last tango in Buenos Aires

OK, we're gonna publish this damn entry cos it's got way past ridiculous! I guess it was just too hard to actually put a full stop on the whole thing, sob... But this is the FINAL entry. xx
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Adios Querido Buenos Aires... in fact, adios querido Suramerica!! We're now back in London, and it's time to wrap this all up. The last few days in Buenos Aires were fairly hard to deal with - in fact you could definitely say that we didn't react too well to the realisation that our adventure was coming to a close!

After a tearful goodbye to Buenos Aires (and the thought hitting me that I never got round to calling a blog entry "San Telmo's Fire", much to my dismay), we also got a chance to - albeit briefly - experience being in Brazil again, as we had a two-hour stopover in Sao Paulo. At our favourite, great value for money airport, Guarulhos! It was nice for us to hear Portuguese again and have a last guarana on the plane. And now... London. Time to readjust, I guess, though not before we have a quick reminisce (if only for ourselves, hehe!) on the high and low points of our trip...

Best place:

It's practically impossible to come up with a definitive list of our favourite places, but we had fun trying (by means of a complex points system and totally inconsistent judging criteria):

joint 1st - Rio de Janeiro AND Buenos Aires (surely no-one's surprised at this)

3rd - Salvador (Brazil)

4th - Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia)

5th - Salta (Argentina)

joint 6th - Mendoza (Argentina) and Cochabamba (Bolivia)

8th - Arequipa (Peru)

9th - Valparaiso (Chile)

10th - San Pedro de Atacama (Chile)

joint 11th - Pipa (Brazil) and Lima (Peru)

13th - Iquique (Chile)

14th - Puerto Octay (Chile)

15th - Olinda (Brazil)

Best ice-cream:

The overall winner is Scannapieco in Buenos Aires - an Italian joint (in our favourite barrio) that's been in the family for generations and hasn't changed a bit. Best dulce de leche ice-cream (and variants) ever! An honourable mention goes to the Brazilian chain Glacial that we discovered in Manaus, with its mind-boggling array of tropical and Amazonian fruit ice-creams (including my other favourite, acai).

Hottest hot sauce:

Accompanying dishes from Patagonia to Bahia, the hottest hot sauce was probably in Lima... no, Salvador... no, in a Bahian restaurant in Rio... No, the hottest was definitely in La Paz! (In a Chinese restaurant, of all things)

Best hostel:

Another tough one, I'd say our favourite lodgings, in no particular order, were in Puerto Octay (Zapato Amarillo), San Pedro de Atacama (La Ruca), Lima (El Patio, Miraflores), Rio (Casa 579), Pipa (Pomar do Pipa), and Huaraz (Albergue Churup).

Best sunset:

It's probably the one that turned our boat-ride through the Amazon river into an impossibly beautiful picture-postcard jungle scene. But then it could be the one in Huanchaco, Peru, minutes after Mauro said "Shall we go and watch the sunset on the beach?". (Though it was slightly marred by a bunch of pissheads trying to hit us up for more drinking money)

Best sunrise:

We didn't see too many of these. The best was supposed to be in the Salar de Uyuni, when we'd got up at 5am to see the sun rise amidst bubbling geezers. But we were so tired and slightly sick from the altitude that we kind of missed the whole thing.

"This next one's for best Christ":

There really are a surprising amount of Christs adorning the hills of Latin America. Clearly the winner is Rio's Christ the Redeemer, although there are some other notably strong Christs., namely Cuzco, just outside Iquique and Santiago.

Worst journey:

Probably would have to say Cochabamba to Sucre, in that it involved the woman with the breast hanging out sitting in the aisle next to me, and talking to the guy behind me through the night. (And then a breakdown before we got to Sucre.) Though for inappropriately high air conditioning when everyone had had a soaking from the rain that afternoon, plus getting stuck in traffic, and then being dropped nowhere near our hotel, the trip from Joao Pessoa to Natal rates quite highly too...

