Bex in South America!

Peruvian police and doctors...

2009-12-07T23:14:00.003Z

In the past week, I have had three visits to peruvian police stations and one to an emergency medical clinic! Oh the joys of travelling. Actually, that should be - oh the joys of other travellers who can`t speak Spanish. As on nearly all occasions, it wasn`t me that was in the spot of bother, but rather I was offering my services as translator between tourist and police officer or doctor. And I say nearly all occasions because, admittedly, one of the police station visits was to report my lost/stolen camera. Doh! Not sure what happened but somewhere between Machu Picchu and Cusco, it disappeared. Along with my Machu Picchu trekking photos which is rather disappointing.

However, on visiting the police station to report my missing camera, I got involved in the case of an American girl, who couldn`t speak Spanish, in a terrible state after a nasty encounter in Cusco. That was my first good Samaritan act and evening in a police station. Next, I went to a very strange place called Huacachina. It is an oasis/lake surrounded by restaurants and hostels, in the middle of loads of huge sand dunes. Very surreal. But also the perfect place to ride in sand buggies and go sandboarding! This I did with a small group of other travellers from my hostel. The sand buggy ride was white knuckle (I think I left my stomach somewhere back there amidst the dunes!) and the boarding was a little scary but fun just to slide down the dunes really fast on your stomach. However, one narly Aussie guy in our group decided to tackle a bloody enormous sand dune on his board standing upright. Result - lots of speed, big tumble and broken collarbone! Very nasty. So muggins here offered to accompany him to the clinic to help translate and get him fixed up (with a fetching plaster figure of 8 around his shoulders that looked like they should have fairy wings attached!) Was horrible whilst the doctor was moving the bones back into place though!! Oh, and collarbone in Spanish is clavicula, in case you ever go sandboarding in Peru...

And whilst my halo was shining so brightly, I offered this morning to accompany some of the girls in the sandboarding group to the police station to help get a report for one of their bags that was stolen in Lima. Another interesting police station experience to help consolidate my opinion that the Peruvian police are pretty useless!

Only got one week left now, so fingers crossed for a smooth police and hospital free 7 days! xxx

Starting in Peru

2009-11-25T17:10:00.004Z

Hola all!

I`m now in my final month here in South America - can`t believe how quickly the time has flown by. In the last couple of weeks, I have entered my sixth and final country, Peru, and also had a few near death experiences...

Ok, near death experiences may be exaggerating a bit, but each did involve a potential risk of death. Whilst in La Paz, Bolivia, I decided to experience life as a thrill-seeker and booked myself in to ride a mountain bike down Death Road - "The World`s Most Dangerous Road"! 65 k of winding downhill biking, with mountain drops of 300m to one side and an overall descent of 3,600m. It was the old road that linked La Paz to another town called Coroico, but they closed it and opened a new road after an estimated 8,000 people died going over the edge... What a fun idea to ride a bike down it, especially when you choose a day with a foggy start so it`s only possible to see about 10 feet in front of you! Anyway, turned out it was really good fun and we were all equipped with great bikes and safety gear, so was all fine and I survived :) More credit should really go to the guy in our group who drove down in a 3 wheel motor taxi for charity!

My next near death experience was in Copacabana, on the Bolivian shore of Lake Titicaca. I arrived to the town with a lovely group of 8 other people from my bus on a day where there was a festival for the Virgin Mary and, therefore, a huge party in the town square. The festivities began with a big fireworks display where we, the crowd, were sitting within about 20ft of the fireworks! The sparks were going everywhere and there was a high chance that one of the precariously attached catherine wheels would shoot off at any moment straight towards us. However, that didn`t seem to deter the local Bolivians who happily sent their children off to dance under the falling sparks, or the man whose job it was to hold the wooden stick from which the fireworks were launched!

I`ve also been on a few Bolivian and Peruvian bus journeys across the mountains that put even the scariest ride at Alton Towers into perspective, especially with their methods of overtaking on mountain bends! But fret not, nearest and dearest, am still in one piece and am back in two weeks (still can`t believe it), so will see you all shortly xxx

Photos from the park!

