Christmas in Santiago

... well, it was pretty different from a UK Christmas! There was still a certain amount of pre-Christmas hysteria (not that much fun in 30-degree heat), but markedly less than there would have been back home, and it was pleasantly surreal to go for a midnight stroll on the 24th - to give Father Christmas a chance to drop by and leave presents for the little´uns - and then to spend most of the 25th outside in the garden.

No one so far has managed to give me an adequate explanation of why everyone calls it "Pascuas" (which also means "Easter", bafflingly), instead of "Navidad" (the actual word for Christmas). The tiramisu never happened in the end (difficulty finding the ingredients) but we managed to rustle up some treats for both sides of the family all the same, and they seemed to go down a storm - the chocolate fudge in particular was scoffed in about two minutes flat (mostly by the same person, it must be said!!)...

Brilliantly enough, my cousin Caíto was playing in an AC/DC tribute band on the 25th as well, (Ballbreaker - who cleverly have two lead singers in the ranks, both a Bon Scott and a Brian Johnson!) so a few of us headed out to catch that. Much to my glee there was also a Kiss tribute band on first, though the Pantera tribute band that followed (and played a seemingly endless set) dampened the mood slightly.

The next morning, after a few hours´sleep, and with the inevitable hangover, I decided it would be a good idea to get up and watch Spurs playing at Fulham, though to be honest I would have been far better off staying in bed - which is where I went straight back to at the end of the match...

There´s an election run-off going on here at the moment, between Frei (centre-left, was in power a few years ago, not very popular) and Piñera (right, multi-millionaire, slick campaign), it seems the latter is going to profit from the "let´s try something new" mindset that will probably see David Cameron as the British PM by the time we get home... That´s one face neither of us have been missing!! Hilariously, the table of six and seven-year-olds at the Xmas party on the 25th were overheard discussing whether they thought Frei or Piñera would emerge victorious - they seem to get into politics early here! (For the record, they don´t fancy Frei´s chances). Though some seem unconvinced - we enjoyed this bit of graffiti the other day ("`Las promesas de Piñera...mas falsas que amigo de Facebook"):

We´ve managed to get to grips with Santiago a bit better now, but still, I must say Buenos Aires tops it in pretty much every way (except of course for the fact that my family is here!). It´s hard for me to have to admit this, but I also reckon that on the whole I prefer Argentinians to Chileans...!! (Shock, horror) It seems I´m not alone in this thinking either, my uncle Ricky has dared to express this contentious opinion as well. It seems now we´ve become "the economic miracle of South America" we´ve become everything we used to slag off the Argentinians for, sadly... And hearing the casual racism towards Peruvians that seems so prevalent has been a bit depressing as well. We have another week left here for me to change my mind on this one...!

Christmas post

Festive greetings from smoggy Santiago! We´ve had an eventful few days here in Chile. We loved Pucon. It was a beautiful mini-Bariloche - ridiculously scenic with shedloads to do, if slightly artificial and geared towards los turistas. Everyone kayaking and zipping and hiking all over the place. Mauro and I opted for a sedate, moonlit trip to some natural springs (Los Pozones), which turned out to be less sedate than we´d hoped as there were a bunch of rowdy Israelis in the baths with us. We had a suspicion the trip was by night because these springs are the most "rustic", so best not to be able to see them clearly, but we thought they were fantastic. Basically we sat in hot springs 1000 metres above sea-level and drank a bottle of wine, before our minibus took us back to our hostel at about midnight. Doesn´t get better than that.

In fact it was all to get a lot worse in Concepcion, a few hours further north... where I got ROBBED! My purse was taken by some sophisticated opportunists (this makes me feel less stupid) in Mauro´s uncle´s favourite local restaurant. The only place I´d let my guard down so far. We were told to expect more thefts because it´s Christmas time... Goodwill to all men and all that. That´s the Christmas spirit. Anyway, apart from Barclays now being #1 on my hate-list, I´ve got over this mishap and it´s all about the Nationwide. The only thing that made up for this in Concepcion was the fact that we stayed in the YMCA (it was - quite - fun to stay there, as it happens!). Mauro´s uncle Tito works there so let us have free rein of the accommodation area.

So now we´re in Santiago, and it´s a struggle getting Mauro to see its good points, despite the emotional pull of being born here. Buenos Aires it ain´t, but I think our opinion is skewed by the fact we´ve been travelling between his nan´s house and his uncle´s house, totally skipping the centre in the process. This is the equivalent of travelling from Acton to Croydon in a heatwave.

