Pacific voyage

26th March
So after very little sleep, I spend the day relaxing in Santiago.
I already knew my way around from the last time,
Had some nice fish in the central fish market.
Then off the airport for a night flight.

27th March
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Crossed the international date line so this day doesn't exist.
Spooky!!!
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28th March Aukland
Arrived in Aukland Zew Zealand very early in the morning here 5am.
Am a bit tired and jet lagged.
Got another "first world" shock as to how expensive everything is here.
Just millions of tourist flyers everywhere.
Public transport seems fairly crap, the bus from the airport was 15 dolar, (about 8 euro).

Back to the Andes

23rd of March, puente del Inka
We hung around Mendosa for the day, sitting in parks and getting a 10 peso all you can eat lunch, mmm.
We got a bus in the evening to a place called puente del Inka which is about half way along the road to Santiago in the middle of the Andes.
The name comes from the remarkable natural bridge crossing the river which was used in the past by the inkas as part of their trail network.
There are a handfull of houses, mainly for military since we are so close to the border.
There is a hostel though, in the old train station run by a lively young little buinsess man who seems to own most of the buisnesses in the town.

24th March, Aconcagua
It feels really good to be back in the Andes.
The scenery is absolutely spectacular, oh how I've missed the mountains.
From puente del Inka we walked into the Aconcagua national park.
Here we could see mount Aconcagua which is the highest mountain in the world outside of the Himalayas at just under 7000 meters. We walked as far as the first base camp and then back which took 8 hours.
Then in the evening there was an asado (bbq) and socialising with the other hostel guests.

25th of March
Today I parted ways with Stuart who I had been traveling with since Buinos Aires.
Fortunately for me two girls who were staying in puente del Inka, had arranged for one of the passing busses to Santiago to stop and pick them up so I was able to travel with them to Santiago.
The border crossing involved alot of form filling, dogs sniffing and bag searches while we stood around for about an hour.
On the road, at the top of the mountain pass, we saw an overturned truck inches from the shear drop. We decended the switchback road nice and slowly.
The busses here are top quality, loads of room, food served and quality films.

Then a last night out in Santiago,
we met loads of crazy Chillians.
I ended up back at a house explaining Irish language, history and geography to a bunch of them till 7am.

Mendosa

22nd March
We got up from our hostel that we have all to ourselves after a plesent lie in.
Then a bus to the surrounding countryside to go wine tasting.
Mendosa is the heart of the Argentine wine industry.
Wineries here are called bodagas.
We got tours in 3 of them, which gave us a good idea as to the procces, then tasting at the end.
Argentina only exports a fraction of their wine, maybe 10% and have only been doing this for the last 20 years or so.
Wine is quite cheap,
2 pesos basic "common" bottle
4 pesos decent bottle
5 pesos really good bottle on offer
8 pesos table wine in a fancy resteraunt
15 pesos fancy wine in a winery

1 euro = 3.74527 Argentina Pesos.

Hospitality

20th March
So Laura and her famailies hospitality was so good that we just couldn´t leave.
Free accomadation, great food at every meal and even washing our laundry.
All as if it was nothing, what a great family.
We spent the day visiting some of the suburbs and the university, then sipping mate in the park. A really enjoyable ritual.
They even waved us off at the bus station with a packed lunch.

21st March
Mendosa
So after an overnight bus we arrived in Mendosa bright and early.
We had a walk about the town.
Every street has big trees providing much needed shade, and irrigation channels to give the trees water.
Strangely this is the same solution as used in Rurre Bolivia for the opposite reason, Rurre had too much rain and here not enough, still plenty of big wholes to fall into.
Then the big treat, 500g sirloin steak, mmmm.

Argentinian life

18th March
After getting ice-creams from the tastyist place in town which we were shown last night and a rest in the park it was time for our next lesson in Argentinian life.
Laura brought us to a family birthday party, which means, you guessed it, more great barbacued meat, mmmm.
Lauras family where extremely welcoming friendly and kind, treating us like members of the family.
Then on to another late night.

19th March
A bright an early start and back over to Lauras to go to the countryside for a family "asado". Most weekends members of the extended family head over to the little country getaway fire up the bbq and lay on a huge feast.
We helped to make empanadas, (meat filled pastries).
Then it`s down to the river for a swim, lots of mate and home late.
We had such a nice time and they invited us to stay in their house.
So we decided to stay an extra day.

St Patricks day

16th March
Walked more about the town and went to a nice park.

