Iguazu Falls

I arrived to Ciudad del Este (Paraguay) at 4am and it was freezing. Quickly got the beanie out and walked through the nice parks to town, which was just setting up for a busy day of shopping. Caught the bus out to Itaupi Dam, which is the biggest hydro-electric facility in the world and one of the 7 wonders of the modern world. Watched the movie and did the free tour inside the dam wall and around the top. I then walked across the bridge to Brazil, and eventually found someone to stamp my passport. Spent a few hours in Foz which had a nice main street with plenty of cafés, then caught the bus over to Puerto Iguazu in Argentina to stay the night since it was a smaller town and much cheaper. Today I explored the Argentine side of the falls. The island and top walk were closed due to the high water, but the waterfalls were impressive which looked like the chocolate waterfall out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The upper walk was amazing... the walkways went right over the water, and you could look over the edge. The bottom walkway gave a fantastic view of the entire waterfalls. The must have photo was taken in the spray of the waterfalls, where everyone was soaked within seconds.
Tomorrow will see the Brasilian side and will look to take an overnight bus to Florianopolis.

Asuncion

Arrived to Paraguay after a lot of waiting in bus stations and sleepless overnight busses. I crashed near the bus station and enjoyed a good feed with live music and watched boca juniors smash boliviano. I caught the local city bus into town in the morning, left my bags at a fancy residential (like a hotel, but its actually someones house) and checked out town. Saw the senate, parliament, palace and other government buildings. Other than this Asuncion wasnt super impressive. Town was deserted by 6pm, and finding a feed became a real challenge. Eventually a hamburger cooked on the side of a road was had, which had the special Paraguay taste of diesel fumes from the ancient busses that would accelerate up the hill with the exhuaste pipes centimeters from my cooking hamburgers.
The next day I headed out to the resort town (Lonely Planets terrible description) of San Bernadino. This place was well past its glory days. The main beach was delapidated and flooded, and after 2 hours I was on my way back to the city. Caught the overnight bus to Ciudad del Este.

Montevideo y Salto

Spent a fantastic few days in Montevideo. Arrived on Thursday night after a day on the beaches in Punta del Esta. I caught up with Meybell, a mexican who is currently on exchange at the university in Uruguay. She was sharing a place with a few other exchange students so I found a spare spot on the floor under the dining table to roll out my sleeping bag for a few nights. We hit up the university´s asado (bbq) for the exchange students that night. Friday I explored the town with Meybell. There wasn´t a whole lot to see in town, but we tried out some new restaurants and found a great one in the centre of town that served up a huge chivito (steak sandwhich) for A$2. In the evening we headed to the Universidad Catòlica to hook ourselves up with tickets to the university´s commencement party later that night. This was held out at the national Polo club (a long way out of town!). Partied all night with live bands and cheap drinks. We also got free umbrellas which was great timing given its been raining almost constantly since.
The next day was wet wet wet, so I walked down to the beach and back, and waited till midnight and headed to the bus stations with the exchange students to catch the overnight bus up to Salto.
I arrived in Salto at 5am in the pitch dark and the heaviest rain I have seen. Sheltered in the bus station for a few hours until it was dry enough to venture out and find a hotel to crash at. By lunch I had made it out of town to the local thermal pools, caught up with other guys again (2 germans, 1 austrian and 3 spanish) for a day of bathing in stinking hot water.
We went into the city for dinner and tracked down the local bar for a cheap cocktail.
This morning I caught the bus over the border to Concordia, Argentina and now waiting the 12 hours for my bus to leave for Corrientes at midnight, on my way up to Asuncion, Paraguay. Hopefully will make it there sometime tomorrow arvo!

Montevideo y Salto

Spent a fantastic few days in Montevideo. Arrived on Thursday night after a day on the beaches in Punta del Esta. I caught up with Meybell, a mexican who is currently on exchange at the university in Uruguay. She was sharing a place with a few other exchange students so I crashed on their floor. We hit up the university´s asado (bbq) for the exchange students that night. Friday I explored the town with Meybell. There wasn´t a whole lot to see in town, but we tried out some new restaurants and found a great one in the centre of town that served up a huge chivito (steak sandwhich) for A$2. In the evening we headed to the Universidad Catòlica to hook ourselves up with tickets to the university´s commencement party later that night. This was held out at the national Polo club (a long way out of town!). Partied all night with live bands and cheap drinks. We also got free umbrellas which was great timing given its been raining almost constantly since.
The next day was wet wet wet, so I walked down to the beach and back, and waited till midnight and headed to the bus stations with the exchange students to catch the overnight bus up to Salto.
I arrived in Salto at 5am in the pitch dark and the heaviest rain I have seen. Sheltered in the bus station for a few hours until it was dry enough to venture out and find a hotel to crash at. By lunch I had made it out of town to the local thermal pools, caught up with other guys again (2 germans, 1 austrian and 3 spanish) for a day of bathing in stinking hot water.
We went into the city for dinner and tracked down the local bar for a cheap cocktail.
This morning I caught the bus over the border to Concordia, Argentina and now waiting the 12 hours for my bus to leave for Corrientes at midnight, on my way up to Asuncion, Paraguay. Hopefully will make it there sometime tomorrow arvo!