Worst place:

...that we saw and travelled through would have to be El Alto, on the outskirts of La Paz (Bolivia). Grim, filthy and utterly miserable. Made you feel lucky you didn't actually have to get out of your bus (and say, live in a tent like much of the population), though the bus managing to get out of there was quite a challenge! In terms of anywhere we stopped off at and say, had a meal, Trelew was pretty unappealing...

Worst meal:

The culinary disaster in Valdivia (Chile), where we had the toughest machas a la parmesana and the most eye-wateringly salty seafood soup, was never topped. We did throw a considerable amount of my pork chop in Monterrey, Peru, to a nearby dog, but probably still ate more of it than we did that legendary meal in Valdivia...

Best meal:

From the steaks at La Cabrera in Buenos Aires to the ceviche at Chez Wong in Lima, we enjoyed some magnificent meals throughout the six months, as anyone who read this will attest to! Absolutely impossible to choose even a top five, but we should definitely give honourable mentions to the lamb tortelloni in Bariloche, the spicy north-eastern Brazilian highlights in Mangai (Natal) and SENAC (Salvador), Chicha in Arequipa, the one-off, opened-specially-for-us-as-they-were-feeling-kind barreado place in Paranagua, the salteňas in Sucre, the outrageous alpaca steak with five Andean cheeses and quinoa risotto in Cusco, and the seafood extravaganzas at any number of Chilean places, notably the Mercado Central in Santiago.

Best menu translation:

Well, Gaucho's restaurant in Rio took an early lead on this front, with their "rice to the campaign" and "rice to the crazy, crazy rice" (sounds a bit like a Kiss song), but the Cruz del Sur terminal cafe in Lima had "bistec a lo pobre" as "bistec to the poor thing", so that probably wins it the crown!

Best word/phrase:
Between "ruimzinho" ("ropey"), "tudo beleza" ("it's all good", or literally "it's all beuaty") and "bem gelada" ("beer" or literally "a really chilled one") - all in Brazil. We were really seduced by that language and the Brazilians' way with it.

Best beach:

Praia dos Golfinhos (Dolphin Beach) in Pipa is just pipped to the post by the paradisiacal Ilha do Mel (Honey Island). Both in Brazil (obviously).

And that's it. Lovely, lovely memories. Sigh... xx

Dále Bicho!

We're now back where it all began, in Buenos Aires, which feels a lot like home, frantically trying to squeeze as much into our last few days as we can. Starting with visits to most of our favourite characterful haunts from our time here in November - ice cream at Scannapieco, pizza at Guerrín, coffee at San Bernardo, pasta at Don Chicho, etc. The main charm these places have is that they´ve been going since the ´40s, ´50s (or even earlier), run by the same families usually, and have barely changed over the years, so you feel like you´re going back in time there - a world away from all the soulless chains and overpriced gastropubs awaiting us back home! Ah well, the search for the London equivalents will be on...

Becka managed to fit in a hair appointment (to take advantage of the prices while we can afford stuff like that!), and we're also aiming to cram in a tango lesson as well before we leave - hopefully I won´t make too much of a mug out of myself. The familiar feeling of aching feet from pounding the pavements is back, but the excitement of walking these streets (akin to the feeling I get in NYC) makes it all worthwhile. Also familiar from last time are the dog-walkers - we chortled as we turned a corner and saw this fella walking seven dogs. Believe it or not, around the next corner, we saw another fella walking sixteen!

We were also determined to catch an Argentine footy match this time, and plumped for the crunch match between Argentinos Jrs and Independiente. We were offered "tourist" tickets for an outrageous 600 pesos (over 100 quid), so I thought "sod that" and went to join the queue for tickets at the stadium on Sunday morning - managed to get ´em for a tenth of the price! (And Becka´s was just over half-price as well, as they do "ladies´" ticket prices!) Feeling thoroughly chuffed with ourselves - and slightly nervous, as we were in the terraces, which could have been troublesome - we headed to the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium (named after the club´s most famous son) that afternoon, picking up an empanada on the way in place of a meat pie. We found a spot and squeezed into it to watch the extraordinary ticker-tape and firework reception both sets of fans gave their players. (There are no pictures of all this, sadly, as I was too nervous of being robbed to let Becka take her camera!)