2009-11-13T22:59:00.007Z

Pic 1 - Maggie the parrot with ruffled feathers
Pic 2 - Baloo the bear! (He wandered into the avery and made the birds very anxious)
Pic 3 - The tourist bird avery in the park
Pic 4 - me and a spider monkey
Pic 5 - Pedro the parrot
Pic 6 - Me carrying Rosa & Watson on the stick to the perch of freedom

I am also going to post a link to the snapfish photo album with all my park photos, but as usual, the Bolivian internet is being incredibly slow....

Flying the avery...

2009-11-09T18:34:00.002Z

Temperature: Actually not too hot, because instead of unbearble heat, there is now endless rain!! So whereas before everything was wet with sweat, everything is now just constantly wet from the pouring rain. Lovely.

Mosquito Bites: Too many new ones to count. Arms, legs, knees, elbows, ankles, feet, hands, fingers, a couple on my neck and one on my cheek. Again, lovely.

Other Bites: TWO!
The first was more of a nip from none other than Pedro the parrot. I was trying to feed him a piece of pineapple and I suppose he either a) took offense at this gesture, or b) decided my thumb looked tastier.
The second was a bite from an insect called a Bullet Ant - I think the name says it all! Ok, it was an ant, but it was about an inch long and is thus named because its horribly painful sting apparantly feels like getting shot by a bullet. And the effect supposedly lasts for 24 hours. Hooray. However, it was in my outer shirt and I think must have biten me through the t-shirt I was wearing underneath because, although painful, it really wasn´t as bad as I imagine being shot by a bullet must be. Or maybe it´s just that I´m a double hard lady!

Apart from the bites and the jungle rain, everything else has run pretty smoothly in my role as bird keeper at the park this past week. No other birds escaped, I fed the raptors their delicacies of chicken heads and a cut up guinea pig without vomiting and successfully chased away many many monkeys without any of them getting into any of the parrots´cages.

I also got to experience a few nice encounters with some of the other animals in the park. A mother spider monkey and her baby came into the avery, so I had to pick them up and carry them away to another part of the park! It was lovely as they are so gangly and huggable. I also got to see the park´s wild sloth (it moved sooo slowly!), Baloo the bear (he was with his keepers but I still decided to keep a bit of a distance from this one!) and had a capuchin monkey play a game of hide the leaf with my wellies. All good fun.

Yesterday was my last day at Parque Machia, so I´ve now got about a week left to see a bit more of Bolivia before I head onto Peru. Overall, it was a very tiring and uncomfortable two weeks, but I had some great encounters with nature, saw some amazing things and met some lovely people, so I´m very glad I did it! (And even better, survived without serious injury to tell the tale!)

Day 6....

2009-11-03T23:34:00.002Z

Temperature: We finally had some rain today! Blissful. (But then the sun and heat returned causing us, as Paddy the Irish man put it, to "sweat like a rapist in confession".)

Mosquito Bites: 28 new ones. Plus some sort of heat rash. Hooray.

Other Bites: Still on a zero there :)

Parrot Break Outs: One!!!

The big event of the last 2 days occured this afternoon whilst Giovanna and I were away from the main avery part feeding The Meat to The Raptors. We returned to find Pedro`s door wide open, his padlock missing, rice strewn across the floor of the cage and Pedro himself, up on the outer roof of the cages. Only possible explanation - naughty monkey attack!! So the next half an hour was spent trying to chase Pedro back into his cage, using sticks and the lure of beans, with everyone involved becoming very stressed and anxious about the situation. Not fun. And it wasn`t helped by the little monkey shites that were still hanging around trying to find any more open cages and steal more food!

Other than that, park life has been sticking pretty much to its usual routine. Feeding, cleaning, adding new foliage, removing old foliage. The number of monkey attacks have definitely risen the last two days, meaning we have been doing lots of shouting, throwing of stones and banging any loud object we can find. And the rain shower this morning was great, not only to cool down the temperature but also to watch the parrots screaming and flapping their wings with delight as they got a good soaking. Only other notable events are that, yesterday I had two very cute squirrel monkeys clambering over me, and today I reset a tortoise that had somehow flipped onto its own back (I have no idea how)!

Day 4...

2009-11-01T23:18:00.002Z

Temperature: Face-meltingly hot
Mosquito Bites: 36 (9 of which have joined together to form 3 humungous blobs of 3 bites each)
Other Bites: None :)

All is going well so far in terms of my new role as bird keeper at Inti Wara Yassi, Parque Machia (they have a website, in case you`re interested!). Giovanna and I have now done two full days just the two of us alone, as Ian, our predecesor and teacher, has moved onto the monkeys. None of the birds have thus far died, so I think we are doing a good job.

