Last Days in South America

We are now back in the UK, having travelled from Uruguay back into Argentina, flown to Belgium via Spain, attended a wedding in the Netherlands and returned home via Belgium (again) and France. Therefore, this will be our last blog post about new places, although we do have some summaries lined up.

Tree-lined avenue in Colonia del Sacramento

I'll pick the story up in Uruguay, where we had just arrived in Colonia del Sacramento. This is one of the oldest towns in Uruguay, originally founded by the Portuguese in 1680, but changed hands between them and the Spanish continuously (much like the country itself) until Uruguay's independence in 1830. Some of the cobbled streets are from the original Portuguese settlement and the historic centre is a UNESCO world heritage site. The tree-lined avenues and old buildings are very beautiful, especially when illuminated by colourful sunsets.

Lighthouse, built inside an old monastery in Colonia del Sacramento

Although Colonia is just over the Rio de la Plata river from Buenos Aires, and there is a rapid ferry connecting the two cities, we wanted to visit Carmelo before making the crossing. This town is famous in Uruguay, but unfortunately not the world, for its wine - especially the tannat variety. We visited a small, family-run bodega, which was superb. It was started by the current owner's grandfather and his brother, but they then had to sell a lot of the land in an economic crisis. It's now been bought back and they've started producing wine again, hence the name 'El Legado' - 'The Legacy'. Not only were the family very friendly and excited about their wine, but we got to enjoy several refills and even drew a glass from a barrel using a large pipette.

Pipetting wine from the barrel

From Carmelo, we returned to Buenos Aires via a short ferry ride across to the northern suburb of Tigre. This time, we stayed in the upmarket area of Palermo to get a different feel for the city to the more touristy San Telmo. The area is a lot greener, with lots of big parks, and also with many cafes and bars. We met up with a friend from home who has been living there for nearly a year, so it was good to get a more local perspective of the rewards and the challenges of living in Argentina.

The Floralis Generica sculpture in Buenos Aires - opening and closing with sunrise and sunset

This was our last stop in South America, after spending nearly 16 months on the continent. We flew back to Brussels via Madrid and spent a night in Bruges. This was a good stop before crossing into the Netherlands for the wonderful wedding of one of my best friends, before taking the ferry from Dunkirk back to Dover. For all of these stories, you'll just have to meet up and speak to us.

Why Does Nobody Go To Paraguay?

Paraguay is not somewhere you hear much about when travelling South America. Most people seem to skip it all together, or perhaps just go across for the day from Argentina or Brazil for a cursory country grab. Neither Lonely Planet or Rough Guide even bother to produce a guide for Paraguay - it gets a short mention in the Lonely Planet Shoestring guide that covers the whole continent, but that's it. So unlike most places we've been, we really didn't know anything about this country before we arrived, or have any idea what to expect of it.

Sunset in Encarnación

Paraguay is a landlocked country, bordering Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina. It is home to an amazing variety of different environments and habitats, including the Chaco, the Pantanal, and Atlantic rainforest. A lot of the country is still relatively untouched wilderness, and there are many conservation projects trying to limit deforestation and protect its rich biodiversity.

Street in Asunción

We had hoped to do more than the average tourist in Paraguay and get off the beaten track a little: we'd read that this is difficult to do, but dismissed this as hyperbole. However, once in the country we found that the reports were more accurate than we'd imagined! Paraguay really isn't particularly bothered about attracting tourists so there is very little tourist infrastructure and it is hard to find accurate information about anything other than the urban centres.

The Chaco region, a semi-arid area rich in wildlife, makes up more than 60% of Paraguay's land area, but less than 2% of the country's population lives there. We had wanted to explore this region, but as it so sparsely populated it is somewhat challenging to get around. The Pantanal, a wetland region on the border with Brazil, is also something of a mission to get to. We met an Australian at our hostel in Asuncion who was trying to go there - his journey would involve a 7 hour bus, a public boat for 3 days, and then having to hire another boat himself for the final section. Maybe earlier in our trip we'd have been up for this, but this late on we are trying to push on to see as much of the rest of the continent as we can in our last few weeks.

Lake view from Aregua, near Asunción

What we did think would be feasible was visiting one of the country's protected areas of Atlantic forest, the San Rafael National Park and Reserve. This is only a 3 or 4 hour journey from Encarnación, and we had already managed to get in touch with staff at the park and provisionally booked a cabin for a few days. However, when it came to our planned day of departure, circumstances conspired against us. The night before, the horrendously hot and humid weather (39 degrees!) finally broke - there was a big thunderstorm and it rained all night and was still pouring the next morning. The road to San Rafael is unpaved and often becomes impassable in bad weather. We managed to phone the park from our hostel, and were told it would be impossible to go that day. We stayed another night in Encarnación and hoped that the weather would brighten up enough to dry the road by tomorrow. Alas, the downpour continued all day, and park staff told us the next day that the road was still impassable. We really wanted to go, but the forecast wasn't good for the rest of the week either, so we reluctantly gave it up as a bad job and got on a bus to Asunción.

