Last few days in Argentina & Observations

We are now approaching the end of our time in Argentina and are getting ready to head into Bolivia (tomorrow at midnight). We spent one last day in Mendoza where we made the most of the free wine and were even given a little bottle as a present when we left the hostel. We then had a long bus journey to Salta which is in the north and have spent the day looking around the town. Salta is very different to the other parts of Argentina we have seen - it seems a lot more indigenous and quite a bit poorer. We have been told to expect a culture shock when we enter Bolivia and I think Salta may have been good preparation for this.
Before we cross into what many people have told us is ´the true South America´, I would like to just record a few of my thoughts and observations on Brazil and Argentina.

Brazil
We only visited the south west so I am not in a position to comment on Brazil as a whole, however  everywhere we went was quite different. If any Brazilians happen to read this, please realise that what follows is just an assortment of my own superifical observations gleaned from staying a couple of weeks in your country - please do not be offended!

Communication was difficult as most people spoke neither Spanish nor English but we got by on a mixture of the two.
Rio was the most beautiful city I have ever visited in terms of breathtaking landscapes and overall setting. It is better than you see in the movies -  standing on Ipanema beach with those famous mountains in the background whilst the sun was setting is an experience that will stay ingrained in my memories forever - it was an unforgettable start to our round the world trip.
Another thing I would like to mention about Rio is that fact that it was not as dangerous or scary as I had imagined. I had built up a terrifying image in my mind thanks to documentaries and films like city of God but in the end it turned out to be nothing like I had imagined. Maybe this was thanks to the great hostel we stayed in or maybe it was just down to luck and being careful but I would definitely go back there again.
One of my favourite experiences in Rio was visiting the Rochina favella because the favellas are such a big part of life in Rio and I am glad we didn´t miss out on seeing them just because some people regard it as voyeuristic tourism.
Iguazu and Floripa were both beautiful places and one thing I do want to mention, although insignificant to most people, is how impressed I was by the standard of the public toilets. On the whole they were on par with those in the UK.
We travelled some large distances in Brazil and what we saw in between towns tended to be sparse, dry landscapes with poor clusters of towns that mostly consisted of tin shacks and stray dogs on the loose.
Unfortunately we did not meet many real Brazilians, but those we did meet were extremely friendly, with one of the hostel owners actually giving us a hug when we checked out.
Finally I will comment on Brazilian food. We only really ate one true Brazilian meal in the hostel in Iguazu that was made up of beans, rice, salad and mince. It was really nice. The rest of the time we were overwhelmed by the choice of snacks available - ham and cheese sandwhich, ham pasty, cheese pasty, cheese sandwhich, ham and cheese pasty or sometimes there was even a bit of chicken or ´frango´thrown into the mix e.g. chicken kiev with ham and cheese in the middle of the chicken.
Overall, my favourite things about Brazil in the end were probably the samba music, the people and the laid back way of life.

Argentina
 Well what can I say about wonderful, vast, diverse Argentina? Let me firstly start with the highly anticipated Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires
An outstanding city that did not disappoint. In terms of safety, I know I said Rio felt safer than I had imagined but it was by no means on a par with BA. BA is a city that never sleeps and I felt safe wondering about the buzzing streets at all hours of the night. The restaurants don´t start to fill up until 10pm and nobody goes clubbing before 1am or returns home before 6am. There is so much variety in terms of places to eat, things to see, museums to visits, protests to get involved in. The history and politics are also fascinating and as cheesy as it sounds, you feel like you are walking through history in the making every day in Buenos Aires. During the time we were there we witnessed so many protests, celebrations, dancing in the streets... we even saw a movie being filmed. I loved the European feel to the city as well as the variety of food available and how cosmopolitan it felt. I am really glad we spent a full week there because there was so much to get involved in.
  
Landscapes
Wow. Definitely the most breathtaking landscapes I have ever witnessed. From enormous advancing glaciers, to awe inspiring waterfalls and lakes so blue they looked like they had been dyed! I cannot choose my favourite natural wonder but I would say that the day hiking around the mountains of el Chalten is pretty hard to beat. Every five minutes I had to stop and pinch myself and think, wow, now this is what you call being alive. At some points during that hike it felt like we were the only three people left on the planet, right at the end of the world.
  
