South America reflection

11 flights, 5 countries, 4 ferries rides, 3 train rides, countless footsteps and priceless memories, as this globetrotter puts another trip behind her, it’s hard to sum up this trip. It was absolutely amazing and I think that’s an understatement. I got to see so many things that left me in utter wonderment. I got to see the Iguassu Falls, a natural wonder. I got to hike Machu Picchu, a man-made wonder. I got to experience new things, like watching a football game live in Sao Paulo or watching a Tango show in Buenos Aires. I got to see nature at its finest. I got to try really tasty food. I got to experience some different cultures and got to witness firsthand the hardships of life. I experienced many emotions, some of which I have already shared and others which I will keep to myself. All I can say is that I am blessed and am trying to learn to appreciate that my life is pretty good.

The bug remains itchy, so until next time…

Lima

The pants are fitting a little looser and surprisingly I haven’t felt any homesickness. In fact as we arrive in Lima, the last leg of this absolutely amazing trip, I‘m wishing it wasn‘t coming to an end. What can I do to extend my stay?

Lima is the capital of Peru and is a very big city. The city has a population of over 7.6 million and it’s quite evident that there’s a big gap between rich and poor. You see businesses and residences behind gated fences, some even with electric fences. Lima is also rather polluted and you can see a haze over the skyline; somewhat ruins what would have been a beautiful sunset.

The weather has been great since arriving in Peru and it continues during our stay in Lima. I must admit that I have enjoyed the smaller cities and towns more than the big cities. Lima has been infiltrated by American food chains; Starbucks, McDonald’s, Dunkin Donuts, KFC are the ones I saw plenty of. Thankfully we didn’t eat at any of them.

Peruvian cuisine is awesome!! I’ve been drinking fresh pina (pineapple) juice at every opportunity….I tried cactus fruit for the first time; both the green and purple type. These are really good, except the seeds are a little difficult to eat. Another Peruvian dish that proved to be quite tasty is Causitas del Campo; this is a great appetizer type dish. It’s made of one of the many types of potatoes found in Peru. It was served as three round mounds of mash potatoes and each had a different topping such as chicken, avocado, and diced tomatoes. Very tasty. There was another dish called Causitas del Pollo which is a variety of the other and was basically two layers of mashed potatoes with a chicken salad mixture in the middle. I want to try and recreate this one at some point.

We stayed in an area called Miraflores, which is one of the more upscale neighbourhoods. It’s situated right by the water. They are in the process of building a waterfront area/promenade with a seawall and beach access. Unfortunately it was all under construction while we were there and getting to the beach seemed too difficult. I’m sure one day it will look wonderful. We stopped at Larcomar shopping mall which is built right into the oceanfront cliffs in Miraflores. It was quite a spectacular view to the ocean from here.

Our second day was spent checking out Central Lima in the morning and early afternoon. We made our way to the central square and wanted to watch the changing of the guards at the government palace. Instead we found a book fair going on. We only had the rest of this day before flying back home on the red-eye, so after lunch we decided we would head over to Huaca Pucllana. This is an active archaeological site with ongoing excavations and is found right in the middle of the city. Thankfully the site is now preserved, but who knows how much was lost with the development that occurred in its immediate vicinity; prime real estate, I guess. This site dates back to between 200 A.D. and 700 A.D., so pre-Inca. It was used by the Wari as a ceremonial and administrative centre. It is built with clay hand-made bricks and it’s amazing to see how it has survived the test of time. It doesn’t really rain in Lima, which also helps not wash away these structures.

Once our tour was over at Huaca Pucllana, we decided to walk around Miraflores a little more before packing it in and heading to the airport. We found ourselves a café called Café Z and enjoyed some Peruvian coffee and dessert while listening to some live reggae music... covers of Bob Marley and Simon and Garfunkel in Lima. I guess it was a sign it was time to come home.

Cusco

There is no doubt that Cusco is a tourist town. You constantly have people approaching you trying to sell you anything and everything on the street. Once, you say “no thank-you” however, they do leave you alone. There are taxis everywhere as well ready and willing to take you wherever you want to go. You have to negotiate the taxi fares upfront as the taxis are not metered. The city has a great history tying back to the Inca times, but there is not enough space to go into details. The city is surrounded by many Inca ruins and deserves an extended stay here just to visit all the sites. We did not have enough time for all the sites, and ended up picking Tipon. The Tipon ruins are challenging to get to. We hired a taxi to take us there and back. Once in Tipon, the ride up to the ruins is a very uneven, bumpy one-way dirt road. Our driver was great in navigating up the road and he waited an hour for us while we toured around the site. We hired a guide, who we discovered is studying archaeology. This site was amazing and represents an irrigation system with fountains and water channels. It’s disputed whether this was an agricultural centre or a water temple; either way it‘s an amazing site. Water for half of the site is fed by an underground spring and still runs today. The other half was fed by a nearby glacier and unfortunately this glacier no longer exists. The site is situated on a mountain side and our guide explained that each terrace level has a slightly different temperature given the elevation. This site is absolutely impressive.