Ceramics for sale in Aregua, near Asunción

About an hour into the journey to Asunción, we went through the small town of Coronel Bogado. We remembered the name from something the friendly old lady at our hostel in Encarnación had said to us - that the best 'chipas' in the country are made there. Chipas are dense, baked rolls made from maize and flavoured with Paraguayan cheese. They are quite an institution in Paraguay and the neighbouring area of Argentina - street vendors carry baskets of them in all sorts of shapes and sizes. When the bus stopped in Coronel Bogado, a couple of sellers got on, and we knew this must indeed be the famous place as literally all the locals on the bus bought some! Obviously we did too, and they were the best we had anywhere. Yum. Another interesting part of Paraguayan culture is the tereré - like Argentinian maté tea, but served cold. Most locals constantly carry around large water flasks in special carry cases with a pocket for their tereré cup!

Palacio de Gobierno, Asunción

Despite being the Paraguayan capital, Asunción doesn't have a lot to see or do. We dutifully spent an afternoon wandering around the centre, but weren't very taken with any of the sites other than the Palacio de Gobierno, an impressive, large colonial building painted pale pink. We thought this was a lot prettier than the famous Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires! The city has bit of a feel of faded glory - there are quite a lot of old buildings but most are very dilapidated and little or no effort has been made to conserve them. Asunción is actually one of the oldest cities in South America, founded in 1537, and in colonial times it was also one of the most important. Since independence however, and after the Paraguayan war in the 1860s, the city lost its importance and the national economy has declined rapidly. The war, also known as the Triple Alliance war (Paraguay against the combined forces of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay) had a massive impact on Paraguay. It was one of the worst military defeats ever inflicted on a nation - more than 60% of the population died, and 90% of the country's men. Really, Paraguay is still struggling to recover from the effects of the war today.

Modern and old combined, in a courtyard in Asunción

Asunción is built on the Paraguay river, and  few months ago it was hit by some of the worst floods in decades, which you might have seen on the international news. Tens of thousands of people were displaced from their homes, and sadly it seems many of them still have nowhere to live. We walked past a huge, makeshift camp or shanty town, with hundreds of people living in wooden shacks or just tents made from bin bags with no sides. The camp was in one of the city's biggest plazas, right on the doorstep of the presidential buildings - maybe to make a point, as the government is apparently doing little to help. It was sad and quite shocking to see.

Riverfront and very cool sky in Corrientes

We met no other tourists in Encarnación, so were surprised to find a really excellent, sociable hostel in Asunción (El Nomada). We spent a lot of time just hanging out there and chatting. Most people travelling Paraguay are not your ordinary tourist, and we met some great people, including a couple of bikers who'd been travelling the world with their huge bike and sidecar for three years! We also went with another English guy we met to a nearby town, Areguá, which is famous for its ceramics. We reluctantly left this fantastic hostel after 3 nights and embarked on another long bus ride (8 hours) back over the border to Argentina and the cities of Corrientes and Resistencia. The weather had been fine for the previous two days, but a little like our last night in Encarnación, there was a big storm the night before we left Asunción. The temperature dropped literally 20 degrees in a day. After being at temperatures well above 30 degrees for several weeks, 10 degrees was quite a shock! We had to dig out our coats and jumpers again that we'd thought we'd not need for the rest of the trip.

Monastery in Corrientes

For the next couple of days, we stayed in the Argentinian city of Corrientes, the capital of the Corrientes province. It is only a 20 minute drive away from the neighbouring city of Resistencia, across a river which marks the border between provinces. So, strangely, Resistencia is also the capital of a province - the Chaco province! We liked both of these cities as they were just typical Argentinian cities, with no tourists. The locals were super friendly and whenever we sat down in a cafe we'd get engaged in conversation by people curious to see us there! Corrientes is the more historic of the two, while Resistencia is known as Argentina's 'Capital of Sculptures'. Every 2 years the city has a competition that sculptors come from all over the world to take part in - they have 7 days to produce a sculpture. The best ones are displayed either in the museum or on the streets - more than 200 line the streets in the centre already.

Sculptures in Resistencia

From Corrientes we took our first night bus since Colombia - 13 hours up to Salta in the north of Argentina. We had forgotten how expensive buses are in Argentina - £45 a person! We are looking forward to exploring more of this area now, and probably hiring a car.

