Buenos Aires, Argentina

Apologies for not blogging sooner but we been struggling to find the time to do it. This place is just too good. It´s crazy, hectic, hot, polluted, beautiful, cosmopolitan, cheap and a lot of fun.

So we arrived on Monday after an exensive, but nice high-speed ferry from Montevideo. We were the only backpackers on it. Just lots of families, businessmen and nuns. We had booked ourselves into The Millhouse which is the party place, and perhaps the most famous hostel here. We had been staying in pousadas or hotels up to that point so I was pretty sceptical about moving into a massive hostel. They can be quite cliquey and often dirty but as soon as we checked in and were shown to our room, any fears I had immediately went. Especially when we saw that we had our own bathroom (unheard of in other hostels I have stayed in). The room itself is the cleanest and best out of all the places we had stayed. Result. And we bumped into Shane as we were going up to our room - he had decided to hang around and wait for us.

On our first full day here we went on a tour, organised by the hostel, to La Boca. It is one of the poorest parts of Buenos Aires, and it is a bizarre neighbourhood. It is right next to this stinky river and the locals have painted the outside of their houses to brighten the place up. It is also the home of tango so there is a lot going on there. And it is the home of the Boca Juniors, so there is even more going on. Part of the tour involved going into the stadium and museum so I was well chuffed, H not so. Diego Maradona is God here.

























































Boca played River Plate on Sunday, which is the biggest football game in the country. I was gutted to have missed it (1-1, 3 sendings off) even though it was pretty fiery. Apparently a dead chicken (presumably alive when thrown) and water balloons of wee rained down on the Boca fans from the River Plate fans, who were seated in the top left tier of the stadium in the picture above. They also broke a barrier and wanted to throw the piece of scaffold fifty feet onto the Boca fans below - they were stopped by someone who told them they could easily kill three or four people. Diego has his own box there and the crowd sing for him more than the team sometimes. There is a game on Sunday and I hope to go.

We ate out at a superb steakhouse (allegedly one of the best in the world) that evening with Shane. It cost us a tenner each for our meal, and we all ate huge steaks (that melted in the mouth), potatoes, salad and three bottles of fine wine. Eating out here is fantastic.

On Wednesday we got up too late to go on the hostel tour to Recoleta but we did it off our own backs when we finally left our room. It is one of the poshest neighbourhoods in Buneos Aires and it is the home of the "Cementerio de la Recoleta" (the City of the Dead), which is where all the rich and famous are buried. Some people here spend more money on dying than when they are alive. Evita Peron is buried here. It´s a bit of a strange place as far as cemeteries are concerned. There´s loads of crypts and mausoleums and you are no more than a few feet from the coffins in some of them.

Madonna!



















We walked back to the hostel via the main road that runs through this city, which claims to be the widest street in the world (14 lanes of traffic, not that the drivers stick to the lanes).











































We met up with Jay and Chloe (from Rio) that evening and went out for dinner in another part of Buenos Aires called San Telmo. It turned into a real all-nighter and before we knew it we had to the ´taxi of shame´ back to the hostel in rush hour on Thursday morning. This involves not speaking to the taxi driver, just handing him a hostel card because the address is too difficult to pronounce.

Yesteday was a right off and after an hours kip H and I left the hostel to have a look round and to try and clear our heads. It wasn´t long before we were back in the sanctuary of the hostel bar and shithead. H now leads this competition by 63 games to 78. There had been a 19 point gap after I had a real pasting on the ferry over here. We were both asleep by 10 and after a quality 12 hour sleep (for me, 14 for H) today arrived.

We have decided to go to Bolivia next week so I made the early-afternoon mission to the bus station to get our bus tickets (H was still in bed). We leave on Tuesday for Salta, a 22 hour bus ride to the north west of Argentina. From there we will get a bus to La Quiaca and the border. At this point we are at the mercy of the Bolivian public transport infrastructure which, I am told, doesn´t really exist. Our plan is to see the Salt Plains via a three or 4 day 4x4 trip, then mission it back into Argentina, and end up in Mendoza, before we cross into Chile and fly to Australia.