Punta del Esta

I watched a big electrical storm in Colonia over the river on Tuesday night. With the impending rain, it was a quick run back to the hostel only to find the roof wasnt very waterproof. Watched on TV how the same storm had caused flooding in Mar del Plata and flooded the BsAs subway.
The next morning i caught a bus through Montevideo to Punta del Esta. This is like the gold coast of Uruguay, with plenty of skyscrapers and nice beaches. It is the official point where Rio del la Plata reaches the Atlantic Ocean. These can be seen on either side of the peninsula, but it all looks like ocean to me.
With the high season already finished, the place is very empty, but the water still great for swimming. Now off to Montevideo for a few days.

Colonia del Sacremento

I left Buenos Aires on Monday morning after a very enjoyable week staying with Any. Many thanks to her and her family for having me stay all this time.
I jumped on the next boat over the river to Colonia del Sacremento, Uruguay. It only took an hour, then another hour to find an ATM that actually worked. I dumped my bags at the Hostel Español then headed into Barrio Histórico which is a UNESCO heritage site protecting the old village that was build by the Portugese to watch to the Spanish, but was then taken over by the Spaniards.
It´s a very nice town, with ancient stone buildings (with walls 1m thick), rough coblestone streets, and little cafés and restaurants on the footpaths. The atmosphere reminds me of Luang Prabang, Laos. It´s very peaceful after all the noise of BsAs.
This morning after breakfast at the panaderia, I climbed up to the top of the lighthouse where I could just make out the skyline of BsAs on the horizon over the river. Then grabbed a pushbike and headed out to the bullring, which appears not to have been used in a few years, then rode around the historic part of town. My bum is now thanking me for riding over all those cobblestone lanes.
Tomorrow I´ll take an early bus to Montevideo, where I will take another bus somewhere else for 2 days. Perhaps up the coast a little towards Punta del Esta or somewhere. I´ll know once I see where the next busses are going!

Tatii´s 15th Birthday Party

I was fortunate enough to be invited to Tatii´s (Tatiana) 15th birthday party. She is the neighbour here in Wilde. Rather than celebrate the 18th or 21st birthdays like we do in Australia, in Argentina they celebrate their 15th (and the guys miss out completely), and they do it in style!
We arrived there about 8.30. They had the reception upstairs all with fancy lights on the walls, funky music, waiters going around with flash sandwiches, pizza and empanadas, and drinks. Everyone was dressed up with their best dresses and suits. I wiped my sneakers so they weren´t full of mud, so i looked the part also! Then we went downstairs where Tatii had changed into a new dress looking like she was getting married, and walked out with her father and greeted everyone. We sat down and she did the waltz with her dad, then everyone else joined in. She had to dance with all the boys in the room, but didn´t get all the way through them! we then had an entré which was some nice tandoori chicken, and the waiters were serving drinks constantly to us all night.
Dinner consisted of an amazing number of courses. Next was served entré with some omelette things, stuffed eggs, etc, then the main course which was hot chicken, some fancy potato, etc then we had dessert which was icecream and fruit salad (this was about 3am). The next course was cake, they had a big wedding-like cake, and tables full of other cakes. I got stuck into the lemon merangue pie while being filmed by the film crew that were making a DVD of the night. The final course at 5.30am was beer and pizza. All the courses were spread out over the night, with different dancing, and ceremonies like the speaches, candle lighting ceremonies where the candle was presented to 15 special people in her life, 3 videos that were professionally made, and everyone getting dressed in colourful funny hats. The final event almost turned the whole place into a foam party.
So we didn´t get home from the 15th party till 6.30am, and the kids and grandparents were only just winding up!
Feliz cumpleaños tatii!

More Buenos Aires

Wednesday I headed back into town and walked around the Parque Ecológico, where there were some lakes (the national mosqueto breeding centre) and wild guinea pigs running around everywhere. Had lunch on the banks of the Rio del la Plata.
Thursday I spent some more time in the microcentro then we went out to Cominito, La Boca where the famous colourful houses are, and plenty of cafe´s in the street with live music and tango dancers. Cominito was only very small, and it was winding down when we got there, so we headed home shortly after.
Friday I went back to Cominito and had lunch in the street watching the tango shows and listening to the live music. We then went out to Avellenada to visit one of Any´s friends who cooked up some brownies for us. After calling past home we went to El Balcony restaurant in San Pedro Telmo which had tango, singing and some other folk dances performed. Then it was time to go to the Requim club, an underground place that played 80´s music all night. Any loved this place so we were here till it closed at 8am, and eventually made it home at 10am.