Cusco the city is full of museums, restaurants and plazas. The roads are mainly cobblestone, but some of the major streets are paved. The infrastructure in sections could really use some work as there are pot holes everywhere. To control traffic speed, there are speed bumps placed along the roads at what appears to be random places. Traffic here is quite chaotic by our standards. While it looks like there are lines painted for lanes on some roads, the cars seem to just drive wherever they can find room. We never witnessed an accident though. There is a lot of horn honking going on.

The market in Cusco is well worth a visit and we were warned to be aware of pickpockets. This is true of any market you go to and being away of your surroundings is always important. The market here also serves the locals and provides not only handcrafted items but food items, including meat, cheese, fruits, vegetables, etc., spices, toiletries and so much more. We found the prices reasonable and bargaining is always recommended.

We both tried some local Peruvian dishes here. Z tried the guinea pig, or coy as it’s called here. I just couldn’t stomach trying this as all I could think about was my pet guinea pigs growing up and that somehow Z was eating a cousin of Charlie. He said it was alright, but probably wouldn’t order it again. I tried the Lomo Saltaldo, which is a very flavourful, tasty beef dish that I think rivals that of the beef in Argentina. In addition to the beef, it is mixed with onions, peas and tomatoes, kinda like a stir fry. YUM!!

To give a better idea of how cheap things are down here, we purchased a travel four pack of Kleenex brand tissues and it cost us the equivalent of $0.88USD. It’s insane at how low the prices are down here compared to back home. I'm sure these prices though aren't that low for the average working Peruvian.

We ended our experience in Cusco with a cultural show which was part of a tourist card we purchased. The tourist card cost $130 soles each ($46CAD) and provides admission to several different museums and quite a few of the Inca ruins immediately surrounding Cusco. Anyway, this cultural show was incredible. They had local music and dancing with very elaborate costumes. It was a great way to end this leg of the journey. Cusco is a very beautiful city with a lot of Spanish influence and probably requires at least five days to fully appreciate and explore.

Next up…Lima.

Pictures of Machu Picchu

Wayna Picchu and Machu Picchu

What an incredible day this turned out to be. We had read about Wayna Picchu in the guide book and how they only allow 400 people into this site a day. We (and by we, I mean Z) was eager to make sure we got to this part because the hike is to a prominent peak which gives you amazing panoramic views of the Machu Picchu site and the surrounding Andes mountains. So, the day started with a 5am wake up so we could get ready and on one of the early buses up to Machu Picchu; the buses are on a first come, first serve basis even with a bus ticket. The bus ride is about 30 minutes and winds up the mountainside with some crazy hairpin turns; there aren’t a lot of guardrails and you’re sometimes looking straight down a cliff. Thankfully the driver was experienced and manoeuvred through the dirt road with great skill.

We arrived and quickly walked to the guarded kiosk controlling entry to Wayna Picchu. It opens up at 7am and we were there just as it was opening…..turns out we were entrants 32 and 33...guess we didn’t need to get up that early after all, perhaps in peak season. This hike was mostly straight up the mountain to the peak. Now, before I go on, Machu Picchu is situated at about 2500 metres and so this sea-level city girl had a little difficulty with the thin air. Thankfully, I acclimatized during our stop over in La Paz, but still hiking at this altitude did take my breath away. I was quite winded anytime we had to ascend up a bunch of nature‘s stairs. It took us just over an hour to reach the peak. This peak is probably a couple hundred metres higher than Machu Picchu itself ,but unfortunately there was nothing the altitude here. As it was still very early in the morning, the clouds were still blocking most of the view across to the citadel; but we did get a few good glimpses. There is a cave we wanted to check out as well, so on we went to find it. The weather was actually perfect for this hike because it was overcast so we did not have to contend with rain or extreme sun/heat. What we didn’t quite expect was the amount of time it would take to reach the cave, mostly because I needed to go slow. This hike is not for the faint hearted to say the least. At times I felt like my heart was going to explode it was beating so fast. The other thing that I chose to ignore was that climbing down the mountain to the cave meant eventually we’d have to climb back up again. The pathways are in quite good condition thankfully and they do a good job in maintaining the site overall. The trail leading to and from the cave took us virtually around this mountain peak, going practically all the way down to the bottom by the river and back up again…it took us a good 4 hours to complete. The cave was quite cool and looks like it was inhabited a very long time ago. People were leaving Inuksuk-like statues there, so we made ours and left back to climb up the mountain. I think I climbed enough of nature’s stairs on this hike to last me for awhile. The scenery was absolutely incredible though and while I was quite disheartened at times seeing yet another set of stairs, it was definitely worth it. It’s not every day you get a chance to hike around in the Andes Mountains.