People
The people in the South spoke English a lot better than I had expected and I would not count this as a positive as it meant I did not get to practice my Spanish much. Everyone we met was very passionate about politics.

Food
I would not be upset if I never at another steak again in my life. We have kind of overdone it here in Argentina with the asados (BBQs) to the point where I have been waking up in the middle of the night with meat sweats. The empanadas are delicious.
  
Culture
Not much of a culture here to speak of. Very similar to Europe, with some places in the south (e.g. Bariloche) having a Swiss feel to them, and others having a very french or Italian feel to them. We tried the mate that everyone here is so obsessed with drinking and it was extremely bitter and not something I would drink again. The buildings and shops are so different in the south compared to the north - in the south they are a lot more modern and the towns feel a lot richer, although at the bus stations, and in the public toilets, you can still tell that you are in a developing country.
  
Communication
The Argentinian dialect is extremely hard to understand; I hope that it gets easier further north.
  
Overall, I have really enjoyed the last 3 weeks in Argentina and I feel like we have had a good glimpse of the country in that short time, having travelled from north to south and back up again. The natural landscapes, the wine and the people have all been fantastic and it has been like one long holiday, however, it has not felt like ´real travelling´. I guess I am about to get the culture shock of my life in the next few days if I am to believe the stories fellow travellers have told me. From ladies who go to the toilet in the middle of the street to buses where the bus isn´t really full unless it is holding 3 times it´s intended capacity. Bolivia should be interesting!

Mendoza

We arrived in Mendoza after a gruelling 20 hour bus journey. The reason it was so bad was because we were sat right at the back of the double decker coach in semi cama seats (semi cama are the ones that don't lie very far back, cama are the ones that recline completely). Also, I had the beginnings of a cold, a very sore throat and a blocked nose. All of this meant I only slept for about 2 hours that night. We got to Mendoza exhausted. Mendoza is the wine growing capital of Argentina and we had chosen a lovely hostel that offers free wine tasting sessions, a free glass of malbec every night and pancakes for breakfast. As we arrived at the hostel so early in the morning, we were allowed to help ourselves to breakfast. We met a really friendly English girl called Keeley who had quit her job in London to go and teach English in Mendoza. We also met one of the couples we had partied with in Bariloche. We spent the rest of the day just lazing about and napping. It was Sunday, the day of the election so everywhere was closed. When Cristina was announced the winner, there were lots of celebrations in the streets, but I was too tired to go out and watch and went to bed to get over my cold, which by this point was feeling more like the flu.
Keeley had told us about a bike tour that you could do through the vineyards, tasting the wine en route. This sounded good, but as my cold was ten times worse the next day, we decided not to do it and just have a rest day instead. We wandered around the shops for a bit and then I went back to the room for a nap. We decided to have the hostel's all you can eat BBQ that night because we couldn't be bothered to cook. We sat in the garden of the hostel around a table with another English girl we met (Claire), a life coach from Canada called Celine, plus yet another couple we had met in Bariloche (Tammy and Paul). We were served all you can eat steak by a waiter and the red wine just kept on flowing. I really enjoyed the evening and it was nice to see Tammy and Paul again but I couldn't keep going for long as my cold was really bad and I was very congested so I had to go to bed. Jemma stayed up with the others and I think they got to bed around 3am.
The next day we were going to do the wine tour but we really didn't feel like it and its not like I have never been to a vineyard before (my dad lives near Bordeaux) so we didn't feel like we missed out too much. Instead we walked around the city again and went to the park where there is meant to be a good viewing point to see the whole of Mendoza. Unfortunately we didn't make it there as we both felt too tired and I felt ill, so we went back to the main town, had an ice cream then went to cook tea in the hostel.
The hostel had organised a free wine tasting session that night, with an external wine taster who came in to teach us all about wine tasting. It was really interesting and we got a good few glasses of wine out of it. After this, we walked Keeley to the bus station and then went into the garden to chill in the hammocks, with Celine the life coach, who more or less gave us a free life coaching session and told us all about her job. It was fascinating. You meet so many interesting people when you are travelling, with different backgrounds and different careers. I had thought we would just meet students but it isn't the case. So far we have met a life coach, entrepreneurs. film producers, animators, trainers, a journalist for a women's magazine, a marketeer for Unilever, investment bankers....
I am going to stop there because it is now Wednesday and we have to catch our coach to Salta (another 20 hours in semi cama - yay!). We have just had all you can eat pancakes with dulce de leche (caramel). I will try to add some photos to this post when I get more time.