Our day consists of cutting up fruit for the birds` food, cleaning food trays and cages, hacking down foliage with a huge machete to decorate their cages and scaring away the monkeys in the park that come to try to steal food. We also take out the few birds that can come out of their cages on a long stick and leave them for a while on big tree perches around the outskirts of the cages. All the birds in the park are rescue birds that were mistreated so few can fly, so we`re safe to leave them out in the open! And I should probably say parrots rather than birds as that is what they all are (mostly very noisy macaws), except for the one turkey called Picky (who is thus called because he/she is picky about his/her food, which we have to cut up very small and not mix together - an obsessive compulsive turkey in a way!). Oh, and we also have the three "raptors" - Speedy (some vicious little shite of a bird that is desperate to peck away at us) and two others that a bit like little kestrals. But these are kept away from the eyes of the tourists, hidden away in the bushes, and we are not supposed to visit them very often (except to feed them their rancid bits of meat occassionally!) so we always forget about them.

I have so far bonded particularly well with a male blue/yellow parrot named Pedro who lived in a cage on his own. Yesterday, he let me stoke his head for the first time which was a real step forward. I have to be alert when doing so as he often whips his head up to try to get a hold of my finger, so I have to be watching to move my finger out of the way in time. Pedro is an interesting bird with his own little personality - he speaks, which is great ("hola", "Pedro", "ciao" and "fuera" meaning "outside" which he often says when there are monkeys around!), but he also, rather disturbingly, likes to regurgitate his food onto his left leg and then eat it again. It`s quite repulsive. I will let you all know how our relationship develops of the coming days.

There are about 40 international volunteers at the park, looking after all the animals - monkeys (3 species), 4 wild cats (pumas and something else), tortoises, tejons (vicious creatures in the badger family) and a bear. At first, Giovanna and I were very disappointed to be allocated to the avery, as the birds are probably the least exciting of all the animals to be looked after. But now, after seeing the daily bites and scratches that the other volunteers endure (and some are really quite nasty - especially from one of the pumas!), we`ve come around to the idea. Plus, it`s probably the job that involves the least work, which is a god-send considering the unbelivable heat we have to work in. But we`re planning to try to spend a bit of our free time up at the monkey park, so that we at least get to play and cuddle a little bit with the adorable monkeys! (Those that don`t bite, that is...)

Starting work as the bird keeper....

2009-10-30T23:30:00.002Z

So I have now been in Bolivia for 2 and a half weeks. In this time I have done the tour of the salt flats and been to three cities - Potosi, Sucre and La Paz (both of the last two are the countries capitals! Well actually, Sucre is the official capital but some people consider it to be La Paz - good pub quiz info for you there!)

Potosi was a nice, small city with lots of churches to look at and little streets to wander around. It is famous for its silver mining which made the city rich many years ago, but the Spanish took all the wealth! Whilst there, I had the interesting experience of accompanying a German guy to the tourist police station, as he had his camera stolen and I was helping him with his Spanish. The "police station" was basically a long, dark room with broken windows, one computer in the corner, a few other empty desks and a girly calender on the wall! All very strange.

The next city I went to was Sucre, a pretty place with nice white painted buildings and a good couple of interesting museums to learn a bit more about Bolivia and its history. Fab market too with loads of fresh fruit and fruit drinks to try - maracuya or tumbo, anyone?! This was closely followed by a trip to La Paz. Another Bolivian city at a stupidly high altitude! Just walking around and picking up heavy objects (ie. my backpack!) leaves you breathless. It`s a busy, dirty, crowded city, but I did quite like it in a way. It`s also very much a party city for travellers, so I forced myself to sample a couple of the bars and clubs with my fellow hostel dwellers. And one night, strangely enough, we went to a curry restaurant where some of the boys undertook the challenge of eating "Bolivia`s HOTTEST curry"!! I wasn`t aware that Bolivia was particularly well known for its hot curries, but this restaurant was proud of the fact and after seeing the effects of said vindaloo and its 31 chillies on the boys, I believe that this may soon be a notorious tourist "hot spot"!