When I got back from the bus station H was up and we headed off into town. We walked to the waterfront via Plaza de Mayo. This is where all the political protests take place, including the weekly parade of "The Mothers of the Disappeared" (30k people were "disappeared" under the military government who tried to fight Thatcher in the Falklands). They wear white handkerchiefs around their heads and hold their protests on Thursdays in a bid to find out the truth about what actually happened to their children (we saw a few of them yesterday). The image on the handkerchief is drawn on the ground. It is also the place where Evita did her thing.

Don´t Cry For Me Argentina!














There was a cow parade at the waterfront, just like in Prague.














The Waterfront. Looks a bit Bristol but without the chavs.














So the weekend is now here. It should be a good one.....

The Bit That Goes Moo!

Yesterday H and I went to a part of the Old Town in Montevideo called the "Mercado del Puerto" which contains loads of Parillas (steakhouses). I had read about it in "the book" (which actually contained some accurate information this time) and we headed off there for lunch.

It was located in a really quiet part of the Old Town, in this huge building, a bit like St Nicks Market in Bristol, or the marketplace in Fremantle, but much bigger.















There were loads of parillas in there and it was a pretty impressive sight. There was meat everywhere. It was a vegetarians worst nightmare.











































We had a look round and chose one of the parillas to eat at. I more of less decided that we should go for the "Parilla Grande" which contained a bit of everything (although I think H was only after a nice steak). As you can see from the picture below, it was a winner, and all for 4 quid.




















So we tucked into our food. Before long (in fact pretty much stright away) we noticed that we didn`t recognise much of the meat on the plate. After eating the steaks, the black pudding and some chorizo I had to call the waiter over and ask him what was left. He pointed to his stomach three times (which was encouraging) and then to his throat (even more so). Now I am normally game for eating, or at least trying, everything that is put in front of me but I wasn´t too impressed with the idea of eating stomach, or intestines (especially as when the meal first arrived I prodded it with my steak knife and it exploded). But as for the throat, I was up for it, so I cut a bit away and went for it.

I ate the bit that goes Moo (and it actually tasted quite nice).

Or it could have been the bit that goes Baaa, but I am really hoping it wasn´t the bit that goes Woof! I couldn´t really tell what animal it was.

From left to right; Blacl pudding (it tasted like no other black pudding I had ever tried - I think the blood had only just congealed), Chorizo sausage, Stomach, Throat, Large intestine, Small intestine.

Montevideo

We are here. Thanks God for making the rain stop, although some would blame him for starting it in the first place.

We left La Paloma on the 9am bus on Friday and it took four hours to get here, but it was a relief to leave, that`s for sure. It feels wierd being back in a city, but as far as cities go, this one definitely has a calm feel to it.

After checking into a hotel that had been recommended to us we went and had a mooch around town. The Old Town is really pretty and very colonial (not that I really know what that means) but it can get quite sketchy at night apparently.

We spent four or five hours looking round and after a siesta it was time to go out and sample some of the nightlife that this place has to offer. We ate quite late, maybe 10ish, and it ws nice seeing people coming out to eat at nearly midnight. It reminded me about how much England needs to get a grip with it´s licencing laws. After a tasty feed we headed into the local bars. I swear we are the only gringo´s here, although I did see someone had let the side down earlier in the day with an England shirt. We ended up in a club which was very amusing. We blagged our way in without paying (although again I suspect the gingo thing went in our favour), necked a tequilla, and then got into the groove. Actually we sat and people watched. This place is definitely missing a trick. The DJ was mixing 80s and 90s stuff like Madonna`s "La Isla Bonita" and UB40´s "Red Red Wine" (one of my favourites - it was class), as well as stuff by Depeche Mode and INXS. I wonder what would happen if Montevideans heard a 4-4 beat. Maybe they have, and we just went to the 80s and 90s night! Anyway, it was a class night.

