Saturday, February 19, 2005

Gaucho wannabes

Estancia Santa Rita. Beautiful. Just 1.5hrs from Buenos Aires and a great place to chill out and pretend you live on a farm.

The estancia is featured in a book called `Estancias in Argentina` and is really a beautiful place. I met the owner after dinner who is a retired doctor and now spends his time working on the estancia. It will be great to visit the estancia again in a couple of years time when he has finished renovating the former house. His 6 daughters take it in turn to help out on the weekends in between uni.

Big dave had his first encounter with a horse and is now very hooked and keen to do more riding. We also loved how everything was so chilled and how meals were such a long relaxed affair. All very cool and looking forward to spending time in plenty more estancias around Argentina.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Argentina: Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the best. I luvit, luvit, luvit and wish we had more time here. The city is quite european with beautiful architecture and big friendly, happy meat loving Argentinians(the average argentine eats 60kgs of meat a year) who don´t make fun of our spanish. It feels so much more relaxed than crazy Brazil and better still it´s a lot cheaper and the shopping is fantastic!

We´ve been staying in Recoleta, a fancy part of town, which is great cos it´s a lot quieter than downtown. Our hotel has moved us into a different room every night but we don´t mind as it´s a great little place and also very cheap. Everything can be reached quite easily by foot or just a quick 5 peso taxi ride away. Although, our first taxi ride from the bus station was a treat involving an (unrequested) tour around the city plus our first counterfeit note! Cost: 30 pesos for what was only meant to be a 5 peso ride! Very funny. (We have been trying to pass the note but feel very guilty about it so we are keeping it as a souveneir).

Loved all parts of the city, including Palermo, San Telmo and La Boca (although La Boca is very touristy). Senor dave is now a professional tango dancer after our night out at Bar Sur, an intimate bar in San Telmo with about 10 little tables and great tango dancers complete with harpsichord, guitar, piano and a wrinkly old singer with a soulful voice. Tango is so passionate and serious, just the perfect thing for senor dave.

Apart from all the major sites around the city, I loved seeing Casa Rosada where Evita Peron (and famous others)stood on the balcony spurring on the nation as well as the famous Recoleta cemetary where she (and famous others) was buried. Also loved the Teatro Colon which would´ve been even better if their performance season began earlier. However, as much as Dave and I dislike group tours, we joined one to have a peek around the inside of the theatre. Fortunately, we lost the group and ran around ourselves so had a brilliant time watching an orchestra rehearse, then saw a couple of ballet dancers rehearse (one of them was a famous ballet dancer) in a studio, and then found an empty studio complete with a concert grand steinway (!!!!!!!) and had a tinkle. It was fab.

I also LOVE argentine beef. They consume copious amounts of the stuff over here and it is soooooo good. I think we have consumed the same amount the average argentine eats in a year in a week!

What I love about Argentine cuisine:
1. Dulce de leite is delicious and is slapped on almost everything. It´s like caramel but milkier and creamier (Jan would love it).
2. My favourite torta consists of a chocolate base, a layer of dulce de leite and a layer of meringue.
3. Alfajores from Havanna, or handmade from specialty chocolate artisans!! 2 shortbread biscuits with dulce de leite in the middle which is all covered in chocolate.
4. The argentinian asado (bbq) and parilla and the huge variety of cuts.
5. The helados (icecream)are fantastic.
6. A big slab of bife de chorizo is fantastic with chumichurri, a marinade made of parsley, loads of garlic, salt and olive oil.

An observation:
Everyone kisses everyone. Strangers meeting for the first time, men greeting other men folk. It´s fantastic although Dave finds it a little unnerving.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

A limon.....

There is always an exception, or lemon, to the aforementioned leito bus.

Crossing the border from Foz do Iguacu to Puerto Iguacu on the Argentinian side, we (un)fortunately found the last 2 remaining seats on the only leito bus left going to Buenos Aires. I thought perhaps that I could handle the fact that these seats were near the toilets and on the bottom level of the 'awesome bus' however, after one bloke with tragically bad movements in his bowels which involved the bus attendant banging on the toilet door demanding that he stop doing his business (the toilets can only handle urine), and the little girl behind me vomiting in the aisle whilst her father held her (the bus attendant 'fixed' the problem by dumping perfume over it), I demanded that we fly from now on.

Enough said.

Saturday, February 12, 2005

Frontiera dos tres

We are in love with leito buses which are an absolute blessing (but expensive) when travelling such long distances. The one we caught last night was awesome and akin to business class on a plane which came complete with a hostess handing out bags of goodies whilst we made ourselves comfortable on crisp clean blankets and sheets. Wonderful.

There would have been a total of 40 people on the luxurious bus/hotel which comprised of, not surprisingly, a few locals and, surprisingly, about 35 aussies on a group tour! Hmph, I guess we are now back on the beaten track which typically flows south from Rio through San Paulo to the falls on the way to Argentina. (It was nice though to hear the aussie accent again!).

Not surprisingly, we arrived at Foz do Iguacu feeling bright, refreshed and determined to better our budget and as a result we checked into our first budget hotel! Note, for R$80 it´s not too bad at all!! http://www.hoteldelreyfoz.com.br/site/

The best part about this hotel is that a short bus ride out of town takes you to the most amazing 277 waterfalls I´ve ever seen in my life. Iguacu falls from the Brazilian side is a sight to be seen. From this vantage you have a whole overview of the falls. At various places you see rainbows form and butterflies flitting about and at the forefront you hear the constant roar of the water reminding you of how powerful it is. The best part was taking a boat up the river, similar to the Ocean Extreme boat they have on Sydney harbour, against the current and up to the foot of the falls. We were absolutely soaked but it was brilliant.

Tomorrow we cross over to view the falls from the Argentinian side. It is amazing that we are at a place where 3 countries meet - Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. Tudo bem!!

Friday, February 04, 2005

Carnavale madness

Back in Rio in time for carnavale!

We had a great deal with accommodation. Initially we booked a 2 star hotel described in the LP as having ´´dark and dingy quartos´´ as it was recommended by Gisele, a lovely woman we met up at the monastery who lived in Flamengo in Rio, who said that it was a very comfortable and cheap place to stay. For 5 nights during Carnavale time it was indeed very cheap! Fortunately, the hotel was chockers full of group tours and the hotel was finding it difficult to find rooms, so after a few tactful negotiations we were moved across to their 4 star hotel in Copacabana at no extra cost! (felt very cheeky as everyone else in the hotel was paying at least 5 times the cost......hee hee).