We had read that you are not supposed to bring water or food into the ruins. This is not exactly accurate information. You are able to bring small items of food and water along, but are supposed to only leave footprints and take all your belongings out with you. It’s a good thing that we asked about the water, because I would have died on this hike if we didn’t have water and a granola bar along. As you can imagine, we were both quite hungry after hiking Wayna Picchu so we head to the snack bar for a quick lunch before heading back into to explore the Inca ruins. Prices at the snack bar are a little over inflated, but not unreasonable once you factor in the exchange rate of 1 to 2.8.

Machu Picchu is definitely worth the title of one of the 7 Wonders of the World. These ruins are very well preserved. I was absolutely astonished at how the Inca people build this citadel. I think they were quite a sophisticated society for their time. We learned the Inca people existed from about 1200 to 1500 A.D. and during this time built Machu Picchu and many other habitats in the surrounding Cusco area, known as the Sacred Valley. I was amazed at their precision in building the walls for their buildings. The large stones are all intricately placed without mortar and there are no gaps. Each stone block lines up perfectly. I was fascinated by these walls. The ancient city of Machu Picchu was well laid out according to the ruins. They had their agricultural terraces, which also served to provide stability for the city, a scared temple, their astrological area which helped them determine the seasons depending on sun position, their living areas and an impressive water system that ran throughout. This place is very tranquil as well. You can just sit there and take in nature’s surrounding beauty of all the mountain ranges, the river and valley below for hours. We are truly blessed to be living on such a beautiful planet. Hiking and exploring Machu Picchu was well worth the physical pain and exhaustion I felt once the day was done.

Machu Picchu Pueblo, the town where you stay if you overnight, is a tourist driven town for sure. The restaurants cater to tourists and have wide ranging types of menus to satisfy any appetite. We stayed at Hostel Chaska, which is situated relatively close to the train station. Our host was Marta and she spoke only Spanish. She was fabulous and was available basically anytime you needed something. Breakfast was included, and she would have it prepared at whatever time you requested. So the early 5am wake-up had breakfast waiting for us and she was sitting there when we returned from the ruins at around 5pm with her friendly smile and greeting. This place was clean and great to stay at; it‘s across the creek away from the main area so is rather quiet. The town itself is split by a creek running into the river. There are markets all over the town, with one just a short distance from where we were staying. Across the creek you find many restaurants and more market shops. The town is situated in the mountains so having to walk uphill is unavoidable. This proved to be problematic for me after returning from our Machu Picchu adventure. It is still low season and so restaurants in particular are all vying for the limited business. We ate at two great restaurants and like many places in South America were seated outside. The entire experience was extremely memorable. I’m glad it re-opened in time for our trip. I know I would have been rather disappointed if we travelled all this way and were unable to visit this magnificent place.

Cusco to Machu Picchu and back again

We arrived in Cusco from La Paz early Sunday morning. First, we needed to make our way to the INC office to buy the entry tickets to Machu Picchu so we could board the train out of Piscacucho, or so we thought. We had not pre-booked transportation for this leg of the trip because it was all a little confusing what the transportation would be. The train to Machu Picchu, before the mudslide, originated in Cusco and that would have made things easy. Now, when Z booked our train tickets, we learned we needed to make our way to Ollantaytambo and would be able to take a bus from there to Piscacucho. Right before leaving for our trip however, Z read that this bus was not running after all and that we would have to make our own way to Piscacucho to catch the train.

We found ourselves a taxi and requested he take us to the Instituto Nacional de Cultural (INC) office only to find out that on Sundays they do not sell tickets to Machu Picchu and that it didn’t matter, we could buy them when we arrived in Machu Picchu Pueblo. Now the focus shifted to figuring out how to get to Piscachcho. As it so happens, our taxi driver who only speaks Spanish, realized our situation and offered to drive us and along the way give us a tour of some of the surrounding towns. He would charge us $170 soles (about $61CAD) for this trip, which took about 5 hours.

Our taxi driver, Hermenegildo, was great. At one point Z was starting to get a little car sick and asked if he could sit up front. Hermenegildo had no issues with that. He pulled over, got out and went into a field across the street and picked some leaves; unfortunately I can‘t remember what they are called. He explained that we should smell them and it would help calm any upset stomach. It seemed to work and even if it was all a matter of the mind, the leaves smelled nice.

This road trip was great because I think we got to see parts of the countryside that we would not have seen had we been on a bus. The ride was relaxing and our driver would stop whenever we wanted to take pictures. Him and Z got to talking up a storm even though Z didn’t always understand everything. The countryside is beautiful and very scenic with rolling hills and valleys amongst the mountain ranges. We learned that two of Peru’s main agricultural exports are corn and potatoes. In fact, our driver told us they have over 80 varieties of potatoes; that’s incredible and we got to see a few of those varieties in the local markets. The livestock could often be seen grazing along the roadside. There are also Inca ruins scattered all along Cusco and the Sacred Valley. I really noticed how majestic a presence the Andes Mountains and surrounding mountains have in this area.

