Back in relatively familiar territory, always a nice feeling. We spent our last few reais on more pao do queijo and a trip to the toilet at the bus station (not the best, not the worst either) then joined the pile of backpackers at the bus stop marked "Argentina". Minibus arrived a bit later and we all piled on then all had to pile off at the Brazilian side of the border again. Border proceedings took no time at all but then we had a very long wait for another bus, several going past and just waving as they cruised on by. Got a bit ridiculous but eventually got a bus to the Argentinian side, feeling very thankful we'd chosen to leave Curitiba on the earlier bus as it was already getting a little close to our next departure time. Customs on this side was a bit more rigorous than it had been on the way out, xray'd our bags. Didn't seem concerned about my mini bananas though. Arrived back in Puerto Iguazu with time to spare so decided to wander down to see the friendly folk at Hostel Bambu, left our bags there while we went in hunt of icecream for breakfast and actually found a place that was open to our surprise - Delish! Then hopped on the next bus bound for Cordoba. We were sat in the second row so had a reasonable view. Were stopped several times by highway patrol type people who came on (once with a dog even) and had to show our passports and other people got what seemed to be full on interrogations. Later on it started to rain and got really really scarily windy at one point with eerie lighting which slowed us down even further. Had a good view of the beautiful sunset accompanied by fork lightning flashes. Also a good view of the bus drivers terrifying overtaking tactics. Yikes. The road was very narrow, no margin of error allowed for or you're in the grass. Dinner, which was the most monotonous i've seen, pretty much all white - various bready snacks, rice and stringy meat, was served really late as we were well behind schedule, so at that stage we probably would've eaten anything which was just as well. Slept pretty well and arrived in Cordoba mid-morning, an hour and a half later than scheduled.
Decided to check out a modern art gallery first (after a breakfast of the remaining pao do queijo in a little unpretty park). Walked through the big park on the way there, past the zoo, a bright green river and an amusement park. Saw a budgerigar in the WILD (like sitting on the path in front of us). Then got a little lost. Then found again. Then found the art gallery which was really interesting and deliciously air conditioned. Spent ages there before trying to get lunch at a place listed in lonely planet but it was just closed so went somewhere else and got a selection of empanadas (not quite the ones we ordered tho). As we were leaving the art gallery we were witness to a cellphone robbery, a guy on a motorbike just rode up onto the pavement at a corner and quick as a flash the guy standing there was suddenly empty handed. Happened so fast. After lunch we succeeded in finding the post office next and sent all our postcards finally since we finished writing them at lunch. Not cheap and most boring stamps ever. Then wandered around town - there's a large pedestrian only area which is way nicer to walk around but the shops are all fairly generic and boring. Except for the whiteware/appliance store that was pumping out Supre-esque music, both in style and volume. Bizarre. Got plenty of Grido icecream and ate it in a plaza where we then sat for quite a while before trying for some dinner. On the way to the restaurant we'd decided to go to there was a street display for people who had been killed or disappeared during a particularly black time in the history of the area with their photos strung up everywhere - lots had been young students. Stopped for a while to watch a pretty incredible street artist do his stuff, very impressive and wanted to buy a couple but didn't have enough pesos so were gonna try in american dollars but the ones we wanted got snapped up before we figured out the conversion. Got to the restaurant and it too was closed, next place we tried was closed as well and walked past a third closed vege place before seriously contemplating a dinner of supermarket wine but the last place to try was open so spent our last few pesos on tabouleh, eggplant and baklava at a nice middle eastern place that gave us complimentary pita bread and water.
Got to the bus station to discover our 10pm bus was going to be at least 3 hours late. Managed to speak the most spanish at one time that i think i had so far this trip to explain to the girl at the little internet cafe our predicament of needing to let the friend that was going to meet us in santiago know about the delay but having nada pesos to pay to do so and got myself 5 free minutes! Then wiled away the hours playing cards and finding open bathrooms. Bus finally arrived at 2am and managed to switch seats so that jon and i could sit next to each other rather than on separate levels of the double decker. This bus was a cama bus so dinner was pretty flash and even had a wide selection of beverages to accompany it. Woke up to a gorgeous sunrise, went through mendoza then entered the andes again. Chile border crossing again, much less harrowing when you'd done it before. Then slept pretty much until we were almost at the bus station in Santiago where there were friendly faces to meet us! Got ushered through the Santiago subway system and arrived at daniela's lovely, cosy, pet friendly (3 cats - one a tiny kitten called zeus - and 4 dogs, mostly daschunds). Showered then had a really yummy supper (heaps of fresh fruit) with all the fam as Daniela's sister was leaving to live in BsAs the very next day. Were going to go out to either a friends place or to a well known authentic-y bar for a drink that sounded really really delicious but wound up getting some pisco and beer and staying in.
On saturday we walked around a nearby massive street market where you can actually buy anything, including the kitchen sink!! I saw one! Didn't buy anything at all really, only some local drink that is made of a sweet juice made from dried peaches and some sort of grain a bit like barley maybe. It was super cold which was the best cos it was a scorcher. Oh also got ice blocks again because of the extreme heat. And an unusual fruit that i can't remember the name of that i thought was delicious but had loads of really hard little seeds. Then went home and blobbed cos it was too hot to do anything except drink freshly blended icy melon smoothies.
When it got to be a more manageable heat we went for a big bikeride nearly into town and stopped in a bohemian type neighbourhood for a traditional lunch/dinner that was pretty much beef, onions and fried eggs served on chips! Then went for a drink at a place that brews its own beer then serves it with liqueurs/spirits added to it so you can order beer with a shot of tequila or cherry liqueur or whatever added in! Quite nice actually.
That evening we were supposed to go to some show but it had already finished by the time we'd biked home so a few of Daniela's friends came over then we went over to another friends place to hang out. Later on we went to get a Completo which i had been looking forward to trying. Basically it's an american hotdog but it's huge and has every dressing imaginable on top, most of which ended up down the front of my dress!! We ended up staying the night at that friend's place then went to catch the bus home in the morning but Jon hadn't brought his bip! card with him so it was a slow walk home in the heat. Stopped to get some water on the way (they only had carbonated stuff which is worse than no water i reckon when you're thirsty) then closer to home we stopped at somebody's house-come-cafe and tried a chilean empanada (much bigger than in argentina) and some corn thing that was wrapped in the husks and steamed - yummy.
Back home we got all packed up and ready to go then headed into town with Daniela and Ruben. The idea was to drop our packs at the cafe of friends of Daniela's then explore for a couple of hours before heading to the airport but being a sunday the cafe was closed so we had no choice but to cart them with us on a quick trip up the cable car (rode with another kiwi!) to the hill with a virgin mary this time and a view of Santiago (pretty smoggy) and more cold peach-cereal drink. Next stop was for a filling lunch of churrasco in town next door to the place Daniela actually wanted to take us which was closed. Then we caught the bus to airport with muchas gracias to Ruben as we didn't have enough cash left and no time to find an atm before the bus would leave and we were cutting it fine for Jon's flight already. Got to the airport to discover that Jon's flight was delayed anyway! I couldn't check in for mine for a while yet so looked around the airport and found a place to sit for a wee while before we were off back to NZ.
The girl i had met briefly in Iguazu that was heading to NZ on the same day as me was in fact on my flight and ended up right behind me in the check-in line! Sat beside first one then another guy from Uruguay on the plane who were going to spend the year in NZ. They switched so the very tall one could have the emergency exit seats with more leg room. Got my bag fully searched by the friendly nz customs officers cos they wanted to rinse my boots which i'd packed right at the bottom. Then on to chch after a nap where nana was waiting to meet me :D
Did have a quick subconscious look for a bin for the toilet paper at Radbrook St like i'd wondered if i might. Went for a swim and back to the airport in the afternoon to meet Jon a swap flight stories. The End.
Thursday, 19 March 2009
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
The Penultimate
On friday morning (27/02?) Jon and I went for one last walk along the beach before we had to pack up and catch a ride with Andrea and Christian into the nearby town to get on a bus for Porto Alegre. Had opted to spend the weekend there instead of trying to get to Rio/Ilha Grande to see the Ibells as we were fast running out of both time and money. Managed to get a touch sunburnt at the beach despite fairly good attempts at protecting myself. Arrived in P.A. an hour late to a waiting Mathias! Bussed back to his neat apartment in ...insert suburb here... Ordered pizza for dinner then went up to the roof for a night view of the city while we waited for it to arrive. Very pretty. The pizza arrived in the most giant pizza box i'd ever seen, and had the most giant pizza i'd ever seen inside it as well. Even had a cheese stuffed crust and 4 different toppings including a chocolate/strawberry/mozzarella section!! Forgot to say the menu had had at least 70 different toppings to choose from. Drank some beer with our pizza then headed out to one of Mathias' fave nightlife spots. Unfortunately they were trying something new that night and the music was not that great, and it was super hot though apparently it always is, so we ended up leaving pretty early, earlier than Mathias thought he'd ever left that kinda thing. Got free jelly shots though. Went home and watched bjork music videos to counteract the bad music running round in our heads.
The following day we were going to go for a cheap but highly recommended buffet lunch but as we had only about 1 Real left we needed to quickly stop at an atm first. About 2 hours and a tour of all the atms in the wider area we still only had about 1 Real, rumbling tums and not much of an afternoon left at our disposal. So to make the most of what was left we hopped on a series of about 4 buses to get to Mathias' favourite spot in town, the brand new art gallery on the bank of the river with a view back to downtown (which sticks out on a little peninsula bit). Had a look round inside (in reverse order), the most interesting artwork is probably the architecture of the place itself which i think has been quite controversial. I liked it. Very white. And cool (good escape from outside). Afterward we got drinks from the cafe and sat outside watching the river with all the other fashionable people :p. Went to a giant supermarket after to try for a feed but the rest of Porto Alegre had decided to do the same thing, as soon as we saw the lines we made a beeline for the exit just in time to catch the sunset as we walked back along the river bank.
Bussed and walked back to the apartment, found an ATM on the way back that actually spat money out when it was asked to! (charged us an extra 8 reais for the privilege) Ate the other half of the pizza and pao do queijo with goiabada (made from guava) and mixed up the ingredients for mousse da maracuja (passionfruit mousse). Later a couple of Mathias' friends came over then we headed out to another rock club type venue where, once we got in, we stayed until it was light outside! Once again extremely hot in there but had fun dancing around. The place itself was kind of like an old house with many small connecting rooms upstairs and basement/dancefloor downstairs. Got home after 7 and tried to sleep (thank god for those shutters that block out every bit of light), when we came to again we packed a picnic and headed to the big park where everyone goes on sunday to sip mate/chimahao as it's called in this country. Very pleasant. Before going to catch our bus back to Curitiba we admired the daylight view from the roof then bid mathias farewell at the station.
Arrived early to Curitiba so had to hang around the station for a while before Thali's brother arrived as our chaperone. Accompanied him to go get a new licence, what a waste of time - if we'd ever imagined that would take more than 2 hours we definitely would've opted to go straight home. Anyway finally got back to Thali's a bit grumpy and exhausted and then had to organise getting to santiago as we'd left it to the last moment again (actually thali did pretty much all the organising being fluent in portuguese n all). Turned out all the direct buses were sold out so we ended up with a 3 bus epic combo trip that gave us a day in Cordoba leaving the following evening. Was too hot to do much the rest of the day besides nap and eat beans and rice. In the evening we went with Thali to her university and had a look around. Most notable features were a lovely little chapel (it's a catholic uni) and an incredible library. The central stairwell was fully enclosed by 3 storeys of beautiful, fascinating stained glass windows. Amazing. Went back the next day to take photos even. After Thali had finished classes we went to a middle eastern takeaway joint for juice and tasty nibbles. 50c for a mini pizza type thing - bargain. The following day, our last in Curitiba, was also stinking stinking hot. Thali cooked a yummy lunch again then later in the day we went back to the large park we'd seen the week before and dawdled and drank freshly extracted sugar cane juice and hoped to see alligators but didn't. Back to Thali's for a bread and cheese and cake dinner then picked up the 20 pao do queijo we'd ordered for the bus trips and went to see the botanic gardens briefly at sunset. Accompanied Thali to uni again for a short time until we had to go catch our bus! Woke up the following morning in foz do iguacu again, one bus down!
The following day we were going to go for a cheap but highly recommended buffet lunch but as we had only about 1 Real left we needed to quickly stop at an atm first. About 2 hours and a tour of all the atms in the wider area we still only had about 1 Real, rumbling tums and not much of an afternoon left at our disposal. So to make the most of what was left we hopped on a series of about 4 buses to get to Mathias' favourite spot in town, the brand new art gallery on the bank of the river with a view back to downtown (which sticks out on a little peninsula bit). Had a look round inside (in reverse order), the most interesting artwork is probably the architecture of the place itself which i think has been quite controversial. I liked it. Very white. And cool (good escape from outside). Afterward we got drinks from the cafe and sat outside watching the river with all the other fashionable people :p. Went to a giant supermarket after to try for a feed but the rest of Porto Alegre had decided to do the same thing, as soon as we saw the lines we made a beeline for the exit just in time to catch the sunset as we walked back along the river bank.
Bussed and walked back to the apartment, found an ATM on the way back that actually spat money out when it was asked to! (charged us an extra 8 reais for the privilege) Ate the other half of the pizza and pao do queijo with goiabada (made from guava) and mixed up the ingredients for mousse da maracuja (passionfruit mousse). Later a couple of Mathias' friends came over then we headed out to another rock club type venue where, once we got in, we stayed until it was light outside! Once again extremely hot in there but had fun dancing around. The place itself was kind of like an old house with many small connecting rooms upstairs and basement/dancefloor downstairs. Got home after 7 and tried to sleep (thank god for those shutters that block out every bit of light), when we came to again we packed a picnic and headed to the big park where everyone goes on sunday to sip mate/chimahao as it's called in this country. Very pleasant. Before going to catch our bus back to Curitiba we admired the daylight view from the roof then bid mathias farewell at the station.
Arrived early to Curitiba so had to hang around the station for a while before Thali's brother arrived as our chaperone. Accompanied him to go get a new licence, what a waste of time - if we'd ever imagined that would take more than 2 hours we definitely would've opted to go straight home. Anyway finally got back to Thali's a bit grumpy and exhausted and then had to organise getting to santiago as we'd left it to the last moment again (actually thali did pretty much all the organising being fluent in portuguese n all). Turned out all the direct buses were sold out so we ended up with a 3 bus epic combo trip that gave us a day in Cordoba leaving the following evening. Was too hot to do much the rest of the day besides nap and eat beans and rice. In the evening we went with Thali to her university and had a look around. Most notable features were a lovely little chapel (it's a catholic uni) and an incredible library. The central stairwell was fully enclosed by 3 storeys of beautiful, fascinating stained glass windows. Amazing. Went back the next day to take photos even. After Thali had finished classes we went to a middle eastern takeaway joint for juice and tasty nibbles. 50c for a mini pizza type thing - bargain. The following day, our last in Curitiba, was also stinking stinking hot. Thali cooked a yummy lunch again then later in the day we went back to the large park we'd seen the week before and dawdled and drank freshly extracted sugar cane juice and hoped to see alligators but didn't. Back to Thali's for a bread and cheese and cake dinner then picked up the 20 pao do queijo we'd ordered for the bus trips and went to see the botanic gardens briefly at sunset. Accompanied Thali to uni again for a short time until we had to go catch our bus! Woke up the following morning in foz do iguacu again, one bus down!
