Punta Del Este

Punta del Este is a beach city modeled on Miami as it appeared in the early 80's. Geometric brick highrises are sprinkled liberally over the peninsula and surrounding areas. It has the synthetic look and feel of any mid-sized city which exists solely for the summer month tourists. When we arrived, the off-season was in full swing, so barely a soul wandered the pebblecrete pavements or browsed the designer shops. However, plenty of old women were on hand to read our palms or receive money 'for the baby' (theirs, not ours).

I finally had my first surf in South America, and it was cold. The waves were definitely nothing special, but they were brown and tasted like riverwater.


Scooterising Punta Del Este.





Along with our Danish friend Isak, we hired a trio of mechanical ponies to explore the further reaches of this strange beach city. The little beasts were a blast- we zipped along the wide, smooth streets (all three had broken speedos, so I don't know how fast we were going) and had a look at Casa Pueblo, a huge mansion/hotel/museum, built on a hillside by a Uruguayan artist. The entire building was handmade; it had no straight lines or geometric curves. The whole structure is organic; fluorescent white under a stark Uruguayan sun. We also found the best bridge in the world, an exciting double-dip affair that Angie scootered over three times.

This confirmed for Angie that she will be purchasing a scooter upon returning home. One with a speedometer, though.

Uruguayan football etiquette 101

"Haha, look at this country- 'You are gay'"
-Homer (Simpson)

From Buenos Aires, we jumped aboard a ferry to float on over the brown River Plate. During the hour-long voyage I remembered a conversation I'd had a few days earlier...


While relaxing in the TV room in a BA hostel, we got chatting to a guy from Uruguay. Just like the rest of South America, Uruguay is obsessed with futbol. What does that mean for us? Well, one of those weird tidbits that my memory inexplicably chooses to file in a safe and easy to reach place relates to the last World Cup, when the Socceroos knocked out Uruguay in the qualifiers. Something the coach said about Uruguay having a God-given right to be a part of the World Cup sticks out... Anyway, how would the average Uruguano on the street (or in the hostel) feel about this? Time to find out...

The first time I brought the issue up of that game, our Uruguayan friend happily ignored the question, and recited each of the three years Uruguay had successfully captured the World Cup.

I pressed again. The reply this time was simply along the lines of '...yes, football is very important for my country...'. Just a nibble, but this fish wasn't biting hard enough. I'd come this far, I wanted to resolve the question, for science.

One more prod... and a cold stare chills the entire room. The words come slow and quiet on icy breath: 'Yes, we were knocked out by some... kangaroo team'. Absolute silence. Even the TV stopped making noise.

'..but it doesn't really matter to me anyway.'

This from someone who doesn't even profess to be interested in the game. Experiment successfully completed, I shut my mouth and resolve that if this issue ever comes up in Uruguay, it will be me who sidesteps the subject (and claiming New Zealand citizenship if need be).

The boat docked, we were hurried through a just-for-show bag inspection and put on board a bus bound for a Uruguayan beach.

Angie Eats a Steak.

Angie vs cow.

Oh, Dios Mio!- they never shut up about it here. Steak. Everyone. Steak steak steak. Its all people want to talk about. And when I can't enthuse? And have to drop the V-bomb? So many time I've seen the look of embarrassment, mistrust, shock, pity. Some people apologise, some can barely disguise the horror.

Anyway, we went out to dinner with a friend and Angie ate a steak. I agree- It was spectacular- a great hunk of cow you could use as a pillow. I was more impressed by the nine delicious and perfectly prepared side dishes- roasted garlic and onions, pumpkin mash, mushrooms, green vegetables among the mini side feast.

Who needs steak? (I can hear you frown)

Buenos Aires- Episode One

We spent two weeks in Buenos Aires. Was it really two weeks? What happened there? Bits and pieces, most of the highlights are on the blog already. It was good to get into a city for a while- get amongst the noise and the people and the thick grey air. The best part, for a pair of (most of the time) herbivores such as us, was the chance to have someone else cook- proper food, not cheese pizza (a new staple). We ate a few vegie or vegie-sympathetic houses, ranging from floppy all-you-can-eat bain marie galleries, to wholesome Krishna food (cheap and tasty worldwide), to exquisite sit on the floor African, to Chinese mock meat spice extravaganzas. In a country as obsessed with beef as Argentina, the city provides blessed culinary relief; food for the belly.