Food and Travel

I think I can say as a fact that Argentinian food is not healthy. Alongside the famous steaks, Argentina is also good at chorizo, morcilla (blood sausage), Italian food and ice cream. There aren't many vegetables. That's not to say that it isn't all delicious though.

A large, bloody steak

In Buenos Aires, we've typically been snacking on croissants (medialunas, literally half-moons), cheese and ham toasties and tea and coffee throughout the day. We've also been escaping from the heat with ice cream or freshly-pressed orange juice. Dinner happens a lot later than we're used to at home - we typically head out for something at around 9 - 10 o'clock, when the restaurants are just about opening.

On most evenings, we've gone out to nearby restaurants. Once to a traditional (read slightly touristy) parrilla, or steakhouse, where we shared the biggest, bloodiest steak I've ever seen. On another, we went to a quaint Italian restaurant where we were served with some delicious, rich pasta and seafood. One time, we tried to be more healthy, but failed miserably when our grilled vegetables were swimming in oil. We've decided since then to stick to what the Argentinians are good at.

Enjoying some Italian food, with some greenery on top

We stayed in once at our hostel for a feast of traditional Argentinian food - various steak cuts, choripan (chorizo in bread) and morcilla, the sticky and rich blood sausage. This was served alongside red wine, which is ubiquitous round here. We even managed to get some salad!

The King of Ham lives in Argentina

We've now made our way to the small country town of Sierra de la Ventana - a complete change of scene from the bustling Buenos Aires with its dusty roads, stray dogs and long afternoon siesta. For the 8 hour overnight bus journey there was only a 'semi-cama' option - meaning the beds reclined to about 45°. It was much more comfortable than a similar length journey would be back home, and we can't wait to experience the (fully-reclining) cama buses for the longer trips further south.

First Impressions

Well, here we are in Buenos Aires, Argentina!  After a very long flight the first challenge was getting through Argentine passport control and customs. The queue for the former was pretty impressive, making a lot of Southeast Asian immigration queues pale in comparison. The next challenge was finding transport from the airport into the city - we had been well informed previously about which minibus we needed to take, but said minibus proved elusive. So elusive that we gave up in the end and got a shared taxi.

We had pre-booked an AirBnB in Buenos Aires and this proved to be an excellent choice. We turned out to be staying in an extremely grand, former palace of a house. It is owned by a British lady, who employs some people here to look after  and run it. It is very much a work in progress, with various rooms in various states of restoration. The rooms on the first floor, where we were, are accessed via the sweeping original staircase, and all the doors are covered in mirrors. Mosaic floors, stained glass windows, high ceilings ... we had it all. Highly recommended! It also had a garden with hammock and resident dog, cat and chickens (and avocado tree) - great.

In front of the grand staircase

Our AirBnB recommended us a place to change money. We went along the touristy street, up a flight of stairs to a level at about 0.5 between ground and 1. Then down to the end of a corridor to a completely blacked out office, where we were quietly ushered in when we knocked on the door. Not many words were exchanged, but currency definitely was.

The money exchange office

For the past few days we have been exploring the city and getting a feel for life here. It is an interesting place. Very mixed, with horrific breezeblock apartments alongside very grand, former colonial mansions and palaces like the one in which we were staying. It has a ramshackle feel to it and a lot of the downtown areas seem like they are in a recession - the pavements are cracked and crumbling, most of the roads seem to be being dug up (there are bulldozers and roadworks in every other street) and we are constantly being dripped on by air conditioning units. Despite this we like it - it is quite a loveable state of disrepair. Other neighbourhoods of the city are quite different - the Recoleta area, which we visited today, is full of posh mansions and hotels, art galleries, boutiques and foreign embassies. More a la Mayfair! Like many other cities, there is definitely a pronounced rich and poor divide.

Highlights of our recent sightseeing include the Casa Rosada (literally, the pink house), where the presidential offices are; the famous Recoleta cemetery, where we saw Evita's tomb; an art gallery with Rodin statues and plenty of impressionist paintings; and a tour through underground tunnels of BA, where old tributaries used to run. The tour guide for the latter was very informative as much about present day life as the past - we learnt a lot about Argentinian politics, e.g. this year is an election year and the mayor of BA is standing against the president.

La Casa Rosada

The food is, shall we say, somewhat meat heavy! They do meat very well but vegetables are hard to come by. I tried to be healthier the other day ordering a mixed vegetable grill rather than meat. It came swimming in oil... think maybe best to stick with what they're best at! The empanadas are veeery tasty.

Enough for now - see you next time! We're going to try and update the blog every Tues and Fri, internet depending.