We had another look round town yesterday. The Old Town is the best part and there are a lot of street hawkers and buskers there, as well as this bizarre antiques fair which seemed to have some skinned mink for sale. We also ate some tasty (and wierd) meat (you´ll have to see the next blog entry for details on that).

We are now half way through our trip and we are heading to Buenos Aires tomorrow which should be great. Almost everyone you meet who is traveling in South America raves about it so I´m looking forward to seeing what all the fuss is about. We are going to stay in a hostel so we can easily meet some more people although it already looks like we will be meeting Jay and Chloe there, who we lived with in Rio, as they are staying in their own apartment. I am ariving a day too late to watch "El Classico" though, which is the football game between Boca Juniors and River Plate. In fact it kicked off 45 mintues ago. Gutted! But I think H is pleased. I hadn´t planned to see a Boca game while I was in South America but if there is another one on in Buenos Aires whilst we are there I will definitely try and go.

Oh yeah, we will be travelling to Buenos Aires by ferry. I am a bit sick of buses, especially as we will have a lot more ahead of us, and it´ll be a nice way to arrive in Argentina. And I expect you lot are sick of reading about my bus journeys.

And H is now beating me by 54 games to 40 at Shithead.

Here´s some (un)interesting (and not very well taken) pictures of Montevideo.

This is the main square in Montevideo, the Plaza Independencia.

The Old Town.















And again.















A street market in the Old Town.















More art (and H).















And again......















And finally, the main street in Montevideo, Av 18 de Julio.

Flash Floods

Well something had to give didn´t it!

After nearly 5 weeks of trouble-free travelling the first spanner has gone in the proverbial works. H and I had planned to leave La Paloma today and head for Montevideo. Last night I had successfuly asked the rather creepy guy (Aldo) who seems to run our hotel if he could order us a taxi for midday (in my finest Spanish) and we were all set to get the 1pm bus out of here.

At about 8am this morning it began to rain. And when I mean rain it absolutely pissed it down for about an hour. It was so loud it woke me up and whilst I was lying in bed the thought did enter my mind that we could well be stuck here if it didn´t stop. Luckily it did. So we packed our stuff up, checked out, got into the taxi and went to the bus station. We hadn´t pre-booked our 1pm bus tickets as we thought we wouldn´t need to, mainly because there is no-one here to go to Montevideo. Wrong. I was told there were no seats available. We had just hit our first problem as the next bus wasn´t due to go until 4.20pm. So we settled down into the crap plastic seats and set about playing shithead. Then the rain started again. And it went on and on and on. And then the ceiling began to leak. By this point H and I had taken over a table next to a cafe which had one of those umbrellas on it. When we first sat there H wondered why they would need an umbrella up indoors. Now we knew. So we played cards for the best part of three and a half hours (she now leads by 44 games to 32....grrrr!!) and the rain came down both in and outside the bus station. We noticed the cafe didn´t seem to sell beer but there was a guy over the road in some sort of hut that looked like he may sell some. I borrowed an umbrella and made a mad dash for it. It was the worlds smallest brolly and I got pretty wet but at least we had beer.