We stopped along the way at several markets and got to see the local crafts being made firsthand. Here is where I noticed how beautiful the Peruvian women are dressed in their traditional dress. And the children always looked happy and excited with lots of energy. They truly looked excited to see you. One thing I really noticed in Peru is that the people seem content despite their hard lives. They always had smiles on their faces; something that I can say I didn’t noticed in Brasil or Argentina. The Peruvian people have a very distinct look; they are a beautiful people. I enjoyed being around them the most out of the places we visited.

We stopped in Chinchero, which had a very large market. We noticed the locals shop at this market as well, which is always a good sign. We bought some cool souvenirs and snacks items for the rest of the trip. We also drove through Urubamba and stopped for lunch in Ollantaytambo.

We had an awesome lunch in Ollantaytambo. There is a restaurant there called Heart’s Café, where I had a very tasty lentil/vegetable soup. At this point I was still recovering from my bout of sickness and didn’t want anything too heavy. Z had a grilled cheese with tomatoes and pesto. This too was very tasty. This restaurant was started by a lady from the UK who upon visiting Peru felt it her call of duty to try and help the plight of the women. She opened the café in 2007 and all profits go to developing programs teaching health, nutrition, education, etc. in the Scared Valley. What a wonderful cause! I was very happy to have eaten there.

After lunch it was off for the remainder of our ride to the train station. The road for the remainder of the way was either a very bumpy cobble-stoned or dirt road. Our driver was good at navigating this one-way road, especially when oncoming traffic was present.

Our driver offered to pick us up for the return trip and again was willing to give us a bit of a tour ride back; this time the cost was $200 soles ($71CAD) and the trip was about 8 hours in total. We agreed because we had such a good trip heading out and preferred this over taking a bus, which we found out after the fact was actually operating. This time our driver was going to take us to Pisac, which is another Inca ruin that he said was “fantastico!!”. Two days later, there he was waiting for us when the train pulled in with the sign Z made for him. On the way back, we got to really see the devastation caused by the rains and mudslides that occurred in January/February. There was debris everywhere still even though rebuilding and clean-up was going on. We had to cross over a temporary bridge at one point because the original bridge was washed out and the town on the other side was without access for a few days. We got some really good views of the mighty Rio Urubamba which caused all this damage.

Pisac was a good site, though I’m not sure it rivals Machu Picchu as we were told it should. It’s still an amazing ruin and also has pre-Inca, specifically Wari, structures. The tour here took about an hour and a half and our driver waited for us during this time.

As we approached Cusco, I could feel a headache coming on which is attributed to mountain sickness. It probably took between 12 and 15 hours to acclimatize and again thankfully most of that occurred while sleeping.

Pictures

Cathedral door, Buenos Aires:
Government house, Buenos Aires:

Ave 9 de Julio, Buenos Aires:

La Boca wall mural:

Buildings in La Boca:

Pit Stop in La Paz, Bolivia

Our flight to La Paz left in the afternoon and I was still feeling rather weak. But there was no choice, I needed to be ready for this flight and the following day’s lengthy travelling to Machu Picchu. We flew Aerosul this time and again was impressed with their efficiency and getting the flight out on time. It actually looked like we wouldn’t be leaving on time when all of a sudden, we boarded the flight 15 minutes before scheduled departure time and were in the air on time. The flight to La Paz actually connected through Santa Cruz de la Sierra where we would first have to clear immigration. Our connection time was rather short so we booked it off the flight into a rather slow, long moving immigration line. Our next flight was already boarding while we were still in line, but we made it, despite my slight panicking, and were on our way to El Alto airport, which sits at about 4,000 metres above sea level. The air is quite thin up there and quite quickly we both found ourselves experiencing headaches. The worst thing to do in this situation is take headache remedy medication. So I had to battle through this one and I don't do well with headaches.

We arrived at night and took a taxi to the hotel, which was about a 30 minute drive; it cost us $10USD. Despite this being just an overnight stop over, I would have to say this is probably the most impoverished country during this trip. La Paz city is built in amongst the Andes mountains, is very spread out and very hilly. We saw a lot of people out and about; it was a Saturday night.

The air is very thin up here and I found myself short of breath quite often. We only had the evening, so we thought we’d take a taxi to the main square to get a glimpse. There was a market going on as well and we wandered through for a bit before heading back. One of the natural remedies in fighting mountain sickness is drinking Tea de Coca, or even eating just the coca leaves. We downed a couple glasses of tea before calling it a night. I felt much better the next morning, while Z was still battling a headache. Early morning flight to Cusco meant we didn’t have time to explore the city at all and I really think we missed out here. The drive back to the airport in daylight revealed a very beautiful site.

Our pit stop in La Paz originated because we (and by that I meant Z) found that it was cheaper to buy a round-trip ticket from Buenos Aires to La Paz and then buying a one-way ticket from La Paz to Cusco, rather than flying to Lima and backtracking to Cusco. Exploring Bolivia was also our back up option in case Machu Picchu wasn’t open yet after the devastating rains and mudslide that happened in January/February.