Today we finally managed to get downtown, where we had a lovely lunch and strolled into an exhibition of the Terracotta Army for just over a pound. It was brilliant. I have to go now and find some mascarpone somewhere in this city so I can make some tiramisu for Mauro´s enormous family do on Friday. But we wanted to write today to wish everyone a very happy Christmas. UN BESAZO PARA TODOS!!!!

lakes and volcanoes

Well, we´re now in the Chilean lake district. The lake crossing was so scenic, we almost got immune to the natural beauty after a while! It´s nice being back in the old country again, with people saying "po" at the end of every sentence. There´s a lot of Germans in this area (Swiss also), they clearly love it, and with good reason. It looks kinda like this:



Chile is proving a lot more expensive than Argentina. Chileans, around here anyway, also seem, controversially perhaps, a good deal chubbier than their neighbours (despite all that steak, it looks like the Chilean appetite for cake and empanadas gives them the edge! ) Becka is struggling to maintain her boycott of Nestle products in Chile, by the way. They even run the bottled water!



In Puerto Octay (population 2,500!), or to be precise, a coupla miles out of town, we stayed at the incredible Zapato Amarillo, in THIS house...










We couldn´t quite get over it. It also featured the most comfortable bed we are likely to encounter on our entire trip (and possibly our lives):




We also had our first ever hitch hiking adventure there - it was only down to the town, and with a cheerful old local lady, so not exactly fraught with danger, but exciting nonetheless!



Oh, here´s a picture of me giving respect to Bernardo O´Higgins, who liberated Chile from the Spanish (not on his own, obviously).


We really didn´t want to leave Puerto Octay for Valdivia at all, but once we got there, we got quite into it, once we found an excellent cafe bar called Moro, which saved us from having to go to Schopp Dog (for a schopp = draught beer). However, we then got careless over our choice of dining establishment and wound up having the WORST MEAL OF OUR TRIP so far... dunno what the restaurant was called (it might not have actually had a name), but we should have smelled a rat when we turned out to be the only people in there all night... Becka´s "mariscal" (seafood broth) was so salty as to be inedible, and my "pollo al jugo" was, frankly, a disgrace. I would rather forget all about our starter...
Would´ve been less infuriating had the waitress been able to grasp the difference between fizzy and still mineral water, or between half bottles and quarter bottles of wine... Maybe we should have gone to Schopp Dog after all. Still, you move on, which is what we did, to Pucon, (again, absurdly attractive), considering going to some thermal spas tomorrow. Then it´s off to Concepcion to meet up with my uncle Tito...

Bariloche

Thought I´d update this before I pack for more travels tomorrow. We´ve just spent three nights in Bariloche and we could easily spend a few more - it´s absurdly beautiful here. The 12 -hour bus journey from Trelew was like a scenic tour in itself. Bariloche is perched by a beautiful lake and has the snow-capped Andes in the background. It´s a good thing fireworks are illegal here cos there´s so many Swiss chalet-style wooden buildings - and lots and lots of trees. There´s also an abundance of great restaurants (with Patagonian specialities including wild boar, lamb and trout) and a few really nice bars. Just when I thought the place couldn´t get any better, I find out it´s got the best chocolate and ice-cream in Argentina. There are chocolate shops all over the place. Clearly I should´ve come here AFTER the beach part of the trip (ie Brazil).

For the past two days we´ve been taking in the scenery. Yesterday we took una excursion to see the base of a breathtaking mountain that occasionally emits impressive thundery sounds (Monte Tronador). All the usual nature/scenic suspects - waterfalls, lakes, hills, trees, rainbow (just the one)...and also a huge patch of very strange black ice (which I still might not believe is actually ice). We met a lovely couple, Van and Chris, who had a lovely hirecar and who invited us out in it today. We met them up in the hills, a 3k stroll down a dirtpath from where the bus dropped us off. Mauro´s been referring to this as ´our hike´ all day. (Incidentally Van works next door to us in the Media Centre on Media Boulevard, so we might meet up for coffee in Mangiare when Argentina is a distant memory!)

Also, we finally got to try some mate! I was slightly apprehensive after our guide told us it was rude to say you don´t like it, say it´s too hot or make any kind of grimace while swallowing it, but actually it wasn´t too bad at all. It tasted to me like a mixture between green tea and tobacco, both of which I like, so probably a taste I could acquire given a small amount of perseverance. I´m well into the idea of it anyway.

Tomorrow we´re up bright and early for the Cruce de los Lagos - an all-day lake crossing that will take us to Chile. So I´m not spending a minute more of my last night in Argentina in el blogosphere! Hasta Chile...

whale of a time

... haha couldn´t resist that!!