Bariloche

We spent our last day in Calafate chilling out in the hostel because Jemma couldn’t do much with her knee. We had a choice between taking a bus at 4pm or taking one at 3am to Bariloche. We opted for the 3am one because we wanted another all you can eat BBQ from the hostel. It was without a doubt my best meal so far – lots of fresh veg, meat and a bottle of red wine included. We stayed awake until 3am and then took a bus to Rio Gallegos where we had to change buses and take one to Rivadavia. Once in Rivadavia we had a 3hour wait so we went and found a pizza restaurant and sat trying to make the pizzas last for 3 hours. An Argentinian guy on the table next to us who was sat on his own, noticed us doing this and asked if he could join us. It was great because we had all of our questions about Argentinian politics and culture answered (they have an election on Sunday, and the woman who is touted to win is a wannabe Evita. Her name is Cristina and there are posters of here everywhere. She recently went to Paris on a shopping trip where she spent £500,000 on shoes...). If I were Argentinan, I would definitely vote for her.

Fuerza Argentina!

We then went back to the bus station to get our next bus (it was 10.45 pm by now) but the bus was delayed for an hour. We finally arrived in Bariloche after a 36! hour bus journey fraught with screaming and vomiting babies (the baby on the seat next to us was actually sick and we had to lend the mother wet wipes).

We have now been in Bariloche 3 days and I am quite annoyed as I type this as my camera has started to be really weird and it has wiped all of my amazing photos of the lakes :( so gutted!

On day one we arrived at the hostel starving after our 36 hour bus journey and went straight to the supermarket to get food. Bariloche is Argentina's version of Switzerland and it is absolutely stunning. However, about 2 days before we arrived, a nearby volcano erupted and now the whole area is covered in ash. On the first day this was really noticeable, with people wandering round wearing face masks and goggles and ash covering all of the streets and buildings. It kept whipping up in the wind and going into our eyes. At this point I just wanted to stay one night and then leave. However, the next day the wind changed and blew all of the ash to Buenos Aires so Bariloche has been completely fine for the past 2 days.

We are staying in a lovely little family hostel who's owner, Pablo, has a 5 month baby daughter and she is the cutest thing ever!

 We have also met some fantastic people here including a couple (one ozzie, 1 brit called Tammy and Paul) who we ate dinner with the first night and who also remember seeing us in Calfate but we dont remember them. Also there is a couple from NZ who are doing the exact same route as us and so we will no doubt meet them again, as well as a lovely Swiss couple who are also criss crossing our route.

On our second day we had a long lie in to get over the bus journey and then caught a local bus to the top of the mountains in order to do a bike ride. When we got there, the guy told us we needed at least 5 hours to do it and we didn’t have 5 hours so he recommended we hike up the neighbouring mountain instead. We hiked up the mountain (it was very steep) and when we got to the top, the panoramic views of the lakes and mountains of Bariloche were outstanding. Probably the best views I have seen on this trip. I took so many photos and am really gutted they have all gone!

When we finished the hike, we got a bus back to the main town and visited all of the chocolate shops (Bariloche, like Switzerland is famous for its chocolate). Then we went back to the hostel and had an amazing meal with all of our new friends which was cooked for us by Pablo. Everybody had a half kilo steak each (there were 16 people round the table!). We also each drank a litre of red wine. It was brilliant. It was a multilingual table, with people from Australia, New Zealand, UK, Switzerland, South Africa, France.... and after a few glasses of wine I was chatting away, switching between 4 different languages. It was my heaven. We laughed so much, with Janet also making a brief appearance. Once we were all steaked out, we all headed off to the local pub where Janet encouraged the local Argentinians to make the Ozzies dance on the tables. It was an absolutely brilliant night and it reminded me of Auberge Espanol. 

