfect U-shaped valley (formed by glaciation, a fact sadly pointed out by a helpful plaque rather than my nascent Geography GCSE), the view of the South face of the snow-capped, jagged beast of a mountain was pretty spectacular. His neighbours are pretty dramatic-looking too. I´ve now said this of a couple of places since, but the High Andean scenery is like nothing I´ve ever seen before. It´s algo más, and left this wee gringo, far from home, giggling to himself in sheer, awestruck wonder.

The other must-do in Mendoza is wine. A bike tour round the bodegas in Maipú is a well-established favourite on the gringo trail, and I was fortunate to be able to go for one in the company of former university friend and fellow Physics-sufferer, Phil “me up” Howes (Phil´s travels down from Venezuala are entertainingly documented here). Pedalling along past the vines, with the mountains in the background, made for a cracking day out. As too did taking in a glass or few of wine. I´ve never before tried a number of different grapes against each other, and being able to start building up some cross references for the palate made for a genuinely educational afternoon. It made for a good deal of fun too, and we wobbled back to the bike hire place to take in yet more, and this time free of charge. My first real experience thus far of the full-on backpacker scene continued with our crashing the all-you-can-eat asado at the hostel of a fellow ´cyclist´ we´d met along the way. That proved to be an excellent idea, although my partaking in the free tequila ´happy hour´ (lean back over the bar and open wide) was definitely not. My idiocy in returning for another shot (I´m a sucker for free booze) meant leaving Mendoza for Salta the next morning was another painful departure.

Four Matches and a Wedding

Having a base and a guaranteed warm shower has provided a welcome opportunity to bring running back into the weekly routine.  Partly motivated by a desperate need to stave off the accumulation of beer, daily facturas (Argentinian pastries) and plentiful helpings of tasty Brasilian-cooked food; twilight jogs, along the riverside or the city´s boulevards, have been an excellent  means to watch Rosario wind down at the end of the day.

Through CouchSurfing I´ve also been able to add a weekly  5-a-side football game to the exercise regime, as well as some colourful new phrases to my Spanish vocabulary. Being good at football is a universal means by which to instantly establish respect within male company, and sadly it´s a competence that I lack (I blame my parents). I´ve usually relied on slightly superior speed or fitness to somewhat mask my mediocre skills, but two months of Christmas and standing by roadsides (too long for a week´s jogging to compensate for) have put paid to any of that. I realised this only when my first box-to-box run nearly brought me to my knees, and sadly it meant that language-exchange was to be a two-way affair. I couldn´t help noticing that Spanish invective tends to be four-worded rather than four-lettered, but it´s pretentious to wonder how much that is linked to respective paces of life...

That I don´t also know the Spanish for ´touch of a rapist/damp towel´ is therefore completely due to the genial tolerance of my team. You can´t help feeling you´re the weak link when your turn in goal coincides with five unanswered goals for your side, but apparently my performance wasn´t poor enough to be asked not to bother the next week. They´re a nice bunch of guys, and I was able to again enjoy running myself into the ground (and trebling my previous week´s goal count) on my return this week.

Though not useless enough to prevent my side winning on both occasions, I still felt the need to find some other way of establishing some sporting credentials. When one of the guys mentioned he played, and had a spare racket, I therefore leapt on the chance to have a go at some tennis. Fate contrived to ensure that, after a 6am return from a night out, and an 8am (well, closer to 9am) start for work, my attempt to salvage some British pride would be conducted on two hours´ sleep and whilst probably still drunk. Burning myself on the exhaust-pipe of my opponent´s motorbike (whilst dopily climbing off) was not the most auspicious of starts, but fortunately the hours spent on tennis courts rather than football pitches eventually did tell. The languorous bounce offered by the clay court certainly helped to get my eye back in; although after having only just been fully cleaned of the dirt from Misiones, my clothes are now once again ingrained with red dust. Having buzzed my hair in a vain attempt to cope with the heat I am no longer told I look like Andy Murray, and although I don´t play like him either our match still attracted the interest of the gents on the next court. Sadly I wasn´t able to recognise their comment ´´hay tenis acá´´ (´´there is tennis here´´) as a compliment rather than an observation, and replied with a confused ´´er, sí´´ and a shrug of the shoulders. Typical graceless Brit...