Anyway we´re now in Patagonia, where they have "four seasons in one day" (as someone once sang). The 18-hr bus ride was fine in the end, managed to get a decent amount of shut-eye (probably more than Becka, who was surrounded by a symphony of snoring), and watched two films involving John Travolta, The Taking of Pelham 123 and Wild Hogs. We actually enjoyed the latter quite a lot - maybe we were just hysterical by that point...

This is also something to bear in mind on these coaches:






No shit.





Yesterday we went to Peninsula Valdes to try and see some whales - as it turned out, the sun shone, and shedloads of whales came out, which was fortunate as it´s by no means guaranteed, plus this is the last week before the end of whale season, apparently! We were going to stick some video up of them, but that may have to wait till we are somewhere with a faster internet connection.












Following that, a visit to see the elephant seals, and the realisation that not much is better than being an elephant seal (well, if they survive attacks by orcas, of course). They just seem to lollop about on the beach, burping occasionally, ALL DAY LONG. Every so often a couple of them seem like they want to start a ruck with each other, but they run out of energy before they move very far, so it doesn´t ever really get off the ground. As our guide (rather enviously) pointed out, the males also have harems of 40-50 females, so that probably keeps em pretty busy anyway.

Today we had the savage Patagonian wind and rain, and saw young dolphins, which we attempted to take pictures of, but they´re the fastest dolphins in the world so they don´t hang about. And then.. penguins in Punta Tombo!! Nearly half a million of them to be exact. We got close enough to hear them sneeze. And watch them waddling about, going about their hilarious business.

Then on to see the "Welsh" region of Patagonia, and visit the village of Gaiman, which I thought would have a more interesting story behind its name than it actually did. We skipped the "traditional Welsh tea" cos, to be honest, it looked crap, and cost an extortionate 45 pesos.

At the hostel and on the trips we´ve encountered a variety of different nationalities - hungover Germans, moaning French, helpful Basques, Israelis who refuse to believe Becka can´t speak Hebrew, and best of all, the Dominican who works the overnight stint at the hostel, who livens up his 12-hour shift by getting a salsa party for one going in reception, disco lights and all...

PS Brilliantly, there´s been very little mention of Christmas over here so far - that´s one thing we´re not missing about home! Esta noche, Bariloche...

san telmo

Back in Buenos Aires, we´ve been lodging in San Telmo these last few nights, on the other side of town from where we were before... Famed for its cobbled streets and bohemian arty scene, I have to admit it took us (well, me in particular) a while to get the hang of the area - a few too many wasters and down-and-outs staggering about the place in various states of intoxication/lunacy, basically lots more people who you´d cross the road to avoid, looming out of doorways at you. (Characters like these two:)

The place we´re staying in took a bit of adjusting to as well. It´s a beautifully restored 1840s house with just seven rooms, most of which open out onto a lovely little garden with benches and a fig tree. The owners steer well clear of the place, so it tends to be just the guests, the cat, and various unintroduced characters drinking mate in the garden, smoking cigars and cooking in the kitchen.

The guests all seem to be eccentric tango aficionados in their 40s or 50s (Bavarian farmers,

Iranian bon viveurs... all sorts), who come on their own year after year to dance tango. So the first night, we´re trying to figure out where everything is and this Russian lady enters the kitchen dolled up in her tango gear asking us which milonga we were visiting that night. By the next day, we´re fixing the electricity in the place ourselves, after it´d been down for most of the day!

But after a couple of days, we got used to the anarchic and fiercely independent spirit of the area, and today (Sunday) San Telmo seemed to come into its own. Bands playing in the street, spontaneous tango dancing (as spontaneous as it can be when it´s geared towards tourists) and a lively street market. Feels a lot safer!

Today we visited the Mataderos fair in a faraway part of town hardly any tourists go to these days, in search of some gaucho action...

Our taxi driver put the fear of God into us about venturing a block too far in any direction - but we not only had nothing nicked (hooray!), we actually had an excellent day out. Scoffed some locro and a couple of empanadas for lunch with a glass of vino patero, watched this fella sing some stirring odes to gaucho life...

Next stop... Patagonia!! (after the 18-hour coach journey! Let´s hope the "cama ejecutiva" service is as comfortable as advertised...)

some impressions of Argentina thus far

Friendliness
I always thought porteños were gonna be like Londoners or Parisiens or any other inhabitants of a major capital - always in a rush and with no time for foreigners. But in fact they´ve been much, much friendlier and more helpful than I ever expected. I´ve even walked around town in my Chile top and no one´s had a go, or even batted an eyelid, hehe...

Beef

Well, it´s true - they do eat as much of it as you´d think! Amusingly, el Che himself would never touch chicken, lamb or pork because he couldn´t bear the animals to be killed, however he had no problem with beef, which was apparently "different"...! And yes, the vast majority of the stuff we´ve had has been superb.