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Missing Verano! lluvia lluvia lluvia...
As predicted I'm sitting back at 2 Hertnon St listening to the rain and wearing almost all my alpaca typing this. Boo. :p
Where'd i leave off? We arrived early in the morning in Curitiba and were found by a Thali not long after! (Thali=Thaline=friend from finland days) She took us back to her house/apartment in Agua Verde where she lives with her parents and brother - it's commonplace for kids to live at home while they're at university there, unless they go to another city for uni i suppose - via a bakery and put on a delicious typical Brazilian breakfast of bread with cream cheese spread, several varieties of cheese, freshly squeezed passionfruit juice and our first taste of pao do queijo which i totally fell head over heals in love with (definitely best when it's fresh we discovered later though).
Then it was off on Thali's ticky-tour of the city. Started out in the historic heart of town where it was once just a small cobblestone village. Had a look at an exhibition on the history of curitiba in showing in the cultural centre. Drove through downtown. Looked at the "eye museum" designed by the famous brazilian architect who also designed the whole capital, Brasilia. Didn't go inside though. Wicked ramp for skateboarding if you're so inclined, though i doubt you'd get away with it for long. Then to a theatre made all of steel wires, next to which is a natural amphitheatre that has had some big names play at it but is not currently accessible to keep it beautiful. Then to a beautiful park (one of curitiba's many) with a view of that area of the city. There we drank Guarana and saw some people filming for a popular car show. Next we climbed the tv tower that has a viewing platform with a 360 degree view of the place (actually took the lift, don't think you could climb up). Stopped at a small nature(?) university in a very tranquil spot briefly before heading back into town for lunch at an all you can eat Churrascoria (sp?). Incredible. They had a huge salad bar and a sushi bar where you filled up your plate then as you were sitting at the table the waiters would come round with the different cuts of hot meat on big skewers along with many other dishes (lots of cheesy pasta) and you could choose to have what you wanted. Crazy, was pretty glad to be there with locals! After lunch thali had to run a few errandy type things so we saw a bit more of the city that way along with another very large park area that's pretty popular i think. Also saw many of the famous(-in-brazil) Curitiba buses/bus stops - big transparent tubes above the sidewalk, if you stay in the tube when you change buses you don't have to pay twice. Then we dropped the male at home to snooze and thali and i went to the salon (as big as a BIG department store where they do everything related to body-beauty, apparently 300 people can be getting a manicure at the same time) to get beach ready very inexpensively. Resisted getting a $5 full manicure even though it's a very brasilian thing to do i'm told, every week. Thali then dropped me off at home as she was going food shopping for carnaval which lasted over 3 hours and meant she didn't go to class (her classes are from 7-11pm! A lot of people do internships in Brazil while they study so you can do classes at very flexible times). Had a very late dinner, and even then we didn't really need it we'd eaten that much at lunch. Curitiba is a lovely city from what we've seen. It's very easy to find places to escape the feel of being in a city of several million people entirely, lots of trees and parks. Thali said that it is illegal to cut down any trees there, except in your own back yard and even then it sounded like there were maybe rules about that too.
Early morning friday morning as we were off to the beach!! The beach that was a 5 or so hour drive away. Our driver Carol picked us up and off we went. Brazil is a beautiful country to drive through, though i kept falling asleep. Drove down the coast of the Atlantic. Stopped on the outskirts of Florianopolis for lunch (another buffet :p this time you only got one chance to fill your plate though) then carried on a little way further south to the small beachside settlement of Praia do Rosa, complete with potholed dirt roads and big nightclubs. Spent a long evening at the rental company while Thali and Carol tried to sort out the house we were staying at as the one they'd booked turned out to be a whole lot dingier than the photos and info on the net suggested but the owner wouldn't give back the deposit. Trying times, we got free fries and a free phonecall home out of it though! Ended up going to a much smaller but cleaner/nicer place that was closer to the beach as well but only had 3 double beds when there was going to be 12 of us arriving altogether. Enough floor space for everyone in the end. Enough mozzies to go round too. The weekend was super hot, went to the beach in the afternoons (wasn't game/stupid enough to join the brazilians in the heat of the day/burning sun). It was a beautiful surf beach with the softest white sand but cold cold water. Packed because of carnaval - umbrellas as far as the eye could see just about - which also meant the single narrow road in and out was at gridlock at times as all the hot young things insisted on driving their hot little hatchbacks to the beach that had to be in easy walking distance of almost everywhere.
The next few days the weather wasn't so amicable. Got rained off the beach on every attempt. Once there was a huge wind gust before the rain that sent several umbrellas flying along with clothes, hats etc. Those dirt roads turned to mud roads then to rivers. The tap, shower and toilet water went brown. We played a lot of cards and read books and drank beer and caiparinha and some yummy condensed milk alcoholic smoothie. Also ate A LOT of delicious food mostly made by thali. Eating fried flour is a bit strange though. And Brigadeiro which i personally don't think can count as food. And Açai which is delish. Went for a walk and saw a little owl. Discovered Morrison Camping Bar (a rock/blues bar) and tried to go there on 2 occasions but neither time was it open. Others payed much too much to go to the flash nightclubs and listen to horrible music. Went to the nearby town one day for a quick look round. Thali tried to get us to Florianopolis for a day but it never eventuated. And that was pretty much our carnaval!
Where'd i leave off? We arrived early in the morning in Curitiba and were found by a Thali not long after! (Thali=Thaline=friend from finland days) She took us back to her house/apartment in Agua Verde where she lives with her parents and brother - it's commonplace for kids to live at home while they're at university there, unless they go to another city for uni i suppose - via a bakery and put on a delicious typical Brazilian breakfast of bread with cream cheese spread, several varieties of cheese, freshly squeezed passionfruit juice and our first taste of pao do queijo which i totally fell head over heals in love with (definitely best when it's fresh we discovered later though).
Then it was off on Thali's ticky-tour of the city. Started out in the historic heart of town where it was once just a small cobblestone village. Had a look at an exhibition on the history of curitiba in showing in the cultural centre. Drove through downtown. Looked at the "eye museum" designed by the famous brazilian architect who also designed the whole capital, Brasilia. Didn't go inside though. Wicked ramp for skateboarding if you're so inclined, though i doubt you'd get away with it for long. Then to a theatre made all of steel wires, next to which is a natural amphitheatre that has had some big names play at it but is not currently accessible to keep it beautiful. Then to a beautiful park (one of curitiba's many) with a view of that area of the city. There we drank Guarana and saw some people filming for a popular car show. Next we climbed the tv tower that has a viewing platform with a 360 degree view of the place (actually took the lift, don't think you could climb up). Stopped at a small nature(?) university in a very tranquil spot briefly before heading back into town for lunch at an all you can eat Churrascoria (sp?). Incredible. They had a huge salad bar and a sushi bar where you filled up your plate then as you were sitting at the table the waiters would come round with the different cuts of hot meat on big skewers along with many other dishes (lots of cheesy pasta) and you could choose to have what you wanted. Crazy, was pretty glad to be there with locals! After lunch thali had to run a few errandy type things so we saw a bit more of the city that way along with another very large park area that's pretty popular i think. Also saw many of the famous(-in-brazil) Curitiba buses/bus stops - big transparent tubes above the sidewalk, if you stay in the tube when you change buses you don't have to pay twice. Then we dropped the male at home to snooze and thali and i went to the salon (as big as a BIG department store where they do everything related to body-beauty, apparently 300 people can be getting a manicure at the same time) to get beach ready very inexpensively. Resisted getting a $5 full manicure even though it's a very brasilian thing to do i'm told, every week. Thali then dropped me off at home as she was going food shopping for carnaval which lasted over 3 hours and meant she didn't go to class (her classes are from 7-11pm! A lot of people do internships in Brazil while they study so you can do classes at very flexible times). Had a very late dinner, and even then we didn't really need it we'd eaten that much at lunch. Curitiba is a lovely city from what we've seen. It's very easy to find places to escape the feel of being in a city of several million people entirely, lots of trees and parks. Thali said that it is illegal to cut down any trees there, except in your own back yard and even then it sounded like there were maybe rules about that too.
Early morning friday morning as we were off to the beach!! The beach that was a 5 or so hour drive away. Our driver Carol picked us up and off we went. Brazil is a beautiful country to drive through, though i kept falling asleep. Drove down the coast of the Atlantic. Stopped on the outskirts of Florianopolis for lunch (another buffet :p this time you only got one chance to fill your plate though) then carried on a little way further south to the small beachside settlement of Praia do Rosa, complete with potholed dirt roads and big nightclubs. Spent a long evening at the rental company while Thali and Carol tried to sort out the house we were staying at as the one they'd booked turned out to be a whole lot dingier than the photos and info on the net suggested but the owner wouldn't give back the deposit. Trying times, we got free fries and a free phonecall home out of it though! Ended up going to a much smaller but cleaner/nicer place that was closer to the beach as well but only had 3 double beds when there was going to be 12 of us arriving altogether. Enough floor space for everyone in the end. Enough mozzies to go round too. The weekend was super hot, went to the beach in the afternoons (wasn't game/stupid enough to join the brazilians in the heat of the day/burning sun). It was a beautiful surf beach with the softest white sand but cold cold water. Packed because of carnaval - umbrellas as far as the eye could see just about - which also meant the single narrow road in and out was at gridlock at times as all the hot young things insisted on driving their hot little hatchbacks to the beach that had to be in easy walking distance of almost everywhere.
The next few days the weather wasn't so amicable. Got rained off the beach on every attempt. Once there was a huge wind gust before the rain that sent several umbrellas flying along with clothes, hats etc. Those dirt roads turned to mud roads then to rivers. The tap, shower and toilet water went brown. We played a lot of cards and read books and drank beer and caiparinha and some yummy condensed milk alcoholic smoothie. Also ate A LOT of delicious food mostly made by thali. Eating fried flour is a bit strange though. And Brigadeiro which i personally don't think can count as food. And Açai which is delish. Went for a walk and saw a little owl. Discovered Morrison Camping Bar (a rock/blues bar) and tried to go there on 2 occasions but neither time was it open. Others payed much too much to go to the flash nightclubs and listen to horrible music. Went to the nearby town one day for a quick look round. Thali tried to get us to Florianopolis for a day but it never eventuated. And that was pretty much our carnaval!
Monday, 2 March 2009
Birthday, Bus, Brilliance and Brasil without a middle
So didn't even get up to the country we've currently been in for almost 2 weeks already and are about to leave last time... but back to my black friday birthday:
My 24th birthday was spent in Buenos Aires. Natasha got back to BsAs from Iguazú that day as well so we had half arranged to meet. First order of the day however was finding the US embassy for jon to get more pages put in his passport as the first step to getting a visa for Brasil. Got there to find we were just too late for the morning appointment times so we'd have to come back that afternoon. Second on our to do list was getting bus tickets for the following day - this didn't get ticked off that day. Instead we went into town to an artisan alley where i had seen a belt i really liked weeks before in the vain hope that nobody else had taken such a liking to it. Turns out they hadn't so i am now the proud owner of a beautiful leather belt :D Next up we went Natasha hunting, back to the hostel we stayed at on our first nights in BA. Got a bday/haven't seen you for a while hug and made plans that involved cake and wine for later. Then Jon and i went to a vegetarian all you can eat buffet in a beautiful mall on florida st. Apparently the place is run by nuns or something - either way it was delicious and we both ate til bursting point. Afterward we had to lug our heavy stomachs back onto the subway to waddle as fast as we were able in the extreme heat back to the embassy. Made it there with only 2 mins to spare and thankfully they let Jon in. Next on the agenda was cake shopping! Found an incredible chocolate mousse and dulce de leche cake at the bakery a few doors down from the hostel where everything looks divine. Managed to then take it on the subway at friday rush hour without it getting destroyed back to hostal granados where natasha and alanna were waiting on the roof with many a bottle of red wine and a broken candle that had previously been shaped like a 4 (the 2 for 24 came from it being in two pieces so it was broken for good reason, though i'd much rather just be 4). And that's where we spent until valentines day, many more hostel residents came to join the "party" and met more aquarians than statistics should've allowed for! The plan was to go out someplace but it never happened, bussed home in the wee hours instead.
Valentines day we were to leave BA again, this time for puerto iguazú (despite it being natasha, kirby and alanna's last night in south america, may have missed a biggie). Packed up our belongings and went to retiro in search of bus tickets which we got third time lucky, always a bit of a stressful experience. Then spent the afternoon with natasha eating empanadas and icecream until it was time to leave. Caught the Expreso Tigre Iguazu 19 hour best dinner ever (even had vege option :O) followed by close to worst breakfast ever (crackers?) overnighter up to the heat of the north. Arrived sunday afternoon with no place to stay and high hopes to stay at Hostel Inn that we'd heard many good things about but was also very popular so definitely booked out. They suggested Hostel Bambu to us though, a small hostel, just getting started, still building in fact, with the loveliest staff imaginable, good music and bunks with our names on them. No swimming pool but one a block away that we were free to use - and we did. It's stinking hot up there. Stinking. The staff suggested we walk up to the three frontiers - where the corners of argentina, brasil and paraguay all meet separated by the river - to watch the sunset so we took them up on that. Came back through town and went to get some dinner, really tasty complimentary nibbles but the meal itself was a bit disappointing (the vegetarian options were very limiting). However for pudding we had to get the super cheap super tasty icecream we'd heard so much about, and it didn't disappoint! You're really spoiled for choice there actually, must have the highest heladeria per capita ratio of anywhere. Also, motorbikes are by far the transportation of choice here.
Monday was kind of a nothing day as we spent til early afternoon trying to sort out bits and pieces for jon's visa application then just missed handing it in as they closed at a very leisurely 2pm. Didn't have time to go to any of the falls. Think we went to the swimming pool again - it was pretty much obligatory - and got info about the falls for the following day. So tuesday was devoted to the argentinian side of Iguazú falls (after handing in visa applications and a trip to the bank - they close at an altogether lazy 1pm)! Headed slowly (hindered by trains and lines as weren't there super early) up to the end viewpoint first where you're right up close to the massive thundering falls at Garganta del Diablo. Then decided to do the boat trip next where you get soaked under one of the falls, sooo much fun. Had hoped to get over to the island after that for a swim and more views of waterfalls but didn't realise the line was gonna be so long. The last boat over was 3.30pm and we would definitely have been in the next boat after that, had there been one. So just missed out, which meant we decided instead to go along the trail that not many tourists do to get to the only other swimming spot (cos it was hot hot hot). Had our packed lunch accompanied by quite the panoramic postcard view and walked along the upper circuit to see waterfalls from above with rainbows then managed to find the beginning of the 3km track. Walked about as fast as we could along there as we didn't have a lot of time until the park closed. Found a small swimming hole under a narrow but very tall and quite powerful/painful to stand under waterfall, only 4 other people were there. Had a quick swim (was very shallow) to cool off, slipped on a rock climbing down from under the waterfall which later gave me a very impressive bruise on my backside, power walked back to the park to get there in time to catch the bus back to town. Back in town we went for more icecream with the israeli girls staying in our dorm, Aviv and Atar. Yum! Also in town we saw a big group of "kids" who were maybe practicing for some street parade, or maybe thats just what they do on tuesday nights, playing drums and dancing real cool.
On wednesday we planned to go to Brasil! Got up early and went to get jon's visa - approved! so tried to go for celebratory icecream, turns out they don't open til 12 so we stuck around for that (so worth it!) then caught the bus to the border, did the easiest customs yet then had to wait a while for another bus of the same company to come through again as we were too cheap to pay twice :p Hostel Bambu argentina had arranged our bus tickets to curitiba to be at hostel bambu brasil so went there paid for the tickets, dropped off our bag and went to catch the last couple of hours of the park on the Brasil side where you get awesome panoramic views of all the falls, beautiful. Met a spanish guy Ruben on the bus and walked round with him. When we got up to the end it started pouring with rain, and i really mean pouring. It had been soooo hot just before that we were more than happy to let ourselves get soaked (not that we had much choice, coulda run for cover but would probably still have got fairly well soaked). Back to the hostel for a shower and our hosts from argentina had crossed the border too! They instructed us on how to get to our bus for curitiba though we only managed to find the station by luck. We were arguing about whether to ask the driver to let us off at Rodoviaria or just hope to see it ourselves when a guy in front of us interrupted to say that it was pretty much right there. No way would we have seen it if it wasn't for him! So we had made it to brasil and now were in for another nights "sleep" on a bus.
One of the coolest things about Iguazú and Iguaçu for me was all the animals we saw: a turtle, lizards - many small ones and one really big one, plenty of coatis (no idea what this could be in english if anything different, we have a picture), lotsa big spiders including a tarantula that i held, two toucans, two monkeys in a tree, millipede, giant ants and i mean giant, a deer that seemed a bit outta place and some weird pig-rat without a tail in the forest that no-one can tell me what it was by my description..
So now we're about to leave brasil tomorrow on an epic 3 day bus excursion from curitiba to santiago chile as all the slightly shorter 2 day direct buses were fully booked by the time we got around to organising it i.e. this morning, so won't get to update this and fill in the rather large gaps for awhile, maybe not even til we're back in nz. Middle brasil will just have to wait. It rained a lot anyway.
My 24th birthday was spent in Buenos Aires. Natasha got back to BsAs from Iguazú that day as well so we had half arranged to meet. First order of the day however was finding the US embassy for jon to get more pages put in his passport as the first step to getting a visa for Brasil. Got there to find we were just too late for the morning appointment times so we'd have to come back that afternoon. Second on our to do list was getting bus tickets for the following day - this didn't get ticked off that day. Instead we went into town to an artisan alley where i had seen a belt i really liked weeks before in the vain hope that nobody else had taken such a liking to it. Turns out they hadn't so i am now the proud owner of a beautiful leather belt :D Next up we went Natasha hunting, back to the hostel we stayed at on our first nights in BA. Got a bday/haven't seen you for a while hug and made plans that involved cake and wine for later. Then Jon and i went to a vegetarian all you can eat buffet in a beautiful mall on florida st. Apparently the place is run by nuns or something - either way it was delicious and we both ate til bursting point. Afterward we had to lug our heavy stomachs back onto the subway to waddle as fast as we were able in the extreme heat back to the embassy. Made it there with only 2 mins to spare and thankfully they let Jon in. Next on the agenda was cake shopping! Found an incredible chocolate mousse and dulce de leche cake at the bakery a few doors down from the hostel where everything looks divine. Managed to then take it on the subway at friday rush hour without it getting destroyed back to hostal granados where natasha and alanna were waiting on the roof with many a bottle of red wine and a broken candle that had previously been shaped like a 4 (the 2 for 24 came from it being in two pieces so it was broken for good reason, though i'd much rather just be 4). And that's where we spent until valentines day, many more hostel residents came to join the "party" and met more aquarians than statistics should've allowed for! The plan was to go out someplace but it never happened, bussed home in the wee hours instead.
Valentines day we were to leave BA again, this time for puerto iguazú (despite it being natasha, kirby and alanna's last night in south america, may have missed a biggie). Packed up our belongings and went to retiro in search of bus tickets which we got third time lucky, always a bit of a stressful experience. Then spent the afternoon with natasha eating empanadas and icecream until it was time to leave. Caught the Expreso Tigre Iguazu 19 hour best dinner ever (even had vege option :O) followed by close to worst breakfast ever (crackers?) overnighter up to the heat of the north. Arrived sunday afternoon with no place to stay and high hopes to stay at Hostel Inn that we'd heard many good things about but was also very popular so definitely booked out. They suggested Hostel Bambu to us though, a small hostel, just getting started, still building in fact, with the loveliest staff imaginable, good music and bunks with our names on them. No swimming pool but one a block away that we were free to use - and we did. It's stinking hot up there. Stinking. The staff suggested we walk up to the three frontiers - where the corners of argentina, brasil and paraguay all meet separated by the river - to watch the sunset so we took them up on that. Came back through town and went to get some dinner, really tasty complimentary nibbles but the meal itself was a bit disappointing (the vegetarian options were very limiting). However for pudding we had to get the super cheap super tasty icecream we'd heard so much about, and it didn't disappoint! You're really spoiled for choice there actually, must have the highest heladeria per capita ratio of anywhere. Also, motorbikes are by far the transportation of choice here.
Monday was kind of a nothing day as we spent til early afternoon trying to sort out bits and pieces for jon's visa application then just missed handing it in as they closed at a very leisurely 2pm. Didn't have time to go to any of the falls. Think we went to the swimming pool again - it was pretty much obligatory - and got info about the falls for the following day. So tuesday was devoted to the argentinian side of Iguazú falls (after handing in visa applications and a trip to the bank - they close at an altogether lazy 1pm)! Headed slowly (hindered by trains and lines as weren't there super early) up to the end viewpoint first where you're right up close to the massive thundering falls at Garganta del Diablo. Then decided to do the boat trip next where you get soaked under one of the falls, sooo much fun. Had hoped to get over to the island after that for a swim and more views of waterfalls but didn't realise the line was gonna be so long. The last boat over was 3.30pm and we would definitely have been in the next boat after that, had there been one. So just missed out, which meant we decided instead to go along the trail that not many tourists do to get to the only other swimming spot (cos it was hot hot hot). Had our packed lunch accompanied by quite the panoramic postcard view and walked along the upper circuit to see waterfalls from above with rainbows then managed to find the beginning of the 3km track. Walked about as fast as we could along there as we didn't have a lot of time until the park closed. Found a small swimming hole under a narrow but very tall and quite powerful/painful to stand under waterfall, only 4 other people were there. Had a quick swim (was very shallow) to cool off, slipped on a rock climbing down from under the waterfall which later gave me a very impressive bruise on my backside, power walked back to the park to get there in time to catch the bus back to town. Back in town we went for more icecream with the israeli girls staying in our dorm, Aviv and Atar. Yum! Also in town we saw a big group of "kids" who were maybe practicing for some street parade, or maybe thats just what they do on tuesday nights, playing drums and dancing real cool.
On wednesday we planned to go to Brasil! Got up early and went to get jon's visa - approved! so tried to go for celebratory icecream, turns out they don't open til 12 so we stuck around for that (so worth it!) then caught the bus to the border, did the easiest customs yet then had to wait a while for another bus of the same company to come through again as we were too cheap to pay twice :p Hostel Bambu argentina had arranged our bus tickets to curitiba to be at hostel bambu brasil so went there paid for the tickets, dropped off our bag and went to catch the last couple of hours of the park on the Brasil side where you get awesome panoramic views of all the falls, beautiful. Met a spanish guy Ruben on the bus and walked round with him. When we got up to the end it started pouring with rain, and i really mean pouring. It had been soooo hot just before that we were more than happy to let ourselves get soaked (not that we had much choice, coulda run for cover but would probably still have got fairly well soaked). Back to the hostel for a shower and our hosts from argentina had crossed the border too! They instructed us on how to get to our bus for curitiba though we only managed to find the station by luck. We were arguing about whether to ask the driver to let us off at Rodoviaria or just hope to see it ourselves when a guy in front of us interrupted to say that it was pretty much right there. No way would we have seen it if it wasn't for him! So we had made it to brasil and now were in for another nights "sleep" on a bus.
One of the coolest things about Iguazú and Iguaçu for me was all the animals we saw: a turtle, lizards - many small ones and one really big one, plenty of coatis (no idea what this could be in english if anything different, we have a picture), lotsa big spiders including a tarantula that i held, two toucans, two monkeys in a tree, millipede, giant ants and i mean giant, a deer that seemed a bit outta place and some weird pig-rat without a tail in the forest that no-one can tell me what it was by my description..
So now we're about to leave brasil tomorrow on an epic 3 day bus excursion from curitiba to santiago chile as all the slightly shorter 2 day direct buses were fully booked by the time we got around to organising it i.e. this morning, so won't get to update this and fill in the rather large gaps for awhile, maybe not even til we're back in nz. Middle brasil will just have to wait. It rained a lot anyway.
Thursday, 19 February 2009
Several countries later...
As you attentive followers noticed i stopped that last blog rather abrubtly (has now been finished if you fancy a lengthy read) as i was offered lunch by a lovely chilean girl at the hostel, and have now fallen even farther behind than previously with this blog number. A catch up is needed and pronto so i shall try to summarise the last nearly 2 weeks of my life, given my rambling writing style i may not be able to restrict myself to bulletpoints but here goes.
So the day after returning from Machu Picchu Magnificence, Sunday 8th Feb, i spent a very large portion of the day trying to have a much needed shower (which meant a fair chunk of time with plunger in hand) then vainly attempted a blog catch up to be interrupted by said chilean and a delicious pasta-vegie lunch which led to spending the evening strolling around cuzco with the 4 lovely chileans going into a couple of beautiful churches and seeing a bit further afield than we had previously. Stopped at a market and bartered myself some $7.50 cuzco pants (yay) then went back to the hostel accompanied by a bottle of havanna club and kola real. Much too late Jon and i made a failed attempt at getting some dinner, missing out even on street food and being too fussy for McD's. Did bump into Andres and Francia from the trek though and chatted to them for a bit.
Monday was check out day because on Sunday we had also spent a heck of a lot of money on LIM-EZE flights as we realised sitting on a bus the whole way through bolivia was not really the best option and we still wouldn't get anywhere in time for anything. This meant to get to our wed morning flight on time we really had to leave Cuzco so it was time to say goodbye to balcon colonial (and it's awful shower). Before setting off on another 20 hour bus ride I got myself a full body hour long massage for 20 soles (being able to say sí, gracias to the millionth massage flyer instead of the usual stream of no, gracias, no gracias, no gracias) while Jon purchased a couple of souvenirs, then we went in search of Cuy, a local speciality. The guinea pig itself was ok but the meal as a whole was a real letdown. You'd think a place that boasts over 400 varieties of potato could at least cook the damn things. And don't even get me started on the "salad". Anyway worth it for the experience but we were left with rumbling stomachs. Farewelled Rolando and caught a cab to the bus station and we were on our way to Lima. Also managed to farewell the cd we'd just burned of all our cuzco and machu picchu photos, hopefully not forever though, aiming for a reunion with it before we leave the continent as it is currently in safe hands.
Arrived the following afternoon after a stream of more weird movies back in the desert. Lima is not a pretty city. Nor does it have a central bus station, you just get dropped at your respective buses small terminal in a not so flash neighbourhood. We then walked for ages to find the info centre going by the not altogether accurate or detailed map in lonely planet to confirm our flight then walked for ages plus forever to get to Mira Flores - the nicer part of town. Decided not to check out the central area. Got a delicious lunch/dinner from a vegetarian restaurant overlooking the park at the entrance to mira flores and a flag lowering ceremony complete with bugle player. Then flagged down a taxi to take us to the airport and our accommodation for the night! Interesting taxi ride, very jovial driver, lima traffic lived up to all we'd heard about it, there was more than a little nervous laughter on my part - and not just about the traffic. But we got to the airport and the driver willingly accepted my donation of 3/4 of a bag of coca leaves which i wasn't sure would make it into BA (plus no more altitude for us so no more chewing the disgusting things or drinking the vegetable water tasting tea they brew). After a few games of cards and a half-hearted attempt to get on an earlier flight we found a corner and settled in for the night with a surprisingly large number of other happy campers. Following morning, with cramped necks, did the whole check-in thing, spent our last few soles (can't get much for 7 soles at airport duty free - could only find 4 fairly tacky beads for it), and flew back to BA. nuff said.
Arrived back at La Casa Fitz Roy, after trying to catch a bus to Retiro that didn't actually end up going there, to discover that not only had natasha gone to iguazu the day before but we'd also missed the ibells by a day. Went and found some empanadas and went to sleep unsure of what to do next.
Slept through check out on thursday so that made the decision to stay for us. Had a very lazy day, leaving the hostel around 5pm for the first time to do some laundry - finally! - then more empanadas followed by a power walk to the galileo galilei planetarium for the 6pm show "Viaja por el Cosmos" (or something similar). Can't say i learned much about the galaxy and whatnot given that it was all in spanish and quite a bizarre experience but i enjoyed being there nonetheless! Maybe uranus was formed by first being a more solid planet that got crashed into by a meteor and turned into a swirling, planet shaped cloud of debris. Or maybe not. Did shed some light on the imagery of some of the constellations, quite imaginative.Cooked some dinner then went for dessert at the delicious old man heladoria which we were still eating by the time the clock ticked over to my birthday argentinian time - good way to start the day :)
Friday the 13th!!!
still not caught up but off to the beach now so will try again later!!
So the day after returning from Machu Picchu Magnificence, Sunday 8th Feb, i spent a very large portion of the day trying to have a much needed shower (which meant a fair chunk of time with plunger in hand) then vainly attempted a blog catch up to be interrupted by said chilean and a delicious pasta-vegie lunch which led to spending the evening strolling around cuzco with the 4 lovely chileans going into a couple of beautiful churches and seeing a bit further afield than we had previously. Stopped at a market and bartered myself some $7.50 cuzco pants (yay) then went back to the hostel accompanied by a bottle of havanna club and kola real. Much too late Jon and i made a failed attempt at getting some dinner, missing out even on street food and being too fussy for McD's. Did bump into Andres and Francia from the trek though and chatted to them for a bit.
Monday was check out day because on Sunday we had also spent a heck of a lot of money on LIM-EZE flights as we realised sitting on a bus the whole way through bolivia was not really the best option and we still wouldn't get anywhere in time for anything. This meant to get to our wed morning flight on time we really had to leave Cuzco so it was time to say goodbye to balcon colonial (and it's awful shower). Before setting off on another 20 hour bus ride I got myself a full body hour long massage for 20 soles (being able to say sí, gracias to the millionth massage flyer instead of the usual stream of no, gracias, no gracias, no gracias) while Jon purchased a couple of souvenirs, then we went in search of Cuy, a local speciality. The guinea pig itself was ok but the meal as a whole was a real letdown. You'd think a place that boasts over 400 varieties of potato could at least cook the damn things. And don't even get me started on the "salad". Anyway worth it for the experience but we were left with rumbling stomachs. Farewelled Rolando and caught a cab to the bus station and we were on our way to Lima. Also managed to farewell the cd we'd just burned of all our cuzco and machu picchu photos, hopefully not forever though, aiming for a reunion with it before we leave the continent as it is currently in safe hands.
Arrived the following afternoon after a stream of more weird movies back in the desert. Lima is not a pretty city. Nor does it have a central bus station, you just get dropped at your respective buses small terminal in a not so flash neighbourhood. We then walked for ages to find the info centre going by the not altogether accurate or detailed map in lonely planet to confirm our flight then walked for ages plus forever to get to Mira Flores - the nicer part of town. Decided not to check out the central area. Got a delicious lunch/dinner from a vegetarian restaurant overlooking the park at the entrance to mira flores and a flag lowering ceremony complete with bugle player. Then flagged down a taxi to take us to the airport and our accommodation for the night! Interesting taxi ride, very jovial driver, lima traffic lived up to all we'd heard about it, there was more than a little nervous laughter on my part - and not just about the traffic. But we got to the airport and the driver willingly accepted my donation of 3/4 of a bag of coca leaves which i wasn't sure would make it into BA (plus no more altitude for us so no more chewing the disgusting things or drinking the vegetable water tasting tea they brew). After a few games of cards and a half-hearted attempt to get on an earlier flight we found a corner and settled in for the night with a surprisingly large number of other happy campers. Following morning, with cramped necks, did the whole check-in thing, spent our last few soles (can't get much for 7 soles at airport duty free - could only find 4 fairly tacky beads for it), and flew back to BA. nuff said.
Arrived back at La Casa Fitz Roy, after trying to catch a bus to Retiro that didn't actually end up going there, to discover that not only had natasha gone to iguazu the day before but we'd also missed the ibells by a day. Went and found some empanadas and went to sleep unsure of what to do next.
Slept through check out on thursday so that made the decision to stay for us. Had a very lazy day, leaving the hostel around 5pm for the first time to do some laundry - finally! - then more empanadas followed by a power walk to the galileo galilei planetarium for the 6pm show "Viaja por el Cosmos" (or something similar). Can't say i learned much about the galaxy and whatnot given that it was all in spanish and quite a bizarre experience but i enjoyed being there nonetheless! Maybe uranus was formed by first being a more solid planet that got crashed into by a meteor and turned into a swirling, planet shaped cloud of debris. Or maybe not. Did shed some light on the imagery of some of the constellations, quite imaginative.Cooked some dinner then went for dessert at the delicious old man heladoria which we were still eating by the time the clock ticked over to my birthday argentinian time - good way to start the day :)
Friday the 13th!!!
still not caught up but off to the beach now so will try again later!!
Sunday, 8 February 2009
Trekking with Elvis Presley and Enrique Iglesias
Tuesday morning started with a much earlier balcony breakfast as we were to be picked up before 8 to head off on our 4 day adventure to Machu Picchu! Met our guide, Elvis, and the rest of our 6 strong group, Paola the geneticist/cancer scientist from BsAs, Francia and Andreas the married professors from Santiago and Enrique the crazy brazilian! We started out with a spectacular 3 hour car ride up to the highest point of the trip, from where we were to mountain bike down to Santa Maria to spend the night. Stopped in Ollantaytambo on the way, with its own inca ruins on the hillside, and bought bright coloured plastic ponchos as we'd been promised rain and probably lots of it as it's the rainy season afterall. Then carried on to the top "Abra del Malaga" (4350m) along winding roads past the occasional quaint little house with families sitting outside in traditional dress. Unloaded the bikes, kitted up (the crazy brazilian in a wetsuit) and we were off. Lost sight of the brazilian pretty much immediately, musta been due to that streamlined speedsuit. First 40mins was smooth paved road, twisting down the mountain side into the jungle, passing through lots of fords and surrounded by thousands of butterflies! Those shimmery ones that i've only seen in museum cabinets before look infinitely better in flight, their colours changing like a kaleidoscope. Then it was into the hot jungle and onto the rough, bumpy stuff that makes your arms jiggle painfully and hands and bums quite sore. It was pretty much all downhill for around 6 hours until we reached Santa Maria at just 1430m, which was just as well as the few uphill stints did not leave me wanting more. Stopped a couple of times for "agua fria, por favor!" and had my first encounter with a hole in the ground squat toilet. Seemed to be some procedure to it that i just didn't get so the kid ended up just saying "chao". At one point 3 young girls were lying in ambush with water balloons and big buckets. I was third in the procession so they were ready for me and i got well and truly hit. Wish i'd said thank you cos it was just what i needed despite all my protests. Felt good to get off the bikes by the end, even though we'd had a blast, and lie down/take a well earned freezing cold shower at the hostel. Got to know our fellow trekkers a bit better and went for a hearty dinner followed by a sound sleep, ready for an even earlier morning.
Wednesday we were up before 6 and outta the hostel for breakfast of banana and pancake with chocolate sauce, yum!, to fuel us for the long day of walking ahead, about 8 hours. We were to follow what could have been the trail some inca's used to get to their last refuge point when the spanish came, never to be seen again. It was a scorcher of a day, none of that promised rain in sight. We walked through the jungle heading back up the other side of the valley we had come down the day before, heading upstream above the massive river with some outstanding views. Elvis pointed out some vegetation of interest such as the coca plantations, tobacco, banana and avocado plants, a flower that will poison/kill you if you even touch it and a plant with seeds that were used to dye fabrics a vibrant red/orange. Stopped at a house that had a mono called martín (that i got to carry for a wee while!) and a coati (that clawed at my shorts) and hammocks! Stopped later for a two course lunch and discovered 2 of the people in the other group we had been playing leapfrog with were from NZ, one from chch and one from timaru! Carried on along the riverbed for a few more hours (saw a mini bronze coloured snake in the grasses) until we reached the Ullumire hot springs - that's right hot springs! Boy were they good. Lazed around soaking for a good couple of hours with views of mountain passes with waterfalls, a rainbow and the moon came out too. Jon and i found a real hot bath sized pool that was too hot to stay in for long and just had room for two. There was also ones where you could sit and have a fountain of warm water give you a shoulder massage. Bliss. Caught the bus on to Santa Teresa and to our next hostel, a step up from the last. Still no hot shower though. Tried to hit the town but it wasn't long lived despite the promise of happy hour everywhere.
On thursday the group made a unanimous desicion to sleep in and catch a bus instead of walking 3 more hours in the morning. So had a later breakfast of ... pancake with banana and chocolate (or omelette both days if you were jon) then caught the minibus, that crazy brazilian hung out the window, to only 10 mins walk from where we to have lunch! Sat around and played cards for a bit then Jon and I followed Enrique along the traintracks, scrambled up a path, along some more traintracks to a rock over the raging river. Ran back (way too hot for this) for lunch which the others had already eaten so gobbled down our two hearty courses in record time then set off along the traintracks again for a 3 hour walk to Aguas Calientes (just as the group with the kiwis arrived, hot and sweaty from walking all the way to the lunch spot, not like us lazy sods). Just before reaching AC we got to bust out the colourful plastic ponchos for our first taste of real rain, not that it was long til we reached the best hostel yet - including beautiful hot showers! and quite possibly the worlds best pillows. Had our "last supper" in town, serenaded by a musical troupe, and promptly hit the sack.
Next day, the final day, we were up at 3.45 and out the door on the last step of the way to machu picchu! It was a solid hour and a half of stairclimbing, big rock steps, that had the sweat dripping from every pore. Arrived panting at the gate bang on 6am to collect our tickets and snacks from Elvis and enter the fabled Machu Picchu proper. Was quite a cool, cloudy morning, and after having been sooo hot i was suddenly freezing. We were supposed to start our tour but the crazy brazilian was nowhere to be found! So after a while we started the tour without him, Elvis giving us a much needed history lesson then showing us the more important features of the ruins like the sun temple, the house with 3 windows, the sacrificial slab etc. The whole thing is really too incredible to try and describe, how they managed it i'll never know. Lucky the spanish never found it. Right as the tour ended Enrique showed up having had a rather unpleasant morning, many trips to the bathroom. Then at 10am, just as the day was heating up, we all climbed up Waynapicchu (yet more big stone steps!) and wow. Just wow. Jon and I had to catch the early train and had barely left enough time to get there so after Waynapicchu we said farewell to our great little group of trekkers and missioned it back down to Aguas Calientes at top speed. Made it all the way back within a record 40mins! Caught some zzzzz's on the train back to Ollantaytambo then were plunged into the mayhem of a typical peruvian station, every taxi collectivo driver wanting you to fill up their car so they can leave quickly. We were supposed to be catching Bus Lucy which we found no trouble. Apparently nobody else was looking for her though and that included a driver. The bus next to it was filling up quick and the guy in charge seemed pretty keen for us to get on that one instead. Said it wouldn't cost us anything which was just as well as we were completely skint at this stage, having spent every last centimo that we'd taken with us. Only hitch was there was only one seat left, the passenger seat beside the driver. So Jon took that seat and i got a cushion with a view, perched between him and the driver! Pretty cool riding the bus through that countryside back to cuzco with only the windscreen in front of you. Got dropped off right near the centre of town at 6pm and went on a desperate crusade for WATER and lots of it. Had some pizza for a very late lunch then back to the hostel where Jon got hit by the altitude. He was not a happy chappy. We had arranged, to meet the other guys who were catching a later train, in the plaza at 10pm. Slept through that but woke in time to get there around 20past but no sign of them. As it turned out they'd been delayed and didn't make it back til 11 by which time we'd crashed, Jon aided by a cup of coca tea which did the trick fighting off the altitude woes.
So that was that! I swear i have never sweat so much so steadily for such a long period of time in my life and was very glad when i got to take my boots off and change into clean(er) clothes. Was even thankful to be back in the chilly climes of cuzco (you really do need your alpaca sweater there - and alpaca hat, alpaca scarf, socks, mittens, long johns!). Didn't ever get much use outta those ponchos though.
Wednesday we were up before 6 and outta the hostel for breakfast of banana and pancake with chocolate sauce, yum!, to fuel us for the long day of walking ahead, about 8 hours. We were to follow what could have been the trail some inca's used to get to their last refuge point when the spanish came, never to be seen again. It was a scorcher of a day, none of that promised rain in sight. We walked through the jungle heading back up the other side of the valley we had come down the day before, heading upstream above the massive river with some outstanding views. Elvis pointed out some vegetation of interest such as the coca plantations, tobacco, banana and avocado plants, a flower that will poison/kill you if you even touch it and a plant with seeds that were used to dye fabrics a vibrant red/orange. Stopped at a house that had a mono called martín (that i got to carry for a wee while!) and a coati (that clawed at my shorts) and hammocks! Stopped later for a two course lunch and discovered 2 of the people in the other group we had been playing leapfrog with were from NZ, one from chch and one from timaru! Carried on along the riverbed for a few more hours (saw a mini bronze coloured snake in the grasses) until we reached the Ullumire hot springs - that's right hot springs! Boy were they good. Lazed around soaking for a good couple of hours with views of mountain passes with waterfalls, a rainbow and the moon came out too. Jon and i found a real hot bath sized pool that was too hot to stay in for long and just had room for two. There was also ones where you could sit and have a fountain of warm water give you a shoulder massage. Bliss. Caught the bus on to Santa Teresa and to our next hostel, a step up from the last. Still no hot shower though. Tried to hit the town but it wasn't long lived despite the promise of happy hour everywhere.
On thursday the group made a unanimous desicion to sleep in and catch a bus instead of walking 3 more hours in the morning. So had a later breakfast of ... pancake with banana and chocolate (or omelette both days if you were jon) then caught the minibus, that crazy brazilian hung out the window, to only 10 mins walk from where we to have lunch! Sat around and played cards for a bit then Jon and I followed Enrique along the traintracks, scrambled up a path, along some more traintracks to a rock over the raging river. Ran back (way too hot for this) for lunch which the others had already eaten so gobbled down our two hearty courses in record time then set off along the traintracks again for a 3 hour walk to Aguas Calientes (just as the group with the kiwis arrived, hot and sweaty from walking all the way to the lunch spot, not like us lazy sods). Just before reaching AC we got to bust out the colourful plastic ponchos for our first taste of real rain, not that it was long til we reached the best hostel yet - including beautiful hot showers! and quite possibly the worlds best pillows. Had our "last supper" in town, serenaded by a musical troupe, and promptly hit the sack.
Next day, the final day, we were up at 3.45 and out the door on the last step of the way to machu picchu! It was a solid hour and a half of stairclimbing, big rock steps, that had the sweat dripping from every pore. Arrived panting at the gate bang on 6am to collect our tickets and snacks from Elvis and enter the fabled Machu Picchu proper. Was quite a cool, cloudy morning, and after having been sooo hot i was suddenly freezing. We were supposed to start our tour but the crazy brazilian was nowhere to be found! So after a while we started the tour without him, Elvis giving us a much needed history lesson then showing us the more important features of the ruins like the sun temple, the house with 3 windows, the sacrificial slab etc. The whole thing is really too incredible to try and describe, how they managed it i'll never know. Lucky the spanish never found it. Right as the tour ended Enrique showed up having had a rather unpleasant morning, many trips to the bathroom. Then at 10am, just as the day was heating up, we all climbed up Waynapicchu (yet more big stone steps!) and wow. Just wow. Jon and I had to catch the early train and had barely left enough time to get there so after Waynapicchu we said farewell to our great little group of trekkers and missioned it back down to Aguas Calientes at top speed. Made it all the way back within a record 40mins! Caught some zzzzz's on the train back to Ollantaytambo then were plunged into the mayhem of a typical peruvian station, every taxi collectivo driver wanting you to fill up their car so they can leave quickly. We were supposed to be catching Bus Lucy which we found no trouble. Apparently nobody else was looking for her though and that included a driver. The bus next to it was filling up quick and the guy in charge seemed pretty keen for us to get on that one instead. Said it wouldn't cost us anything which was just as well as we were completely skint at this stage, having spent every last centimo that we'd taken with us. Only hitch was there was only one seat left, the passenger seat beside the driver. So Jon took that seat and i got a cushion with a view, perched between him and the driver! Pretty cool riding the bus through that countryside back to cuzco with only the windscreen in front of you. Got dropped off right near the centre of town at 6pm and went on a desperate crusade for WATER and lots of it. Had some pizza for a very late lunch then back to the hostel where Jon got hit by the altitude. He was not a happy chappy. We had arranged, to meet the other guys who were catching a later train, in the plaza at 10pm. Slept through that but woke in time to get there around 20past but no sign of them. As it turned out they'd been delayed and didn't make it back til 11 by which time we'd crashed, Jon aided by a cup of coca tea which did the trick fighting off the altitude woes.
So that was that! I swear i have never sweat so much so steadily for such a long period of time in my life and was very glad when i got to take my boots off and change into clean(er) clothes. Was even thankful to be back in the chilly climes of cuzco (you really do need your alpaca sweater there - and alpaca hat, alpaca scarf, socks, mittens, long johns!). Didn't ever get much use outta those ponchos though.
a desperate attempt at a catch up...
I've been about a week behind on this for a while now so time for hopefully a bit of a catch up. Arrived in Cuzco very early in the morning on sat 31/1 (happy birthday to a certain jelly baby!) after a rattly ride. The bus got very cold as well which we were not prepared for so didn't do too well in the sleep stakes. Stumbled bleary eyed into the station to be pounced upon by various people from hostels and taxis - more than we could cope with at the time but thankfully i remembered frith had said to barter for a hostel at the station rather than trying our luck in town so managed to get a place for pretty cheap (we think) and got bustled into a taxi (lovely driver! had a 'good' chat in spanish) and arrived at our abode to try catch up on a bit of sleep. We're staying at Balcón Colonial which is a 5 min walk from the main plaza. It's pretty simple but for 15 soles ($9) a night we have our own room with private bathroom (pretty rubbish shower tho) and a little balcony with a table on it that's perfect for breakfasting and the only one in the place, score! The main staff here is a cool young guy (18) called Rolando who we have fun trying to speak spanish with and teaching a little english.
So on saturday we spent most of the day with Frith (girl who was in my spanish class in chch) who has been here since november and was leaving on the 2nd. Did a lot of eating and meandered up to the Jesus statue on the hill to get a view of the whole city. Cuzco is gorgeous. Even meandering left us pretty out of breath but thankfully haven't really suffered many ill effects from the altitude besides that and the occasional headache. That evening we went to a 'discotheque' that has social salsa from 9-11 every night - amazing to watch! no way we were gonna join in though, lots of regulars who are incredible, did do a little shuffling at the side. At 11 the music turned pretty cringeworthy and we were tired so we bailed pretty early, leaving frith dancing on the bar!
On Sunday we had a sort of rest day, slept in and wandered about a bit. Found the crazy market place that Frith had given directions to. It's supposedly closed on a sunday but there was still a lot there, including several aisles of animal parts including whole skinned cow heads, insane. Managed to only eat bread and cheese that day i think, although pan con queso frito is delicious enough in itself. The cheese is a bit weird and plasticy but that makes it good for frying. On the way to the market we passed by a crowd of locals in plaza san fransisco. There were street performers and what looked like fun-fair type gambling stations, food vendors selling nothing even vaguely familiar and artists, was quite the spectacle! The only other touristy looking person we saw looked as bemused as we must have. Further on down the street there was a little parade happening with a marching band and people carrying a golden cloth of some sort, we've now come to realise that these little parades seem to be quite common place as we've seen several more since then. Would be nice to know what any of it meant though!
Monday morning we ate breakfast on said breakfast balcony then went back to the market to hunt for avocados and ended up getting a few other things besides (including some more pan con queso frito). Put our bartering skills to good use. The market is divided up into sections and there'll be rows of people selling pretty much the exact same thing right next to each other, talk about competition. Don't really understand how it works for them, we mostly just pick who we go to at random. That evening we hunted down some Ceviche and Causa washed down with Cusqueña cerveza for dinner - local dishes that were recommended to us by the australian girls at the hostel in BA. Pretty scrumptuous. After dinner we strolled the streets again (so pretty day and night) then headed up the hill to The One Bar on 7 Angelitos for happy hour mojitos (apparently the best in town - they were good) and chilcanos whilst listening to a local band, very enjoyable. The band asked where everyone had come from and we were by far the furthest from home.
On Tuesday after our ritual balcony breakfast we booked our inca trail adventure leaving the following morning. Then headed to Jack's cafe to share a massive and delicious second breakfast (lunch) and lots of their ginger, lemon and honey tea. Whilst there we saw/heard a more impressive parade going past outside with some people carrying a big wooden shrine type thing (probably has a real name - looked like something princesses would be carried around in on servants' shoulders). The street was packed and once again i wish we knew anything about why it was happening! No one near me had any idea either. Went back to the hostel with the intent of then carrying on to a museum but got a bit waylaid as it started hailing hard out, fairly substantial sized hail stones too and lasted quite a while. On our walk to the museum there were even piles of hail up against buildings. Walked around the Museo Inka trying to make sense of the spanish descriptions (there were a few in english too). Learnt a bit about the history of the region we think, though we coulda had it all wrong! Saw some incan gold and mummies and traditional weaving techniques. Lots of old, old pottery, the influence of the spanish etc. For dinner we tried making some instant Tarwi stew - interesting to say the least! supposed to have more protein than soy but doubt i managed to eat enough to get any benefit. Then we packed our stuff up ready to begin our expedition to Machu Picchu the next morning!
So on saturday we spent most of the day with Frith (girl who was in my spanish class in chch) who has been here since november and was leaving on the 2nd. Did a lot of eating and meandered up to the Jesus statue on the hill to get a view of the whole city. Cuzco is gorgeous. Even meandering left us pretty out of breath but thankfully haven't really suffered many ill effects from the altitude besides that and the occasional headache. That evening we went to a 'discotheque' that has social salsa from 9-11 every night - amazing to watch! no way we were gonna join in though, lots of regulars who are incredible, did do a little shuffling at the side. At 11 the music turned pretty cringeworthy and we were tired so we bailed pretty early, leaving frith dancing on the bar!
On Sunday we had a sort of rest day, slept in and wandered about a bit. Found the crazy market place that Frith had given directions to. It's supposedly closed on a sunday but there was still a lot there, including several aisles of animal parts including whole skinned cow heads, insane. Managed to only eat bread and cheese that day i think, although pan con queso frito is delicious enough in itself. The cheese is a bit weird and plasticy but that makes it good for frying. On the way to the market we passed by a crowd of locals in plaza san fransisco. There were street performers and what looked like fun-fair type gambling stations, food vendors selling nothing even vaguely familiar and artists, was quite the spectacle! The only other touristy looking person we saw looked as bemused as we must have. Further on down the street there was a little parade happening with a marching band and people carrying a golden cloth of some sort, we've now come to realise that these little parades seem to be quite common place as we've seen several more since then. Would be nice to know what any of it meant though!
Monday morning we ate breakfast on said breakfast balcony then went back to the market to hunt for avocados and ended up getting a few other things besides (including some more pan con queso frito). Put our bartering skills to good use. The market is divided up into sections and there'll be rows of people selling pretty much the exact same thing right next to each other, talk about competition. Don't really understand how it works for them, we mostly just pick who we go to at random. That evening we hunted down some Ceviche and Causa washed down with Cusqueña cerveza for dinner - local dishes that were recommended to us by the australian girls at the hostel in BA. Pretty scrumptuous. After dinner we strolled the streets again (so pretty day and night) then headed up the hill to The One Bar on 7 Angelitos for happy hour mojitos (apparently the best in town - they were good) and chilcanos whilst listening to a local band, very enjoyable. The band asked where everyone had come from and we were by far the furthest from home.
On Tuesday after our ritual balcony breakfast we booked our inca trail adventure leaving the following morning. Then headed to Jack's cafe to share a massive and delicious second breakfast (lunch) and lots of their ginger, lemon and honey tea. Whilst there we saw/heard a more impressive parade going past outside with some people carrying a big wooden shrine type thing (probably has a real name - looked like something princesses would be carried around in on servants' shoulders). The street was packed and once again i wish we knew anything about why it was happening! No one near me had any idea either. Went back to the hostel with the intent of then carrying on to a museum but got a bit waylaid as it started hailing hard out, fairly substantial sized hail stones too and lasted quite a while. On our walk to the museum there were even piles of hail up against buildings. Walked around the Museo Inka trying to make sense of the spanish descriptions (there were a few in english too). Learnt a bit about the history of the region we think, though we coulda had it all wrong! Saw some incan gold and mummies and traditional weaving techniques. Lots of old, old pottery, the influence of the spanish etc. For dinner we tried making some instant Tarwi stew - interesting to say the least! supposed to have more protein than soy but doubt i managed to eat enough to get any benefit. Then we packed our stuff up ready to begin our expedition to Machu Picchu the next morning!
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Sunny Days en Arica
Bit of a pun in that title cos not only was the backpackers we stayed at called Sunny Days we also got extremely sunny days during our brief stay in Arica. So we arrived and checked into our beautiful room (most amazing tiled floor) at Sunny Days which is run by a Kiwi expat who used to live in Rangiora i think! We even had a private bathroom in our spacious dorm room for the first few hours until an irish girl arrived later that evening. Ross (kiwi owner) suggested a couple of places we might find a reasonably priced feed so we headed round the corner to get a "sandwich". For 1750 chilean pesos (less than $6) we got a ginormously humongous vege burger, thankfully our waiter (who spoke perfect english, none of the others did apparently) strongly suggested we get one to share as we only managed to eat half our halves! Also got much too much freshly juiced mango juice (a glass each plus they brought out a 500ml jug of the stuff each). Feeling pretty stuffed we headed to the beach and discovered it to be surprisingly alive with karaoke, food stalls, bouncy castles, live music/dj's, souvenir stalls etc etc. We were expecting a quiet dark beach to ourselves! After a stroll we headed back to REAL BEDS - bliss.
The following day we decided to see the sights of Arica (initially we were gonna head on thru to peru but thought the better of it). Ross had provided us with a map and a double sided A4 page of activities plus lonely planet had a wee bit to say.
Once again Arica surprised us as from the bus ride in we had expected a very small, derelict village given the boxy houses with no proper roofs and dusty desert streets. The town however was a hubbub of activity and jam packed full of people, shops and stalls. We realised the boxy houses only looked run down and slum-like because they were such an unfamiliar design but if it never rains who really needs an A-frame roof? We climbed up to the Jesus on the hill overlooking the town (which also turned out to be much larger than expected when u could see it all) and the pacific ocean - stunning view. Lots of army/war themed things up the top including a war museum. Ate the remainder of our giant burger for lunch then headed down to check out some of the notable architecture - mainly a church made all of aluminium/steel/metal that was maybe designed by the same guy as the eiffel tower.
When the heat of the day had died down we went to the beach and threw around a kiwi frisbee, played some beach tennis (trying to avoid the big jellyfish all over the sand) then ate a dozen churros (deep fried batter covered in icing sugar!) and went to get empanadas.
After being out in the sun all day, Jon discovered what it's like to be sunburnt for the first time proper and i found out it is possible to get sunburnt on the front of your neck, where i'd missed with the sunscreen (looked really weird).
The following morning (thurs 29/1) we had our second and last amazing Sunny Days breakfast (really is something to write home about) and prepared to cross another border into peru. Thankfully Ross had shared his knowledge on the subject the night before cos it's quite the system and we woulda been completely lost without his help. It was still a challenge. But we made it first to Tacna and then to Arequipa without too much drama, just more long bus rides and random police checks and sugary food. Amazing scenery once again, the hills turned red at points with cacti and dramatic green oases/oasises?? Also must've gone up pretty high as the ball popped out of my deodorant bottle the next time i went to use it and all our other bottles had inflated somewhat. Sat next to JK from singapore/new york who we ended up hanging out with in Arequipa the following day and sharing hostels and taxis etc with. Didn't make it to Arequipa in time to get into the volunteer office (by minutes!) so that got canned unfortunately. Our bid at couch surfing also fell through, though not entirely. We didn't get a couch for the night but the girl we had asked invited us to a couch surfing get together that evening at a french style bar where we sampled our first pisco sours and arequipeña cerveza in fine company before heading back to our delightful, possibly mediterranean style hostel, complete with solar water heating and a roof top patio with a view.
The following day was spent wandering around Arequipa with JK, saw some beautiful cathedrals, a nice view of El Misti in the morning (the volcano that Arequipa is at the foot of) before it disappeared behind the clouds. Walked up to a look out point where you can see most of the city from and just missed out on trying a "queso helado" which translates to cheese icecream, have no idea what it could taste like. Went and got a very late lunch at a creperie that has over 100 different types of crepes - delicious, especially the dessert one! Good thing we shared it. Slightly strange that during our short time in Arequipa, which has a rich history of local foods, we only managed to eat french style food. After that we ambled through the neighbourhood of San Larázno (?) which has narrow winding paved streets (no cars, which was nice as crossing the street anywhere in Arequipa was a challenge. Around 90% of the vehicles were taxis and another maybe 7% were bus/public transport vehicles and they all drive like maniacs, lots of horn tooting which woke us up in the morning), larger houses, flower pots hanging up along the alleyways and supposedly a lovely church not to be missed - we didn't think the church was all that.
Then it was time to catch another overnight bus to Cuzco which was all organised by the lovely people at the hostel (though we're certain they took a cut) including a prepaid taxi ride that got us to the station in the nick of time.
The following day we decided to see the sights of Arica (initially we were gonna head on thru to peru but thought the better of it). Ross had provided us with a map and a double sided A4 page of activities plus lonely planet had a wee bit to say.
Once again Arica surprised us as from the bus ride in we had expected a very small, derelict village given the boxy houses with no proper roofs and dusty desert streets. The town however was a hubbub of activity and jam packed full of people, shops and stalls. We realised the boxy houses only looked run down and slum-like because they were such an unfamiliar design but if it never rains who really needs an A-frame roof? We climbed up to the Jesus on the hill overlooking the town (which also turned out to be much larger than expected when u could see it all) and the pacific ocean - stunning view. Lots of army/war themed things up the top including a war museum. Ate the remainder of our giant burger for lunch then headed down to check out some of the notable architecture - mainly a church made all of aluminium/steel/metal that was maybe designed by the same guy as the eiffel tower.
When the heat of the day had died down we went to the beach and threw around a kiwi frisbee, played some beach tennis (trying to avoid the big jellyfish all over the sand) then ate a dozen churros (deep fried batter covered in icing sugar!) and went to get empanadas.
After being out in the sun all day, Jon discovered what it's like to be sunburnt for the first time proper and i found out it is possible to get sunburnt on the front of your neck, where i'd missed with the sunscreen (looked really weird).
The following morning (thurs 29/1) we had our second and last amazing Sunny Days breakfast (really is something to write home about) and prepared to cross another border into peru. Thankfully Ross had shared his knowledge on the subject the night before cos it's quite the system and we woulda been completely lost without his help. It was still a challenge. But we made it first to Tacna and then to Arequipa without too much drama, just more long bus rides and random police checks and sugary food. Amazing scenery once again, the hills turned red at points with cacti and dramatic green oases/oasises?? Also must've gone up pretty high as the ball popped out of my deodorant bottle the next time i went to use it and all our other bottles had inflated somewhat. Sat next to JK from singapore/new york who we ended up hanging out with in Arequipa the following day and sharing hostels and taxis etc with. Didn't make it to Arequipa in time to get into the volunteer office (by minutes!) so that got canned unfortunately. Our bid at couch surfing also fell through, though not entirely. We didn't get a couch for the night but the girl we had asked invited us to a couch surfing get together that evening at a french style bar where we sampled our first pisco sours and arequipeña cerveza in fine company before heading back to our delightful, possibly mediterranean style hostel, complete with solar water heating and a roof top patio with a view.
The following day was spent wandering around Arequipa with JK, saw some beautiful cathedrals, a nice view of El Misti in the morning (the volcano that Arequipa is at the foot of) before it disappeared behind the clouds. Walked up to a look out point where you can see most of the city from and just missed out on trying a "queso helado" which translates to cheese icecream, have no idea what it could taste like. Went and got a very late lunch at a creperie that has over 100 different types of crepes - delicious, especially the dessert one! Good thing we shared it. Slightly strange that during our short time in Arequipa, which has a rich history of local foods, we only managed to eat french style food. After that we ambled through the neighbourhood of San Larázno (?) which has narrow winding paved streets (no cars, which was nice as crossing the street anywhere in Arequipa was a challenge. Around 90% of the vehicles were taxis and another maybe 7% were bus/public transport vehicles and they all drive like maniacs, lots of horn tooting which woke us up in the morning), larger houses, flower pots hanging up along the alleyways and supposedly a lovely church not to be missed - we didn't think the church was all that.
Then it was time to catch another overnight bus to Cuzco which was all organised by the lovely people at the hostel (though we're certain they took a cut) including a prepaid taxi ride that got us to the station in the nick of time.
Monday, 2 February 2009
Adios BsAs y buses buses buses
Sunday was actually our last day in BsAs. Got up in time for check out then went back to the market to buy the beautiful dress we'd reserved the previous day, had to wait awhile but saw some people shooting a cheesy as commercial in the meantime! Then it was off in a bid to start our mammoth trek to peru in as little time as possible. Caught the real train to retiro so think we covered all forms of public transportation in BA - train's even cheaper than the subway (70 centavos), less destinations tho and pretty minimalistic. Saw the slum area for the first time from the train, crazy. Next challenge was to find a bus to Santiago or Arica out of over 200 different cashier desks (good thing we went to the info desk first!) Managed to get one leaving that afternoon (4pm sunday) to Santiago after 2 no goes then battled to get out some cash to pay for it - atm's suck. Hung around til departure time, went thru the pretty hard out customs type thing just to get on the bus then we were off! For the next 5 hours the view was flat flat flat with the occasional little farm house and truck stop type things. I was sat right down the back next to Gustavo's "office", jon was a couple of seats ahead of me. Gustavo was the lovely young chilean guy running the show - making everyone sweet tea and coffee, handing out the little bags of goodies, pillows, blankets, chivalry and comedy (if you understood it). He spoke only a few words of english and decided he was gonna teach me spanish, but for the most part he spoke way too fast so i didn't learn that much! Was fun trying tho. Him and the older guy working had fun teasing jon and i i think, saying that jon couldn't be without me and watch out gustavo is gonna steal me away or some such! Stopped at a little cafeteria in the middle of nowhere for chicken and chips with crackers and some delicious green mayo dip, best part (included in the bus fare). Jon got to come sit in the "office" seat overnight, slept ok, and woke up to find ourselves in the Andes! beautiful. Then an intense Chilean border crossing (especially compared with getting into argentina at the airport) and another few hours of spectacular scenery until we arrived in Santiago about 1pm monday. Then some stress trying to figure out which bus we'd take to Arica, took the one leaving in just a couple of hours then went and found some lunch from the most gigantic supermarket i've ever been in, then more stress trying to find where our bus departed from! We were in the right place as it turned out, bus was 20 mins late (conveniently their clock said it was 4 when we left) so we were pretty worried (read: panicked!). Took our places on the second level of the double decker, this time across the aisle from each other. No paper bag of treats this time unfortunately but a guy jumped on selling dulce de leche pastries so inadvertently spent our coins on a selection of those which was just as well cos that turned out to be dinner (no quaint cafeteria this time). We were able to sit in the free seats in front of us until about 11 that night. Watched as the landscape change from green rolling hills with andes in the background to total desert, bizarre and unexpected. Caught a glimpse of the pacific ocean from the other side. Caught some zzzz's. Watched a few movies (quiet english, english subtitles or dubbed spanish trying to guess the storyline) and marvelled at the crazy scenery, inscriptions on the hills and few uninhabitable looking desert towns til we rolled into arica (along roads much worse looking than the one up to Dobson mum!) at around 8.30pm on tuesday, very happy to get off the bus and to find a real bed and real food that wasn't just sugar! (for breakfast and lunch we were given sponge cake, sweet juice, a lolly and peanuts pretty much). Made our way to Sunny Days = heaven! Tune in next time for "ARICA" (if you survived this post. i'd recommend skimming if you didn't already, or in summary: loooong time on buses, 2797km as the crow flies)
Saturday, 31 January 2009
2797 km en 53 horas
I kid you not. Probably further as that's as the crow flies. But before we get to that...
On Friday in BsAs we went to la boca as intended and strolled around taking in all the beautiful bright colours and vibrant atmosphere to match. Caught a tango show out front of a cafe (one of many) as we sat and sipped coffee on a day far too hot to be drinking hot drinks. Got a couple of photos with the dancers (for a tip) plus many many more photos around the area. The colourful area is surprisingly small, and outside of that it gets a bit grotty and not a nice place to be at night just as our hostel kindly let us know, otherwise we might've stayed longer. Had a look around the market there, one guy painstakingly cut out the features of coins and there were a few nz ones including an old penny, bit pricey for us though. Saw the famous football ground (that elton john and james blunt had played at the night before, they were busy doing the cleanup when we walked past so got to peek in through the doors at least). On our way to la boca we went to the national museum briefly, ate lunch in a plaza, saw loads of wicked graffiti, old guys playing chess and a stunning blue and white russian orthodox church as well. Apparently it is disrespectful to turn you back and especially sit with your back facing a russian orthodox church.
That evening a few brazilians that we'd been chatting too at the hostel invited us along for a drink at a dutch bar that played decent music, a rarity in SA i believe - turns out heineken in argentina tastes really good, tho MUCH better value from the supermarket like everything (28 pesos vs less than 5 pesos/litre). Had some delicious freshly made (better have been for the wait) spinach and cheese empanadas there too. Fun times.
We decided that if there were beds available we'd delay our departure another day as the brazilians had mentioned a place in town that also played good music that they were going to on saturday night. Also wanted to check out the saturday markets at the plazas in Palermo. So glad we lucked out on the bed situation by being early to rise (australians got kicked outta the bunk room tho) as the markets were great - got a toe ring and "reserved" the prettiest dress as we didn't have enough cash left after our delicious lunch at Krishna (ate too much once again). After a much needed siesta and a friendly chat over an al fresco dinner with great cheap wine and giant heinekin we hit the town with said brazilians at SICK club (interesting taxi ride to get there, driver had no clue, kept asking people on corners for directions and even turned the wrong down a one way street! and dropped us off a few blocks past the place then tried to get a 5 peso tip when mathias had known exactly where it was the whole time, what cheek!) Turned out mathias had somehow got us on the door or got us in for free at least. Anyway had a great night dancing dancing dancing to good music (for the most part, got a bit 80s for a while), got to bed about 7am with check out that morning...
k gotta run, too much to catch up on but more to do to add to the catching up-ness
On Friday in BsAs we went to la boca as intended and strolled around taking in all the beautiful bright colours and vibrant atmosphere to match. Caught a tango show out front of a cafe (one of many) as we sat and sipped coffee on a day far too hot to be drinking hot drinks. Got a couple of photos with the dancers (for a tip) plus many many more photos around the area. The colourful area is surprisingly small, and outside of that it gets a bit grotty and not a nice place to be at night just as our hostel kindly let us know, otherwise we might've stayed longer. Had a look around the market there, one guy painstakingly cut out the features of coins and there were a few nz ones including an old penny, bit pricey for us though. Saw the famous football ground (that elton john and james blunt had played at the night before, they were busy doing the cleanup when we walked past so got to peek in through the doors at least). On our way to la boca we went to the national museum briefly, ate lunch in a plaza, saw loads of wicked graffiti, old guys playing chess and a stunning blue and white russian orthodox church as well. Apparently it is disrespectful to turn you back and especially sit with your back facing a russian orthodox church.
That evening a few brazilians that we'd been chatting too at the hostel invited us along for a drink at a dutch bar that played decent music, a rarity in SA i believe - turns out heineken in argentina tastes really good, tho MUCH better value from the supermarket like everything (28 pesos vs less than 5 pesos/litre). Had some delicious freshly made (better have been for the wait) spinach and cheese empanadas there too. Fun times.
We decided that if there were beds available we'd delay our departure another day as the brazilians had mentioned a place in town that also played good music that they were going to on saturday night. Also wanted to check out the saturday markets at the plazas in Palermo. So glad we lucked out on the bed situation by being early to rise (australians got kicked outta the bunk room tho) as the markets were great - got a toe ring and "reserved" the prettiest dress as we didn't have enough cash left after our delicious lunch at Krishna (ate too much once again). After a much needed siesta and a friendly chat over an al fresco dinner with great cheap wine and giant heinekin we hit the town with said brazilians at SICK club (interesting taxi ride to get there, driver had no clue, kept asking people on corners for directions and even turned the wrong down a one way street! and dropped us off a few blocks past the place then tried to get a 5 peso tip when mathias had known exactly where it was the whole time, what cheek!) Turned out mathias had somehow got us on the door or got us in for free at least. Anyway had a great night dancing dancing dancing to good music (for the most part, got a bit 80s for a while), got to bed about 7am with check out that morning...
k gotta run, too much to catch up on but more to do to add to the catching up-ness
Friday, 23 January 2009
palermo viejo/don't cry for me argentina
We're hoping to head peru-wards tomorrow, tho haven't actually done anything about it so may not become a reality, but figured i'd try catch up while i have the chance.
So tuesday we arrived in palermo (suburb of BA - we're staying in palermo hollywood to be exact) which had been recommended by several sources and deservedly so. Finding/getting a bed in a hostel took up much too much of the day and ate into precious optimal siesta time again. We went to a lovely little french café "Oui Oui" for a late lunch (actually prob not late by argentinian standards at all) - DELICIOUS especially the traditional homemade lemonade (giant jug for 8 pesos) and the Crépe Dulce de Leche: Dios mio! Think we just kinda crashed at the hostel for a bit after that. Then tried to go see a music thing we'd seen mentioned in a spanish paper but wound up at the wrong plaza as it turns out Plaza San Martin de Tours is not the same or that close to Plaza San Martin, frustratingly found it on the map the following day! But it was a pleasant evening sittin the plaza san martin for a while nevertheless.
Wednesday was spent meandering around the gigantic park areas in west palermo flitting from one patch of shade to the next. Thank god for trees! Checked out the Jardin Japanés which was lovely. Forgot the camera tho. Got my first bit of burn for the summer :S not badly tho as i did sunscreen it up, you can just tell the patches i missed. We then tried to go take in some tango in Palermo Soho but once again our plans were thwarted as the restaurant was the only one in the lively neighbourhood that did not look open for business in the slightest. So we wandered around in the vain hope they might open next time we passed and stumbled upon an amazing little heladoria with so many delicious flavours of icecream. I got dulce de leche granizado and jon got chocolate italiano. Delicioso! then ended up sittting on the hot rocks of Plaza Cerrano (??), absorbing the atmosphere eating empanadas and listening to a busking drumming group in the balmy evening. Notice a theme here?!
Yesterday was all about Recoleta. Went to the super famous cementerio de la recoleta where eva peron and a bunch of presidents etc are buried. It is an incredible experience and an incredible place as those who have been there will know. It's like a little village with streets and houses for the dead and you can even see the coffins/urns for many people. I wasn't the only one thinking it was a little pompeii-esque.
Came back to rest our very weary feet and tend to some more missed sunscreened spots then we went to the restaurant recommended by lonely planet as the place to go if you only go to one steakhouse in argentina, which is the plan as it's extremely unvegetarian huh, but when in argentina do as the argentinians. And it was quite the experience! I got the dish recommended by the waiter, a ribeye steak which turned out to be at least 3 times the size of my fist. Jon got the Argentine steak which was also a very generous serving (2 slabs of decent sized steak) and these were only the medium sized portions! The most amazing part was all the side dishes - 16 different rammikins (sp?) full of all sorts of delicious flavours to tempt the taste buds, plus plenty of complementary bread, a bottle of mendoza red wine, and complementary champagne with dessert - how we managed to squeeze it all in i´ll never know! We did a pretty good job of finishing it all up tho the walk home was far from comfortable :P And i'll be very happy not to eat steak for a very very long time, good one to go out on i reckon. Oh and we arrived for dinner after 11pm and the place was packed, got a table within 5 mins and didn't finish til 2am! plus the best waiter ever. And paper tablecloths with crayons supplied. The only downside was being sat next to 3 australian girls who sounded more like Kath and Kim than I have ever heard before and didn't even attempt a word of spanish to the waiter - just slow, condescending english.
Today we are off to see the sights of La Boca - very excited! better get the show on the road.
Weather update:
The days have been getting progressively hotter and hotter... not sure how hot, also getting muggier and stickier. Tho i hear it's a stinker in nz too. no wonder the night life is where it´s at, it's the only time of day you can bear to do anything remotely energetic. The hostel atmosphere here is getting warmer and warmer too, lotsa chit-chat with gorgeous people from EVERYWHERE :)
p.s. almost every single road in BA is one way. A few of the main ones aren´t and we've even seen one that is two way only between certain hours of the day! Makes it very easy to walk around but I imagine i'd have a near impossible time if i tried to drive here.
p.p.s. On thursday night we could have gone to see Elton John and James Blunt play at the massive football stadium here for a measly $60NZD-ish- how bizarre would that have been?! A little gutted we didn't...
p.p.p.s. Most things here are actually surprisingly comparable to what the price would be in nz, i had thought it would be much cheaper. The exceptions are public transport and alcohol bought from a supermarket (including hard liquor!) is DIRT CHEAP (that doesn't mean we're drinking it like it's goin outta style!)
So tuesday we arrived in palermo (suburb of BA - we're staying in palermo hollywood to be exact) which had been recommended by several sources and deservedly so. Finding/getting a bed in a hostel took up much too much of the day and ate into precious optimal siesta time again. We went to a lovely little french café "Oui Oui" for a late lunch (actually prob not late by argentinian standards at all) - DELICIOUS especially the traditional homemade lemonade (giant jug for 8 pesos) and the Crépe Dulce de Leche: Dios mio! Think we just kinda crashed at the hostel for a bit after that. Then tried to go see a music thing we'd seen mentioned in a spanish paper but wound up at the wrong plaza as it turns out Plaza San Martin de Tours is not the same or that close to Plaza San Martin, frustratingly found it on the map the following day! But it was a pleasant evening sittin the plaza san martin for a while nevertheless.
Wednesday was spent meandering around the gigantic park areas in west palermo flitting from one patch of shade to the next. Thank god for trees! Checked out the Jardin Japanés which was lovely. Forgot the camera tho. Got my first bit of burn for the summer :S not badly tho as i did sunscreen it up, you can just tell the patches i missed. We then tried to go take in some tango in Palermo Soho but once again our plans were thwarted as the restaurant was the only one in the lively neighbourhood that did not look open for business in the slightest. So we wandered around in the vain hope they might open next time we passed and stumbled upon an amazing little heladoria with so many delicious flavours of icecream. I got dulce de leche granizado and jon got chocolate italiano. Delicioso! then ended up sittting on the hot rocks of Plaza Cerrano (??), absorbing the atmosphere eating empanadas and listening to a busking drumming group in the balmy evening. Notice a theme here?!
Yesterday was all about Recoleta. Went to the super famous cementerio de la recoleta where eva peron and a bunch of presidents etc are buried. It is an incredible experience and an incredible place as those who have been there will know. It's like a little village with streets and houses for the dead and you can even see the coffins/urns for many people. I wasn't the only one thinking it was a little pompeii-esque.
Came back to rest our very weary feet and tend to some more missed sunscreened spots then we went to the restaurant recommended by lonely planet as the place to go if you only go to one steakhouse in argentina, which is the plan as it's extremely unvegetarian huh, but when in argentina do as the argentinians. And it was quite the experience! I got the dish recommended by the waiter, a ribeye steak which turned out to be at least 3 times the size of my fist. Jon got the Argentine steak which was also a very generous serving (2 slabs of decent sized steak) and these were only the medium sized portions! The most amazing part was all the side dishes - 16 different rammikins (sp?) full of all sorts of delicious flavours to tempt the taste buds, plus plenty of complementary bread, a bottle of mendoza red wine, and complementary champagne with dessert - how we managed to squeeze it all in i´ll never know! We did a pretty good job of finishing it all up tho the walk home was far from comfortable :P And i'll be very happy not to eat steak for a very very long time, good one to go out on i reckon. Oh and we arrived for dinner after 11pm and the place was packed, got a table within 5 mins and didn't finish til 2am! plus the best waiter ever. And paper tablecloths with crayons supplied. The only downside was being sat next to 3 australian girls who sounded more like Kath and Kim than I have ever heard before and didn't even attempt a word of spanish to the waiter - just slow, condescending english.
Today we are off to see the sights of La Boca - very excited! better get the show on the road.
Weather update:
The days have been getting progressively hotter and hotter... not sure how hot, also getting muggier and stickier. Tho i hear it's a stinker in nz too. no wonder the night life is where it´s at, it's the only time of day you can bear to do anything remotely energetic. The hostel atmosphere here is getting warmer and warmer too, lotsa chit-chat with gorgeous people from EVERYWHERE :)
p.s. almost every single road in BA is one way. A few of the main ones aren´t and we've even seen one that is two way only between certain hours of the day! Makes it very easy to walk around but I imagine i'd have a near impossible time if i tried to drive here.
p.p.s. On thursday night we could have gone to see Elton John and James Blunt play at the massive football stadium here for a measly $60NZD-ish- how bizarre would that have been?! A little gutted we didn't...
p.p.p.s. Most things here are actually surprisingly comparable to what the price would be in nz, i had thought it would be much cheaper. The exceptions are public transport and alcohol bought from a supermarket (including hard liquor!) is DIRT CHEAP (that doesn't mean we're drinking it like it's goin outta style!)
Thursday, 22 January 2009
maailman toisella puolella
¡Hola Blogi! ¿qué tal?
Hmm i guess i'll begin at the beginning-ish and see how far i get. So arrived in BA on sunday, found a shady spot outside to sit and wait for jon to arrive then we caught the local bus into town (for free cos we only had notes and it only takes coins so the driver just kinda waved us on) after waiting for over an hour for it to arrive and watching several buses of the same number drive on by for no apparent reason. Found the hostel in town that Natasha had recommended and booked ourselves in for 2 nights, then strolled around a surprisingly closed town, more so than expected, and got some dinner. The choice was pretty much pizza, pizza or pizza which was also a surprise, and super cheesy pizza at that. And our first taste of argentinian beer (1L bottle for $14 pesos = around $NZD7 which we later discovered retails for around 3 pesos in the supermarkets!). Day two was spent meandering around town. We heard of a free tour in the morning but couldn't find it at all at the place it was supposed to start from so we did our own walking tour with a little help from the guidebook i cleverly managed to pick up at the airport. Best thing was probably the cathedral in plaza de mayo, besides being harrassed in spanish about we still don't know what. There is a lot of incredible architecture in Buenos Aires, really beautiful ornate buildings everywhere. Went to eat at Café Tortoni, apparently the father of all cafés in BA (according to the ever knowledgable guidebook), had an interesting salad and our first taste of dulce de leche icecream - i'm totally hooked! Went back to the hostel for a much later than intended siesta, then wandered around the streets again (once again very closed for business for the most part) til the early hours. The following day we decided to shift to Palermo, best decision ever though not so straightforward as planned. Walked through the hot hot heat fully laden with packs then figured out the subway system and got to palermo to do a heap more fully laden hot hot heat walking around the streets of palermo trying to find a place to stay. The 2 hostels we tried here were pretty much invisible - you really have to know where to look to find them, (even with an address, we only had that for one), which we didn't but with a little help from the locals we made it. The first was booked out except for expensive single rooms but the second had space and is perfect and beautiful and lovely and wonderful and home! It's called La Casa Fitz Roy (has a very flash website should u wish to check it out) and it is great. Although our food keeps shrinking or disappearing altogether. Palermo itself is pretty great. The greatness might have to wait for another post tho...
Hmm i guess i'll begin at the beginning-ish and see how far i get. So arrived in BA on sunday, found a shady spot outside to sit and wait for jon to arrive then we caught the local bus into town (for free cos we only had notes and it only takes coins so the driver just kinda waved us on) after waiting for over an hour for it to arrive and watching several buses of the same number drive on by for no apparent reason. Found the hostel in town that Natasha had recommended and booked ourselves in for 2 nights, then strolled around a surprisingly closed town, more so than expected, and got some dinner. The choice was pretty much pizza, pizza or pizza which was also a surprise, and super cheesy pizza at that. And our first taste of argentinian beer (1L bottle for $14 pesos = around $NZD7 which we later discovered retails for around 3 pesos in the supermarkets!). Day two was spent meandering around town. We heard of a free tour in the morning but couldn't find it at all at the place it was supposed to start from so we did our own walking tour with a little help from the guidebook i cleverly managed to pick up at the airport. Best thing was probably the cathedral in plaza de mayo, besides being harrassed in spanish about we still don't know what. There is a lot of incredible architecture in Buenos Aires, really beautiful ornate buildings everywhere. Went to eat at Café Tortoni, apparently the father of all cafés in BA (according to the ever knowledgable guidebook), had an interesting salad and our first taste of dulce de leche icecream - i'm totally hooked! Went back to the hostel for a much later than intended siesta, then wandered around the streets again (once again very closed for business for the most part) til the early hours. The following day we decided to shift to Palermo, best decision ever though not so straightforward as planned. Walked through the hot hot heat fully laden with packs then figured out the subway system and got to palermo to do a heap more fully laden hot hot heat walking around the streets of palermo trying to find a place to stay. The 2 hostels we tried here were pretty much invisible - you really have to know where to look to find them, (even with an address, we only had that for one), which we didn't but with a little help from the locals we made it. The first was booked out except for expensive single rooms but the second had space and is perfect and beautiful and lovely and wonderful and home! It's called La Casa Fitz Roy (has a very flash website should u wish to check it out) and it is great. Although our food keeps shrinking or disappearing altogether. Palermo itself is pretty great. The greatness might have to wait for another post tho...
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
kani kani kani
There are an awful lot of rabbits in Helsinki. Hiding in the shrubbery. Surprisingly so.
Anywho to polish up finland - the penultimate and ultimate days! On thursday we were planning on going to Kiasma (modern art gallery in Helsinki) with a few friends (potentially juuso, otto, stippe...). Kiasma morphed into a pancake party instead, Otto and Juuso came over to Milka's and then both fell asleep for a couple of hours while milka (and i sorta helped) cooked up a pancake storm, much better result i reckon! Think i managed to not leave the apartment at all that day :p The following day (friday the 16th) I finished packing up my stuff to send home - took a bit of effort to get the zip done up not to mention a fair dollop of cash to send it away that afternoon :S
Met up with Kiira for lunch in town then to Stippe's place for a dinner party of sorts. She had cooked a delicious white lasagne with three different types of cheese! YUM! Cut Milka's hair then headed back into town for iceskating in rautatientori and hot choc with tons of whipped cream and chocolate hail at M-Bar with Kiira again - perfect - then back to Haapaniemi to go see what we thought was gonna be Komposti Kopla playing live finnish reggae but turned out to just be computerprogrammed english reggae but still real fun while not quite realising our expectations.
Saturday was day zero. Milka and i watched the last episode of the L word season 5 (extremely important that that fit into the schedule!) then Veera, milka's sister, came over for a late brunch of everything delicious, milka even produced some pulla/korvapussi from the freezer. Veera was embarking on her trip to nepal that day too, starting with a ferry to Tallinn. Then it was onto my last tram ride to catch a bus to the airport to fly me to the other side of the world and summer sunshine! Which is where i am now, but more on that later :)
Flying when you're even vaguely still a bit sick is a fairly painful experience tho. But flying into London at night totally makes up for it. Also saw the lights of amsterdam on the way over - no red ones though. The landing in a windy London was a bit scary however and worthy of the applause it got! Flying over Brazil is spectacular (stopped in Sao paulo for around an hour). Testing out my minimal spanish on the very handsome argentinian sitting next to me was interesting, with his equally minimal english! The end.
Anywho to polish up finland - the penultimate and ultimate days! On thursday we were planning on going to Kiasma (modern art gallery in Helsinki) with a few friends (potentially juuso, otto, stippe...). Kiasma morphed into a pancake party instead, Otto and Juuso came over to Milka's and then both fell asleep for a couple of hours while milka (and i sorta helped) cooked up a pancake storm, much better result i reckon! Think i managed to not leave the apartment at all that day :p The following day (friday the 16th) I finished packing up my stuff to send home - took a bit of effort to get the zip done up not to mention a fair dollop of cash to send it away that afternoon :S
Met up with Kiira for lunch in town then to Stippe's place for a dinner party of sorts. She had cooked a delicious white lasagne with three different types of cheese! YUM! Cut Milka's hair then headed back into town for iceskating in rautatientori and hot choc with tons of whipped cream and chocolate hail at M-Bar with Kiira again - perfect - then back to Haapaniemi to go see what we thought was gonna be Komposti Kopla playing live finnish reggae but turned out to just be computerprogrammed english reggae but still real fun while not quite realising our expectations.
Saturday was day zero. Milka and i watched the last episode of the L word season 5 (extremely important that that fit into the schedule!) then Veera, milka's sister, came over for a late brunch of everything delicious, milka even produced some pulla/korvapussi from the freezer. Veera was embarking on her trip to nepal that day too, starting with a ferry to Tallinn. Then it was onto my last tram ride to catch a bus to the airport to fly me to the other side of the world and summer sunshine! Which is where i am now, but more on that later :)
Flying when you're even vaguely still a bit sick is a fairly painful experience tho. But flying into London at night totally makes up for it. Also saw the lights of amsterdam on the way over - no red ones though. The landing in a windy London was a bit scary however and worthy of the applause it got! Flying over Brazil is spectacular (stopped in Sao paulo for around an hour). Testing out my minimal spanish on the very handsome argentinian sitting next to me was interesting, with his equally minimal english! The end.
Thursday, 15 January 2009
viimeimen viikko
the days are slipping away here in helsinki. Arrived on monday evening to be greeted by a Milka hug :) then had the evening to myself as she had plans. On tuesday I wandered round town trying to do a spot of 'christmas' shopping. Got accosted by one of those makeup people in the malls who turned my face a putrid shade no face should be then lost my hat in the process of trying to de-yellow myself and spent the next 20 minutes or so trying to relocate it, which i eventually did. Then went to Stippe's who cooked us up a delicious makaroni-laatikko - so yum! (had a couple of ingenious ingredients incl. honey, chocolate and a dash of strawberry jam) Yesterday I walked around town again in the semi-sunshine and went to hakaniemen kauppahalli. i love looking round kauppahallit! think this was by far the biggest i've been in, two storeys! Then Milka cooked up a delish soy spag bol, she's very generous with her spices! Last night we went to get our dose of finnish hip-hop (at the same place i saw the finnish modern folk band play - quite a different vibe!) Milka's sister's boyfriend's brother was playing so it wasn't just because of our undying love for hip-hop :p quite bizarre listening to hip-hop in a different language i find "pelti kii" "gangsta paska" "liikun vain yösin" "mä haluun naisen, joka juo vain limonaadi" "pese selkä, pese pese selkä!" a selection of lyrics i sorta understood (and prob wrote incorrectly :p). Drank some delicious warm glögi with the extra warmth of koskenkorva. It's been fairly warm outside too, around +3 most times i've looked - even saw a +5! definitely doesn't have that sharp wintery feel. Supposed to be back to -10 by friday tho. Just 2 days left in this fair land...
Sunday, 11 January 2009
hyvästi ylämylly
On my last full day in ylämylly we had a bit of an "ulkopäivä". Went skiing for a couple of hours with juuso, marjo and peppi at a nice little skifield called mustavaara, which as far as i can tell translates to black danger - not a fitting name in the slightest, 20km north of ylämylly (at least i think it was north... can never get my bearings here). Was pretty windy at the top but mucho fun-o. Peppi and i also did a bit of sledding down quite a steep hill while marjo used my skis, handy we have the same size feet. Then marjo heated the cheese sammies she'd brought over the fire in a little teepee shaped hut at the bottom of the field. When we got home it was straight back out to do that other weird variety of skiing - 5km cross country just down the road through peaceful forest. It's really fun on the downhill patches but i just don't get the uphill and there's as much of each. Also ate salmon at every 'meal', including some experimental salmon/tofu patties which succeeded scrumptiously (for future reference ingredients were: grated carrot, left over cooked rice and salmon, block of soft tofu, an egg and seasonings). So all in all a good day to go out on. Back to Helsinki tomorrow!
Saturday, 10 January 2009
here goes nothing....
Päivä Suomeksi - VARO: sisältää huono suomea
No niin, tänä aamuna mä heräsin erittäin aikaisin (kuudelta!), vaikka menin nukkumaan liian myöhässä (kahdelta aamulla :s). Mun piti hoitaa pepin koska kaikki muut oli joko työssä tai koulussa (lauantaina, epäreilua vai mitä). pääsin nukkumaan vähän aikaan vielä sohvalla mut ei riittää! mulla on myöskin nuha siis mua tosi väsyttää. No sitten pelasin pari pelit pepin kaa ja katsotiin telkarin. sen jälkeen marjo ja minä käytiin kaupungilla. Käytiin ihanan kirkon ympärillä, emme päässyt sisään koska se ei ollut auki. Sitten käytiin ostoksilla, marjo osti parin päidän ja mä melkein ostin toisen marimekon päidän, mutta odotan helsinkiä. myös pahat pojat mut oli liian kallis minusta. sen jälkeen me käytiin syömässä jossakussa nuudelen paikassa, jossa oli tosi hyvää ruoka. meilla oli ihan täysit mahat! kun tulimme kotiin minä ja juuso teimme vähän lumityötä pihalla. yritin tehdä lumiukon mutta ei onnistunut, sitten teimme enkelit :) ihan loistavaa. nyt mulla on märkä peppu :p ja sen jälkeen mä yritin kirjoittaa tätä... höh
:D
No niin, tänä aamuna mä heräsin erittäin aikaisin (kuudelta!), vaikka menin nukkumaan liian myöhässä (kahdelta aamulla :s). Mun piti hoitaa pepin koska kaikki muut oli joko työssä tai koulussa (lauantaina, epäreilua vai mitä). pääsin nukkumaan vähän aikaan vielä sohvalla mut ei riittää! mulla on myöskin nuha siis mua tosi väsyttää. No sitten pelasin pari pelit pepin kaa ja katsotiin telkarin. sen jälkeen marjo ja minä käytiin kaupungilla. Käytiin ihanan kirkon ympärillä, emme päässyt sisään koska se ei ollut auki. Sitten käytiin ostoksilla, marjo osti parin päidän ja mä melkein ostin toisen marimekon päidän, mutta odotan helsinkiä. myös pahat pojat mut oli liian kallis minusta. sen jälkeen me käytiin syömässä jossakussa nuudelen paikassa, jossa oli tosi hyvää ruoka. meilla oli ihan täysit mahat! kun tulimme kotiin minä ja juuso teimme vähän lumityötä pihalla. yritin tehdä lumiukon mutta ei onnistunut, sitten teimme enkelit :) ihan loistavaa. nyt mulla on märkä peppu :p ja sen jälkeen mä yritin kirjoittaa tätä... höh
:D
Friday, 9 January 2009
mennään elokuviin
Just got home from seeing 'Rööperi' with arto and marjo, a finnish film based on life in a bad part of town in helsinki in the 60's-70's. Understood maybe about a third of what was said (actually probably more cos about a third was made up of swearwords alone) but got most of the story. There was a lot of blood.
Early morning tomorrow as i'm babysitting cos the big kids've got school - on a saturday!??!?
Early morning tomorrow as i'm babysitting cos the big kids've got school - on a saturday!??!?
Thursday, 8 January 2009
seikkailuminen
Think i'll take my -13 degrees over your +39 any day, though i'd definitely settle for a happy medium. Hard to imagine that it's almost 60 degrees warmer on the other side of the world.
So to try recap a fairly eventful week and a bit...
Caught the bus to Kuopio last tues 30/12 and headed straight to mäkipirtinkatu 16A. All the busses are still exactly the same, kuopio itself looks very much the same except for one new shopping centre next to my school that i think is probably what was being built when i was there last. It's handy when you need to find something in a hurry and it's right where you expect it to be. However the bus ride to mäkipirtinkatu that i have taken sooo many times was strangely unfamiliar.
I was in kuopio until sunday and was supposedly staying at mummolassa (= at the grandparents) but only stayed the night there the first night. Did go there nearly every day to eat though :P and give my finnish a workout! voi että se oli vaikeaa mut hyväkin. Was lovely to see mummo and ukki again and to visit my old home. It's changed a bit but not as much as i might have expected.
On the 31st i headed into town and after a fair bit of dillydallydisorganisation we made our way out to haminalahti where, thanks to Ere's super organisational skills, new years eve was to be spent in the company of many old friends and several new ones too, chatting, eating good food, drinking good drinks (including pear kopparberg helen! what a guess), gazing into the fire when the electrics all went out for maybe an hour or so then realising how much smoke was hanging around inside..., watching human pyramids be built and topple onto mattresses, singing and dancing and later discovering splinters in my foot from doing so, racing outside for long enough to burn our sparklers, pop the champagne bottle, wish one another a hyvää uutta vuotta then realise how cold it was and pile back indoors to head for the sauna!! Strangely enough the sauna (and the "spirit of the sauna - löylyn henki") was the only thing i remembered about haminalahti from the time i went there before, which apparently i did and there's photographic evidence to boot.
By the time all that had been accomplished it was close to 6am and well and truly time to hit the bunks for a few hours of what could barely pass as sleep. Got up at 11 to discover a beautiful blue sky to welcome in the new year with the few remaining beautiful people (some of whom had even had the foresight to bring something edible for breakfast - joghurt, a mandarin and oven fries it is!). Then a carload of us (minä,milka,maiju,annika,john/migreeinimies,juuso-tohishouse) made our way back to milka's mum's place in town where we sat around having a neverending picnic in the lounge for many hours. Milka's family arrived later on and milka's mum cooked us all delicious pasta to add to the picnic.
The next 60 hours or so consisted of spending a few hours at each of 4 places in a rather cyclic fashion with a cycle of similar people!
1/1/09: From milka's we went to mikko (milka's cousin) and hilla's lovely cosy abode that i managed to not get a single photo at much to my dismay. Then back to milka's to spend the night
2/1/09: From milka's back to mummolaan via a marimekko sale and a beautiful new top for me, thanks aunty rachel! Juuso-veli was also now in kuopio so hung out with him and mummo and ukki and their fridge for a few hours then back into town to find antti's place and a sauna full of finns. and a spaniard. and a youtube cat ninja. and a simply cool card game coloretto. then onto mikko and hilla's till the wee hours - tuning in and out of finnish conversation floating around me. back to milka's for the night.
3/1/09: M&H's again for some nerdily cool new card games (dominion was actually cool, race for the galaxy was mostly just confusing despite being on the winning team!). then mummolaan. then pack all my stuff real quick and race for the bus, dawdle to the next bus cos missed the first by seconds, back to antti's where folks were playing games again. then onto milka's where the games continued (dominion and citadels - played in your choice of swedish or bad indian accent) and were followed by far too long on youtube until only juuso, milka and i were left and eventually decided to go to bed in time to get 4 hours sleep before i had to be up to catch a bus back to ylämylly.
phew.
Mandatory update on the weather over this time period: mostly beautiful sunshiny days with a rough average temp of -10 (saw -8,-13 and -15 from memory). One grey snowy day on the saturday, experienced the snot-freezing-temps for the first time again, and snow is sooooo beautiful when it's this cold!! Every flake of it.
Arto, Marjo and Peppi (minus her 2 front teeth) picked me up from the bus on sunday (now -18) and it was straight onto lappeenranta, a 3 hour drive south, getting very close to the russian border (hence how i saw russia). Marjo's sister Arja lives in lappeenranta and the occasion was her daughter nina's 30th birthday. So hung out there for a couple of days, went for lunch at the greek restaurant that nina works at (very finnish greek if you ask me, the buffet lunch was anyway) and wandered around town a little (as much as arto ever could just wander!). Lappeenranta has a lovely town centre with an old church and graveyard and war memorial as well as an outdoor street mall area with a guy playing one of those wind up music boxes that really shoulda had a monkey playing miniature symbols. Sweated it out in their real wood fire sauna for a while and played some sing star and ate delicious food and drank some salmiakki cream liqueor that tasted much better mixed with some irish cream i decided. And now we're all back in ylämylly, kids are back at school, more beautiful crisp days to counter your sweltering ones! Got in from a walk well over an hour ago and my legs are still feeling a bit frosty. Phones actually work slower when it's this cold.
So to try recap a fairly eventful week and a bit...
Caught the bus to Kuopio last tues 30/12 and headed straight to mäkipirtinkatu 16A. All the busses are still exactly the same, kuopio itself looks very much the same except for one new shopping centre next to my school that i think is probably what was being built when i was there last. It's handy when you need to find something in a hurry and it's right where you expect it to be. However the bus ride to mäkipirtinkatu that i have taken sooo many times was strangely unfamiliar.
I was in kuopio until sunday and was supposedly staying at mummolassa (= at the grandparents) but only stayed the night there the first night. Did go there nearly every day to eat though :P and give my finnish a workout! voi että se oli vaikeaa mut hyväkin. Was lovely to see mummo and ukki again and to visit my old home. It's changed a bit but not as much as i might have expected.
On the 31st i headed into town and after a fair bit of dillydallydisorganisation we made our way out to haminalahti where, thanks to Ere's super organisational skills, new years eve was to be spent in the company of many old friends and several new ones too, chatting, eating good food, drinking good drinks (including pear kopparberg helen! what a guess), gazing into the fire when the electrics all went out for maybe an hour or so then realising how much smoke was hanging around inside..., watching human pyramids be built and topple onto mattresses, singing and dancing and later discovering splinters in my foot from doing so, racing outside for long enough to burn our sparklers, pop the champagne bottle, wish one another a hyvää uutta vuotta then realise how cold it was and pile back indoors to head for the sauna!! Strangely enough the sauna (and the "spirit of the sauna - löylyn henki") was the only thing i remembered about haminalahti from the time i went there before, which apparently i did and there's photographic evidence to boot.
By the time all that had been accomplished it was close to 6am and well and truly time to hit the bunks for a few hours of what could barely pass as sleep. Got up at 11 to discover a beautiful blue sky to welcome in the new year with the few remaining beautiful people (some of whom had even had the foresight to bring something edible for breakfast - joghurt, a mandarin and oven fries it is!). Then a carload of us (minä,milka,maiju,annika,john/migreeinimies,juuso-tohishouse) made our way back to milka's mum's place in town where we sat around having a neverending picnic in the lounge for many hours. Milka's family arrived later on and milka's mum cooked us all delicious pasta to add to the picnic.
The next 60 hours or so consisted of spending a few hours at each of 4 places in a rather cyclic fashion with a cycle of similar people!
1/1/09: From milka's we went to mikko (milka's cousin) and hilla's lovely cosy abode that i managed to not get a single photo at much to my dismay. Then back to milka's to spend the night
2/1/09: From milka's back to mummolaan via a marimekko sale and a beautiful new top for me, thanks aunty rachel! Juuso-veli was also now in kuopio so hung out with him and mummo and ukki and their fridge for a few hours then back into town to find antti's place and a sauna full of finns. and a spaniard. and a youtube cat ninja. and a simply cool card game coloretto. then onto mikko and hilla's till the wee hours - tuning in and out of finnish conversation floating around me. back to milka's for the night.
3/1/09: M&H's again for some nerdily cool new card games (dominion was actually cool, race for the galaxy was mostly just confusing despite being on the winning team!). then mummolaan. then pack all my stuff real quick and race for the bus, dawdle to the next bus cos missed the first by seconds, back to antti's where folks were playing games again. then onto milka's where the games continued (dominion and citadels - played in your choice of swedish or bad indian accent) and were followed by far too long on youtube until only juuso, milka and i were left and eventually decided to go to bed in time to get 4 hours sleep before i had to be up to catch a bus back to ylämylly.
phew.
Mandatory update on the weather over this time period: mostly beautiful sunshiny days with a rough average temp of -10 (saw -8,-13 and -15 from memory). One grey snowy day on the saturday, experienced the snot-freezing-temps for the first time again, and snow is sooooo beautiful when it's this cold!! Every flake of it.
Arto, Marjo and Peppi (minus her 2 front teeth) picked me up from the bus on sunday (now -18) and it was straight onto lappeenranta, a 3 hour drive south, getting very close to the russian border (hence how i saw russia). Marjo's sister Arja lives in lappeenranta and the occasion was her daughter nina's 30th birthday. So hung out there for a couple of days, went for lunch at the greek restaurant that nina works at (very finnish greek if you ask me, the buffet lunch was anyway) and wandered around town a little (as much as arto ever could just wander!). Lappeenranta has a lovely town centre with an old church and graveyard and war memorial as well as an outdoor street mall area with a guy playing one of those wind up music boxes that really shoulda had a monkey playing miniature symbols. Sweated it out in their real wood fire sauna for a while and played some sing star and ate delicious food and drank some salmiakki cream liqueor that tasted much better mixed with some irish cream i decided. And now we're all back in ylämylly, kids are back at school, more beautiful crisp days to counter your sweltering ones! Got in from a walk well over an hour ago and my legs are still feeling a bit frosty. Phones actually work slower when it's this cold.
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
koskematon venäjä
I have now seen Russia! From a distance, look but don't touch. A few times actually.
Also a lot of Russians. It's one of their big holidays so they come in droves to eastern finland, and all the finns comment and perhaps complain a bit about how many russians there are around the place. Flocks of them. Judging on their history though it's not that surprising that the finns don't all jump for joy at the sight of them. Apparently they look and dress very differently - i'm not so good at noticing it though!
At some point soon i shall have to update blogi on my last weeks worth of adventures, which could be a bit of a mish.
In the meantime i hope all you out there in blogi-reader-land had a delightful new years and celebrated however you saw fit :)
Also a lot of Russians. It's one of their big holidays so they come in droves to eastern finland, and all the finns comment and perhaps complain a bit about how many russians there are around the place. Flocks of them. Judging on their history though it's not that surprising that the finns don't all jump for joy at the sight of them. Apparently they look and dress very differently - i'm not so good at noticing it though!
At some point soon i shall have to update blogi on my last weeks worth of adventures, which could be a bit of a mish.
In the meantime i hope all you out there in blogi-reader-land had a delightful new years and celebrated however you saw fit :)
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