Salta - and final words on Argentina

I guess I needed some rest after all the touring during my Argentina leg of the trip so I decided I wouldn’t do anything in Salta. And it worked out pretty well. I was responding to emails, making updates on my blog, arranging photos, booking a flight… ok so not totally relaxing. But it was nice to not have a set “day plan”, I just walked around in the city – and somehow always managed to do that during siesta. Salta really closes down  for siesta, unlike some of the more “touristy” towns along my road.

One of the prettiest parks I've seen, in the center of Salta

The many colors of Northern Argentina - Jujuy

One of the most interesting places on my trip was the Jujuy region in the Northern Argentina. I was recommended to go there by a Porteño friend of mine Maria so I had put it on my long list. Jujuy or more specifically San Salvador de Jujuy is 90km north of “the capital of the Northern Argentina” Salta and wanted to make a visit there before Salta. I left Mendoza Saturday at noon and arrived to Jujuy at 8 am the next morning. I woke up a bit before we arrived so I got to “enjoy” the breakfast they served in the bus (tea or coffee, alfajor-cookie, bisquits and jam) and enjoy the views as we passed between green fields, forest covered hills and mountains.

I was fairly tired and moreover tired of travelling, packing, unpacking, walking, carrying my backpack… So doing nothing special for one day sounded like a good idea. I was relaxing in the hostel, playing with the kittens that lived in hostel roof, walked a bit around the town. I had a super heavy steak dinner in a nice restaurant (and it was cheap there!) and was ready sleep quite soon after that.

Lots of beautiful churches... 

The empty streets of Jujuy on Sunday

Vines and wines – Say Malbec, you’re in Mendoza!

Thanks for the beautiful Northern Argentina, the amazing Brazilian Carnaval and all the great people I've met I'm again behind on my blog. But no worries, I've used all (well some parts) of the long bus rides to write stuff and organise pictures so I can start making blog posts during all the quiet moments I have - so many fun stories & gorgeous pictures to share!

So --- I’m becoming an expert in long bus rides. Another 19 hours of sitting (with over two hours circling the different terminals in Neuquén) I got myself from Bariloche to Mendoza. Thankfully the bus seats are comfy, there are TVs with crappy movies and if you bring your own snacks, warm clothes (OMG tone down on the air con!) and some light entertainment – like your laptop – you’ll have a somewhat relaxing day ahead.

It was morning when I arrived in Mendoza. I had managed to pick a nice hostel again, this happened to have been voted the best hostel in South America (by hostelworld users, one myself). My bed wasn’t free that early but I got myself all cozied by in a hammock in the garden, frankly I was a bit tired. So after noon I was ready to venture out to the city.

My bible (Lonelyplanet) told me that Mendoza was once been eradicated by an earthquake and after that was built with wider avenues and larger plazas to help clearing out the next disaster – very nice for walking around and people watch. I walked through most of the leafy downtown which I admit was nice but it missed some of the wibe of Buenos Aires. Couldn’t put my finger on it but it wasn’t as interesting.

I headed towards the San Martin park and the sheer size of it just hit me when I arrived. It was something in the scale of Central Park, maybe even bigger, I think the full length was around 5km? So forget about walking through all the park, actually you can drive through the various tree lined streets. Unfortunately the park also lacked all the charm. Just a trees here and there and worn down grass, t didn’t invite you to walk around the green areas, you’d basically just stroll around the streets. The lake was quite pretty and there I found some flowers as well. There was a big tennis club where there was also a pool – that looks like a nice way to spend a hot day and I’m sure that’s where the city people flock during the weekends.

Lakes lakes lakes – Bariloche

After the icy adventures in El Calafate I got on yet another bus, this time it would be the longest bus ride of my life (so far): 28 hours. We’d leave at 4pm from El Calafate and arrive 8pm the following day to Bariloche. I met some people at my hostel who were taking the same bus so I didn’t feel too lonely on this ride. The bus was a nice “cama” class bus with only three seats in one row, a footrest and plenty of space for a tiny person like myself. This ride also came with some meals.