But now, most excitingly, I am settling into my next destination in Bolivia - a wildlife reserve in the jungle that I am volunteering at for 2 weeks!! I say "excitingly" because it`s different, a challenge and I do get to see monkeys up close everyday. But in reality, the main thing on my mind every minute of the day is how unbearably hot and sweaty I am! Nice.

My job is in the tourist avery, with an Italian/Swiss girl called Giovanna (who I travelled here with), 15 parrots and something with think is a turkey. There are also 3 other birds in a cage away from where the tourists can visit that we call the "raptors" because they are the meat eaters. We`re not supposed to have too much contact with these birds and after having to enter their cages to feed them all and change their water today, I am thankful for it!

Today was my second day and all is going ok so far, ie. no bites or pecks. We basically have to feed them twice a day, clean out the cages, take out the ones that can come out and put them on the big tree perches (most of them can`t fly) and scare away the monkeys when they come close! I have so far undertaken each of these tasks successfully but I will keep you all informed as to how the job is going, and any humerous bird or monkey related antics that may arise (of which there have already been a few, but I am hungry now so want to get off the internet and go for dinner). Watch this space!! xxx

Unrelated blog post....

2009-10-27T15:19:00.002Z

Back in London, I have a lovely circular pine dining room table and six dining chairs. And I need to get rid of them!

Preferably I´d like to sell them, but if anyone is interested in using them for a while, rather than buying them, then let me know as well. Please also let me know if you know anyone else not a follower of this blog (and there are only about 20 if you!) who may be interested. I can send photos and talk money later!

Besos to all xxxx

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

2009-10-20T17:04:00.003+01:00

Yikes! I have been pretty poor with this blog of late and just realised how much I have to catch up on! Since the last place I wrote about, Tilcara in Argentina, I have crossed the border into Bolivia, done the 4 day tour of the Salar de Uyuni, then travelled from Uyuni to Potosi, onto Sucre and am now in La Paz! But before I write about these latest towns that I have visited in Bolivia, I will first blog about the fantastic trip to the salt flats of Uyuni...

(By the way - the internet connection in this country is generally abysmal and so I don´t think I will be able to upload any photos from my tour of the salt flats quite yet. I`ll write about what we saw and then let your imaginations fill in the blanks until I arrive at a place where the internet connection works faster than uploading 1 photo every 10 minutes (and then generally shuts down due to over-exhaustion).)

So our 4 day, 3 night tour started in the town of Tupiza. Our group consisted of myself, Stacey (the New Yorker I travelled with from Argentina), Sara from Italy and two French ladies, Sabine and Marielle. We also had our two (rather young!) Bolivian guide/driver and cook. There was a lot of driving the first day, up winding mountain paths with lovely views, climbing up to an altitude of 4,200 metres. The next day started at 4.30am (delightful) and took us to Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa - what a name! We spent 2 days in this beautiful national park which contains many mountains and volcanoes, but the main highlights were: the thermal baths (lovely hot natural springs but unbelievably freezing having to get in and out of the water!); Desierto de Dali and Desierto de Siloli (different parts of the desert with strange Daliesque shaped and spaced rock formations - yep, more rocks!); a multitude of different coloured lakes (a bright green one filled with arsenic, a sparkling blue one, lots of white patches of salt & borax, and an amazing pink one due to the algae living in it); lots of flamingoes; and some huge smoking volcanic geysers up at 5,000 metres!

On our third evening, driving back towards our accommodation for that night, our jeep decided to break down (we had already lost our exhaust pipe in the desert the day before!). Luckily, another tour jeep arrived soon after to help our driver with his attempt to dismantle one of the front wheels, whilst we ten travellers from both jeeps hung around in the bitter wind, trying to decide which bush or rock offered the most protection as a natural toilet! After about an hour and a half, we were on our way again, only to find the jeep start to splutter as we crossed the salt flat that stood between us and our salt hostel accommodation. It was a close call, but we eventually arrived at sunset, narrowly escaping the possibility of having to spend a freezing night in the jeep out on the salt flat!

Our final day was spent out on the Salar de Uyuni - the highest and largest salt flat in the world. It was a massive expanse of white, with a few mountain peaks visible in the far distance, but generally, there was absolutely nothing on the horizon. Incredible. We had a great time there - just sitting on the salty ground, staring off into the distance and letting our minds wander, as well as messing around with our cameras, taking funny experimental pictures, due to the strange perspective. We also visited the Incahuasi Island, which is an island made of coral and covered in cacti, found in the middle of the salt flat! (It`s there from when it used to be a big salt lake.) Random, but very cool to climb all over and enjoy great views across the salar.