The Malvinas aka Falklands
They still want ´em! Actually, it´s probably worth them having another go, what with the British being pretty busy fighting in lots of other places at the moment... (joke!!!!) On a serious note, it seems like the war vets from that conflict (who had mostly been under-equipped teenage conscripts, from what I gather) have had a pretty raw deal - you can see them in the Plaza de Mayo demanding recognition, seems like they´ve been pretty marginalised by successive governments...


Crossing the road
Really don´t know how more people aren´t run over here! You more or less have to take the plunge and battle your way across the road when you get the green light. Pedestrians really aren´t a priority, it seems.


Dogshit

There´s a hell of a lot of it about in the streets here. They could do with sorting that out.

Queues at banks
There´s been a lot of this - have still to figure out quite why they´re so huge (Jesus, the one in Cordoba the other day was MASSIVE! It was like a queue for Shakira tickets or something.) We thought to our horror that it was the queue for the cashpoint, but thankfully it wasn´t.

Rubbish

Also have yet to figure out what the deal is with all the people sorting through it in the streets all night long.

Graffiti

It´s striking how much of it there is of the political variety - support for political movements and parties (especially Peronist ones) is emblazoned all over the place, even expressions of support for movements as far away as Honduras and Colombia... this is something you don´t see much of in the UK! You get the sense this is a highly politicised country still.


Football
Matches are on ALL THE TIME on TV. Any day of the week, any time of day, seemingly, a match will be on - in the bars, in restaurants, bus stations, wherever. (I have no problem with this of course!) It seems you don´t specifically have to go to a pub which has rights to show football and have the obligatory pint to watch your team in action over here. (By the by, they seem very pleased over here with their World Cup draw.)


Schoolgirl uniforms
Surprisingly short skirts! I mean, I know it´s a hot country, but come on, it´s verging on Britney Spears territory...


Begging
You get used to people (often little kids) coming up to you while you´re eating, or on the tube, but generally they´re at least trying to get you to part with a few pesos for SOMETHING, be it a token cutesy card or a cheap notebook or some household item... It also seems to be the norm here for people to actually dig into their pockets and help out, rather than ignore them - even those who don´t look that well-off themselves. It´s a bit of an eye-opener.


Coffee
...has been surprisingly good. I wasn´t expecting much, probably because it´s generally so crappy in Chile!


Change
No one seems to have much of it. Retailers look pretty anguished if you ever try and pay for anything with a 100 peso note. And if you give them any coins, they seem absolutely delighted. Totally love it.


Climate change
EVERYONE is obsessed with it over here - apparently the weather really has changed drastically in the last couple of years. Is this a Southern Hemisphere thing perhaps? We´ll see if there´s as much talk about it in the next countries we visit...


Accent
Thought it was gonna be a lot harder to understand, but it´s been OK, as it goes. As for the language, it seems the particular Argentine way of distorting verbs (eg "vos tenés" instead of "tu tienes") is actually official - they get taught to speak this way at school! Should the Chileans get in on the action too and make their way of speaking "official" as well??

Hello from sunny Cordoba (it´s Becka). I know we´re updating this quite often but it´s crazy how many new and noteworthy things you do when you´re not at work. One of my favourite noteworthy things we did the night before we left Bs As was go to La Viruta - another milonga-ish dance venue in Palermo. As well as dancing tango, lots of people were having lessons to 50s rock´n´roll and then it turned into a proper jive-fest. An elderly but energetic Argentinian man ended up showing me the ropes on the dancefloor to ´Rock around the Clock´. Luckily I´ve always been partial to a bit of jiving.

One of the not-so-good noteworthy things was the realisation that my 20-odd mosquito bites were in fact from...BED BUGS! Mauro had guessed this several days ago but didn´t tell me cos he rightly guessed that I wouldn´t sleep properly in that bed again. They´re revolting and hopefully that´ll be our last encounter with Latino bed bugs.

Anyway now we´ve just had a couple of days in Cordoba. It´s got a really studenty laid-back feel here and obviously we´ve eaten really well (apart from the ham and anchovy pizza...doesn´t work). Today we went to the nearby town of Alta Gracia near the Sierras. Che Guevara grew up here (cos of his asthma) so we went and saw his house, which is now a museum. It was fab (here´s a picture of me arm in arm with Ernestito outside).

We also saw a huge Jesuit estancia which was muy impressive but not quite as fab cos we´d been walking around in the sunshine all day. The guys at the hostel are having a BBQ on the rooftop tonight so we´re gonna pop up for a beer or two (and no doubt hear some more date-rape/bag snatching horror stories which tend to do the rounds). Back to Buenos Aires again tomorrow (we will go to other places soon, ha ha).