Buenos Aires

The long bus trip from Bariloche was uneventful, with no signs of the demonstrations in Neuquen. Arrived to Buenos Aires at lunchtime on Sunday and was met by Any (HC any84) and caught the bus for 45 mins back to her place where I will stay for the week.
Monday I went in to the micro-centro. There were huge demonstrations following the death of the teacher in Neuquen, so I had to aviod these. The busses were also shut down for several hours, and many places closed and police barriers blocking many streets. Fortunately didn´t get violent so I walked around the city to Puerto Madryn, saw some famous bridges (Mothers Bridge), some impressive government buildings. The big obelisk was of course seen in the middle of the worlds widest avenue, which took 3 traffic light changes to get across. People have said it takes their whole lunch break to go across the road to get a hamburger - which is very beleivable!

Yesterday I caught the subte (subway) out to Palermo to see the Botanic Gardens which was just filled with thousands of cats, and swarms of mozzies! The zoo was next on the agenda, but being chased my hoards of angry mosquitos it was decided to give this a miss. The rose gardens and Planatarium were seen, and then walked down Ave Liberator to Recoletta seeing many statues and old buildings along the way. Then walked back along the pedestrian mall of Florida where there were some tango dancers performing in the street, and met up with Any once she finished work. We walked up to San Telmo to go to the restaurant where they have tango performances, but they were only happening on the weekend. So we headed out to Avellenada to the local Parilla (steak house) and had all we can eat steak which went down very well!
Today its raining heavily, so have to decide what to do.

Party time in Bariloche

So we went to the salsa lessons but they were cancelled since there was no salsa music. Thursday was my last day of spanish lessons, so now I can say a couple of words, but lots more practice is required. Finishing at lunch time we headed to the local pub with the Europeans who couldn´t miss watching the UEFA Cup Quarter Finals of Tottenham vs Seville, only for them to be disappointed with a loss my Tottenham.
We then met up again at my hostel, and then rounded up a few recruits from the hostel and headed to check out the nightlife with a small reggae club and the irish pub.
Friday was a relaxing day about town, sampled the chocolate, and then just about everyone from the hostel (about 20 of us) headed back to the bars for some more partying with plenty of jokes about the NZ and South African accents.
Saturday is just bag packing, chocolate shopping for Easter, and running to the bus stop for my 20 hour bus trip to Beunos Aires.
Friday night was some demonstrations in Neuquen by the teachers who complain they don´t get paid enough (must be a common thing among teachers everywhere). With one teacher getting killed when he was hit by a tear gas canister, it was probably a good thing not to stay in Neuquen for Friday night as previously planned.

La Montaña Spanish School

This week I´ve been learning a bit of español at the La Montaña Spanish School in Bariloche. I have a class just with one other student, Nitay from Israel, and our teacher Silvina who does a good job. So we do some classes in the morning, and then in the afternoon or evening we go to do some activities. Tuesday afternoon a few of us students headed out to a poor barrio of Bariloche where they were teaching some English, and we challenged them to a game of futbal. We retired and headed back into town for a cervesa with a few of the New Zealanders (was good to brush up on the sheep jokes).
This evening we will all go to a local pub for some salsa lessons with the other students.

El Bolson

Saturday morning I caught the bus down to El Bolson to spend the weekend (just 2 hours away). When I arrived the local markets were in full swing, so I checked them out, and got a good feed of empanadas and nice stawberry tart. El Bolson was living up to its reputation as a hippie and organic farmer´s hangout, so I escaped out of town and headed to the top of Cerro Amigo which was only 20 minutes walk.
Then I walked the 5kms to the south of town to reach the 42nd parrellel. This is the most southern point in my trip, so from here its all overland to the equator just past Quito, Ecuador to complete the first leg of my trip.
Dinner was had at the local pizzeria. Given I was hungry and the menu was only in spanish, I went for the pizza with the most toppings. This choice was popular I later saw that almost everyone else in the restaurant was eating the same pizza. Turns out that the pizza toppings consisted of a a thick layer of cheese, 3 thin slices of cheese, and then another extra big layer of cheese. There must be a lot of ways to say cheese in Argentina!
Sunday I walked up to Mirador del Rio Azul which had a nice view of the valley and the mountains to the south. Then jumped on the bus back to Bariloche in time for my Spanish lessons tomorrow, which is also the Malvinas Day public holiday.