So what to do in a bus for 28 hours? Eat. Listen to your mp3-player til your ears start to hurt. Watch movies on the bus TV screens (we had some English speaking movies on this one, yay!). Arrange your pictures and write stuff your blog on your laptop. Organise your mp3-player because you get bored of your playlists. Read a guidebook and plan the next couple weeks of your trip. Sleep. And sleep some more. Luckily I have no problems sleeping in moving vehicles at the moment so I think I slept at least 10 hours. The rest of the time went very fast too. We stopped maybe three times on the way to stretch our legs and once to change a bus.

After what felt like 10 hours we arrived to Bariloche, the Argentinian lake district. This was another “ski resort look-alike” kind of town but bigger than El Calafate. And it was next to one the most beautiful blue lake, Lago Nahuel Huapi. The winds tended to be quite strong here but when they calmed down it was rather warm. I was surprised to see 22C in the weather forecast but I admit that’s what it felt like! Locally Bariloche is known for “artesan” chocolate shops (on in every corner), the hills that surround it that offer magnificent hiking, cycling, kayaking.. you name it.. and the ash. There was a volcano eruption close to the city and the ash clouds closed the city airport for quite a while and slowed down the tourism there for this season. The best hostels still tend to get booked up in Jan-Feb so book yours as early as you can. There’s also gorgeous cabanas, house and hotels on the shore of the lake, a bit out of the city, that I would have loved to stay in if I were in town longer!

You can take the local busses to the foots of the hills by the lake. I climbed two peaks – Cerro Campanario (1049m) and Cerro Llao LLao (about 1km). On the first day I had actually thought about doing nothing to recover from the bus ride and an enormous steak I had in the locally famous Parilla Alberto after we arrived. But with a small European team (two Germans, one Dane and one Italian) I left to 17 km west from Bariloche to “take a nice walk” art Cerro Campanario. It turned out to be this 1km hill we would ascend. Ok, I’m game for anything! The hill was pretty steep though, and the ground was covered by sand (or was that ash?) so it was a challenge for sure. So decided I’ll just climb as fast I can so that it’s over and done with. It took about a half an hour to reach the top. And yes, the views were great.

I’d like my whiskey with ice, please!

Not tired of hiking in the mountains, valleys and around lakes in the beautiful Patagonia yet? Well welcome back to Argentina! About 4-5 hours (depending on how fast the border crossing is) north of Chile’s Puerto Natales & Torres del Paine is Argentina’s El Calafate. Yes yes, it's another pretty village with nice shops and restaurants, looks actually more like a ski resort than a South American small town. The night life is pretty busy and there’s big casino in town as well but most people come here to see one more Patagonian natural wonder: the Perito Moreno glacier.

I had a lovely bus ride from Puerto Natales to El Calafate, sitting on the first row to see the beautifully boring Patagonian landscape all the way. At last when the sun set behind the flat Patagonian wilderness I could fall asleep. It was a late at night when I arrived to El Calafate but with the help of my hostel there I had manage to book a tour to the glacier early next morning. 

Nothing - as far as the eye can see

End of the world - Ushuaia

A trip to the end of the world - fin del mundo - was one of the top things on my list for the big trip. After all it seemed like I was already so close, in the same continent, in the same country (Argentina). But 3000km away! I opted for the cheapest flight I could find: a 4 hour hop from Bs As to Ushuaia that made me got up at 2.30 in the morning... So I got just 2 hours of sleep before I had to catch the 4.45 am flight. And when I got on the plane I fell asleep immediately.

As the plane was approaching Ushuaia I hesistantly forced myself to wake up and open the window curtain – just in time to see the plane pass through the clouds and the view of the Beagle Channel and the snow-tipped mountain range opened in front of me. I don’t know if I’ve ever woken up and got my camera that fast. The views were amazing! And I was wide awake after that.