Buenos Aires - Part 3

Our last full day was a sunny Friday. Unfortunately, this day was plagued with a couple of unexpected and uncontrollable mishaps. I got sick overnight after returning from Uruguay. I’m not sure if it was a bout of stomach flu or food poisoning but I could not keep anything down. I had no energy and even drinking water was not making me feel better. This was not good because this was the day we really needed to hydrate for the next leg of the journey which was travelling to La Paz, which is at an altitude between 3,500 and 4,000 metres on our way to Cusco. I eventually managed to muster up enough energy around noon to go with Z to the area of Recoleta. It was relatively easy getting there by bus once we found the bus stop. This is an upper-class neighbourhood and the home of Recoleta Cemetery, the resting place of Eva Paron. We walked around the cemetery for awhile astonished at all the intricate mausoleums. I was losing energy fast, so we did not stay there for long. There is a nice park just outside the cemetery and we found a great resting place on the grass. Because of how I was feeling, we missed out on exploring more of the area including Palermo. I had really wanted to explore this area, but just couldn’t. I spent the rest of the day and evening back at the hostel in bed. What a way to spend a Friday evening in Buenos Aires! L Z being the caring, attentive person he is, was quite concerned about my condition. While I insisted he go out on explore the waterfront area, I’m sure he was thinking about how I was the entire time. He brought me back some Gatorade and chicken soup packages and went off to boil some water for me. This is where the second mishap occurs. While boiling the water, the lid of the kettle fell off and burned one of his fingers quite badly. I felt so guilty about his mishap, but he tried to take it in stride despite the pain. What a great guy! Apparently this evening Calle Florida was turning into a market area with street vendors, street performers and even some tango dancers. What a shame to have missed out on that.

There is so much to see in Buenos Aires, it’s hard to keep track which little neighbourhoods we wandered through, but in Plaza de Mayo there is the Catedral Metropolitana, which from the outside you would never guess was a cathedral. The building is rather non-descript. We found ourselves in the door and window museum at one point. Yes, we thought it was unusual to have a museum dedicated to the history of city doors and windows, but when you actually take the time to look at the architecture of the buildings around you quickly come to realize that the entrance doors to most buildings (banks, government buildings, etc.) are quite ornate and very tall. In this area of town you also get to see Casa Rosada, the home of the offices of the president and the executive branch of government. This building has been painted pink, of all colours, but they had wanted it to look like the White House without painting it white. Across the street here is the National Bank of Argentina and the atrium is supposed to be a sight to see, but we arrived too late to be let in….darn banker’s hours!

Avenida Corrientes, which was just a block away from where we were staying is a really fascinating street with cinemas, shops, and eateries. This street leads you to the famed Avenida 9 de Julio. The area known as Montserrat is where we had lunch after returning from La Boca. This area is all cobble-stoned and is the oldest suburb of the city. Some history here, it was the most popular part of the city until a yellow fever outbreak in the 19th century which forced wealthy families to move to the area of Palermo.

Another place that is worth a visit is Café Tortoni. This café originally opened in 1858 and is the country’s oldest café. It’s situated on Avenida de Mayo. The interior of this café was incredible; they have marble tables, art on the walls, lovely architecture and columns. You can just feel this place has a fabulous atmosphere. The waiters are elegantly dressed with dark pants, white shirt and bow ties. They also have Tango shows in the evenings. We stopped here for a coffee and tea.

Must dos in Argentina: eat lots of beef, it tastes so incredible; drink wine, it’s fantastic and cheap; see a good Tango show, you’ll be blown away.

Side step to Uruguay

The ferry to Colonia del Sacremento left port at 9:30am. It was of course raining in the morning, but we decided to make use of the heal-toe express anyway and walk the 10 or so blocks. The process of check-in felt like we were in an airport. We had to clear security and considering we were leaving Argentina for the day and entering Uruguay had to go through immigration. It was actually more of a formality than anything. Another stamp for the passport. The ferry left on time and the 40 km distance between the two countries took three hours; we had booked the slow ferry. The other option was for a one hour ferry ride, but that would have cost about double the price. So we settled into our first class seats, which reclined nicely, and I got some shut eye for a good portion of the sailing. We docked in Colonia and the rain had stopped. I was so elated, but the draw back was that it was extremely windy. But that was better than the rain and we only had the day, so onward and forward. Colonia is a small seaside town. It was originally a 17th century Portuguese smuggling port designed to disrupt the Spanish base in Buenos Aires. It’s a quaint, picturesque little place. The architecture in this town consists of a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese because these two had battled long for control over the town. In fact, as our guide informed us, the Basilica of the Holy Sacrament was destroyed and rebuilt seven times, and each time either the Spanish or Portuguese rebuilt it using their own style. Today, you can definitely see the striking difference in a couple of the exterior walls. Once pointed out, you can tell the two architecture styles in the buildings in the “Portuguese part” of town. The buildings are all older, and there is not much in the way of modern building here. The beaches look really nice here, but the water was rather dirty.