The next day, our heads were a bit sore, but we still wanted to get up reasonably early to do the bike ride. We hired bikes at the top of the mountains and did a 20k cycle around all of the lakes and mountains – it was absolutely stunning. We also cycled through a 'Swiss village' which was very bizarre. It is a little Swiss village in the middle of the mountains and forests, with restaurants selling Strudel and suchlike. 

Now we are just going to relax in the hostel after a long and energetic day. My legs are aching and I am looking forward to a nice tea that we are going to throw together using people's left over pasta in the hostel. Tomorrow we are going to catch a 20 hour bus to Mendoza – the wine region.

More photos here: Bariloche

El Chaltén

First rule of hostelling: never assume you have the dorm to yourself - no matter how late it is! On Friday night we went to bed quite late after enjoying a BBQ buffet and red wine. We spread all of our things out across the room thinking we had it all to ourselves, then at 2am there was a loud knock on the door - a French couple had arrived to share with us. I had to hurriedly get up and lock all of our valuables in the locker. I could hear them whispering 'putain!' as they navigated their way around the room in the dark with their backpacks.

The next day we just had a lazy day in el Calafate and went for a walk to the lake with an Irish boy (Mark) who we met in Buenos Aires on a walking tour. He is doing a very similar route to us so no doubt we will bump into him again. We saw flamingos and some nice views of the lake and the mountains. We then came back to our hostel, had lunch and chilled out. We intended to go to bed early as we had to get up early the next day for a bus ride to el Chalten but in the end we ended up going to bed about 1am. The french couple still weren't in at this point though; they rolled in at 2am and the girl took about 40 mins to get ready, giving me a grand total of about 3 hours sleep for the night.

The next day we got an early bus to El Chalten, a very small village in the mountains, famous for its mountain Fitz Roy. I had seen pictures of this in guide books and really wanted to visit it so we decided to stay over night there and have two full days hiking. We left our rucksacks in our hostel in el Calafate and just took a little overnight bag with us. We slept all the way on the coach as we were both exhausted. When we got to El Chalten we were very pleasantly surprised with our hostel as we had only paid around £4 for it. For this, we got our own room in a cosy little chalet. We decided to set of hiking straight away with a South African girl called Rie who we met in Calafate. The hike to the lake took about 3 hours and we almost ran it. With Rie setting the pace, it was a speed walk up the mountain and I was really struggling to keep up most of the way. The weather was great but we kept having to add and take away layers. When we got to the lake it was all worth it because the views were like a postcard.

An actual photo I took (not a postcard!)

The views along the way were also fantastic. More photos here: Patagonia

We stopped at the top for lunch. We had made some sandwiches in Calafate but left them in the hostel so we bought some empanadas at the bottom of the mountain when we first arrived and had them for lunch. We then took about 2.5 hours to hike back down and we went straight to the local shop to find something for tea. We went back to the hostel, had an amazing shower and then cooked dinner with Rie (the standard pasta, tomato sauce and vegetables). Then we all went to bed by about 9pm.

Today (Sunday) we got up early to do the main trek to Fitz Roy (the one I had really been looking forward to). The weather was a lot colder and very windy and the route was a lot steeper with lots of steps and hills to climb. Unfortunately we never made it to the last viewing point and so never got to see the elusive Fitz Roy in all of its glory because Jemma hurt her knee and couldn't carry on due to the pain. We were actually only about an hour away from finishing but the mountain was covered in cloud anyway so we probably wouldn't have been able to see much more than we did. Jemma had to walk all of the way back down using two sticks to support her and is still in pain now with her knee.

The view of Fitz Roy

When we got back to the bottom, we had 4 hours to kill before our bus back to El Calafate so we ordered a bottle of red wine to share between the 3 of us and then had a nap on some beanbags in the hostel. 

