Back home...

I’ve been back from my travels a few days now and I thought it would be good idea to have a bit of a look back at my time away.

Here are some things I've learnt:

• Spanish. To a basic conversational lesson.
• I love travelling more than I thought I did and I already thought I liked it a lot!
• I am not very good a setting realistic budgets.
• I am really terrible at sticking to budgets.
• I'm really really bad at packing.
• I can resist buying useless souvenirs more than I thought I could.
• The ONLY thing I missed from home is my friends.
• Wherever you are in the world you will always meet people that remind you of friends back home - whether it's their appearance or their personalities. Or both.
• I am not as allergic to horses as I was as a child.
• That I love horse riding.
• Argentinian bbqs are THE best in the world.
• Travelling alone is heaps of fun! And is never boring...
• I HATE bunk beds - I hate climbing into them, I hate climbing (or more like falling) out of them and I hate the amount of bumps I have on my head from them.
• Packing cubes are essential for such a long trip (and I wish I had some with me!)

And here are some things I will miss about travelling:

• travelling
• Argentinian steaks (thank god for Los Argentinos!)
• Argentinian wine (ditto Los Argentinos comment)
• freedom
• Dulce de leche
• the fact that it is acceptable to eat caramel for breakfast (see above point)
• exploring new places
• arriving somewhere for the first time
• speaking Spanish
• trying new/local foods
• meeting new people
• getting used to a new currency every other week
• just aimlessly walking around a city
• snowy mountains
• Empanadas
• Asado
• my blog (strangely enough...)
• beautiful photographic opportunities
• learning new customs
• learning about other cultures

I have had an amazing time while I have been away and I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog. I still have to sort through the photos on my camera and no doubt some of them will appear on my blog in due course…

But for now, this is my last blog entry! Don’t worry though… next trip is already in the pipeline!

Claire

Brazil - Rio De Janeiro - Sugar Loaf

After all the excitement of the favela tour I headed up to Sugarloaf Mountain (Pão de Açúcar) for the sunset. As I couldn't join a tour I was on my own. With public transport. In Rio. And they seem to have an incredibly illogical way of naming their buses. According to Google Maps I was looking for bus 581 but all I saw were buses with T2 or BRS3... I felt like I was waiting there for hours, when the buses were meant to go every 15 minutes! Eventually a 581 came and I hopped in. I knew my stop was the last stop before the bus did a u-turn and drove back, so that made knowing where to get out slightly easier...! At the entrance to the cable car there was a notice stating that due to construction works at the top, some areas were unavailable. What the sign should have said was: "Once you get to the top there will be no way of seeing the sunset or the Christ statue as that whole side of Sugarloaf is closed off for construction. And, yes, you still have to pay full price for your ticket!". Needless to say a lot of people were very disappointed when they got to the top and realised this. Myself included. I was stood next a group of Americans in the queue on the way back down and they had been up at the Christ statue but had decided to come over to Sugarloaf for the sunset. They would have been better off staying at the Christ! I did managed to get a couple of good photos... Although I do have to admit that some Photoshopping was required to remove cables from some of the images!

Brazil - Rio de Janeiro

It took me all night to get to Rio. Flying to São Paulo first, sleeping at the airport (or at least trying and failing) and then another early morning flight to Rio. Once at my hostel there seemed to be a mix up with my reservation. The mix up being they couldn't find it! They did eventually, but there were no dorms left for that night so I was upgraded to a private room! Great! The hostel is brand new. It opened 10 days ago. So last night there was an openings party. With free drinks, snacks and pizza! And that meant caipirinhas! The national drink of Brazil.

The hostel is located one block away from Ipanema beach.

Fun fact about Ipanema beach: it's fake! The sand is imported synthetic sand. I noticed as soon as I set foot on it. I guess tourists want to see perfectly white sand next to the crystal clear water and so they decide to make it that way. Every now and again a bit of the real beach can be found. It's a little more yellowish and has a lot of tiny shells. I guess Scheveningen should start claiming that it's beach is better than Ipanema!

It is also a short walk to Copacabana beach! The weather is prefect for the beach. About 20 degrees and sunny. Today's plan is to lounge around at the beach. I think I'll pick Ipanema for today, although I'm sure I'll get bored at some point and then I'll walk down to the point where the two beaches meet.

This is Copacabana beach with Sugar Loaf Mountain is the distance.

I spent 3 days lazing around on the beach. Just relaxing.

With the occasional wander around when I got bored of the beach. Like to the Havaianas store.

On my last day in Rio though I had decided to do the touristy things. That meant a morning Favela tour followed by a trip to Sugar Loaf mountain for the sunset.