All in all, and despite the jeep trouble, it was a great experience to see some amazing parts of the natural world. Photos to follow soon....! xxx

Tilcara

2009-10-18T21:03:00.002+01:00

After Cafayate, Stacey and I returned to Salta for one night before heading up to a town called Tilcara, as our last stop in Argentina before heading across the border to Bolivia.

We only had the one night in Salta and happened to check into a random hostel with a good social atmosphere, where people were organising a big night out to one of the local peñas (night of local folk music). After a delicious dinner of local Salta food, Stacey and I went along with the group from our hostel to the peña, looking forward to a night of authentic Argentine entertainment. Not quite! Was horribly touristy and not even particularly entertaining. But we had some beers and then all went onto a nearby bar to dance the night away to reggaeton instead!!

Feeling a little worse for wear the next morning, we caught an early bus north to a town called Tilcara, which is on the road leading up to the Bolivian border. Spent a day or two there, just relaxing and enjoying the opportunity for a siesta out of the hot mid-afternoon sun. We also visited the pulcara (of Tilcara!), which is a recreation of some ancient ruins of an old fortress on the hilltop beside the town. (Those are the photos of all the stone buildings.)

Sorry, I have just realised that this is a really boring blog post! I am now over a week ahead from this point (leaving Argentina to go to Bolivia - I`m there now!) so wanted to just fill in the gap of where I was last week, before I start on my next post of arriving in Bolivia and doing a tour of the Uyuni salt flats - which I did earlier this week and they were great! Hhhmmm, I think I may have made this all a little too confusing now. Even I`m a little baffled. Anyway, I will now try to post a link to my last lot of photos in Argentina (Cafayate, Salta and Tilcara) and then sign off, ready to start a fresh post about the beginning of my adventure in Bolivia! xxx

Cafayate

2009-10-09T13:55:00.006+01:00

Since leaving San Pedro and Chile, I have now returned to Argentina - bloody love this country! Kind of felt like coming home when I arrived back, as am pretty used to the way of life here after 3 months, plus the people are much easier to understand when they speak than the Chileans which is always helpful!

Arrived in Salta, in the north west of Argentina. Was on the bus with some other travellers I had met in San Pedro, so checked into a hostel with one of the other girls. Had an eventful night in the hostel, involving a very drunken hostel worker getting undressed and trying to sleep in our small room of three! And even after we woke up, turned the light on and asked him to leave (to his bemused replies of "que paso" / "what´s wrong"?), he returned 20 minutes later saying he would have to sleep in our room as he couldn´t find anywhere else in the hostel. Hhhhmmmm. The next morning we checked out. But then luckily moved to a much better hostel and I had a great couple of days enjoying Salta with 4 other solo travelling girls (French, Belgian, Scottish and English!), walking round parks, climbing a big hill and visiting a museum with a real 500 year old mummie! My last evening in Salta ended with a parilla and red wine dinner, followed by tango class - can´t get more Argentinian than that!

I then moved onto a small town to the south of Salta called Cafayate - where I am now. The day I arrived was La Fiesta de la Virgen del Rosario, a religious festival for the villagers. The town square was full of people, there was a gaucho (Argentine cowboys) parade and best of all, lots of great food stalls with local food to sample! Cafayate has beautiful scenery surrounding the town as well as lots of vineyards. So yesterday, myself and another girl I met at the hostel hired bikes to ride around some of the vineyards, then in the afternoon we went on an excursion to see some of the surrounding desert and rock formations, including some really multi-coloured stripey ones and others that looked like a train and a toad! (I have now seen so much desert and different types of rocks it´s untrue.) But it was very enjoyable as we got to walk around in parts of the desert, up some big rocks and sand-dunes, and inside these huge hollowed out parts of a mountain that used to be a big waterfall - dramatically names The Devil´s Throat!