Anyway, the match was something else as well - this being the penultimate game of the season, Argentinos needed a win to stay in contention for their first title since 1985, and having gone a goal up, things looked good, and the crowd were delirious. However, somehow the team switched off and let Independiente (who, to give them their due, had brought half a stadium´s worth of fans, who made an incredible din and were amazing to watch) go 3-1 up with 20 minutes remaining... Cue copious tears from fans of all ages and sexes! Miracles do happen, however, as Argentinos somehow managed to score three times, twice in the last couple of minutes, to win 4-3, to even more tears (it was all too much for several little ´uns in the crowd around us), and massive celebrations. ¡Dále Bicho! ("Bicho" or "creature" being the somewhat unorthodox nickname Argentinos fans have for their team). You could say we chose a good match!

We´ll have a couple of "Best of" lists for you next time (last time?! noooo!!), but for now you can content yourselves with, in no particular order... our Top Five UNESCO World Heritage Sites!

- Cusco, Peru (though I would possibly have chosen Chan Chan instead)

- Olinda, Brazil

- Humberstone, Chile

- Parque Nacional do Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil/Argentina

- Pelourinho, Salvador, Brazil

That will be all for now. Join us again in a few days, and we'll be joining YOU again (well, those of you in London) very soon after that! x

lips of wine

Following a couple of lovely farewell family dinners, it was sad to be leaving Santiago, not knowing this time when we´d be back. The sadness was alleviated somewhat by the beautiful Andes-in-the-Autumn views en route to Mendoza. I regretted letting Mauro have the window seat, as he persisted in watching a terrible film with Jason Statham in it while I crawled over him to take photos. Here´s one.

This was our fourth time entering Argentina (on our weird route around South America), and I felt happier than usual as I´d managed to dupe the customs officials and smuggle two vegetable-based products across the border. This is serious business over here - Mauro´s uncle´s bandmate got a hefty fine many years ago for not declaring the seeds in his maracas!

Anyway, we arrived at our hostel, nestled between two city-renowned ice-cream parlours, to find that the receptionist had just been robbed. You take the good with the bad! It didn´t take us long to sample the ice-cream. When in Argentina, I tend to opt for variations on a wonderful theme: dulce de leche, dulce de leche with nuts, super dulce de leche. Meanwhile Mauro pretended to enjoy his Malbec and vanilla flavour. It just tasted like heap of frozen wine on a cone. And really strong wine at that. Tonight he´s gonna go for Cabernet Sauvignon and peach.

Mendoza is a really attractive low-rise city with wide avenues. Mauro reckons the key to its beauty is in the huge trees that line all the streets (he thinks Santiago should get in on the tree action). Yet again, we´ve been lucky with the weather, so spent our first day wandering around the city park. Unfortunately our exploration was cut short when Mauro realised the Spurs-Man City game was on earlier than he´d thought, resulting in us sharply exiting the park and jumping in a taxi back to the hostel. Luckily for me, and Spurs fans, they won, which means Mauro was in a brilliant mood all evening. We went and had a celebratory dinner at a classic and classy Mendocino Italian restaurant, where the house wine set us back four quid. I challenge anyone to eat badly in Mendoza - it´s a gourmand´s paradise.

Now, ever since we set off in November, I´ve been harking on about hiring some bikes at some point. Mauro nearly got away with it, mwah ha ha! Seems like cycling from bodega to bodega (to delicatessen to bodega) in the nearby Maipú region is the way to sample the local viniculture backpacker-style. We rented our bikes from "Bikes and Wine" and got going. We had a lovely day, despite the flat tyre and the fact that the chains on our bikes went about three times. I never thought I´d see Mauro sat on the side of the road with an upturned bicycle and grease all over his hands! Anyway, we only visited three bodegas - not only was it slightly pricey, but we didn´t fancy being drunk whilst contending with the main road at rush hour, sans helmet. We also had tastings and lunch at three delicatessens, which, amongst delicious local chutneys and chocolate, included a shot of absinthe if so desired. Always aware of the bike issue, I went for the dulce de leche liqueur instead (quelle surprise). So basically, apart from the mechanics part, it was a perfect day: sunshine, loads of wine and good food (in slightly smaller quantities).