It didn´t stop raining all afternoon and I had never ever seen rain like it, for such a long period of time. It was like being in a movie. But whilst the rain came down it didn´t occur to me that we could actully be stuck here. Afterall buses seemed to have been coming and going for most of the afternoon. By 4.15pm we were glad to board our bus and finally get out of this place. I had also been bitten about five or six times by bastard mosquito´s, and we were both looking forward to getting to Monty. So off we went. We´d driven to the edge of town when it became pretty apparent that something quite serious was happening. Part of a road was blocked off by this river of flowing water and a lot of houses seemed to have water runing into them. It wasn´t like Boscastle or anything as serious as that, but it was pretty spooky seeing that sort of stuff happen to peoples houses. We managed to drive a little further and got to a roundabout with a signpost for Montevideo, but the driver turned around and began to head back toward the bus station. H and I looked at each other. I think we knew what was coming next but we tried to convince ourselves that he was going to go another way. Before we knew it we were back at the bus station and everyone was getting off the bus. Gutted. Now in this kind of situation you really wish you could talk fluent Spanish, but off I went to the ticket office undeterred and tried to find out what was going on. Well a lot of spansh was going on, that´s for sure. H and I are the only gringo´s here, but I did manage to get some info out of a woman who told me to stay in the bus station in case the bus goes. Looking round it was apparent that that is what everyone else was doing, but it was also apparent it was still pissing down, and being a Science teacher in a former life, I knew that there was no chance of a flood stopping if it was still raining. H and I changed our tickets for the bus that leaves at 9am tomorrow but we did hang on for an hour or so (just in case!). Afterall the bus station had become our new home (being homeless I guess you could say we did live there for an afternoon). We eventually decided to call it a day and waitied ages for a taxi to take us back to the haunted hotel. When we turned up ¨Aldo¨ wasn´t there to greet us (no doubt he will laugh when he sees us later) but we managed to check in again, this time to a different room. The place really gives H the creeps but it gave me a bloody electric shock. The wiring here is rubbish - they had electric showers in Punta and the wires weren´t too far away from the running water which made showering interesting. But while we were in Hotel Embeleco contemplating fate and wondering what we did to deserve being suck here, we noticed the lights flicker. I went to turn the main light off, which is attached to one of those precarious fans that hang from the ceiling and look like they could fall out of their mounting at any point, and got one of those tingles all the way up my arm. 220v. Nice! H laughed.

Anyway, we are here. Still. H is very pissed off. I am also pissed off but I have never been trapped anywhere by an Act of God so it´s one to tell the kids I suppose, one day. Mind you, if it doesn´t stop raining we could well be here for days.

......I have just looked out the window. IT HAS STOPPED. Eight and a half hours after it started. Bring it on.

So all being well we will finally leave La Paloma and get to Montivideo tomorrow. If nothing else La Paloma has been good for MSNing, emailing and blogging!!

Being a devout digital camera fan I managed to capture some key moments of todays events.

This is the view from my balcony at 8am this morning.















and this.....















The beer run outside the bus station!















Not happy! We had just been driven back to La Paloma.















Inside the bus station. Check out the bins collecting water and the umbrella we played cards under.















Having been electrocuted, it was time to leave the hotel and blog.

La Paloma, Uruguay

Hola from La Paloma, Uruguay.

So H and I left Brazil on Sunday via a 7 hour bus ride from Florianópolis to Porto Algre, then then another 9 hour bus ride through the night to Punta del Este in Uruguay. As far as the bus rides are concenerned they were two of the best. Well the first one was the best bus we have been on by far but the family in front of us pissed us off with their reclining antics. Now fully reclining seats are great on an night trip when you want to try and get some kip yourself, but on a day trip when you just want to sit up and read, you have zero room when the git in front of you goes all the way back. And it is even worse when he fully reclines the seat next to him for his daughter who spends most of the time sitting on her Mums lap on the seat in front of him anyway. Bar steward.

Anyway the journey through the night was sweet as I had reserved the two seats at the front, so we had no-one in front of us, and the bus drivers sorted out all the border formalities with our passports.

We arrived in Punta del Este at about 8am to find the streets were deserted. It was like something out of the movie ¨28 Days Later¨. H managed to fall over with her backpack on (she tripped over the kerb and the weight of the bags took her over). We spent some time looking for the only hostels in town, only to find the double rooms were full or nasty, so we ended up checking into quite a nice hotel. After a couple of hours sorting ourselves out we had a look around town (where we bumped into Tom and Ellie, who were on the epic bus trip with us to Foz). This involved walking the entire way around Punta del Este. It immediately reminded me of some English seaside town (lots of hotels and white washed houses on the sea front).