The central part of any day here is eating.
The food is immeasurably better than Peru.
Steak every day twice a day is a real possibility.
They have loads of different cuts of beef here,
a tasty t-bone will set you back around 5 pesos.
1 euro = 3.74527 Argentina Pesos.

We also had a "parilla", mixed grill where amoung other things you get,
heart, blood pudding, sausage and intestines, mmmm.

There is a strong italian influance here,
the majority of people are of Spanish of Italian decent,
(they killed off most of the indiginous peoples).

This means that you can also get great ice-cream (at time better than in Italy) and Italian style food like pizza pasta and gnocci (not as good at in Italy).
5 pesos will get you soup, a huge plate and all the dilute orange you can drink.
This was in a 2 man run restaurant catering mainly to men eating on their own with all the tables facing forward to the big tv at the front.
There are also "pay by weight" restaurants where you pick from a buffey before your food is weighed and you are charged only for what you take.

In the evening we found a bar that was celebrating Paddies day early with green beer, groovey green outfits and shamerock face paints.

17th March
We went for the day to Alta Gracia.
There was another Jesuit church dating from 1640s and we also went to see the house where Che Guevarra grew up.
I seem to be following him around, he was born in Rosario, grew up here then studied in Cordoba and then Buenos Aires and then died near where I was in Bolivia, I just have to go to Cuba now.

We met up with a friend of Stuarts that he met in Bolivia called Laura. She brought us to a nice restaurant and showed us some of the Cordoba night life, for which you have to stay out till 6am, we ended up in a faculty party which was good fun.

Cordoba

15th of March,
After a night out with the hostel crowd we moved to a small hotel which, as can often be the case, costs less and can be a better place to catch up on some sleep.
Cordoba has a Jesuit quater which we went to see.
They were big in the 1600s and were getting too powerfull so they were rudely expelled.

Rosario

13th March
Wandered the streets of Rosario.
They have a huge monument to commemorate the designer of the Arintine flag.
They are into that kind of nationalism here.
You can see monuments and signs all over the place to remind people that the Malvines (don´t say Falkland) islands are Argintinian.

14th March
Got a bus to Cordoba.
The land is flat and covered by huge fields.
Rich farmland.
Arrived in Cordoba and stayed in a hostel.
These hostels are similar all over catering to travelers who want to meet other similar travelers and are willing to sacrafice good value to do so.

Buses

12th March
So it´s time to start covering some ground again, in the opposite direction.
So up early, to the bus station for the 9am bus to Montevideo, it´s sold out.
The next one is at 1:30pm.
This made all our connections pretty tight.
In Montevideo at 4pm and got straight on a bus leaving for Colonia, barely made it.
Arrive in Colonia at 7:30pm the departure time for the only boat to Buenos Aires.
Go to buy a ticket while Stuart ran to get the shoes he forget in the hostel.
Am ignored by everyone, loads of people crowded around the ticket office and no-one selling any tickets. Finally they say no more space, but when they hear that we don´t have a car, they can sell us a ticket. Rush through immagration and get on the boat half an hour late just before it sailed, few.
Then three hours to Buenos Aires turns into four.
11:30 go to the hostel where Stuart has more stuff to collect.
They have no more beds so we decide to get dinner and head straight to the bus station.
1:30am in the bus station, no more busses to Cordoba so we get a bus leaving immediately to Rosario instead, this is on the way.
5:30am arrive in Rosario, sometimes you just have to cover some ground.
Rosario is the birth place of Che Guavara and is supposed to be quite a nice city.

Uruguay

5th and 6th March
Colonia
This quiet Colonial town made a plesent change to crazy Buenos Aires.
I am traveling at the moment with an English guy called Sam and an American guy who I met in Cusco called Stuart.
They are both good fun.
We swam in the sea which at this point is still more like a river, really brown water.
We got bikes from the hostel and cycled a little.

Mad for Mate.
The big thing to do arround here is Mate.
Everone you see walking around of an evening, or any time any place, has a shiny thermus flask tucked under their arm and a mate cup with metal straw.
You just fill up your mate cup which is full of mate leaves, from your thermus and pass it to all your friends.
The bus drivers even have a special compartment to hold the flask and cup.
You don´t seem to be able to order mate in cafes or anything so it seems to be a do it yourself tradition.

7th, 8th and 9th of March
Montevideo
We spent some time wandering the streets of the crumbling colonial town.
We met some Uraguayans who were celebrating womens day with painted faces and drums.