It´s not all been about bacchanalian and epicurean indulgence though. On a less positive note, we´ve been keeping up with the elections at home. And to make matters worse, Mishal Husein from BBC World News was stood outside the Houses of Parliament this morning in a puffa jacket and a hefty scarf, so my unrealistic hopes of returning to a sun-drenched London, where there is no David Cameron, have been dashed. Oh well, still six days in Buenos Aires to enjoy!

santiago latest

It´s nearly time to bid a final goodbye to Santiago, a place which always arouses all sorts of mixed feelings in me - the place I was born, and where 99% of my family live, yet still a place that I never feel entirely comfortable in. Perhaps it´s something to do with the mind-boggling size of it - the Metro may be excellent and high-tech, and still spotlessly clean after all these years, it´s just we always seem to spend so much bloody time on it!! Anyway, I have to admit it´s more appealing than normal in the autumn, and when we weren´t schlepping about, it was nice as ever to have some time catching up with family again. Getting to see two plays my cousin Ximena is involved with (starring in one), was definitely a highlight as well.

We managed to shoot down to Valparaiso for an overnight stay this time, as another cousin of mine, Marcela, has now moved there. It´s a place that´s always held much more charm for both of us than Santiago - more charm than most places in the country, even, despite its dangerous reputation. (Though everyone´s hearts are in the right place, you do get tired of hearing how dangerous everywhere is over here - Chileans seem particularly fond of doing this. The levels of wariness we employed to keep us out of trouble in Rio, Salvador, La Paz and Lima have generally sufficed here). Our night in Valpo was tremendous fun, although to be honest it really should have finished a couple of hours earlier, before it got as messy as it did, messing up half of the next day into the bargain! I blame the full moon (oh, and mixing pisco with rum - not recommended)...

Back in Santiago, we managed to miss ALL the tremors that are still occurring (the most recent one measured 5.8 apparently!), usually in the middle of the night. Everyone asks us next morning, "Did you feel the tremor?" and we always have to admit that no, we didn´t. Still, shouldn´t hope for too much excitement on that front considering events here a few months back - let alone the crazy and dangerous weather that´s hit other places we´ve visited, like Peru and Brazil, after we´ve left!

After a couple of months with Piñera as President, I can report that he´s shown an unfortunate tendency towards Bush-isms (of the linguistic variety, anyway). We´re both keeping an eye on events back in Britain of course, fingers crossed we don´t get our own embarrassing head of state later this week! I can also report that Chilean males aren´t so much favouring the Argentinian-style mullet at the moment. Terrible though that is, the current trend over here is actually worse - the "normal short hair with one single rat tail, or even dreadlock, hanging from the back". No danger of me coming back with that look, don´t worry...!

In other news, Becka managed to break half a tooth off, while eating maní confitado (caramelised peanuts) - those f**kers are more dangerous than they look!! Thankfully, we managed to find a dentist without too much hassle, thanks to some family connections, and they did the necessary work pretty efficiently and affordably... much better than it would have been back home, Becka tells me. And I got quite an interesting look into her mouth while the dentist was doing the business, as it goes. Anyway, as the anaesthetic started to wear off, I dragged her to the Mercado Central to check out their crazy seafood, and try some unavailable-almost-anywhere-else-on-Earth locos, (yes that is indeed what they´re called) known in English as abalone. I think she enjoyed them, though she couldn´t really speak properly at the time...