Art! (in Punta del Este)

When we got to the harbour we saw a load of seals and sea lions being fed by some fishermen. Now these creatures were enormous and we were no more than a few feet away from some of them. H was in her element as she loves all things wildlife. And I have to admit to being pretty impressed as well.















Wildlife!

After beers on the hotel balcony we ventured back into town to sample some Uruguayan nightlife. Except there was noone around. Punta del Este is THE place to come to in Uruguay but it turns out that it is THE place to come to in January and February. Mind you, we did eat in a qulaity fish restaurant and meet a nice family from Argentina. How very twee.

So yesterday morning we got up and decided to make a break for it and leave Punta. Not only was it quiet there but it was very expensive and we need to save some cash. So we checked out and made the mission to La Paloma, which is an hour and half away. It took us four hours via 3 local buses. There is always something a little disconcerting when you look around the bus and find out that you are the only ones on it. La Paloma is a surf town which, according to the crap ¨South America on a shoestring¨ book, has got a ¨good vibe¨. Well maybe in January or February because there is literally no-one here. We should have known something was up when we arrived as the tourist information booth was shut. And there were no taxis. But the good thing is that accommodation is very cheap, although the place we are staying in is very strange. The guy running the place couldn´t have been more pleased to see us. I think we were first human interaction he had all day. Maybe he had spent all day chasing the tumbleweed around town. Or killing backpackers.

This is the hotel we have been staying in. Quality. Our room is the nearest one on the top floor.















We could have left La Paloma today and got on another bus mission to Montevideo but neither of us fancied it, especially as it took some effort getting here. I got up before H and sat on the balcony for a while to people watch, except there was no-one to watch, as you can see from the picture below (we have been emailing and blogging from the yello building).















and here.....















After finding somewhere to eat (luckily there was somewhere open) we went for a walk along the beach which was really nice. Check out the ugly tower block in the picture below. This place would look alright if that wasn´t there. God knows what the local people must´ve thought when it was built. Maybe it houses most of the 5k people who are supposed to live here.















There was no-one in the water who required my services. David Hasselhoff, eat your heart out!!















We are leaving La Paloma for Montevideo tomorrow where there should be some signs of life given the fact it is the capital of Uruguay, and we will probably stay there for the weekend before heading into Argentina and Buenos Aires.

Some of you will be glad to read that it isn´t as hot here as it was in Brazil. The sun in Brazil makes you sweat a lot which is pleasant, most probably because it is so humid there. But here it is a bit like the heat you get in England. The one thing I don´t miss about Brazil though is the food. It is RUBBISH. I haven´t seen a vegetable for weeks and a lot of you know how much I need brocolli. Also, they don´t add any spice to the food, and it was a joyous moment seeing pepper on the table in Uruguay. Brazilian food contains so much salt it is unbelievable. I had always wondered how Brazilians could like the food like that but then the Spanish guy in the bus queue told us that they have so much salt because they sweat a lot. The penny dropped. As a Science teacher in a former life I guess I should have known that. It makes perfect sense, even though it tastes awful.

As for shithead, H leads 33 games to 20.

Barra da Lagoa

Bloody hell, I hope you lot are grateful of the lengths I am going to to keep this blog updated. This machine is the worst yet and guy running this place tried to put admin rights on the machine so you can´t back up your own photos without paying (but you may be glad to know I have beaten his system).