I´m heading back to Salta this afternoon to then move up north to the border with Bolivia, and will hopefully be in Bolivia by the end of this weekend. So it´s soon to be goodbye Argentina :( But as soon as I get to Bolivia I plan to do a 4 day excursion around the salt flats of Uyuni which are supposed to be amazing :) So I´m finally moving onto the next stage of my South American adventure - woohoo! Love to all xxxx

San Pedro de Atacama

2009-10-06T19:49:00.006+01:00

So San Pedro de Atacama is in the Atacama desert in the north of Chile, surrounded by mountains, volcanoes, salt flats, salt lakes, geyers, thermal springs and is one best places on Earth to view the night sky - wow! Was only there for about 4 days, so really didn´t get to do everything but had a little taster of the tiny town itself and beautiful surrounding landscape.

The first trip I did was to El Valle de la Luna - The Moon Valley. This is a valley in the desert that supposedly resembles the surface of the moon, because of all its different stratifications and crazy shaped salt formations that have been formed by natural environmental factors (rather than its lack of gravity! Now that would be cool). It was rather wierd, with interesting shaped rocks and different kinds of salt and quartz, plus there was one rock formation called The Three Maries that is around 1 million years old! But the best thing about the trip for me was climbing to the top of one of the sand dunes to watch the sunset over the desert and surrounding mountains - spectacular.

The other trip I did was to the Laguna de Chaxa, which is a lake in the National Flamingo Reserve, located in the middle of the Atacama salt flats (used to be a big salt lake but the water evaporated leaving a mass of hard salt crysals behind). The salt flats around the lake wasn´t the expanse of flat white that I was expecting [think I get to see that in Bolivia though : ) ], it looked more to me like when settled snow goes all mushy and grey. But that aside, the serene view of the mountains and volcanoes in the background, with the feeding pink flamingoes in front of me in the lake, was beautiful. The trip stays at the lake until the evening so you can see the sunset and again, this for me was the best part of the whole thing - it was the most incredible sunset I have ever seen! Standing in the middle of the salt flat meant we had a 360degree view from east to west, so on one side we could see the sun setting behind the mountains against a yellow sky, moving round through pink clouds behind the lake, to purple and blue on the east side behind the rising moon! Words cannot describe it, so now that I´ve worked out how to add a link to my snapfish photos, I will add one to the sidebar of this blog with all the photos from San Pedro so you can see for yourselves the wonder of the scenery and sunsets!

Other than these trips out into the surrounding area, I spent quite a lot of time relaxing in the town of San Pedro itself - trying to cope with the desert heat, sampling the yummy local Chilean food and meeting some of the San Pedro inhabitants (predictably, it was mainly the local male waiters and tour guides that were the friendliest and keen to talk!) which was more interesting as it meant I got to experience some cool local parties. One with great Bolivian folk music and another with an apparently well-known reggaeton group - both involved a fun random mix of dancing!

Oh, and the other random thing that happened to me whilst in San Pedro was that I was interviewed by an Irish TV travel programme who were in San Pedro filming a show about Chile! They came into the bar I was in on my first night and needed someone who spoke english to interview about travelling in Chile, backpacking and what I thought of San Pedro. So after chatting to producer Ruth and presenter Sally, I (rather reluctantly, but with the offer of a mojito) agreed and it can be seen next year on RT1 (or maybe it was 2?) on the show 'No Frontiers'!! Random!

Photo Links!

2009-10-02T20:18:00.003+01:00

I just worked out that I can really easily link all my photos on Snapfish to my blog! (Only taken me 3 months to investigate this feature)

So I will backdate the links for any of you that haven´t seen my photos (and can be arsed to look!) for my 3 months so far in Argentina, as well as a link for my first lot of photos of Chile, in Santiago and Valparaiso.

At the moment I am still in Chile, in San Pedro de Atacama - officially the driest place on Earth! And it really is very hot and dusty, here in the northern Chilean Atacama desert. I´ve been on the computer for ages now (sorting out the photos and links malarky) and people are waiting, so I won´t write anymore for the moment - I´ll keep you all in suspense for the next exciting blog installment! Here´s a teaser though - I´ve practically been to the moon.....!

Chile

2009-09-27T23:10:00.006+01:00

Well this week I have only visited one south american country! Poor show compared to my previous couple of weeks. I spent a few days in Santiago, the capital, and am now in a great city called Valparaiso, on the west coast of Chile. It is very different to all of the other cities I have thus far visited in south america, as it is built over loads of hills and is just one big mass of sprawling, multi-coloured houses! - PIC 2 - It´s also very cool and arty, with lots of graffiti and artwork all over the place, and has lovely views over the water and other chaotic-looking hills.