 We have just got back to El Calafate and it is the chef's night off so there is no food to eat - we just had to make do with the tuna sandwiches we left in the fridge two days ago. We are now trying to decide what to do next. We are half tempted to stay in Calafate another day so Jemma can rest her knee, and also because we really want another BBQ buffet. We are supposed to be heading to Bariloche next but there has been a volcano eruption recently and apparently everything is covered in ash. We shall see!

El Calafate (Perito Moreno Glacier)

There is nothing nicer than having a whole dorm to yourself having only booked 2 beds, and that is what we have tonight!

I am writing this blog post (again offline) from our cosy little chalet room in El Calafate, having just had and all you can eat bbq and salad buffet plus free bottle of Malbec wine at the hostel! Heaven! We sat having food and wine for three hours with 3 Belgian girls, after a long but lovely day at the glacier poreto moreno.

We arrived in El Calafate yesterday after a long, and extremely turbulent flight – (to the point where I thought it might be our last flight). We caught a shuttle bus to our hostel which is just fantastic – a big log chalet with underfloor heating, wooden walls and ceilings, BBQ every night and very friendly staff. Today we took a day trip to the glacier which is the main attraction of El Calafate and the second main natural wonder in Argentina after Igazu falls. It is one of the last remaining advancing glaciers in the world and words or photos DO NOT do it justice! It is absolutely enormous and you can hear it cracking and large chunks of ice keep falling off it and thundering into the freezing waters below.

We caught a coach there, which broke down for about an hour, but drove through some stunning mountain scenery and stopped on the way for us to take pictures of the glacier from afar. When it got there, we had 2 hours to walk to all of the different viewing points. It was out of this world. At first it was quite cloudy and cold but then the sun came out and you could see the blue parts of the glacier where the ice was still de-oxygenated. It stretches back for miles and we took a boat out to it to get a closer look. We had made ourselves a little packed lunch of tuna salad baguettes and had them on the platform as we watched large chunks of ice fall into the water.

Oh I forgot to mention that the breakfast in the hostel is: hot chocolate, chocolate cake and toast with dulce de leche. Perfect to set you up for a day in the snow! We were so tired after a days trekking that we both fell asleep the whole way on the coach back. We love it so much at this hostel that we have decided to stay here an extra day tomorrow just chilling and sorting out banking etc (my prepaid card has been frozen and I need to unlock it). Then we plan to head to el Chaleten which is a big national park near by with free entry but it has some stunning scenery that we hope to see (including Fitz Roy). We (I) had also wanted to go to Torres del Pain in Chile, but after looking at our budget and timescale we do not think it is feasible and the views aT Chaleten are meant to be just as great so we will head there before going on to Bariloche.

Our dorm

The hostel as seen from the top balcony level

More photos of El Calafate HERE

Last few days in Buenos Aires

On the previous post I forgot to write about what happened when I woke up on Sunday morning. I woke up to find a small Mexican lady sat at the bottom of my bed speaking to me in Spanish. She couldn't speak a word of English and was asking Jemma questions in Spanish. She asked if she could swap beds with me and if I could go on the top bunk. I was barely awake but we managed to have a conversation about her family, how her nieces and nephews lived in the US and how many inhabitants Mexico city has. In the end I persuaded her to go down stairs and ask them to put her and her daughter in another room so it wouldnt be so cramped and then I went back to sleep. We have seen her a few times since, and everytime she asks 'are you leaving today?' in the hope that she can have our room. Not sure why she wants it. Maybe its because it has a quadruple bunk?