The gradual approach of my departure from Rosario (my train to Córdoba is booked for 20 March) has also prompted efforts to make sure I don´t miss out on anything before I go. I´ve therefore paid the duty 5-minute trip to the city´s art gallery (I find it hard to get excited by art here when I´m spoilt back home), seen a few more of the Paraná´s islands and cycled along the river bank to the bridge at the top of the city.  Hearing from a hostel-guest of Fisherton, ´the English barrio´, I decided I had to visit, and made the trip out to the edge of town. Initially separate from Rosario, the neighbourhood was built to house British railway-builders (led by one Henry Fisher) in the early 20^th century, who helped set up Argentina´s (limited) rail network in times of a slightly happier Anglo-Argentine relations. A bizarre island of English-style architecture amongst the surrounding villas (Argentina´s favelas), the streets of big, expensive houses come complete with village green, oak trees, and a pretty church, and put me in mind of a Chigwell in 35degree heat.

Another legacy of British immigration is Rosario´s top division football team, Newell´s Old Boys, who´ve been a frequent source of childish amusement. Legendarily passionate Argentinian support means that their initials are graffitied on seemingly every unattended wall. It´s like being back home. Tales of the fervour of supporters here, with fences required to protect referee and players from the fans, have made going to a match another must-do while I´m here: will look forward to attending their next home game on Sunday.

Life within the hostel continues to entertain, most recently with the irreverent mock wedding of two of our long-term guests: the 18-year-old Uruguayan lesbians I´ve been sharing a dorm with. That´s not as fun as it sounds: it took me as long as working out the Brayan-Victor relationship to realise they were both girls, and the frequent public displays of affection have been nauseating. I had no idea what to expect of a sham lesbian wedding; but this particular affair, conducted on the hostel terrace, began with the brides walking up the aisle to ´Only Time´, kissing before the end of the vows (presided over by Victor), kissing again when ´permitted´; before a wedding reception that involved my consuming a good deal of malbec and dancing in a blonde wig with the cleaning lady. So all in all pretty good fun.

Thanks to the fun I´ve had with the hostel community, the Gonzalezes, and the assortment of sports/drinking buddies throughout Rosario, I´m going to be sad to leave this place. But although the language has improved, I´ve ended up speaking enough English to prevent this from being the full-on Spanish immersion that I´d hoped for. I´m therefore looking forward to being back on holiday again: heading on to another new city, and then from Córdoba into the surrounding hills.

Livin´ La Vida Rosa(rino)

Since the past week´s weather has alternated between stifling heat (even the locals were complaining) and thunderstorms, most of my exploration has been limited to nocturnal forays. Knowledge that I´m around for a wee while has also served to dampen enthusiasm for doing much more than sleep in before heading off to sit in a parque/plaza and read a book. Work here at Anamundana hostel has ended up being equally tranquilo: pretty much all cleaning is left to the woman who comes in every week (or more often we´ve been particularly busy), leaving only reception duties for the staff. My still-hesitant Spanish means that I´m pretty much babysat the whole time I´m working, and end up with precious little to actually do. Having to faff about for hours in return for free accommodation isn´t the end of the world (no bogs!), but feeling close to useless has been a bit frustrating. Things should improve – I´m gradually working out how the place works and hopefully will at least be able to help out with arriving English-speakers…

With my usual myopic level of perceptiveness, it had taken me nearly a week to realise that (i.e. dumbly ask if) being heterosexual puts me in a distinct minority amongst the hostel´s regular cast; although I had at least worked out that Brayan and Victor were a couple by the time the latter installed a new light, “alternating in the colours of the rainbow”, by the front door. Although I´m left mildly curious about exactly why I got the job, the friendly (without being too friendly…) couple have been great company, as have their set of girlfriends, who regularly drop by the hostel. So as well as working on my Spanish, I´m building up a vocabulary of Portuguese gay slang I´m not sure I´ll need, and giving the gaydar a fine-tuning that maybe I do:

Having noticed a pretty girl sitting by herself during the preliminary drinks for this weekend´s (see below) festivities, I´d duly done the decent thing and wandered over to say hello. Despite noticing the Venus symbol tattooed on her ankle, and her mentioning she´d been to the local gay bar the night before, the penny was still bouncing around when an Argentinian came over to help translate. The lass must have felt sorry for me, for after a brief conversation our interlocutor turned to me, said “we´re wasting our time here”, and walked off. The chaps here evidently don´t mess around: apparently “te quiero” (“I want you”) is a pretty standard line, and things get far sleazier. Given that a heavily English-accented “¡Hola! ¿como estás?” has thus far singularly failed to deliver the devastating results I´d been promised, more direct tactics may well be called for. Live to learn etc. With the latter point in mind; I resumed, undaunted by the raised eyebrow (“we can still talk, right?”), the conversation with my amiga lesbiana, and was taught the set of Argentinian pejoratives to go along with my Brasilian ones.