Santiago seems to divide people into either a love it or hate it camp (a bit like marmite, which co-incidentally nearly got me fined at the border coming into Chile! They are really strict about not bringing fresh produce of any sort into the country, but the border guard was so confused as to what marmite actually is (as are most people!), that he let it through. [I don´t make a habit of travelling with marmite by the way - I brought it with me to show people on my volunteering food from the UK!]). I was in the love it camp. It has nice boho areas to walk around, with cool cafes and bars, and two great big hills in the middle of the city with lovely parks on and great views across the city. - PIC 1 -

I´m currently staying in a really nice and relaxed hostel in Valparaiso, which means I probably haven´t seen as much of the city as I could have as I have just been hanging out here quite a lot! But on the days I have been wandering around the muddled and often steep streets and hills, I have visited one of the interesting houses of Pablo Naruda (a famous Chilean poet), an ex-prison now cultural centre where there was a group practicing afro-drumming and eaten lots of the sweetcorn-based food they have here in Chile! Today I went with three other girls from the hostel to a lovely little beach in a secluded bay just outside Valparaiso, which was really nice to see more of what the Chilean coast is like - beautiful! - PIC 3 -

Cordoba and Mendoza

2009-09-22T23:44:00.008+01:00

After returning to Iguazu to collect our stuff, I then headed south to Cordoba (Hannah went onto Salta). I stayed for a few days with a lovely family that my sister knows very well here in Argentina, in their house in a small city called Rio Tercero, in the province of Cordoba. One of the days we drove into the hills to visit their lovely little holiday home "El Cortijo" and one of the villages nearby, a small German village called Villa General Belgrano. All very picturesque and lovely! I then went onto Cordoba capital, to see the capital city of the province, and to stay with 2 of the daughters of the family who go to uni there. Great city! Very cool and studenty, with a beautiful historic centre.

After Cordoba, I carried on west to the city of Mendoza (on the east side of the Andes near the border with Chile). The best thing about Mendoza, in my opinion, is all the vineyards that surround the city, in the foothills of the Andes. Many of the bodegas (vineyards) are open for tasting, so after hiring a bike (from a company called "bikes and wines" - does what it says on the tin!), I set off with another couple from England that I met and a map of the bodegas we could visit. Was really lovely cycling around the pretty countryside, with great views of the mountains in the background, sampling some of Argentina´s best wine! As well as vineyards for wine, there are also olive groves and other small artisanal places to try homemade products. So in the end, we sampled: red wine, white wine, dessert wine, liquors (chocolate mainly!), absinthe, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, olive oil, relishes (aubergine and onion), dulce de leche (I bought a big jar with white chocolate in it!) and artisanal chocolate. Yum yum yum!

After Mendoza, my plan was to head into Santiago, Chile (where I am at the mo), but I decided at the last minute to also visit a tiny place on the way, as it was en route along the road that runs through the Andes mountains, from Mendoza to the Chilean border. A place called Puente del Inca that has a natural bridge which crosses the Rio Mendoza, that has been made by sulphur-bearing hot springs (so my book says!). It´s 19m high, 27m wide and spans 21m across the river and was made by mother nature herself! Puente del Inca itself (named after the bridge) is so small you can´t even call it a village. It has about 20 buildings in it and is surrounded by the Andes on either side - most people go there for skiing or trekking so I don´t know what they made of me turning up on my own for one night just to see the bridge, on my way to Chile! Was a good random experience though, in a stunning and serene setting.

Pic 1 - Puente del Inca
Pic 2- The bride itself (with remains of old thermal baths complex beneath)
Pic 3 - View of Andes on wine tour outside Mendoza
Pic 4 - Me on bike!
Pic 5 - Historic centre, Cordoba capital
Pic 6 - River in the sierras in the province of Cordoba

Paraguay

2009-09-22T23:25:00.006+01:00

Well in the last 2 weeks I have visited Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Chile!!!!

After our couple of days visiting both the Argentinian and Brazilian side of Iguazu waterfalls, Hannah and I decided to embark upon a little adventure and visit Paraguay, as Iguazu is so close to the border. We went by bus to Asuncion (the capital city), which involved the following border crossings: firstly at the Argentinian border to get the exit stamp, then to enter Brazil to go to the bus terminal there to catch our bus to Paraguay, where we had to then exit the Brazilian border and drive until Paraguay to get our entrance stamp there! What a palava!