In Ushuaia I had the hostel with the best service so far. They were really helpful as even though I had planned to come here I had no idea what to do or see there – simply hadn’t had the time or energy to look into it. So the first day I just walked around the city and the shoreline, admiring the views to the Andes.

The hot and cool Bs As

Back to the city life after the Iguazu Falls, I had 8 days to kill in Buenos Aires before my flight to Tierra del Fuego, Ushuaia, so I was looking forward to getting some rest. When I got to my hostel I was greeted by two Australian guys (who are ruggedly handsome as Mike would say) travelling through the Americas on two motorcycles. They asked me if I would like to join them for a tango evening and I couldn’t resist – I was on a mission to dance! The tango class & dinner took place in Palermo, a fancy neighbourhood on the other side of the center. The big Australian & Argentinian group and I had a really fun night, learning the 7 basic steps, watching the incredible dancers (more about that on my previous post) and having many many bottles of wine.

Getting some rest was on the agenda and I think I did succeed in that, at least a few late mornings. I did a lot of sightseeing as well, one of the most interesting places in Buenos Aires was the Recoleta Cemetary. The site houses the resting places of thousands and is full of beautiful small stone buildings. There were lots of different style of graves, some with most intricate and detailed carvings, with bronze plates describing the deceased and statues on top – to the very simplistic black marble boxes with merely the last name. I wandered quite a while between the hot houses and took tons of pictures.

Dancing up a storm in Buenos Aires

Dancing is a popular past time in Buenos Aires - the tango capital of the world - and the city is known for its nightlife. So I made sure I got my share! Zouk is going strong in Buenos Aires, and even with the dominance of tango there's something for all kind of dancers. I went out to zouk to Maluco Beleza club, after a week’s break I couldn’t wait to get to burn the floor! The club has zouk/lambada parties on Fridays and Sundays where they first have a class (at around 11pm) and then social dancing until around 2:30am. On Friday there were plenty of people taking the class, enough for both beginners and intermediate groups. To my surprise I got paired up with a Finnish guy (yes!?) for the class. That was again one of those odd coincidences again, like meeting a Finnish samba friend in my hostel room at the Iguazu Falls!

The dancers and teachers there dance the Porto Seguro style and the girls wear the lambada style clothes. The music was a bit more leaning towards lambazouk but lots of good songs to keep me on the floor from the first song! The classes were simple and only a small routine was practiced (with comparison to very long sequences they teach in the parties in London). And then it was time to party! I asked one of local zoukeros to dance with me and after that I think I didn’t get a break the entire night. This was the first time I also manage to get some local friends and a Dutch girl who I met in Iguazu to join me (yay!!) and got them on the dance floor too!

Steamy walks, cold showers and border crossings at the Iguazú Falls!

After a very short sleep on my last night in Ro, I arrived to the hot hot hot Foz de Iguacu, the Brazilian village next to one of the world natural wonders, the Iguazu Falls. I crossed the border to Argentina (yay, a new country!), to Puerto Iguazu to get to my lovely hostel – covered in sweat by the time I got there. The hostel was indeed very nice, with a big garden and a even small pool! It was a very relaxing place after the noisy Rio and couldn’t be happier with some peace & quiet. My plan to rest that night didn’t go that well as I ended up going out for dinner with the girls from my room. And we had such a fun night, talking about all the usual stuff and having some very tasty pizza, wine and free caipirinhas! And – I got to climb over the hostel fence when we came back :D

On my first full day I decided to tour the Argentinian side of the Iguazu falls since I’ve heard people usually like that the most. It was a hot day, like all the others so far as well, and the park was pretty packed with people. But the views were stunning. I first rode the park train all the way up to the Devil’s Throat where you get definitely the closest of the massive U-shape waterfall. Where does all this white water come from?! The roar was amazing and a mist of water rises all the way back up.

The falls were MASSIVE - even just this part could not fit in one, two or three frames!