Not wanting to aimlessly wander through a favela myself, I joined a guided tour. The photos above was the view at the start of the tour. We started at the top of the favela and walked our way down to the bottom. Rio de Janiero has 100 favelas. 1.5 million people are living in them. We went to the biggest favela in Rio, called Rocinha. The photo above is the view from the starting point of the tour. It is not possible to take photos within the favela. Only at certain points, usually within buildings or on balconies, so a lot of the photos on this blog were taken by the guide. The people trust him and so he is allowed to take photos anywhere.

On our way down we stopped at a couple of places, first was a bakery.

For 5 reals (€1.30/£1.15) we could buy various Brazilian treats. I choose the wrong thing! I had a coconut cupcake but it wasn’t light and fluffy like a cupcake should be and I didn’t eat it all. The people who had the passion fruit cake seemed much happier. From the bakery we walked a bit further until we came to a couple of souvenir stands, where the ladies were selling all kinds of things, some of which were self-made.

After the souvenir stand we got to a “local band”. They were equipped with on a couple of buckets and some sticks but they were pretty impressive. The boy at the left was the dancer.

The following photos were taken by the guide walking through the favela.

This was the group I was with. There is a lot of graffiti, an attempt to make the place look nicer. Some of it was really cool!

This was the view from the bottom, looking back up to where we started. It’s a bit hard to see on such a small photo, but we pretty much started all the way at the top and had walked all the way through.

In the minibus on the way to Rocinha the guide had explained what the expect and he had repeated over and over again that we shouldn’t be scared and that we were completely safe. I think this had some of the group quite worried. I wasn’t one of them, I didn’t have a clue what to expect but figured it wouldn’t be dangerous in any way. And I was right, at no point during the tour did I feel unsafe or that someone was going to pickpocket me. As with the rest of my trip really. A lot of people have asked me along the way if I thought that it was unsafe, travelling alone. But no, it hasn’t been at all. Maybe it helped that I had completely missed the guys holding AK47’s…!

Buenos Aires

Another capital city? Yes. The same as all of the others? Very similar. Yet different.

It's a very large city. I saw that flying over it on my way here and seeing the massive expanse of lights that just never seemed to end. Looking on a map gives a hint to the cities size as well. I was based in the San Telmo neighbour. An area that had been recommended to me by other backpackers. And it was a good place to be based. On my first day I walked around San Telmo, with one of the free walking tours. We saw the oldest cafe in Buenos Aires (only from the outside), the building that has two sculptures of Evita, one of her giving a speech to the people (although it looks like she is singing!) and one on the other side of the building where she is smiling. I also had lunch at a Uruguayan cafe and headed to the old harbour area. It was all a bit CanaryWharf like, only here there were lots of people walking around. Lots of cafes and restaurants on both sides of the docks. Lots of people watching opportunities. The area has been regenerated and is now considered the most expensive of all the neighbourhoods property wise. I can see why. Old buildings have been renovated into, what I can only imagine, now trendy lofts. Google even has an office here, apparently. The next day I walked to the Recoleta and Palermo areas. Recoleta was probably my favourite neighbourhood to walk through. There was this massive park at one point that had been built around a very, very old, massive tree.So old, its branches were being held up by iron statues.

I was walking for about 6 hours in the end (and 15km so my iPhone tells me!), only stopping briefly to get some lunch.

Buenos Aires is my last stop in Argentina so I thought I´d make the most of that and treat myself to a(nother) steak! Turns out that ordering a rare steak in a restaurant here is not an easy feat. Especially since I was trying to order in Spanish as well. It seems, Argentinians like to eat their steaks well done, so even when I asked at the hostel how to say rare steak, they didn’t have a clue. Anyway, I was trying to explain to the waiter that I wanted my steak cooking rare. He said the word was ¨jugoso¨ and not knowing any better I agreed. Turns out jugoso isn’t rare enough for me. It was more like a medium-well done in my view. It was still a lovely sirloin steak though.

I ordered a glass of red to go with it, although what came was more like a jug of wine… And that for €2! In the spirit of being in a nice restaurant I also ordered a dessert. They had something called ¨guilt pie¨ on their menu, so I had to try that!

It was a slice of brownie with chocolate mousse on top. I’m a dessert person, but I could only made it half way through! It took me a while to get through my ¨jug¨of wine and when I finally did I was waiting for the waiter to come over and collect my glass so I could ask for the bill. Only thing was, he snook over when I wasn’t paying attention and instead of collecting my empty glass, he brought me a glass of champagne. On the house! And then walked away before I could ask why. I guess he felt sorry for me. Being the only person in the whole restaurant that was eating alone!