Before joining up with our tour guide in the afternoon, we wandered around the town and found an artisan’s market. They had some really neat handcrafted things for sale here. The town is really not that large, there aren’t even any traffic lights. So after we saw everything without going into the area where our city tour would take us, we decided we’d have some real lunch because what was provided wasn’t overly substantial. We found this great restaurant called Mercursor and they were offering a lunch of the day. Ziad had been wanting to try a restaurant with a lunch of the day ever since we arrived in Buenos Aires, so we took the opportunity to try it here. It’s a set menu lunch for a set price. In this case, it cost us $20USD total, including a generous tip, and considering the exchange rate is about 1 to 19 it was a steal of a deal! The set lunch menu consisted of a drink, a cream of vegetable soup as an appetizer, a hearty beef with vegetable stew as the main course and a flan with cappuccino for dessert. The stew was to die for.

Some facts our guide told us about Uruguay that I found interesting: it’s the smallest Spanish country in South America, the population is 3.5 million and agriculture and cattle raising are the main industries. There is a population of about 15 million cows and sheep, which highly out numbers the human population. The Uruguayans, just like the Argentineans, enjoy drinking their maté and you can see people carrying around thermoses and their special maté cups around town. This drink is definitely an acquired taste and there are rules of etiquette and ritual involved in drinking. I tried a tea bag version (not the “real way) in Buenos Aires and absolutely hated it; it tasted awful, but Ziad actually liked it - not sure he’d feel the same about the real thing.

Remember, how I mentioned it was really windy? Well this caused a problem for the return ferry. Apparently, the water level was not high enough for us to leave because of the wind and we were stuck waiting for about an hour so the water level could rise. We did make it back to Argentina safely, quite a bit late, but it all worked out.

Buenos Aires - Part 2

Internet access has started being less accessible as we've moved on in our travels. Will post some pictures as soon as I a find strong reliable connection.

Our second day continued with the rain….seems like we are bringing the rain with us to all the major cities we are visiting. Thankfully the Iguassu Falls had fabulous weather. We decided to take the bus to an area called La Boca. We knew that the buses only took coin currency, of which we had none. These elusive coins were hard to come by. We stopped at the tourist information centre to find out which bus we needed to take and also asked where we could get coins. She pointed out the window to the building across the street and said “at the bank”. Now, I felt a little silly, being a banker, that I had not figured that one out. I guess I must really be in vacation mode. So we went into HSBC, the world’s local bank, and they happily exchanged bills into coins. Off we went by bus to La Boca. This area is home to the local football team, Boca Juniors. This is a quaint little area on the river. The buildings here date back to the 1950’s and are all brightly coloured. The streets are lined with restaurants and shops. It was rather slow in the area and right as we entered the main street, many of the restaurants had people out trying to entice people into their restaurants. Some of the restaurants had live tango dancing going on and I felt a little bad for the women in their dresses because it wasn’t that warm. The rain was a bit of a damper on this excursion, but it was fun nonetheless.

After we toured La Boca for awhile and purchased some little souvenirs at tourist prices, we headed back to downtown. We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant called La Continental Pizza y Empanadas where we dined on empanadas that only cost $4.50 pesos each. The food was good, but the service was really slow…might have been because it was a little busy in the restaurant or it was because the waitress was a little disorganized.

I noticed that many of the streets in Buenos Aires are named after neighbouring countries, like Chile, Brasil, Peru, etc. The streets are mainly made of brick-type materials and are quite uneven, though the sidewalks are in much better condition than they were in Brasil. Unfortunately, there is a lot of graffiti in the city and several of the historic monuments we walked by were defaced; it was rather sad to see.

We found ourselves at Plaza de Mayo. This plaza has a long and sometimes dark history to it. It is the centre of many demonstrations and protests. In fact, we saw a bunch of signs hanging around the plaza, but were unsure what they were for. In our walking around we also encountered a peaceful demonstration by the food worker’s union, or so we think that was the group, marching along Avenida 9 de Julio. Apparently protests and demonstrations are quite common in the city.

Avenida 9 de Julio is a site to see. This is a 16-lane street and claims to be the world’s widest avenue. There lanes also appeared busy regardless the time of day. Pedestrians are able to cross at several crosswalks, but it takes more than one light to get across, so there are three islands for you to wait. In the middle of this majestic traffic corridor is a plaza with obelisk.

Aside from Calle Florida, there are many other pedestrian only streets, like Lavelle. Again, this street is lined with many shops and cafes/restaurants. There is no shortage of shopping in Buenos Aires, that’s for sure.