Time now to say goodbye to the city and country of my birth, and make one last trip across the Andes - back to Argentina, and Mendoza, where you can get wine-flavoured ice cream, and (allegedly) wine with your Big Mac...

stargazers

Well, since we left the Norte Grande of Chile and headed south to the Norte Chico, things have calmed down quite a bit - we´re in winding-down mode now, pretty much (trying to get our heads round the idea that we only have a couple of weeks left now!). After some umming and ahhing over whether to head to the area around Copiapó or to La Serena (which we HAD already visited a couple of years back, but liked enough to go back to), the latter won out, partly due to the fact that seeing the attractions around Copiapó would have involved yet more sitting-on-coaches-for-most-of-the-day-type tours, which we´re heartily sick of by now. And the MAIN reason we headed there was to visit the Mamalluca Observatory in nearby Vicuña, and see into space!

The north of Chile has some of the best conditions in the world for astronomy - as it happens, Chile has just won the right to own the world´s most largest and most amazing telescope (over the Canary Islands, apparently they´re gutted). Anyway, at Mamalluca they gave us a head-spinning prelude to the telescopic action - did you know that the sun (and therefore the Earth) will only be around for another 5,000 million years??! This was news to us! Why had no one told us this before? And how can they be so precise about it? (We were also unaware that Pluto is no longer considered a planet, but that may just be us being behind the times). Following this, we got to see Saturn (ring included), Mars, and as you can see, we managed to get a spectacular view of the Moon as well:

Besides that, we did little in La Serena, unless you count me getting a bit carried away buying Chile World Cup paraphernalia (hey, it´s been 12 years!). It was a bit too cold to relish being out anywhere in the evenings, unfortunately (and there didn´t seem to be any heating anywhere either!)

From there, we headed down to Santiago again for another week or so with my family, and that so far has involved some of this:

(Machas a la parmesana - razor clams topped with cheese and grilled; a Chilean classic)

several toasts drunk to our travels, and hearing everyone´s earthquake tales - and the full realisation of how lucky we really were to miss all that...

Being back in Santiago meant we could also revisit La Fuente Alemana, and have a proper Chilean sandwich-fest (grilled pork, avocado, tomato, mayo - the works), while pondering whether us opening a venture like this in London would ever be a success... I dunno, you´d have to find some of these legendary old ladies to run the place for it to work!

Once we leave Santiago, it´s only Mendoza and the final few days in Buenos Aires to go...

The Norte Grande

Another city, another brilliant few days! Iquique is the furthest north we'll make it in Chile (there's not much further north you can go - it was part of Peru not so long ago). It was nice to be by the seaside again, having come from the gorgeous gorges of Salta and the Atacama desert. At first we thought we´d done a wrong'un with our accommodation: we arrived after an 18-hr bus ride at 2am and it was well and truly party time at the Backpacker's Hostel. Just when our plugged ears had adjusted to the din, a folk show started up in a club opposite and didn't stop til gone 4am. But the following night it was our turn for some fun, and we stayed up drinking red wine and pisco with some guys from the hostel, no doubt keeping several other poor, tired travellers awake.

Iquique's a big holiday destination for Chileans, but we were there out of season (it's autumn now) so the city was bereft of tourists, and especially foreigners - I don't think it features much on the South American gringo trail. As a result, the vibe is a lot more auténtico (but unfortunately still just as expensive!). The city's full of beautiful turn-of-the-century houses made of timber and painted in bright colours. It gives it a Wild West feel, or of a place that's slightly past its prime.

Speaking of which, the highlight of the area for me was a trip to a nearby ghost town. I'd read up on Humberstone before we left and was more excited about seeing a real-life dead town than going to Iguaçu Falls. There are a few ghost towns in the area that were once a big noise in the nitrate idustry - Humberstone 'died' in 1960. It was incredible and eerie to see the school, theatre, swimming pool - even tho local offy's still there, all extremely well-preserved. I got a bit carried away with my camera (especially as I´d just worked out it has a black and white function). This was one UNESCO World Heritage Site worth seeing!