On Monday we walked to the Japanese gardens where we looked around for a while and then walked past the zoo to Palermo – the young and trendy part of the city – a bit like Camden. We walked around there for a while looking for a good steak restaurant to eat that evening but everywhere was over priced. We caught a bus back to the hostel and asked the guy there for a recommendation. We ended up eating in a restaurant just round the corner which was excellent value - £10 per person for steak, chips and a bottle of wine! I don't usually like red wine but this was nice (Malbec).
On our last day we just hung around the local neighbourhood (mircrocentro) and walked to congress. We did some washing at the laundrette and I bought a hat and gloves ready for our trip to el Calafate. We are currently sat in the airport waiting for our internal flight to el Calafate (I am writing this offline). El Calafate is in Patagonia, right at the bottom of Argentina. Its famous for its glaciers and you can go trekking on them. There are a few good areas to visit down there including el Chaleten and Torres del Paine (in Chile). We have not decided which to go to yet – it will depend on prices. We have booked to stay in a hostel which apparently has underfloor heating and does BBQs (recommended to us by a few people).  After we have had enough of trekking around mountains and glaciers, we are planning to get the coach up to Barriloche (the Argentinian lake district).

Ps Jemma has ripped her only pair of trousers (apart from her jeans) and we have both been bitten all over. Not sure if it is bed bugs or fleas. In our last hostel, the girl below my bunk got seriously bitten by bedbugs all over her body but we didnt have a single bite. Its hard to tell where they have come from.

Buenos Aires continued...

This place is so busy and entertaining that all the days are blurring into one. We spent the day after the pubcrawl just chilling out, going food shopping etc. We had our last day in Milhouse hostel and were glad to leave. The next day (Saturday) we checked out, put our bags in our new hostel and then went to La Boca.
La Boca is the neighbourhood you see on all the photos of Buenos Aires with the colourful houses.

It is a place tourists go to take pictures, eat steak and watch the gauchos (cowboys) dancing. There are also tango dancers and lots of souvenir shops. The surrounding area is where the Boca juniors football stadium is. We didn't spend long there because it was only small. We went back to our hostel and I had a nap whilst Jemma went on the internet. We then met up with Delia, our South African friend from Iguazu. It was really nice to see her again and have a few drinks. Then we met some really nice English girls and decided to go on another organised pub crawl. You pay about £20 and get all you can eat pizza and wine/ beer for the first hour and then free shots in every bar and free entry to the nightclub at the end. It was completely different to the pubcrawl we went on on Thursday. It was quite rowdy and there were a lot of people there - mainly Argentinians. It was good to speak Spanish but after a while the sleazy men got a bit tiresome. We used every excuse under the sun to fend them off but none of them worked. Nevertheless, we had an excellent night with the two English girls and we ended up getting taken on a minibus to a club out in the sticks. The club was massive and packed with under age teenagers. Coincidentally, whilst at this club, we bumped into several people we had met in Buenos Aires on the walking tour, plus, Caroline, another girl we had met in Foz do Iguazu. It wasn't a coincidence however, it turned out all the hostels had arranged to dump us all in the same club for one big hostel party. The drinks were really expensive and there were lots of lost travellers wandering about drunk who didnt even know what hostel they were staying in. We caught a taxi back with our two English friends and then had pizza in the kitchen. It was just like being in Cardiff.

The internet hasn't been working in the hostel, so I have been writing this on the netbook to post whenever we next get internet. On Sunday we got up late and walked to the shop to buy some food for a picnic and then had a picnic in the park (baguette with pate and crisps). We then wandered around the Sunday markets before heading back to the hostel to get ready to go out. That evening we went to a tango show in the oldest cafe in Buenos Aires - Cafe Tortini.

More Buenos Aires photos here: Buenos Aires Album

Stand back, Buenos Aires!

Well, we are in Buenos Aires and we both absolutely LOVE it. Its such a fantastic city - very cosmopolitan, modern, friendly, bustling, energetic, colourful, buzzing, passionate. Basically it is the complete opposite to Montevideo lol. If I had to compare it to somewhere, I'd say its definitely like Paris, mixed with New York.
We got here on Tuesday after catching the ferry from Uruguay. We caught a bus to our hostel (the driver let us on for free because we had no change) and we checked in. The hostel was a massive disappointment - its a big chain hostel with no warm feeling to it, its just full of drunken English people and the rooms are not nice. We are both on really high bunks that have no sides to them and no ladder. They are away from the walls so you could fall off either side. Luckily, we only booked four days here so we are spending the last 4 days of our trip somewhere else that was recommended by a friend. Despite the hostel being bad, it hasn't ruined our perception of the city.
The first day we went on a walking tour of the city, which was quite good. They took us to Eva Peron's grave, which was fascinating, especially after having watched Evita on the coach the other night. The grave is in a huge prestigious cemetery where the coffins are stacked up high inside shrines and are easily visible. It was like nothing I have ever seen.