Next day I went to a ranch, with the idea of experiencing how a real gaucho lives and works. I did some more horse riding, saw a demonstration on how to make empanadas and mate, watched a demonstration of gauchos and their horses and of course there was a BBQ for lunch!

While we were eating lunch there was a music and dance show. The guy gave us a quick tour of Argentinian music styles and then proceeded to sing songs from the countries we are from. He sang ¨Tulpen uit Amsterdam¨ for the Dutch guy and ¨Yesterday¨ for me. Then there was a tango show!

Today was my last day in Buenos Aires. And my last day in Argentina. I am typing this while I am waiting for the taxi to take me to the airport. I spent my last day in La Boca. Another neighbourhood in Buenos Aires.

I went there because I heard there was a market that was worth seeing. Well it was meant to have lots of souvenirs, something that I hadn’t seen at all in the city. It was about an hours walk from the hostel and souvenirs it did have! I managed to pick up a couple of things. Not cheap, tacky souvenirs but nice things. Mostly for myself. Sorry guys!

Anyway, next stop is Brazil. Or Rio de Janeiro to be more precise. I am flying overnight and via Sao Paulo. My plans for Rio are spending a few days on the beach relaxing… After 3 months of doing the touristy thing I just want to take it easy and drink some caipirinhas…

Ushuaia - End of the World

The southern most point of my trip. And possibly the destination I was looking forward to the most. Or was that Mendoza??

My expectations for Ushuaia were: lots of snow, cold temperatures, windy, southern lights (Aurora Australis) and that it would be quiet as it is off-season and who else was crazy enough to venture down here... I got none of that! There was no snow. Seems like the south is struggling with a lack of snow now like the Alps did at the beginning of the year! So skiing was struck of the list of possible activities. It wasn't cold either. Although, during my boat trip of the Beagle Channel I was told by the guide that it is a common misconception that Ushuaia is cold. It actually has the smallest variation in temperatures of all Argentina. Summer is between 8-12 degrees and winter is between -2 and 4 degrees. It wasn't windy when I arrived, however on the day I was leaving the wind decided to make an appearance, which resulted in a 4 hour delay of my flight! I didn't see the southern lights either... Ushuaia may be the southern most city in the world, but its on the same latitude as Newcastle. That combined with the fact that the magnetic south pole is currently located over near Australia all means that seeing the southern lights was pretty unlikely... And, well, there were enough other crazy people there.

A lot of the activities were unavailable, like sailing to Antarctica. Which makes sense as its winter now, but due to the lack of snow, some of the winter activities weren't available either. A lot of the ski lifts/pistes were closed so I didn't bother trying to ski. What I wanted to do was go husky dog sledding. That was only possible in combination with snow shoeing. Not something I particularly wanted to do but I had no choice.

The huskies were more interested in rolling around in the snow than they were in going anywhere. Much to the irritation of the musher!

Snow shoeing wasn´t as hard as I thought it would be. Although, I didn´t really see the point in it. Snow shoeing is meant to be for when there is deep snow. This snow was 5mm deep at most! It would have been easier to walk with my boots. Or so I thought. Until I took the snow shoes off and had to walk back to the restaurant without them and realized just how slippery it actually was!

This was the destination of our snow shoe walk - a frozen waterfall

I also went of a boat tour of the Beagle Channel. We saw lots of seals and birds.

We even managed to find 3 baby penguins swimming along...

And sailed past the End of the World lighthouse, also called Faro Les Eclaireurs.

We also stopped at the one of the bigger islands and walked to the top of it.

I took the following photo at midday, showing how high the sun gets here...

Onboard the boat I got to experience something very Argentinian.. Dinking mate. It´s a kind of tea, but its not made with tea leaves, but bark of a tree. And it tastes like that. Very bitter and well, tree-like... Its drunk from something goblet like with a strwaw, which is called a bombilla.

You put the leaves in the goblet and keep adding hot water from a thermos until you run out of water. The straw/bombilla filters the leaves. There is a whole etiquettethat goes along with drinking mate. Such as you cannot say thank you when someone hands you the mate, but only after you have drank it and are returning the goblet to them. And when you return it to the person, you have to do so with the straw/bombilla pointing towards them.

Ushuaia began as place to send criminals. It started as a prison and it’s a good place for a prison really. I mean where was anyone going to escape to!? The prison is still there and they have now turned it into a series of museums: the prison museum but also an art gallery, an Antarctica museum, penguin museum and a strange section dedicated to Total´s presence in the area (I suspect Total may sponsor the museums).

Only one person managed to escape the prion - or at least that is what they assume. They never found his body. Numerous others attempted to escape but returned of their own will due to the cold, lack of food and not actually being able to get anywhere. I can´t blame them...

El Calafate - Estancia Rio Mitre

The day after the glacier disappointment I decided to not go back and try again (it was still a bit foggy in the morning), but to do something else. I was in the middle of Patagonia cowboy country so I decided to go horse riding.

Now you may remember, from my volcano hike in Guatemala, that I am in fact, allergic to horses. Horse riding seems like a strange activity to want to do for someone who is allergic. But I like horses; I have fond memories of riding as a child. So off I went to the pharmacy to stock up on allergy tablets!

I chose to do the afternoon ride. A 2 hour ride starting at 4pm, meaning that the sun would set just as we were getting back to the ranch. Then there would be an asada (BBQ) back at the ranch. Perfect I thought! It was foggy again! This meant that there was no sunset, it just got more and more foggy until it got dark. But we were already back and enjoying the steak by that point!

I got on my assigned horse (no one seemed to know its name!) and the owner gave me a short lesson (in Spanish) on how to ride like a cowboy. They apparently only hold the reigns in one hand and the other is free to… take selfies? Anyway, I slightly over estimated my horse riding skills. My free hand was firmly gripping the saddle and it was a while before I dared to release it. You have to be the boss of a horse or they do what they want. This horse clearly knew who was boss and it certainly wasn’t me! Getting the horse to move was only possible with the help of the guide. Off to a great start! It did get better, I managed to keep the horse moving, I could get her (I was assuming it was a her at this point – after all they wouldn’t let someone like me loose on a male horse right??) to turn left of right. I thought I was doing great. Until the other two were getting quite far away from me… I tried getting my horse to walk a bit faster, by giving a gentle kick with my heel, but not wanting to kick to hard in case she thought that was her queue to go galloping after them! But she’d already realised by this point that if she didn’t want to do what I wanted then there was no way that I was going to make her! They had to slow down and wait for me to catch up. At some points, for no apparent reason my horse would start trotting. Trotting I could do. This was something that I learnt all those years ago. It was a bit different here. I was taught the rising trot. Here they just sit, stirrups as far forward as they can push them and lean backwards. Not the most comfortable thing to do and not the best looking way to ride a horse. But whatever works! When the others started to gallop, I was worried. I felt my horse wanting to follow them. Wanting to run with them. It took a lot of pulling back on the reigns to get her to only trot after them. By the end of the 2 hours I think I had done pretty well. Going down and up slopes, through rivers, some of which were iced over, through thick boggy mud and over very uneven ground. I enjoyed myself and I only sneezed once! It was a shame that it was foggy and all I got to see was flat countryside until the horizon and then surrounded by fog.

We didn’t come across any animals, just lots of bones from animals that had died/been killed and then eaten.

Back at the ranch it was time to get off the horse. I didn’t think I was that cold until my feet hit the ground and I realised that my knee was basically frozen. It was really difficult to move it to walk. I think the combination of the cold temperatures, the sitting still on the horse for 2 hours and gripping the horse tightly with my legs throughout had caused this feeling. Walking back up to the ranch helped to defrost it a bit and sitting in front of the fire helped as well! Outside of the front door a group of sheep had collected and a llama.

I’mpretty sure the llama was a pet. By the way she was getting hugged by the cowboy and by how close she was getting to us. The final hint was the fact that when I went to take a photo, she lifted her head up to pose for the photo!

The ranch contained loads of memorabilia, such as a dinosaur egg, some dinosaur vertebrae and tools that would have been used thousands of years ago. The owner also told us about how the ranch had originally been about 500 m further downhill, but that after the Perito Moreno glacier dammed up the Brazo Rico arm of Lake Argentino and the rupture that then occurred in 1917, the water level increased so much that this building was flooded. After that they abandoned it and moved to the current location. The Perito Moreno glacier dams the lake about once every 4-5 years and when this ice dam is ruptured the water level increases dramatically. From the ranch it was possible to see a darker area of land and this is the extent of the lake after the ice dam ruptures.

As with all previous asadas I have had in Argentina, the steak was amazing! This time we were given what I guess was a t-bone steak. With a couple of slices of garlic on it. Delicious!

El Calafate - Glacier National Park

From Cordoba I flew south to El Calafate. I had kind of written the Glaciers National Park off as it was proving difficult to fy to it (while not paying an extortionate amount of money and/or flying for 18 hours and changing planes multiple times) and because various online sources stated that it was pointless going there in winter because it would be difficult to get to the glaciers in the snow and because it would be extremely cold and windy. It was by sheer luck that I found a flight that, was both direct and didn’t cost a fortune and figured it was worth a try. I’m glad I went!

Firstly, it was nowhere near ascold and windy as the people on the internet were trying to make me believe! In preparation for sub-zero temperatures I had bought an extra set of thermal leggings in Santiago – and didn’t wear them once! And I didn’t think it was windy at all… The first day I arrived I booked a tour for the next day that would take me up to the Perito Moreno glacier. Said to be the most famous glacier in South America. Why? Due to its easy accessibility, how close you can get to the glacier and because ice chunks carve off the glacier multiple times per hour.

It has been really foggy a morning. Being my first morning in El Calafate I figured it was normal and that the fog would lift once the sun rose. Which, only happens at 09:45 here!! On the way to Perito Moreno we should have made a stop at a view point, but when we got there it was still too cloudy to see anything. So we continued on to the optional boat trip. This would sail right past the glacier allowing for a very close up view of the ice. Or would it? It was still foggy! I decided to skip the boat as I figured even sailing right next to it I still wouldn’t be able to see anything in the fog. So the bus dropped me off at the restaurant and the guide explained that it was about a 2km walk, along a constructed walkway, to get the glacier. It was STILL foggy, but off I went… The walkway was made of a kind of steel mesh. I guess this was to allow any moisture, in the form of ice or snow, to fall through it so that it wouldn’t be slippery. It was still slippery! The whole walk I couldn’t see much on either side of the path. I had no clue where I was, whether I was getting close, whether I was actually standing right next to the glacier and just didn’t know it! So I kept walking… Until I heard a very loud, thunder-like sound. Aha! This must be the glacier, carving a piece of ice! I could hear the noise, but still had no idea where it was coming from. But I followed the walkway further and followed where I thought the noise was coming from. Until I got to a spot where I thought I would get a good view, should the fog finally lift. This is what I saw…

The fog didn’t lift. The sun didn’t come out. I didn’t see the glacier. And it was time to walk back to the bus. Gutted! Back at the restaurant I had a hot chocolate to warm up a bit. It hadn’t felt that cold, but standing around for two hours, watching, waiting for the fog to disappear had been colder than I thought. It was at that point that the sun decided to come out! Within 15 minutes, the sky was blue and the sun was shining. Great.. Just in time for the bus. Turns out once I got back to the bus that other people were just as annoyed about this as me. They hadn’t seen anything either and everyone was itching to get back to the end of the walk way to finally see what the fog had been hiding… And the guide and the bus driver came up with a plan to make that happen. They couldn’t wait because some passengers had flights that evening and needed to get back to town. But there was a bus leaving 2 hours later from the same company that we could get on. There would be no guide and it would only drop off in the center of town and not the hostels but it would allow us to stay another 2 hours and actually allow us the see the thing that we came to see. So off most of us got and rushed back towards the walkway and towards the glacier. It was a half an hour walk from this point to where the glacier was visible. Because the sun had come out, the walkway was drying up and was much less slippery now.

Some people choose to run. I didn’t. But I did walk at a slightly higher pace that I usual would. Not that it mattered, just as I rounded the corner where the glacier was visible, the fog stated to roll back in… I was able to catch a glimpse, of a small corner of the glacier before the fog completely covered it again and that was it for the day!

So then it was a case of standing an waiting for another 2 hours for the next bus. All the while hoping that the sun would break through again and that the fog would once again disappear. It didn’t. I didn’t see any more of the glacier and went back to the hostel with a slightly disappointed feeling…

Córdoba

From wine country I headed east to Córdoba. Not because Córdoba was particularly part of my plan, but turns out it's the easiest place to fly to El Calafate from. So I decide to stay here for a day (it was actually two as the overnight bus from Mendoza dropped me off at 7am) to explore the city. I was there on Argentinian Independence Day. So most things were closed! Luckily the Starbucks wasn't one of those, although I did have to wait outside for 15 minutes for them to open.

After my caffiene fix I started wandering. The aim was San Martin square. However I got a little distracted along the way. First by a park of giant circes.

Each circe had a date engraved into it. The odest date I saw 1883, so there must have been a fair few circles!

Across the street fromPlaza del Bicentenario (the officia name for Circle Park) was a giant spiraling needle.

This is Faro delBicentenario. Next to it was a very interesting building where it was possible to walk on the roof. At first I thought it was a skate park. Although the signs said skate boarding (or riding anything with wheels) was strictly prohibited!

From here I did manage to walk to San Martin square without any further distractions. When I arrived there I found the catherdal covered in Argentinian flags.

So was most of the square come to think about it. There were two teenage boys hanging up individual fags on the railings around the park. All with hand written text on them. This is how I came to find out that Argentina was actually celebrating their 200th year of independence....!