It had been a few weeks since we´d hit some hot springs, and luckily there are a few to choose from in the area. We went to Mamiña - a tiny village two hours from Iquique famed for the therapeutic properties of its water. We weren't banking on being presented on arrival at the first springs with a bucket of warm mud, gathered fresh from...the mud. We slopped it on and waited for it to dry in the sun before getting into the water. You'd pay a fortune for this at home! That said, this was about as rustic as it gets (and the smell of sulphur took some getting used to). We were all alone in our little corner of radioactive mud and smelly water - it was brilliant. The next baths were just that - four tin baths, filled with water (about 42 degrees). Five minutes in, five minutes out. Apparently the water's so property-laden (not to mention HOT) that people have been known to die for languishing about in it too long. Good job we found that out after we'd gone in. As it was, we set off back to Iquique feeling utterly relaxed, and free from skin complaints, spinal pain and arthritis. In perfect condition for another 18-hour bus ride, heading south towards Santiago. First stop, La Serena.

the desert sessions

After a few spectacular but often freezing days on the Salar de Uyuni, the warm, dry (VERY dry!) weather in San Pedro de Atacama was definitely what the doctor ordered, even if we did have to stay there a bit longer than we´d wanted to - a long and tedious saga involving Pullman Buses and a malfunctioning computer. Having had enough of 4.30am starts, and seen a few geysers already, we decided against visiting El Tatio (you can have enough of geysers), and basically spent a few relaxing days with Erin and Rebeca, the new friends from Canada who had been in our Salar tour group, and several new chums we made at our hostel - the recent batch of fellow travellers we´ve met have been great, a world away from some of the irritants we had run into previously!

Going to visit the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley) at sunset was the only trip we took, which was great as it involved no discomfort whatsoever - I cannot emphasise strongly enough how much we´re enjoying being back in countries with PAVED ROADS. It is BLISS! Anyway, here are some pics from there to give you an idea of the mind-blowing scenery:













We hadn´t initially planned on going over to the Salta region in north-west Argentina, but having heard how brilliant it was about a million times, we re-routed and crossed the border again to the land of gauchos, amazing steaks and red wine, and as you can see we were very glad to be back!

We would have loved to have spent more time here, especially as it looks like we´ll be unfortunately missing out on the festivities held on the Day Of Salta (let´s face it, that´s gonna be a good ´un!), but the bus schedules are beyond our control. If we did have any say in the matter, we wouldn´t be leaving on a 7am bus which arrives at its destination (Iquique, back in Chile) at 1.15am!! I mean, which brainiac thought THAT one up?? So no chance to visit the local club which declares itself to be "furiosamente ochentero" ("furiously ´80s"), though seeing as our last night on the town ended early when we were joined at the table by an Anglophile local who started going on about how Becka looks like Lady Di (?!) and demanding photos of her, that may be a good thing...

Conveniently enough, however, as time has been tight here, our bus ride over here took us past some more incredible scenery, notably the amazing striped mountainsides, so that pretty much eliminated the need to go on another exhausting 12-hour tour. AND last night´s meal out turned into an impromptu peña, with much wine, women (well, Becka) and song, which eliminated the need to go and find one of those for the night!


We found time - just - to visit Cafayate, however, which was almost dream-like in its beauty (though maybe it was just because everything was closed for the afternoon?). A local simpleton strumming away, wailing off-key laments to no one in particular, added to the surreal vibe. We´ve also found time (of course!) to try the local specialities - locro, tamales, baby goat stew, and even though there seem to be, somewhat surprisingly, no salteñas in Salta, they do have some top-notch empanadas, which are especially good with the tomato and chilli relish they thoughtfully provide!

So, after that very pleasant interlude, it´s back to the north of Chile now for more desert action, and hopefully some ghost towns and hot springs thrown in. See you all soon!

PS Are you all still reading, by the way? No one has commented in ages... If you don´t want us to get demoralised and think you all hate us now, then please say hello! Lots of love xx