So what have we been up to since we have been here? Well we have been loving the beach life that this place has to offer. We have spent most of our time on the local beach in Barra da Lagoa. I have been surfing three times and have well and truely got the bug. Mind you I did get up early this morning to go for surf and I got battered. The waves were just too big for me. We have also been into Florianópolis to have a look round and buy our bus tickets to Uruguay - we leave for Punta del Este tomorrow. It´s another big bus journey (7 hours to Porto Alegre in Brazil where we change to get the bus into Uruguay which will take another 9 hours). And today we went to a lookout point that overlooks the island before going to Centro da Lagoa to do some shopping which sits in the centre of the island, next to Lagoa da Conceiçao. This was followed by an afternoon on a different beach, Praia Mole. Now when I say shopping I mean H shops and I just follow her around getting hot. Mind you the great thing about shopping for girls stuff in Brazil is that you are surrounded by lots of beautiful Brazilian shop assistants. Winner!

Anyway, it´s about time I stopped writing and just posted some pictures. But before I go I thought I´d update you on the cockroach situation. The kill ratio is as follows;

Jonny = 5
H = 2 (Mind you these two were spectacular. I went to bed before H last night, and when she eventually turned in I was awoken by very loud "Oh My God!" followed be her trying to smash one with a trainer at the end of the bed. She missed. It went under the bed. She threw the other trainer at it, it ran out and she smashed it. I then fell back into bed - what a way to wake up. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. She then looked under the bed to see if there were any more. There was another. She screamed. It ran at her. She smashed it. It was then a nervous time as we looked around the pousada, looking for any more).

Oh yeah, one more thing. H is currently leading the Unofficial Shithead Championship of the World by 23 games to 12.

And it's over 30 degrees everyday.















Barra da Lagoa beach. This is where we have been spending most of our time.

You can see Barra da Lagoa just to the left of centre.

The view over Centro da Lagoa with Lagoa da Conceiçao to the left.

With me to the right.....

Florianópolis

Greetings from the south coast of Brazil.

Bloody hell it was a real mission getting here. The 15 hour bus journey turned into a 19 hour epic, followed by four local buses to the place we are now staying.

We turned up at the bus terminal in Foz and hour before the bus left for Florianópolis and booked our tickets out of there. We thought there would be loads of room on the bus given the lack of gringo´s in Foz. So you can imagine our surprise when we were told there were only two pairs of seats available, both of them near the toilet. I could sense a competition unfolding - could this surpass the last trip as the worst bus journey in Brazil?

Nevermind, we wanted to get out of Foz and didn´t want to spend another couple of hours there waiting for the next bus. So after a beer we went to the platform to board the bus. Joy oh joy. It was a beauty with fully reclining seats and TVs. There was even a huge photo down the side of the bus of a happy Brazilian family. It filled us with confidence. The toilet situation didn´t seem to matter. Things got even better when the bus left and there was only a handful of people on it. The seats would obviously fill up at different stops along the way.

So off we went. After a while we made our first stop and people began to board. Now, in Brazil and you travel with young children it seems to be the done thing to not buy a seat for them, but instead to travel the journey with them on your lap. This is obviously a money-saving idea but it did get ridiculous. When we started the trip the two seats in front of us were empty. After the first stop there was three people sittin there, a mother and her two yound kids. Fine. No problem. I was sure they would go to sleep. Well they eventually did when the mother decided that she was going to take over as many empty seats as was needed by her kids - fours seats!! Now I am rambling but get this. At one stop in the night this guy got on and walked to the back of the bus. He looked at his seat, then his ticket, then back at the seat. The little boy was fast asleep. No worries, surely the mother would do the right thing for this man who had bought that seat. NO! Nothing was said, he looked very confused, and then walked to the front of the bus to find an empty seat there. H and I were pretty shocked at this. I peered over the seat in front of me expecting to see the mother fast asleep with her daughter. She wasn´t there. Interesting. "Where is she?" H asked me. "I don´t know" I replied. "Hang on, she´s kopping off with the guy in front of her". Amazing, there she was getting jiggy with this random Brazilian bloke, whilst here two kids slept on four seats. Shocking. Bloody hell I sound like an old man here, but when you are on a very long bus journey in the middle of the night you tend to notice these things.

This got me thinking. Maybe these people who travel with children shouldn´t bother. Maybe they should get their relatives to come and see them. Controversial?