Rio´s festivities last weekend were the excuse for a four-day bank holiday/bender here in Argentina, and the cause of a fairly hectic weekend for us. The numbers arriving meant that Victor opened an equally swish overflow hostel; with most Argentinian guests staying in Anamundana, and the hen-party plus English-speaking guests plus yours truly put into the other. Going out with either set was a great deal of fun, and since no one here heads to the clubs before 2-3am (contrary to back home, where everyone´s kicked out by then) I´m still trying to catch up on sleep. Notable characters included the Chilean-born Australian guy who´s trying to visit as many Argentinian football stadiums as he can, the hen-party replete with bride-to-be in playboy-bunny outfit, and the nargila- (shisha-)toting bunch of Israelis.

From other travellers I´d heard a number of, mostly derogatory, reports on the ubiquity of the latter. They apparently flood Patagonia at this time of year after finishing their military service and spend their travels drinking and smoking whatever they can get their hands on. Having met one of their number, who´d come to Rosario to go skydiving and spent his three days waiting for a jump sitting in the hostel watching youtube videos (on the single computer) and playing on his phone, I´d begun to form a pretty dim view myself. That changed after a few beer and nargila-sessions with this crew; after which (although the pressures of being militarised so young under were only ever alluded to) it seemed churlish to begrudge them the opportunity to unwind. Whilst such a conversation, at that time of night, sounds every bit as bad an idea as Victor having left me in charge of the hostel (and fridge full of beer) from 3-6am while he got some sleep; the opportunity to discuss the Israel-Palestine situation with German Sanni and the group of 3 ex-´soldiers´ was a pretty unique one. It´s terrifying to hear from a group of pretty-much kids that ´stop or I shoot´ are the only words in Arabic that most Israelis know. But while they are aware of, and in some ways understand, the resounding criticism from around the world, questions remain about the breadth of perspective of the side firing rockets. Sanni´s acutely sensitive German viewpoint was an interesting contrast from the more or less standard anti-Israeli sentiment back home. Predictably, we closed a fortunately passion-free discussion without getting any closer to a solution.

With Rosario the birthplace of the Argentinian flag (as well as some itinerant Argentinian doctor), it´s impossible not to remain aware of another ongoing territorial dispute. The city´s spectacular monumento nacional a la bandera (particularly beautiful at night, when floodlit with the Argentinian tricolour) lies uncomfortably close (for me at least) to the monumento nacional a los caídos en Malvinas. A couple of people have mentioned the issue to me in passing, but fortunately none of the flag-burning, HSBC-smashing variety. Due to my own circumstances, the only Argentinians I´ve actually spoken to about the situation have been university-educated, English-speaking types, who can see both sides of the story and have some doubts about ´Christina´s´ motivations in pursuing the issue. As reported in the British press, there is an intellectual fringe that sympathise with the islanders´ perspective, and it will be interesting to see how the debate plays out against the tubthumping. This (another) bank holiday weekend promises a number of ceremonies commemorating the 200^th anniversary of the flag, but hopefully no any significant increase in nationalist feeling. Although I´ll expect in any case to be out of the country by the beginning of April (and the beginning of commemorations of the war itself), thus far I´ve never felt remotely threatened, and the people have without exception been extremely friendly. I hope and indeed anticipate that that will continue.

Things Looking Rosy in Rosario

With language-learning the priority, I´ve been looking to find opportunities to work and spend some time more fully immersed. With that in mind, I signed up to a website listing a number of voluntary jobs, offering free food and board in return for a few days´ work a week. I applied to a number of things, including construction work in Bolivia, hospitality work in Chile and a hostel job in Rosario. I hadn´t heard from the latter before I arrived here, and, having not found a couch to crash on, headed straight for hostelworld to find a bed for the night. Lo and behold, the description for one of the hostels matched the tone of the advert, and a browse through the pictures showed they were indeed the same place.

After my schlep through town, I therefore hastily changed into a relatively clean shirt and shifted into interview mode as I made my way through the door. I needn´t have bothered: the shaven-headed, sleeveless-shirted hulk on the other side was extremely friendly, and mention that I was looking for work was enough for me to be promised a meeting with the boss, Victor. That never really came, but a series of informal chats with Victor and the hulk (Brayan) established that I was indeed going to work here, and started this (Monday) evening.