That night , we went for an all you can eat that was on the same street as our hostel (we are staying on the main boulevard called av. de Mayo). It was only about £7 and it was fantastic. The chips were stunning and you could order as much meat off the grill as you wanted (Lid's heaven).

Yesterday we went to the place where Evita stood on the balcony and looked around a museum about the history of BA. It is very interesting to see how similar the actual history is to the film!

BA is a party city and there is so much to do so we have decided to stay 8 days. Stupidly, neither of us brought any party clothes with us so we had to go shopping yesterday for some jeans. We looked for ages (all the shops stock mainly size 0) but eventually we found a nice little cheap shop where the woman was really friendly (couldn't speak English, which was nice) and we both got some jeans for £20 - not bad. Unfortunately, I am on antibiotics at the moment so can't drink until Saturday (which is very annoying!) but last night we went on an organised  pubcrawl and I paid half price and just drank redbull. It was brilliant (even when sober) and we met some really nice people. It was a good job I was sober because by the end of the night, Jemma, who drank all of my free shots, could barely stand up. Tonight we are going on another pubcrawl with a girl we met in Iguazu, and I think we may be going now to get some food, possibly the fry up that the hostel offer. Yes, this really is what you call living the dream ;)

Montevideo day 2

Montevideo really is a pretty bleak place. We walked the length and breadth of the city today, trying to find something worth seeing but in the end, the highlight was eating a burrito at a Californian chain store. The lowlight was a bird pooing on Jemma's head. The hostel hasn't done much to improve our impressions of the city - there is currently a small family living here who ate all of the breakfast before we got up and generally ruin the hostel vibe. Tomorrow we catch the ferry for Buenos Aires where we will be staying in the renowned party hostel, Milhouse Avenue :)

P.S. I have now enabled commenting on this blog so anyone should be able to comment, even if you don't have an account

We have seen many cars like this in Uruguay

City centre

More photos of Montevideo and Floripa HERE

From Florianopolis to Montevideo

Jemma enjoying the complimentary whiskey served on the coach

We spent our last day in Florianopolis at the beach, kayaking on the lake and chilling out. Half way out into the lake it transpired that Jemma had never canoed before and couldnt canoe to save her life so I had to row us both back to the shore. Three days in Floripa was enough for me, and on the last day the weather started to turn. In retrospect, it was a lovely hostel and it was nice to have some chill out time without so many people about. On the first night we ate a ridiculously overpriced seafood meal because Jemma had it in her head she had to have shrimp, so all I could eat was the rice and chips. It takes a lot for me, the chipmonster to say I don't like chips but these didn't have any potato in - they were just fried fries. The next day I chose the meal and we went to Subway. Good old Subway, like McDonalds, it tastes universally good. We then had to get from the remote resort to the central bus station walking in the blazing heat with our massive bags. Once there, we caught a bus to Uruguay and the journey took 23 hours in total from door to door. We were very impressed with the bus however, as they served us free drinks ( including whiskey) and meals along the way. Surprise surprise though, the meal consisted of a ham and cheese sandwich with a hot chicken Kiev, which, wait for it, also had ham and cheese inside the chicken. They also showed two good films including the Shining. We got to Montevideo early this morning having slept very little on the bus. I have to say it is the most unremarkable city I have ever visited in my life. It feels more European than Brazil but has a kind of Eastern block atmosphere to it - old rusty cars everywhere and people wearing clothes a decade out of date. I can't wait to leave and get to Buenos Aires. The highlight of our stay here so far has been having my first McDonalds, which was actually more expensive than in the UK but made such a nice change to constant ham and cheese. After this trip is over, I hope I never have to see another ham and cheese sandwich ever again in my life.