An Australian with British citizenship eating African food in an Argentinian restaurant.

Many days we'd just find ourselves wandering around the streets, exploring the endless grid of concrete. Plans would be drawn up sometimes, but usually scrapped once we got a few blocks from the hostel because our path crossed something else more interesting.

The police cars are not threatening.

It was nice have a double bed for sleep, encased in a private room, free from the sporadic and always disturbing sounds of leaving, arriving, packing and snoring. Eventually the ever-present background noise of the city got to me. Noise is absolutely inescapable in a tightly packed city like BA. It was everywhere, always. Sometimes loud, sometimes soft, often kicking you in the eardrums with a pair of steel-capped boots. The streets are narrow, with tiny sidewalks and busses constantly spewing blue gas and black sound. Walking along these streets feels like climbing through an industrial revolutionesque smoke machine- all sound and grinding gears.

At the moment this photo was taken, every single vehicle pictured was blasting its horn.

So we left- but just for a little while. There's still plenty of things to see and to do (and to have done to us). Just a little while to recharge in some fresh air and undiluted sunshine on a beach in Uruguay- a holiday.

The Edges of the Buenos Aires Sky

The Best time not to be in South America...

Oooohhhh, today I found out that one of my all-time favorite bands- Secret Chiefs 3- are currently in the middle of their first Australian tour in many, many years. I was almost sick when my darling brother broke the news that he had seen them in Sydney the other night. Waaah. So if you get the chance- go see them for me. Now I will go and listen to the Chiefs on the ipod and have a little cry. (aslo, I checked- there are no dates planned for South America)

Wandering Buenos Aires

How to amuse the kids while shopping- Buenos Aires style

This is the highest floor of the Abasto shopping mall, the largest cathedral of its kind in Buenos Aires. To placate the children who are unenthusiastic about capitalism, you can bring them here, where swinging pirate ships, dodgem cars, zeppelins on monorails and a rollercoaster emit a fierce golden sulfur glow. Infinitely more impressive than that plastic rocking car outside Woolies.

Recoletta Cemetery

Where Argentina's rich, famous and dead live in surrounds more luxurious than most of the hostels we've stayed in.

MALBA: Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires

Malba is a big white gallery full of fantastic art from the 20th/21st Century. It houses mainly work by Latin-American Artists, but there is also a mezmerising collection 60's and 70's of Op-Art, the biggest single collection I've seen on display anywhere. Grooooovy! No photography allowed inside, so Angie only managed to sneak in one photo (from the permanent collection I think):

Everyone loves Che

Outside the gallery a towering VU meter flashes in reaction to the level of ambient noise.

Botanical Gardens- Catland

In a strange throwback to Ancient Egyptian feline veneration, cats have free reign over these gardens on the outskirts of the CBD. Much to Angie's delight, there are literally hundreds of kitties lazing around and being brought food by the local people.

Kitties everywhere

Myself and this beast were equally surprised to find two human babies suckling at her teats.

Cheap Paris- The City not the Heiress

19 hours on a bus? Surely no amount of money saved can be worth that brand of prolonged stationary torture. In most countries, this is true. Not in Argentina. In Argentina time on a bus is time to unwind, be still and glow the same way you do when you've just done something really clever.

The seats are generous, three to a row and they recline 180 degrees with the grace of a timelapse flower blooming. Wine, coffee, champagne and whiskey served on takeoff, hot food, and from our seats at the very front of the upper level, a view over everything else on the road to where this elegant machine is taking its payload of 24 passengers, 1 driver and 1 attendant. Yes, this is first class travel, comparable to 1st class air travel (at least I assume it is), and for just $80AUD. (Shot taken during one of the multitude of hair-raising overtaking manoeuvres we witnessed from on high. I am convinced that Argentinian bus drivers possess eagle vision and can see around corners)

After I had a relaxing and luxurious 19 hour bus ride we arrived in Buenos Aires. Angie's 19 hours was less enjoyable than mine, due to a second assault by suspected food poisoning. BA is a huge city, 30 million people live there. We jumped in a cab to take us to our hostel right in the middle of the nest. Angie was still recovering, so I went out and had I minor explore of this new city.