The rain didn’t seem to want to let up, and we had talked about taking a day trip over to Uruguay. So we looked into doing that on our second to last full day in Buenos Aires. We found a company by the name of Buquebus which had an online deal for the ferry ride and return, a sandwich lunch and a city tour all for $324 pesos, and we noticed we could get a first class ferry ticket for the same price. So what does one do about that? We booked the first class ticket of course!

Buenos Aires - Part 1

Buenos Aires is known as the Paris of South America. We arrived in Buenos Aires on Tuesday and were greeted with rain. Thankfully we kept our treasured Brasilian umbrella. We are staying at Hostel Florida right in the middle of Calle Florida which is a long pedestrian corridor that runs across the downtown area. The street is lined with shops, street vendors, buskers and performers. This corridor has about one million people walk it each day. It gets really crowded at the peak times. Our hostel is more of what I would call a traditional hostel, compared to the others we have stayed at during this trip. It’s quite large with about 80 rooms consisting of private and dormitory style. We found the location to be very central and convenient for our stay. A couple blocks up from the hostel is the Galerias Pacifico, an impressive shopping centre with many familiar name brand stores. The architecture of this shopping centre is amazing and is of colonial style. A little further down is the San Martin park. Buenos Aires has a lot of green space, which is really nice to see for such a large city. I have to also point out that at the end of the block by the hostel is a three-level Burger King. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Having just arrived and with it raining, we weren't quite sure what to do our first evening. We noticed on the activity board at the hostel that they could arrange a Tango evening. Besides the beef and wine, Argentina is famous for this sultry dance. I had wanted to see a tango show, so it worked out perfectly. We paid $398 pesos total (or about $105 CAD) for a three course meal and tango show at La Ventana. The interior of this place creates a very intimate setting for viewing the show. Let me say this…this was well worth it. We each has an appetizer, a steak cooked to perfection with potatoes, a dessert and a bottle of wine. After dinner we were entertained for about 1.5 hours by a wonderful show with amazing tango dancing, singing, folk dancing and music. I wish we had been allowed to take pictures, because I just can’t describe adequately how amazing this show was. They finished the show off with a heart-felt tribute to Eva Paron singing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” in Spanish. This was a great start to our 4 days in Buenos Aires.

Puerto Iguassu, Argentina

This is definitely a tourist town. There isn’t much time in the itinerary to check out the entire town because the main purpose for our stop here was to see the Argentina side of the Iguassu Falls and to get ourselves into Argentina. Another stamp in my passport, yeah!! After dropping our bags at the hotel, Evandro drove us to the falls. The Argentineans have done a great job of making their national park a great experience. They have plenty of places to grab a bite to eat, get something to drink, buy souvenirs and sit and rest if too tired. Considering we walked over 10km the previous day, I decided we’d take it a little easy at Puerto and take the park train to the main area of the trails to the falls, instead of walking the 650 metres. Again, this park has done a great job of organizing the walkways so that you can just follow the path to get to all the different vantage points. The Argentina side holds two-thirds of the 275 falls at Iguassu. We started at the top of the falls at Devil’s Throat, which is the border between Argentina and Brasil. This particular water fall was incredible. There is an impressive amount of water that flows from the upper Iguassu river and then drops about 70 metres into the lower river below. We observed the formation of little clouds from the mist of the falls. I was fascinated by that because I’ve never seen anything like that before. The sound of the rushing water was a warning that you didn’t want to be in the river, yet at the same time it had a somewhat soothing effect on me. I love listening to the ocean waves and the trickling of creeks and rivers so perhaps that’s where I got that feeling from. The Iguassu forest is home to more than 2000 species of plants and over 400 bird species. We saw a really beautiful blue and black bird, which I think was a type of woodpecker. We also saw many different and gorgeous butterflies again. The upper and lower circuit allowed us to see countless more waterfalls. I never grew tired of taking pictures because this is truly an amazing natural wonder. We were also treated to viewing several rainbows which you could see so clearly and have turned out wonderfully in pictures. Unfortunately I couldn’t go looking for the pot of gold at the end of them because they ended in the waters below. The only part of the park that we were unable to enjoy was a boat ride over to San Martin Island because the river was too high. I have to say it again, if ever in either Brasil or Argentina, a visit to Iguassu Falls is a must.

In the evening, we had a great dinner at a restaurant across the street from our hotel. As we walked along the street, each restaurant had their menu posted with someone standing there trying to entice you to eat at their restaurant. I guess businesses are really hurting in the low season. We were offered free drinks and discounts at two separate restaurants. I guess there is some advantage in travelling in the low season. Our dinner was fabulous. For $143 pesos (or $38 CAD), which included a tip, Ziad had fillet minion with rice and vegetables, while I had veal (the piece was huge) with mashed potatoes. We also shared a bottle of wine, had a bottle of water and dessert to boot. Great deal, great food….the beef and wine are amazing here. There was live entertainment as well that consisted of three locals playing guitar and wooden wind-pipe instruments, and we got to sit on the second floor patio under the stars. How lovely is that?

