The Great South American Adventure

I know it´s been ages and I apologize, but I really don´t have that much to report. New photo´s again at www.flickr.com/photos/12875483@N00/ . From Cordoba, I went to Rosario by myself, where I really got off on the wrong foot. The bus left Cordoba at midnightish and was scheduled to arrive at Rosario at 5ish in the morning. However, Rosario was not the end of the line, so I didn´t really allow myself to properly fall asleep, for fear of waking up and finding myself in Buenos Aires. I hadn´t made any reservations in Rosario and when I arrived the tourist information at the bus terminal had not opened yet. So I found a kiosko, like a milkbar, that had computers, because none of the internet cafes were open yet, and started to look for places to stay. The second one I rang had room so I marked it on my map, which I had grabbed from the unmanned tourist information, and headed outside for to take a cab. I asked the cab driver to take me to Rosario Hostel. Instead he took me to Rosario Hotel. With much difficulty, I explained to him that this was not where I wanted to go. He seemed a bit thick and confused as to why I would ask to go somewhere I didn´t want to go. Then I tried to explain to him that the place I wanted to go was on the street ´urquiza,´ so he took me to Hotel Urquiza. When I explained to the bell boy that I wasn´t interested in staying in his hotel and that I wanted to go to Hostel Rosario, he translated my bad bud obviously understandable spanish into correct yet seemingly confusing spanish to the driver. I showed the bell boy the mark on my map and he gave the adress to the cabbie and finally he took me where I wanted to go. Not straight to the door but close enough to find with a bit of searching. I rang the door bell and waited. And waited, and waited, until a guy finally came and had a look at me, gestured for me to wait then left. Eventually he came back and let me in, made me pay more for my room than advertised up front, then showed me to a huge room with ten beds, of which the only one being used would be mine. At this stage I decided I would check out the other hostels later that day, but first I had a shower and a nap, after which I felt much better, had a bit of breakfast and headed out to see the city and find a new hostel. The first hostel I, which was the first I had called, went to looked quite cool and had a free bed for me the following night. So I reserved that and actually met some english guys there straight away, due to the fact the actually had no reception or apparent administration. I ended up staying in that place for about 2 and a half weeks. Activities mostly consisted of gowing out on weekends, which Rosario was quite good for, as it is renowned for having the prettiest and nicest girls in Argentina, a reputation that is well deserved. Apart from going out and practicing my spanish and dance moves with the local ladies, I also spent some time between monday and wednesday trying to see the local sites. Rosario was a nice city but it wasn´t exactly full of tourist attractions, which I didn´t mind too much cause it mean it wasn´t full of tourists. Of the few tourist attractions I went and saw the modern art museum, the flag monument, where the first argentinian flag was raised and I tried to go to the flea market and the planetarium but was too early for both. I also did a little bit of shopping and tried what is apparently the best icecream in argentina at Smart, Rosario, and was inclined to agree with its reputation. I also spent my birthday in Rosario and had a great night, including party hats and cake, although I did miss my family and friends back home.

Not long after my birthday I decided it was time to move on to my next destination, Puerto Iguazu, where I came to see the incredible Iguazu falls. The hostel I´m staying in here, Hostel Inn, is pretty nice. Well not really nice. It is a little too large for my liking and unfortunately I got put in a room full of israeli stoners, in one of four outdoor lodges, rather than in the main complex, near the showers which actually have hot water. However, it has a massive pool which I got to sunbake around a couple of days so that kind of makes up for it. As for falls, which I went and saw on the argentinian side a couple of days ago, they are absolutely amazing. First I went on a bit of a hike to a smaller secluded waterfall, which I was quite impressed by. Then I was completely blown away by the scale of the main falls and amplitude of water falling at one time. Absolutely amazing. Check out the photos. In the arvo I weant on a tour on truck through the jungle, pretty crap, not recommended, then a boat ride up the river to the feet of the various falls, which was pretty cool, although you couldn´t really see much when you got really close and were getting showered by the spray. Still, it was a very unique esperience.

Tonight, I am taking a bus around the southern part of Paraguay, cause you need a visa to go through it, to Tucaman in the North West of Argentina, where I will have about three hours to have some dinner tomorrow night and have a look around, before I get on a bus bound for Bolivia, which will arrive the morning after. Why such a large distance in one go you may ask? Well, my Argentinian visa last to the end of May. It sucks cause I am bypassing some cool places, like Salta, to make it and I just heard this morning that the fine for overstaying your visa is 50 pesos (like AU$20). But 50 pesos saved is 50 pesos earned and that should go a bit further in Bolivia, which is a fact I´m looking forward to. Hope everything back home is going well, keep in touch, and stay tuned for more TALES OF INTEREST!!!