There was a full moon during the trip and I spent many minutes staring out over the landscape as we drove through Brazil. A lot of it looks like England. Whilst I was staring into space I also got thinking about the bus driver and how we all put our lives in the hands of this guy who likes to overtake a lot. Back in England I never travelled anywhere overnight so it is definitely something I am getting used to again as there will be plenty more on this trip. At least in Bolivia the bus drivers chew on cocao leaves to help them stay awake. I am sure they are fine here.

So night turned into day and just after sunrise we were stopped by the police for the second time on the trip. During the first stop they seemed to take interest in everyone else on the bus except H and I (we were the only gringo´s). During this second stop the first people they came to were H and myself. H was woken up by this and we both had to hand our bags over to them to look through. Now some of the police are quite corrupt over here so I was thankful that he didn´t produce a bag of cocaine or grass from somewhere (ie his pocket) and ask us why we had it in our bags (expecting us to pay a bribe so as to avoid being taken to the cop shop).

We evetually got to Florianópolis at about 11am, 19 hours after we had set off. We had stopped so many times, more often than not in the middle of nowhere, or in some hicksville town where noone got off the bus, and noone got on. As soon as we entered the bus station we got collared by some tourist guy who was trying to sell us accommodation in a place called Barra da Lagoa. Having done all this before, we were wise to the ruse, asked him for the cost (just to find out what the going rate was in this place) and then told him we were going to make our way to a place called Campeche that we liked the sound of. Half of Floripa sits on the island of Santa Catarina and it was the beaches that we were most interested in. So after 19 hours on a bus we made our way to the local bus terminal and eventually found a way to get to Campeche, which sits on one of the 42 beaches. This involved changing at another bus station. We were taken to Campeche on a bus full of school kids but it looked really quiet so we stayed on the bus and decided to go to Barra da Lagoa instead. This involved getting two more buses, again with lots of school kids. Eventually we turned up, and on the last bus we got chatting to a local who conveniently knew of a room to rent. We were both knackered by this point so decided to give it a look, and after we had done so we decided to go for it. It costs half of what we have been paying so far so we were pretty happy. And it is a 3 minute walk from a beach which goes on for miles and miles.

Bloody hell, I have written too much. If you are still with me then great. I´ll stop soon. To cut things short, we had our first cockroach incident last night. H saw one run out from the bottom of my backpack (where me stinky trainers are). She screamed. I beat the shit out of it with a shoe and threw it outside. I then commented on how amusing it would be if another run out as I looked at my trainers in more detail. Sure enough a baby cockroach ran out. H screamed. It ran onto the bed. H handed me a spatula (we have a kitchen in this place). I hit it, spilling cockroach guts onto the bedsheet. You can only begin to imagine the cockraoch paranoia that went on as we tried to sleep.

So that leads us to today. After a decent kip given last night´s incident, we spent the day on the beach. It was another scorcher, not a cloud in the sky, and I hired another surfboard. This was much bigger than the one I hired in Ilha Grande, and I had a much better time. I actually managed to stand up on a few waves for a decent length of time. I can´t wait to buy my own board in Sydney.

When we got back to the pousada I saw a cockroach eating the dead one I through out last night. I battered it with a broom.

Sorry again for rambling. I´ll post some pictures of this place in the next post. You may be surprised to read that I haven´t taken any since we arrived here.

Iguaçu Falls

Finally our time here in Foz is coming to an end. We have had three full days here and that is plenty. We can´t wait to leave. It´s a really odd place, a typical border town with very little to do in it. In fact the place is deserted on the evenings. Mind you, that didn´t stop us finding the "International Disco Club" on Friday night (more of that later).

So everyone who comes to Foz, and who is travelling, comes for one main reason - to see the impressive Iguaçu waterfalls (which apparently put Niagra and Victoria to shame, not that I have seen either of those). I won´t bore you with too many of the stats except to say there are about 275 waterfalls, dropping 90 metres, with something like 13k cubic metres of water falling each second.