The feeling of arriving in a new city is something that you only get and can only keep for perhaps a few hours, maybe a day. Its the precious first impression, the intensity of meeting a city for the first time which is unique. Everything is brand new, there is no point of reference and you can't rely on anything being familiar to centre yourself. Its a magnificent sensation of new, and you have to drink it in, because as soon as you turn a full block and end up back where you started, the brief moment of pure virgin experience is diluted, and you start to know the place.

This pigeon slept outside our room every night

Of course, the more you try to extend this moment of newness (by not concentrating too hard on where you're going of where you've been) the more likely you are to have set yourself up for a royal case of 'I'm lost and have no idea where home is'. Which of course a got an acute case of. After deciding that I had wandered the streets long enough and it was now getting too cold and too dark for me to be out here, I tried to turn back and experienced the downside of new. A really good way to extend that feeling of being new is to go walking around at night, because then your points of reference tend to be much fewer. But by all accounts, Buenos Aires is not a good place to be doing this sort of accidental exploring at night, because there are places which you just don't go (dangerous places). With the sun now down and a rising sense of paranoid tourist panic now bubbling away below, I quickened my step and thankfully, found a map outside the 'Subte' station (subway). After returning to it a couple of times I managed to find my way back to the hostel, inches of daylight remaining.

20 lanes of pure urgency

Now it was tourist time. Over the next few days we wandered around the city (Angie calls it Cheap Paris), feeling a little overwhelmed by the size of the whole thing. Our hostel was on Avenue 9 de Julio, the widest street in the world. It's 20 jam packed lanes wide, full of motorists keen to beat everyone else to the end of the road, wherever that is. They're so keen that they tend to squeeeeeze in between cars next to each other at the lights, so often there'll be two lanes painted on the road, but three vehicle nestled together inside those lanes, engines revving like dragsters in anticipation.

Acres of trinkets

At San Telmo, we went and saw the largest markets I have ever been to. It was a combination of street stalls, show halls and blankets on roads, selling every kind of tourist trinket imaginable (with a brutally heavily emphasis on tango-themed souvenirs) along with really fascinating antique treasures. In the four hours we spent walking the market, we backtracked once to buy some vintage postcards, but that was the only time we doubled up on seeing anything.

Bye bye Lakes District...

Next was a few more days of relaxing, sleeping in and thinking about our next move...

Hmmm....what to do? What to do?

A couple of days turned into several, one because Junin was such a pleasant little place to hang around, and two, because Angie ate something suspect, and fell victim to a violent and shambolic case of food poisoning, possibly a result from malicious lettuce, which kept her housebound for a couple of days.

Junin Hostel

Eventually, the time came to leave, so we mangled a goodbye to our hosts Marita and Aldo and set off back to San Martin where our bus options were greater. We had to decide whether to head North to Mendoza, East to Buenos Aires or to the coast region just South of Buenos Aires. BA, as it is abbreviated to by English speakers around here, was chosen because to was the easiest to get to, and for practical reasons, such as the necessity for another hearty round of inoculations and my need for smaller pants (good shopping there apparently). A bus was booked and we spent two days inside, hiding from incessant drizzle, venturing outside only once or twice when the weather momentarily ceased. On a grey Wednesday afternoon we left the Lakes District behind us as set off on the 19 hour bus ride to the Eastern side of Argentina.

Ascent to the bottom of Lanin

Lanin is a dormant 3500 metre volcano that can only be climbed by the very brave, experienced or rich. Its a two day ascent and the rangers check that you have the oodles of essential expensive knick-knacks before you start. For us mortals, a hike to the base of Lanin is the closest you get to all out ice-picks-raised-above-your-head-on-top-of-the-world glory. We prised ourselves from toasty sleeping bags in the cold, cold dark one morning to go and meet the sleeping beast.

Waiting for our bus at the terminal, we were treated to a display of 'how to start the bus when it's incredibly cold' Argentinian style. The first method, jumper leads, was familiar to us, as was the third (and successful) method of four men push it backwards through he carpark and clutch starting it. The second method was the one that really caught our attention. It involved dipping a large stick in petrol, lighting the stick and then holding said stick underneath the engine, I assume to warm up the various bits and pieces that get stubborn below freezing. I've never seen such a large flame next to fuel lines and oil filters, but for some reason, there was no explosion.