Cordoba was pretty cool. It`s the second biggest city in Argentina, after Buenos Aires, and there was a fair bit of stuff to do there. I travelled to Cordoba on bus overnight from Mendoza with an english guy named Ledger who is a friend of Harry, Jasper and Jeremy who met up with us in Mendoza. After trying another hostel which was full, looked crap anyway, we booked into a hostel called Baluch, which was in a renovated big old apartment down town which was cool, highly recomended. First thing we did was not much. We watched a lot of dvds in our first days there, including such classics as Madagascar and fight club. This is how we met Clarisa and Charlie, an unlikely pair of poms (oh yeah, alliteration) travelling together. In an rare moment of motivation, we decided to go out one night to a club called mitre. Not a bad place, questionable music, but that was made acceptable by the abbundace of good looking argentinian women.

One of our other notible excursions was to Villa Carlos Paz, a nice little town on a river about 40min bus ride out of town, which only cost 4.50 pesos. Our objective was to do some karting, but first, we were hungry, so we went to an italianish looking restaurant by the river. Everyone else got lasagna which was questionable in quality (more alliteration, god i`m good) but not as questionable as my order of the menu of the day, a local delicasy that would best be described as fat soup, kind of like a stew with pieces of fat instead of meat and no vegetables. However, the soupy part was pretty nice and I thought I had made a pretty good go at it until the waiter asked me if i didn`t like it, because I left all the pieces fat, assuming you weren`t supposed eat them. However the expression of doubt on waiters the waiters face when I said I did enjoy it would suggest otherwise. Anyway, after lunch we went go-karting which was good fun. There were some passes, powerslides (not actually that good for mainting speed, usually resulting in being passed) and a few good crashes, that i`m sure couldn`t have been avoided, after we were told that they weren`t dodgem cars and bumping is stricly forbidden.

After Charlie and Clarisa left us for Mendoza, me and ledger went to another little town outside of the city on another minibus called Alta Gracia, where a certain Ernesto Guevara spent most of his childhood. We went to one of the houses where he lived when he was a child where there is a museum dedicated to him, displaying photos, letters and other memorabilia, including the same model of motorbike as that which he travelled on around argentina, and got a photo next to it (so gringo). It was interesting to learn about his family and his childhood but it didn`t really explain much about what he did as an activist. I´ll have to wiki it sometime.

By that stage, it was only one day until the Rally of Cordoba, which is part of the world rally championship. So I stayed around for that and we went to a stadium event, which was really cool, and one of the stages out in the countryside. Also very cool. They drive really fast. Check out the photo`s on my flickr site www.flickr.com/photos/12875483@N00/ and check out this video

How cool is that! Anyway, hope you`ve enjoyed the entry and keep up the comments, I love hearing from you, and stay tuned for more TALES OF INTEREST

Hola amigos, que esta arriba? Once again sorry about the long wait between entries, I promise you won't be dissappointed. There's new photos on my flickr site, www.flickr.com/photos/12875483@N00/ so check it out.

Bariloche

I tried to hitchhike from El Bolson to Bariloche, and I was very confident because I had hitched around El Bolson a fair bit which was easy cause it's a really chilled out place and there's heaps hippies, not meant in a derogatory way, so I just kept walking out of town expecting someone to pick me up. One guy gave me a lift further out of town but he wasn't going all the way but he reassured me that someone should pick me up. However, after about 2 hours of walking and waiting in strategically chosen places, no one would pick me up until I jokingly put my thumb out for a bus, which I didn't expect to stop after I had so blatantly shunned there services, but it did, and I'm glad cause by that stage I was quite a way out of town and given my success thus far, I wasn't to confident about being able to hitchhike back. Anyway, when I got to Bariloche I checked into a hostel called the Tango Inn, which was recommended to me by Hernan, the great Argentinian guy who gave me a lift around Puerto Madryn. The Tango Inn was a pretty good hostel, a little far out of town, but it had excellent staff and I met some cool people there. The first of which was Leigh, another Melbonite, who had injured his arm in a mountain bike/smoking accident and was confined to the bar in the hostel and in serious need of a drinking buddy, something I was able to help him out with. The wheather was pretty shitty while I was in Bariloche, however we did manage to go on one excursion to one of the local peaks which had great views of the surrounding lakes, check out my flickr page for photos. Also despite the shitty wheather we decided to go swimming in the lake on one of the nicer days. Despite being one of the nicer days it was still very windy, making the lake very rough and wavey, making the potentially ankle breaking river rocks difficult to negotiate. Also, it was bloody cold, but what can you expect when you can see snow capped mountains surrounding the lake you are swimming in, so the dip didn't last that long, but it made the decidedly average wheather seam quite pleasant by comparrison when we got out. We went out a couple of nights, first to Wilkenny, a large Irish Pub kind of like pugs except with more 70s and 80s music. The second time we definately didn't want to go there again but did when we couldn't find anything else. And the third night we went to South bar, a smaller more atmospheric place, with cheaper drinks and better music, highly recommended, although watch out for sleazy argi guys cutting your lunch. Another night we made a bit of a bon fire on the lake shore which was pretty cool, but it would have been cooler if this damn welsh girl didn't smother it so much. I also met some english guys, Harry, Jasper and Jeremy, there and travelled to Mendoza with them.