The falls are divided between Brazil and Argentina, with Argentina getting best deal. On our first full day here, which was last Friday H and I went to see the Brazilian side. This side offers the best panoramic view of the falls, but you get a lot closer to them on the Argentinian side. Anyway, we arrived via local bus and spent a few hours walking around. The views were stunning, and not being a bit waterfall expert, I was blown away..not literally, but I did get a little wet. There´s one part of the falls, called the Devil´s Throat, which is unbeleivable. You can see it in this picture but of course it hasn´t done it any justice at all. It is the part just left of centre. You can see the Brazilian viewpoint in the lower left hand side of the picture below, and the Argentinian viewpoint in the top right.















The photo below was taken from the Brazilian viewpoint. There are a few walks you can take on the Brazilain side, into the jungle, but some companies have privatised them and you can´t go on them without paying. It was a bit of a shocker really, but we had heard there were a few free walks on the Batistuta side. So after seeing the falls from the Brazilians side, and drinkng beer next to them, we went back to Foz in the afternoon.















This was also taken from the Brazilian side.

The picture below is the last one from the Brazilian side, I promise. You may already be bored of them but between us we took over 400 pictures of water, and it falling. And it is hard work uploading photos this on this crappy PC (and I am having trouble putting them where I want them to go).

Right, where was I? Oh yes, back in Foz on Friday afternoon. I think I killed some time emailing. So that evening we hooked up with the other gringo´s who were on the bus trip here (Jimmy and Inigo (his parent´s are hippies, and live with Morrocan and Algerian buskers) and Tom and Ellie). We headed out into the empty streets in search of food and nightlife. After a very cheap churrascaria and a couple of caipirinha´s, we found ourselves going to the opening night of the "International Disco Club", which is attached to the only 5 star hotel in town. After intially refusing to go in because they had put the prices up (well the flyer did say it was cheap until 00:45, and we arrived at 2am), the bouncers decided to let us in for cheap cheap (having gringo´s in the place is a good thing). It was a pretty good night, and very interesting to see how the Brazilian´s go clubbing. The guy who looked like he had just come out of traction (he still had the metal pins in his leg) drinking from a bottle of whiskey was particularly amusing. We eventually turned in at about 4.30am. This meant Saturday was pretty much written off. Well I did drag H to the worlds largest hydroelectic dam (Itaipu), and one of the seven modern wonders of the world. I can tell you are as bored as H was. Sam, being an engineer and all that, you would have loved it. Mind you, we did get a good view of the Paraguayan city of Ciudad Del Este on the trip (tick!).

So today we went to Argentina. We had planned to go via public transport but when we looked into it we realised that the public transport to and from Argentina, and then onto the falls did´t run as often as we had hoped. It would have taken 2, maybe 3 hours each way. So we decided to go via an overpriced tour. Well it wasn´t even that, it was a guy in a minibus who took us there and brought us back. At the border we had to get out and wipe our footwear in disinfectant - something about foot and mouth prevention. This was a bit odd, especially as the Brazilian mat was dry and hadn´t got any detergent on it.

Anyway, we had a great day. Because we had the whole day there we managed to do all three of the free walks around the park. You get a lot closer to the falls on this side, and the highlight was getting really close to the Devil´s Throat, as you can see below.

We leave for Florianapolis tomorrow, which is back on the south coast of Brazil. It´s another 15 hour, overnight bus journey, and we are hoping for a decent bus this time. We are going to spend some more time enjoying the beach life and I am hoping to go surfing again. From there we head into Uruguay, most probabaly sometime next weekend. We will then be at the end of our fourth week, and there is now talk now of going to Bolivia after spending some time in Buenos Aires as we don´t really need to spend four weeks in Argentina. It could be a real mission getting there but it is supposed to be really cheap and we are getting through our cash really fast, but I guess we will see how it goes.