10th and 11th March
La Paloma
This is a seaside resort town.
The big holiday time here is January and February.
So last month the population was 40,000 and this month 3,500.
This makes it a bit like a ghost town.
The guys rented a surf board and we met some nice Argentinian tourists and had a nice barbeque in the appartment that we rented.

Rain and shine

3rd March
Spent the day being messed around by banks.
3 of us went out.
I was given a fake 50 note from an atm.
Another guy had to try loads of banks to change money and the other got his card eaten by an atm. Ahh well was a rainy day anyway.

4th March
Went for a nice walk through the city to a nature on reclaimed land.
A lovely sunny day.

5th of March
Got a boat to Uraguay. Am in a pretty town called Colonia.
It´s nice to get away from big cities for a while.

BUENOS AIRES

1st March
So the shops opened today but there still isn´t that much to do in Sao Paulo.
There is an extensive pedestrianised shopping area.
It's too big a city though to figure out in a short time.
I went to the top of one of the tallest sky scrapers and it's more sky scrapers as far as the eye can see. 17 million people but most of them aren´t in the center so it doesn´t feel that big.
I went to the airport in the night.

2nd March
Got a flight to Buenos Aires.
This seems like a nicer city. It's true about the stakes, really big, really cheap and really good. Giant steak at 6.80 pesos.
It´s great to be back in low cost country. Not poor though, things are sophisticated and european in character. They just had that currency collapse that´s all otherwist it would be expensive, because the lifestyle isn´t cheap.

We went to a "trendy" night club. Hmmm
Fistly people only go at 2am, what? you should be asleep at that time.
Big queues and a big cover charge, more than the cost of a night in a hostel.
Then when you are finally "lucky" enough to get in there are oddly dressed dancers up on a stage in front of a sweaty dance floor. Think "the red box" night club with ucd dramsoc (arts, drama students) doing interpretive dance and facial expressions in big coloured wigs and silly outfits. The place was dark and loads of the girls and guys are waring sunglasses. They are too cool for school. Oh yeah and there is an upstairs balcony where they wont let you go unless you´re really cool. All in all fairly stupid.

Off again

1st March
So in Sao Paulo again for the day.
The shops have opened but there still isn´t that much to do.
So it´s off to the airport to get a flight in the morning to Buenos Aires.
A better place.

Sao Paulo

28th of Feb
I arrived in Sao Paulo this morning.
Bad timing, everything in the city is closed for pancake tuesday, it´s a big deal hear you know.
No tourist information, shops, the only people who keep working are the small bar restaurants, the x rated cinimas and the prostitutes. The small bars have a reputation for being run by the Portuguese because Brazilians aren´t prepared to work that hard.
The parks are open but all the best spots in the shade are taken by the many homeless.
Spent the day looking for an internet cafe, the only access was in Mc Donalds and it didn´t work for most pages.

I general I would advise people to avoid carnival in rio.
It´s really a big tourist trap.
Rio is difficult enough to navigate without everything being closed and expensive enough without everything being quadrouple price.

Far cry from Bolivia to Brazil

24th Feb
I went to see a football game in the Maricana stadium.
This is the biggest is the world, I think.
It was a local darby between Botofogo and Flamenco.
I was in the Botofogo side wich is appropriate because that is where I used to live.
They are neighbours.
The atmosphere was electric, many chants, chears and bangers, deafening.

Aferwords I went looking for Carnival street parties with some others.
I found one in Cinelandia, it turned out to be mainly older people and drag queens.
I found another one nearby in lapa.
That was a bit more my scene with young people and music.

25th Feb
Decided to recover and spent the day on Barra beach
Although far out this is much nicer and longer than the other beaches in rio.

26th Feb
I went to santa Tereasa area today.
Firstly got the but to the center to try to get the tram which is supposed to be nice.
The center was a bit desereted and closed.
The tram was on strike, conveniant timing in the middle of carnival time.
So I got a taxi with another stranded tourist.
So it nearly took all day to get there.

27th
Went to the big favella in the morning.
It isn´t as poor here as the average towns in Peru and Bolivia.
The buildings are about the same stadard.
The big problem is that the place is run by drug dealers.
The police don´t go in.
Mostly it´s totlly peacefull on pain of rough local justice
Ocasionally someone decides to take over the place and they all have lots of guns.

Spent the day on the beach again and got a night bus to Sao Paulo.
Also staying a Mikes were a bunch of setrotypical German tourists.
e.g. Do to list today, go to Favella, take photos, buy hammock,