 The place seems to be a cash-cow for a bunch of Brazilian students, who took over the place only in the last seven months and are still working out how best to make the place work. Victor has put on hold his architecture degree to run the hostel on a daily basis, and Brayan seems to be giving up on sleep in order to help out alongside his degree-studies in medicine. They´re the only two staff with any English; although with the extremely relaxed, convivial atmosphere within the hostel-cum-guesthouse I´ve still to work out which of the other people in the hostel are other staff, and those who are long-term guests.

Although conscious that I´ve traversed half the world to still be cleaning bogs; said atmosphere, the presence of a rooftop-terrace for stargazing, fresh croissants for breakfast and the prospect of full-on immersion meant that I spent the weekend trying to comprehend my luck. I´d been taken by Rosario´s looks from the start, with attractive houses and boulevards to go along with the usual collection of statues, monuments and churches. Possessing beaches and nearby islands (I´m still on the Paraná) to camp on, it´s going to be a difficult place to dislike.

Further affection for the city stems from the tremendous welcome I´ve received, thanks to a friend-of-a-friend back in England. She´d put me in touch with her twin cousins, who, together with their family, made my first few days in Rosario a delight. They´ve already shown me to several of the city sights, and invited me to accompany them on outings to the island on the family speedboat. Whilst the world´s widest river is not it´s prettiest, skipping across the murky green/brown (whatever) Paraná is still a pretty good way to begin an afternoon. On my first trip I was treated to a tour of the islands, with uncle and avid nature photographer Edgardo slowing the boat down to allow a better view of the magnificent white cranes and hawks perched on the river bank, and the strands of spider web held hanging over the water by the breeze. All very idyllic, until the uncle began to point out the ceibo, Argentina´s vivid red national flower, resplendent amongst the foliage. Cue “¿como se dice ´colourblind´ in castellano?”, and five minutes´ puttering along close to the riverbank and jabbing fingers at the trees. I was too embarrassed to admit that I was still none the wiser, but closer inspection reveals that it is indeed very pretty.

After patiently enduring a series of half-conversations (waiting for the idiot on the other side to work out what he wanted to say), the cousins must have been pretty relieved to let their chatterbox uncle take up some of the slack. Wandering up and down the beach with them, with Edgardo explaining (either in limited English or with drawings in the sand) the terms I´ve not understood, has allowed me to take part (however hesitatingly) in my first relatively long conversations. And begin to develop a zoological vocabulary in Spanish…

Having since been invited to interpose myself on other outings with the whole clan, I´ve now talked at and been patiently talked to by the boyfriends and grandparents as well. Their efforts have been a huge fillip (not that I needed it) to get on and learn, as well as to find other conversation partners to avoid putting the burden solely on them. Fortunately there is a sizeable couchsurfing community here, and my first encounter with several (at a language exchange meeting in a local bar) proved them to be very friendly. Have tentative arrangements to meet a couple more over a beer, and after a recent craving to play tennis I´ll hopefully meet one or two on court as well...

After several days searching I´ve also found some tuition on which to spend the money I´m saving on accommodation. Thanks to the local custom of closing for siesta for any number of hours between 12 and 5, wandering around looking for courses turned out to be a fairly ineffectual business. The tone was set by my first enquiry of the city´s public (free) university: it was only after walking the corridor past a series lectures that I realised I was in the science faculty. I was directed to the teaching office, where the very kind lady gave me details for the humanities department, but informed me that the little darlings needed their rest and were closed until the Monday. In the end I needn´t have bothered: word had got out amongst the friends of the hostel staff that a gringo was looking for a teacher. After a flurry of emails and another day walking round I returned to be introduced to trilingual Daniele, who lost her job when her company folded and is now looking to make a career out of teaching Portuguese and Spanish. Music to my ears was her Ecuadorian dialect, and that she was unwilling to charge me as much as the established schools. Pretty and cheap would probably have been enough (usual story), but that she offered the opportunity to be taught the sounds used by the majority of the Spanish-speaking world (with y and ll both pronounced as y rather than the sh of Argentinian caste-sh-ano) made it a done deal

So I now have a city and some sort of routine to settle into. Will reserve judgement until I´ve had a full day´s work (we´re pretty busy over carnaval weekend this week), but at the moment I´m thoroughly looking forward to spending a month here, if not longer...

First Four Weeks

Have been meaning to post something for a while, but this is the first time I´ve had relatively unlimited access to the internet. So here goes...