Lanin through the fog

Our bus, freed of its jump starting duties, was now available to take us on the surreal two hour ride into the Lanin National Park. The thick frost that had settled on the low bushes, combined with the thick fog that obscured all but the scenery very close to our bus, sucked all colour from the landscape. It felt as if we were driving through an unfinished painting, with parts of the background missing and the colour yet to be filled in. Inside the park, the clouds that were sitting, literally, on top of the lake had a voluminous quality that you can't see when they're a couple of kilometres up in the air. They actually looked like some sort of mistake, like they should splash into the lake as soon as someone realises they stuffed up and hung them too low.

Strange signs mark the start of the path...

We found the start of the walk and set off. We were previously advised by the Parques Nacional officer that the walk would take 4 hours up and 4 hours back. The bus had dropped us off about an hour late, and that had cut our window of walking time down to 7 hours. A race against time was now being run. The walk was beautiful, for the most part we followed and criss-crossed a stream fed by the melting snow of Lanin. The trail took us through some spectacular orange forest and across crunchy brown ice-mud. The uphill part kicked in with a vengeance, right at the end of the hike. Angie was feeling the effects of gravity more severely than I, and I pushed ahead up the steep, enclosed path. I saw a minor avalanche on the opposite side of the canyon on my way up, and was thankful that this side of the valley seemed more stable.



The uphill was intense, I was cursing whoever it was that decided the path should climb like this. The trees got shorter, and the soon snow started to appear on the ground. Not long after that, the trees stopped completely, the ground was white and I was standing at the bottom of a 3500 metre beast. Never have I walked uphill for so long and with such effort to reach the bottom of something. I ran around in the snow, taking photos and enjoying the novelty of sinking shin deep into the ground wherever I trod. Angie then appeared over the downhill crest and got a first real taste of proper snow. We'd managed to get up there in about three hours, so we had some time to spare before descent. Lunch was avocado and bread with peanuts and biscuits, all washed down with melted snow.

The top/bottom

The downward clamber was mercifully easier, and we made it down with an hour to spare. The only incident along the way involved a steep slope, and exposed tree root and the small of Angie's back. When all three combined, the result was a a very sore and newly cautious Angie, now sporting a big purple bruise...

That's the peak of Lanin behind us, about 2 km up.

Most important discovery of the day: A steaming pile of fresh kittens in the stables next to the rangers hut.

San Junin de los Andes

This is fish town

Next stop was San Junin de los Andes. If San Martin was comatose, life support for Junin had been unplugged and the priest was on his way. There was not a trace of the wood-and-stone architecture that we had grown accustomed to, and there were but one tourist attraction in the whole dirt road town. A perfect place to chill out and take a break from the rigours of full-time travel (I know, I know- but this lifestyle does get stressful, honest). We checked into our hotel, note the lack of the letter 's', and enjoyed the privilege of a double bed for the first time since we landed on this big ol' hunk o dirt. The bed was fantastic, but a distinct bore-water smell emanated from the bathroom, the sneaky kind of odour that lingers silently in the background, and as soon as you stop moving, WHOOSH! Its violating your nostrils and you have to do something, anything, just to distract your senses from the assault. For a while you can convince yourself that 'It's not so bad, just a little earthy' but eventually you must get out of there.

Big cross

And get out of there we did, to the one tourist attraction within 60km of the town centre. Via Christi is a sculpture park that illustrates the life of Christ and intertwines that story with the story of the geographic, physical and spiritual conquest of the indigenous Mapuche people. The imagery is graphic and doesn't hold back when it comes to highlighting the way the Spanish really got in there and stamped all over the locals. The chunky, larger than life-size sculpture is admirable in its humility, especially when looking at it from an Australian perspective, where we have our own paralleling story but exist in an official state of denial...

Local wildlife

One night in the stink hole hotel was enough, and we checked out the next day. Our new home in Junin was a beautiful hostel at the backend of town, across the road from a shallow watercourse, perfect for fly fishing. Apparently this town is the Trout Capital- of what I'm not sure (Argentina? South America? The World?)- all the road signs are in the shape of fish here, and our hostel is plastered with photos of the owner holding fish in his hands and a fly rod in his teeth (Angie says this is so you don't think that he just picked them up out of the river with his bare hands). So trout seemed to be the main reason this place was there, the other reason is that it is the gateway to Lanin National Park and Volcan Lanin, which of you remember back to the Pucon post, is right on the border of Chile and within sight of Volcan Villarica.

San Junin trout hangout