Mendoza

Despite leaving 3 hours before the english guys from Bariloche, when I walked got to the hostel, there they were already unpacked and lazing about in our new room. That place, Hostel International, was pretty crappy so we only stayed one night then moved to a better one, called Winkas, highly recomended. In Mendoza, we went wine tasting, as it is where the mort reputable argentinian wines come from, and we weren't disappointed. However, I do regret doing the wine tour on bikes, because despite the brosure for the imaginatively named "bikesandwines" bike hire company making it look like all the wineries were just around the corner from each other, I would say there was an average of about 5km between each. And the bikes were not of the highest or comfiest quality, but what can you expect when the place just gives them away for free because you didn't book and pay at your hostel and the guy could be bothered getting you to fill out the froms, so I can't really complain seeing as I didn´t have to pay. However, if I were to do it again or recomend it to anyone, I would definately take the bus. We also went out a couple of nights, all of which were of fairly high standard and sampled some of the fine quisine on offer in many of the city´s restaurants, but apart from that, theres Not that much to report. The english guys I met in Bariloche went to Santiago, Chile, and now I´m in Cordoba living it up ol South America style. Stay in touch, love hearing from you all, Marc/Plummers.

What up yo? Happy Easter everyone. How are you all going? Things are going pretty well over here. Puerto Madryn was good, saw some sea lions, elephant seals and a shite load of penguins. I met a couple good blokes from Buenos Aires, Hernan and Gaston, at the hostel in Puerto Madryn. Hernan had his car with him and was going to Peninsula Valdez so I took full advantage of that and got a lift with him. We stayed on the Peninsula at Puerto Pirimides for a night, which was good cause it meant we didn´t have to rush around the place trying to see everything in one day. Unfortunately we did not see any killer whales, despite going to the most likely place to see them at the most likely time two days in a row and waiting a total of about 8 hours. Oh well, there´s always documentaries. A couple of days later, after returning to Puerto Madryn, we went down to Punta Tombo, which was awesome. There is a massive Magellan Penguin colony there, and there is a path that goes right through there nesting area and up to the beach where they were always getting in and out of the water and swimming around in the shallows. It was so cool because they were always on the path and you just walked among them. Photos coming soon.

From Puerto Madryn, I took a bus to Esquel, which was pretty nice but I didn´t really do much there, because there wasn´t really much to do. I did walk to a small lake, which was pretty crap cause the walk was along a dusty road, instead of like a beaten track through forrests, and I watched a kids soccer game which was pretty good quality, on my way out of town. I hitchhiked to El Bolson with a father and daughter from Spain. They were pretty nice. The daughter had just moved over to Buenos Aires and the father had come over to do some travelling with her. I found all that out speaking only spanish, how good am I. In El Bolson, I have been working on a WWOOF farm, which is very chilled out and has been very kind on the budget. Work has included collecting rocks and shovelling dirt. I came down to town today, also hitch hiking, to check out the local handi craft market. I stopped to watch a street performer who was mainly juggling and joking with the crowd, and he asked me to come forward to throw flaming clubs to him while he balanced on a board on top of a cylinder on top of a box. I thought why me as he got the crowd to applaud until I got up and explained to him that I was Australian and didn´t really understand his instructions but he just forwarded this information to the crowd and laughed it off. It wasn´t so funny when he didn´t catch the third burning club cause I threw it to the wrong hand. And after the trick, which was the finale, he asked if I wanted to give him money, then made a joke about how little I gave him. Anyway, it´s all good. From here I´m going to go to Bariloche, probably on monday. Until then, stay tuned for more TALES OF INTEREST.

There are more photos at my flickr site

www.flickr.com/photos/12875483@N00/

from Peninsula Valdez, Cueva de Las Manos and my hikes around El Chalten. Hope you like them. Thanks for all the comments, it´s great to hear from you all,

Plummers