Iguassu Bird Park

My parents highly recommended a visit to the Bird Park in Brasil, which is a short distance from the falls. We had totally overlooked this as our guide book didn’t have much to say about; should have taken the Lonely Planet book after all. I guess that call home to say “hi” came at a really good time. Because we had booked the full day tour on the Brasil side of the falls, we were unable to fit in a visit to the bird park at the same time. So we decided we would go first thing in the morning on the day heading into Argentina. Boy are we ever glad we did. The park was not too busy and the birds were just finished being fed. The bird park is situated in 5 hectares of native subtropical forest. There are over 800 birds, both indigenous and from other countries. Some of the birds are encaged, however, there are also parts where you walk through a larger enclosure where the birds fly more freely. One enclosure housed a variety of parrots, which got kicks out of dive-bombing the tourists trying to take pictures. Ziad got clipped by the wing of one parrot as he was filming some video. There were lots of multi-coloured brilliant red, yellow, green and blue parrots. We got to see flamingos and I was fascinated at their ability to balance on just one leg while sleeping; their legs are so thin! We saw a gorgeous blue-jay, a bunch of toucans which Ziad got extremely excited about. He just wanted to take pictures and pictures of the toucans; we have about 20 pictures with toucans in them. The park also houses owls, eagles, a king vulture, hummingbirds and a bunch of other bird species that I did not recognize. There are also some not so exciting reptiles like an anaconda, boa constrictor and an alligator. It took us just over an hour to tour the park and was well worth it. If you like nature and the songs of birds, this is a place to visit.

Iguassu

Words cannot adequately describe the magnificence of the Iguassu Falls. These pictures do not do it justice. The falls are one of the world's greatest natural phenomena. This spectacular site consists of a waterfall system of 275 falls which border Brasil and Argentina. This is a must see because I was just so awestruck and amazed at the site and honestly cannot provide the words to describe its stunning beauty and wonder.

We chose to do an eco-tour at Iguassu National Park. The day started off with a 9.6km walk through the sub-tropical forest. It was a pleasant walk and I got to see my first monkey in the wild. Actually along the way, we managed to see quite a few monkeys. It's quite spectacular how these animals swing through the trees with such quick speed. Our guide told us that the park is about 185,000 hectares and is now only about 7% of the original size; truly unfortunate. In the forest, there are many different animals including 41 different types of snakes; thankfully we didn't get to see a single one. We saw many species of spiders, again not my favourite. We also saw a wild rabbit, multitudes of extremely colourful butterflies and some coati, which are cousins to the racoon. The forest is also home to jaguars and pumas, both of which are nocturnal animals. After this lovely walk, we got into a boat and went for a boat ride. Here I got to see my first live alligator sunbathing on the banks. This boat ride also included an opportunity to kayak part of the river. I originally had planned to do the kayak part, but then chickened out when I discovered that the river housed alligators and snakes so I stayed on the boat. The next part of this day tour was a safari, which included a ride through the forest down to the riverbank. Our guide at one point mentioned that the temperature can reach up to 47 degrees Celsius. Thankfully we're travelling during the "low season" as I cannot imagine what 47C would feel like. It's a different type of heat here because of the humidity. This next part of the tour was an up close and personal visit with the falls. We boarded a motorized raft and cruised out to the falls for some great photo ops. What happened next was the best part of the entire tour.....we were taken right into one of the many falls and got a great drenching. It was so cool. We were warned about getting soaked during this part, and getting soaked is an understatement of what exactly happens. Thankfully the sun was still warm and shining so I could dry off because I didn't bring a complete change of clothes with me.

We stayed at Charm Suites in Foz do Iguassu. Our host here was Marcio. This is a great hostel; very clean, with friendly and helpful staff. It was a great find and I highly recommended as a place to stay. The rate included breakfast, which was basic, but really good. We've discovered that the Brasilians like to serve little cakes at breakfast time along with the rest of your breakfast options which usually consists of a selection of breads, cereal, fruit and sometimes hot foods. I'm not sure if the little cakes is a Brasilian thing or catering to some other culture. Either way it's kinda neat that I can now justify eating cake for breakfast. Marcio arranged an airport pickup for us. Our driver was Evandro. Marcio also helped arrange our day tour at Iguassu Falls and drop off service to Argentina. Evandro was our driver for both these trips. He was really good and loved to drive really fast. It felt like we had our own personal chauffeur. He didn't speak English and with our limited Portuguese sometimes things got lost in translation, but we managed. The Argentina drop off service was great because it brought us to the hotel in Argentina so we could drop off our back packs and then took us to the Argentina side of Iguassu Falls where we got to spend a good 5 hours exploring this side. Evandro then picked us up from the falls and delivered us back to our hotel. What great service.

Some pictures

Curitiba Botanical Gardens:

Hanging out at Luz Park in Sao Paulo:
Sunset coming back from Ilha do Mel:

Waiting for the ferry in Paranagua:
Atlantic forest train ride to Morretes: