Puerto Madryn - Patagonia

We arrived tired, dirty, and stinky after 40 hours of bus with a six hour romp in Buenos Aires in between. Puerto Madryn is in northern patagonia 1000km or so from Buenos Aires. It is your average little port town except from Aug to December where the bay is crowded with Southern Right Whales.

The next day we got up early to get to the dive shop as we couldn't resist the temptation of the possibility of diving with whales and the guaranteed snorkeling with sea lions. We had hoped the weather would clear up for us, as the forecasted howling northern winds were not suited to diving. We get to the shop but no dice on the water activities.....we were a little dissapinted as we had geared up for the freezing water and the crazy opportunity....but we hopefully will go out before we leave.

We decide to head to a nearby beach, playa c..... (cant remember the name) This beach is quite steep and at high tied whales frolic within 10 meters of shore....we get dropped off by the cab with a scottish guy named Colin in tow and spend the next couple of hours flabbergasted by whales up to 15m long hanging out just meters from shore......WOW.

The next day we head down to to another beach to try and find an Elephant Seal colony. We get picked up by a minivan and head a hundred or so kms on dirt and unsealed roads. It had been raining a lot so the guide said we will try and get to the colony, although we might have some trouble on the roads. We get most of the way with no trouble except the odd snakey as the road is slippery and muddy as hell. The driver doesn't seem to experienced in the conditions as he continually is changing gear in large holes of mud when he shouldn;t be....then we get bogged...takes us a good, but fun, half an hour to get the van out...we thought the worse was behind us,,,but. We pass 4wd who stopped to tell us that the road only gets worse so the tour guide decides that we have to turn around and head back only 3km's from the Seals....DAMN IT! We get bogged once again on the way home and eventually get it out and home 6 hours after we left home.

bogged

the problem.....nice road hey!

The next day we head to Peninsula Valdez and on a whale watching boat. The whales are awesome up close, we had one right next to the boat just submerged - it was incredible to be that close to something that big. We had more close encounters before heading out to see a small elephant seal colony and spot some emu like birds, more camelids and a little armadillo - who was too quick for the camera.

baby Elephant Seal....the big daddys weren't around

giant squid

We ended up missing out on the diving/snorkeling before jumping on our last long haul bus back to Buenos Aires.

Puerto Iguazu

We arrived in BA after a fairly short bus ride from Mendoza (well, 12 hours). We decided to get the earliest bus we could to Puerto Iguazu which meant 6 or 7 hours to wander around in Buenos Aires.
We walked the 4 or 5 blocks into the microcentre and did some window shopping and ate some lunch before heading back to our mid afternoon bus. Steph wants to buy some learther boots, she is sick of her only pair of shoes being hiking boots - and Hew is sick of being dragged from shop to shop with the "will I or won't I"......JUST BUY THE BOOTS!!! She was still undecided ggrrrr.

Puerto Iguazu

Another 18 or so hours in the bus to Puerto Iguazu. It is cold and raining when we arrive. We seem to keep hitting places in cold snaps at the moment! ( i can here the sympathy from you all as you read)...We are pretty tired so we hunt down a prime piece of inexpensive beef and sleep off the afternoon just like the locals - seista is brilliant.

The next morning we wake to more coldness and are debating whether to go to the falls or not. We decide to stay in Iguazu an extra night and head to the falls the next day....another uneventful day to recover, play guitar and Steph to catch up on the diary...and cook dinner as we are ripping through the pesos. Inflation is a nasty beast in Argentina, we spoke to the man at the hostel and he says the rooms at the hostel, like eveything else in Argentina, have been rising out of control.  The price of the room we stayed in cost 190 pesos ($40) in January and cost us 290 pesos ($65) a night now - CRAZY and expensive!

The next morning we head to the falls, but the main lookout (Devils throat) is closed due to the water level so we decide to do a nice little hike into the 'rainforest' and to a small waterfall and come back the next day to see the major falls. The walk was really nice, spotting some monkeys, birds and big rodents.

On the way back from the falls we stopped in at an animal sanctuary - Guia Oga. They do a lot of rehab work with lots of tropical birds and birds of prey. We met a very freindly Toucan, he was nice enough to show us his skinny, long white tongue.

The next day we went back to the falls, they are just incredible. As the water level has been so high due to a lot of rain coming in from Brazil the falls are at their most powerful. The mist is just amazing, water bouncing off the falls and rising out high into the sky. And rainbows galore. We did another short trek and were lucky enough to have a group of Toucans land in the trees above us. That and they're were coatis absolutely everywhere - trying to steal everyones lunch.

Vulture and rainbow

sooo much water.....the mist was so big it made the falls look alot smaller....crazy

Steph getting drenched by the mist

Coatis invading lunch

We had some killer steak on our last night at one of the local Parilla's (literally 'grill' - you pronounce the double l as almost a j )
 

Mendoza

Wine, wine and more wine....

So I thought I'd give finally give hew a rest after his hours of typing this thing and write a blog for once!!! So, we arrived in Mendoza nice and early and checked into our hostel who proudly boasted a sign on the front of the place: "Empedrado: Hostel and Wine", which pretty much sets the scene for the next few days.

The first afternoon and night we spent drinking with one of the hostel workers, Manuela, a NZ born wino, now living in Mendoza. Hmmmm, this could be dangerous! The first couple of days everything was closed in the city and the place was a ghost town (Sunday and then a public holiday). We did see some good traditional dancing in the square though.
The second night we were at the hostel they held a mate night. Mate is a type of tea drunk CONSTANTLY by all the locals here in Argentina. Mate is drunk from a special cup, usually made out of a gourd, through a special metal straw. You fill the cup with the dry tea, then as you need pour small amounts of water in and drink through the straw. You don't wet all the tea at once. The straws are designed so 'bits' don't go in your mouth. It is often shared around, each person having to finish their cup before it is passed back to the person doing the filling. Once you've had enough you say gracias. So we participated in the mate sitting. It's actually really nice! But beware, that night I didn't get to sleep till about 3am!!! WIDE AWAKE :)

The next few days were actioned packed!

Tour 1: The bike and wine tour. The night before we had been talked into going on a bike and wine tour by some others staying at the hostel. This activity also came highly recommended from our "travel guide", Wilson. We all piled onto a local  bus and ended up in wine country, a region called Maipu. We went with a company well known in the area, Mr.Hugos. As soon as we arrivied Mr. Hugo came out and greeted us, and once a map was given with instructions, insisted we first sit down and have a wine, so while Mrs.Hugo proceeded to get our bikes ready, Mr.Hugo poured us plastic pitchers of wine, with refills... and it began. First stop, Absynth (a full shot of 75% alcohol) and chocolate, next stop nice winery, next stop LUNCH (was 4pm by this point, legs running out of steam rapidly), another winery followed and by then we were done, a final ride back and we all piled onto the bus looking a little worse for wear after a final plastic pitcher or two of wine with Mr. Hugo. A very fun, but very tiring day. When we arrived back at the hostel it was Asado (BBQ) night. So we all sat down and enjoyed some tasty empanadas, then meat, meat and more meat, there was literally more meat than the table of about 20 of us could finish.... Felt like we devoured at least half a cow! :)

midday absynth...dangerous

the Mr Hugo's crew at the nicer winery for the day

Tour 2: A proper winery tour: This was our luxury tour, nice comfy bus, nice wineries and a massive lunch to finish it all off. We spent lots of time learning about wine and how do get the most out of a wine tasting ( I am a proffesional now) (sorry hew, your absolute favourite thing in the world I know). The countryside is really pretty too, lots of oranges and terracottas.When we got back that night, there was an empanada making evening. It was good, empanadas for dinner... yum. When I get home I'll make some for you!

druken posing

fancy lunch

The next day Hew organised a man date with a local. He asked the owner if the hostel if he could find adrum lesson anywhere, half a dozen phone calls later and the next morning a guy came and picked him up and took him to his house for some wuality drum kit time. Marcelo is a crazy drummer, plays in a band or two and has an assortment of bad arse stick tricks, some killer groove, and a crazy clave (rumba is his clave of choice). We arranged to go watch some jazz with him the next night, but in the usual drummer fashion he cancelled an hour before we were supposed to go as he had forgotten he was supposed to have dinner with his girlfriends family.....

Insane stick tricks....jungling and playing at the same time!!!!

Tour 3: Trekking, absailing and hot springs. Our final Mendozian activity...After a bus up into the hills we have a walk for about an hour or so. We look like real trekkers carrying all our abseiling gear! While we are walking, its FREEZING! soooooo cold. Next thing you know its raining, no wait, its snowing! Shit! We get to the first drop (there are three in total). We gear up and over we go. Was heaps of fun. The first drop was 14m, the next 4m and the final was 40m. One of our guides goes down face first. I think thats a good idea and go down too.Its not as easy as it looks and all your weight is pulling on the stomach around your waist, really not what they are designed for!!! There was a lot of slipping around and me hanging by my stomach but I made it eventually. Hew went down the smart way.

This dog climbed halfway up the mountain with us....it was soooo cold

hot springs...really nice on a freezing cold day...

heading down face first

luxury bus back to BA....

Argentina - First stop Salta

The plan for Argentina: First to Salta in the North then bus to wine country in Mendoza then head across to Buenos Aires for a brief stop before heading to one of the worlds biggest waterfalls at Puerto Iguazu on the Brazilian border. Then back to BA and onto the start of Patagonia to Puerto Madryn and Peninsula Valdez for some whale watching. Then back to BA for steak, football (hopefully) and Tango before flying out to South Africa on the 17th.  All this amounts to an epic 131 hours in the bus over the four or so weeks in Argentina - its a big f*ckin country!

SALTA

 Another overnight bus to Argentina involved the first 12 hours underdressed and absolutely freezing, followed by a change of buses in the coldest place we have been, Villazon, the border town between Bolivia and Argentina...

We arrived in Salta around 4pm, after leaving Sucre at 6pm the day before.  We had heard horror stories of the wait for the border crossing (one person had 12 hours there) but we were in and out in no time.

Its really nice to be out of the third world for the first time in six months, with luxuries like two taps in the shower and plumbing that can handle toilet paper!!!! 

Crazy door

 Again we had a slow few days in Salta, we were trying to be a little stingy so we cooked all three nights we were here and didn't do much else apart from explore the city. One thing we have noticed, even in the lesser developed countries, is the meat is a lot better quality and feels a lot less artificial/chemically than home.

We hit up another museum to see somemore ice children, these ones were found at the top of a volcano in 1999, they were in heaps better condition than the other we saw in Arequipa.

Next stop Mendoza.

Sucre...our last Bolivian stop

We had a brief stay in Sucre, a UNESCO heritage city full of, you guessed it, nice old buildings....A pretty little town, the proximity to Potosi (lots of silver money) and Argentina have made the town a lot better off and feel a lot safer than the rest of the country.

One of the many cool views out the bus window

The main Government building

Nice silver roof

Our main excursion was to Cretacious Park - a theme park containing the largest collection of Dinosaur footprints in the World. Pretty crazy to see so many footprints of varying species of dinosaur, not to forget the corny scale models of the dinosaurs with built in  'roaring' sound effects...

Cast of one of the dinosaur footprints

Part of the Dinosaur wall - good day to forget the camera with the zoom lens - you used to be able to climb on the wall but a few landslides later and we are 50m away. There are lots of footprints that you can see, we promise!

ROOAAAAAARRRRRRRR

My 'beard' had gotten out of control so we stopped in at a Barber and had a cut throat shave.

Couldn't understand a word this guy said, including what his name was, apart from him muttering something about tourists when Steph got the camera out. He was laughing a lot about though..."ahhhh touristas ha ha haaa"

Not much else was done apart from eat and sleep - ooh - except we went to an Anatomy Museum set up by the local University.. I got a little freaked out by the vast collection of REAL (and hairy) fetuses - some 38 weeks, some with different diseases and malformations. No cameras allowed though - like most museums around here.

Snuck this one while walking past, real head with nerves, veins etc painted different colors.

Bolivia was an awesome country, many cool things to see and do. We were a bit scared to visit the San Pedro prison that will feature in a film to be realeased in 2012 called Marching Powder. The 'tours' of the jail are illegal and can be organised by calling someone who is a prisoner in the jail. (Check out wikipedia for more info).  The Salt Flats, Amazon and Lake Titicaca are all great places to visit and is surprising that the country doesn't see more tourists.  

Hasta la vista Bolivia.... y Bienvenidos a Argentina!