It already feels like a long time since I arrived in Buenos Aires, nearly four weeks ago. After a few days exploring the city I headed up to Gualegauychu for South America´s 3rd biggest carneval; then hitchhiked from there up to Puerto Iguazu with a Danish girl (Nikkoline) to visit the waterfalls. Our stay for nearly a week at a wonderfully bohemian campsite (on which more below) also saw me daytrip into Brazil to geek out at the world´s (now second-, behind China´s Three Gorges) biggest dam at Itaipú.  Having passed tantalisingly close to the Jesuit missions that give Misiones province its name, I was intrigued enough to want to visit on the way back. We therefore visited San Ignacio, before crossing into Paraguay to take in further ruins, as well as another carnaval. Having returned to Posadas in Argentina we split up, and I arrived in Santa Fe by myself on Monday to spend a few days chilling out a bit and explore the city.

Obligatory "hell yeah, we made it" photo

What I´ve Learnt So Far


1) It´s HOT. In Jan/Feb :)
2) Possibly enhanced by L1, the ice cream in Argentina tastes GOOD (as does the crap beer on offer, definitely due to L1). Italian heritage combined with Argentines´ ridiculously sweet teeth mean that seemingly every main street contains a heladeria to provide welcome respite from the Sun.
3) Probably also enhanced by L1; an Argentinian kilometre, when directed towards a main road, is a bloody long way. I thought that we Brits were notorious for understatement, but it´s lost some of its charm by the time you finally arrive at a suitable spot to solicit a ride. And then have to stagger on further to find some 30deg shade. Not that I´d ever complain about the heat...
4) Viajar con el gordo. A delightful euphemism for hitchhiking. Lit. "to travel with the fat one".
5) Un pocito mas castellano.
The first lesson was that I wasn´t going to learn any español on my travels: the people here speak instead the 16th century Castilian dialect introduced by the conquistadors, and referred to as castellano. Progress will hopefully pick up pace now that I´m back on my own. Travelling with Nikkoline, a fluent Spanish speaker (and not wanting to frustrate too many drivers with my broken, nay eviscerated, Spanish) meant that improvement has mostly been limited to my ability to work out what syllables they´re actually pronouncing. Still a good deal of improvement necessary, before I can even start thinking about building up my vocabulary; a fact reaffirmed by a series of smile-and-nod conversations in Santa Fe over the last couple of days. I was treated to a 20min tour of the port museum (there´s little to do here but culture-vulture) by one of the staff, and was able to comprehend less than a minute´s worth. Plus ça change (or whatever), I hope. The couchsurfer I´m staying with (studying to be an English translator) has been incredibly patient and helpful with my attempts to practice, and I´ll hope keenly for more of the same...
6) La gente esta muy loca
Running every weekend through Jan+Feb, the carneval in Gualegauychu attracts thousands of vacationing Argentines from the nearby cities (it´s an hour from Buenos Aires, and we met revellers from as far afield as San Luis) to get drunk, swim in the riverside beaches and party. The atmosphere in the campsite we stayed in was fantastic: people were able to drive their cars onto the site, allowing miniature-discos to form around the blaring stereos. Any Reading Festival comparison was dispelled from my mind by the fact that people considerately acceded to the campsite-imposed silence at midnight, and the cacophony of dubious Latino pop music (including the gem above) abated for everyone to have a go at recovering for the following day. With intermittent thunderstorms (so not unlike Reading after all) throughout the weekend, enthusiasm for the carnaval may have been slightly dampened, but the main event still thrilled, with impressive floats, shimmying dancers and all the works.
Unsure of what then to expect from Carnaval in Encarnaçion, we were delighted to find an even better atmosphere. Billed by the Lonely Planet as "more fun than Rio", the Paraguayan version duly featured riotous levels of audience participation: we were buried on arrival under a blizzard of spray snow, and playful ´snowfights´ continued across the stands over the course of the event; together with virtually obligatory dancing. The fact that, of all people, I was keen to head along to the discoteca afterwards, is some testament to the atmosphere and energy of the crowd, although possibly also due to some degree to the quantity of Brahma consumed (see L2). Whatever, I found the cumbia rhythms far more intoxicating than the standard fare on offer in British clubs, and happily danced away like a loon until daylight.

Carnaval Paraguyan-style

Further Highlights


Iguazú Falls. Every bit as beautiful and impressive as the guide books say. Standing at the Devil´s Throat", at the head of the series of falls was a tremendous experience. You see and hear from 10ft the roar of water throwing itself 80ft off the ledge to the water below, and having no choice but to feel and even taste the consequent spray kicked up: an utterly visceral experience. The park itself, with a series of falls emerging from the pristine-rainforest to spill into the Rio Iguazu, was spectacularly beautiful. Take away the hordes of people, add a few mango trees and leave me alone with the vivid butterflies, startled iguanas scurrying through the undergrowth, and majestic black birds wheeling around in the sky (until you make out their heads and realise they´re vultures) - the place would be paradise.

Reducciones Jesuiticas. A step up from outright exploitation, the Jesuits gathered together settlements of indigenous Guaraní people, in order to protect them from other Europeans and convert them to Catholicism. Some grew to 3-4 thousand strong, until the order was banned from Spanish and Portugese lands and the reductions were abandoned. Visiting the ruins at San Ignacio, Trinídad and Jesús by day; with about as much information on offer as I´ve just relayed to you, was fairly underwhelming. Visiting Trinídad at night was another story. We were slightly unsure of what to expect of the "sound and light show", especially having had to pay for a taxi in order to arrive on time. However, under a full moon, and with ethereal choral and Guaraní music playing from hidden speakers; gazing at the floodlit ruins, or up the Southern Hemisphere stars, was absolutely magical.

Jesús, the smallest but best-preserved of the ruins.

Riverside Fun. Puerto Iguazú, in Argentina, overlooks the Tres Fronteras, sitting as it does at the confluence of the Rio Paraná (the border with Paraguay) and Rio Iguazú (bordering Brazil); and also acts at staging post for visits to the Falls. We were delighted by our decision to stay in the cheapest campsite we could find, it´s charms partly summed up by the owner´s introduction: "you´re not allowed to be drunk, throw maté leaves on the floor, etc etc... and if you want to smoke marijuana, you have to do it over there". With tents pitched haphazardly, wherever space could be found between the trees, the price-tag meant that the camp was home, for months at a time, to the ´artisans´ who sell tat on the streets of any tourist spot the world over. They were a fascinating bunch, spending their daytime making their wares, and their nighttime either touting them or smoking weed at the campsite. Some wove bracelets, some made jewellery, and one guy made these grotesque-looking clay/bamboo bongs up to 18inches long, which he said were due for sale in Amsterdam. A massive communal pot of food was cooked every day, with the contribution of 5pesoes or so (less than a quid) entitling one to as much tasty local grub as they could eat. Forays to the river for a swim were a daily (/nightly) occurrence, and the people I met there were amongst the friendliest I´ve met so far, helping me a great deal with my Spanish.
Swimming further down the Paraná, at the beach in Encarnaçion, saw the arrival of thunderstorms produced by the broiling humidity. The sudden transition from 38deg sunshine to charcoal grey skies created one of the best rainbows I´ve ever seen; and sitting in the surf as wind, lashing rain and fog replaced blue sky was a surreal (but fortunately short-lived) experience. Our host in Encarnaçion (we met Cesar through couchsurfing) also took us to the grounds of his church, which offered a viewpoint over the Paraná and Posadas to one of the best sunsets I´ve ever seen. With low-lying cloud allowing the Sun´s disc to be watched as it gradually inched its way below the horizon, the sight of its reflection from both river and clouds was mesmerising.

All-you-can-eat Meat buffet. Another tip from Cesar, the Brazilian-style churrasqueria was every bit as good as it sounds. With two girls as companions I lacked the peer-pressure to truly let rip, but did my best to boost the local cattle industry. What I thought were kebabs looked on closer inspection like they might be intestine, and I wasn´t sure whether to be disappointed or not to find out they were chicken hearts. They were very tasty all the same, as were the steak, ribs, chicken legs and chorizos also on offer. Fortunately we did not have to walk back home with laden stomachs, as the impact of blonde hair on local gallantry meant that we were offered a lift :)

Human Nature. Naff as it is to say, and with all the usual caveats (I´ve already heard several travellers´ stories, including the two girls in my dormitory who had pack/iPod nicked whilst I was eating breakfast - touchwood I stay this lucky), the friendliness and kindness of strangers remains one of the joys of travelling. From the hospitality of the couchsurfers I´ve stayed with, the invitations to homes/asados from the people who picked us up, to the Brazilian couple who gave me change for the bus (I´d daytripped across the border hoping I´d get by with pesoes), and more; people´s capacity and willingness to help has consistently been heartening.

I head South to Rosario tomorrow, and plan next to visit Cordóba before Mendoza. Having found the level of Spanish I have is enough to make myself understood, but not enough to interpret much in reply (the usual story), I´m thinking I might look for some tuition in one place or another. Will see. Hasta luego...