We only spent a couple of days in Paraguay as, although interesting to visit and see what it was like, especially the difference in the country compared to Argentina, there wasn´t that much to see or do. When we were in Asuncion, it was the night of the Paraguay vs. Argentina world cup qualifier football match and Paraguay won! So there was much excitement and celebrating in the streets, which was great to be there to see. From Asuncion, we then went to a horrible city called Ciudad del Este, which is the city right next to the border crossing into Brazil and was on our way back to Iguazu, Argentina. Nothing to do there at all! People generally just go as it´s the closest city to the border to enter Paraguay and get the stamp! However, we had yet another border crossing nightmare on the way back to Iguazu, as after getting on the bus to leave Paraguay, we forgot to get off at the exit border to get our exit stamp. This bus back cut straight across Brazil without stopping, which meant we arrived at the Argentine border but had to go all the way back to the Paraguay border (where we had just come from, the other side of the Brazilian crossing) to get our exit stamp in our passports, before getting on another bus all over again and heading back to the Argentine border to enter the country! Now that really was a border crossing palava!

Pic 1 - Hannah and I entering Paraguay (country in background!) The first time.
Pic 2 - Hannah and I crossing through Brazil (that´s Brazil in the background!)
Pci 3 - Football celebrations in the centre of Asuncion
Pic 4 - The 3 flags of the Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina.

Iguazu falls

2009-09-12T01:35:00.014+01:00

After Buenos Aires, Hannah (one of my other volunteer friends from Germany - have met so many Germans here!) and I took a 20 hour bus (complete with complimentary champagne and whisky!) up to Puerto Iguazu, a small town in the north east corner of Argentina. It is at the border with Brazil and Paraguay and is also where the amazing Iguazu waterfalls are. You can visit the falls from both the Argentinian and Brazilian sides, which we did, and we were lucky enough to have lovely hot weather on the days we went so got to see loads of rainbows and butterflies!

The first day we went to the Argentinian side which is great as you get to walk all around the waterfalls and get really close to them, from above and below. We also took a boat trip that takes you on the river up to a couple of the falls and into the falling water, so you get soaking wet and completely disorientated by the noise and the water all around you! Was cool. We were also lucky in that the day we had chosen was over the full moon at the beginning of the month, and a few dates per month, the national park offers tours of the waterfalls by the light of the full moon. So we went back into the park the same night to do a walk by moonlight across the walkways over the river to see the biggest waterfall in the park "The Devil`s Throat". Was incredible to see it during the day, with the force and amount of water, and at night was quite magical, with the moon and stars above. We also saw a night rainbow! (Basically just a white rainbow, but not always visible so bloody cool to see it!)

We went to the Brazilian side the next day to see the falls from their side (after much complicated border crossing and bus changes!). There is less to do on their side and is more for giving you the good panoramic view of all the falls on the Arg side, which is an amazing sight. I can`t really describe it all, so will now post a load of photos for you to all see for yourselves!

Pic 1 - Falls on Brazilian side with rainbow
Pic 2 - Hannah & I in front of Brazilian waterfall
Pic 3 - View of Arg side of falls from Brazilian side
Pic 4 - Full moon walk over river
Pic 5 - Arg side falls
Pic 6 - Fall on Arg side
Pic 7 - Me in front of rainbow :)
Pic 8 - See the little boat at the bottom of the falls (which is the boat trip we did into the falling water!)
Pic 9 - Devil`s Throat by day

End of Buenos Aires

2009-09-12T01:22:00.003+01:00

Well I had a lovely time staying in Buenos Aires. Was nice to stay with friends in the lovely apartment (see pic of the nightime view from the balcony), catch up with the 3 girls I volunteered with and finally do some cultural things. We explored different areas of Buenos Aires, went to cafes & markets, did some shopping, went to museums (really interesting one about Evita) & gardens (botanical and Japanese), and I even went to the theatre! Funnily enough it was a production called "Piaf" that transferred here from London! Was in Spanish with French songs so tested my language skills rather a lot. Also went to see a football game in La Boca of Boca Juniors against another Argentinian team, so definately got to experience both the arty side of BsAs and the passion for football!

Back in BsAs

2009-08-29T21:34:00.006+01:00

Am now back in Buenos Aires! Have come back for a week or so to meet up with the 3 other volunteering chicas before 2 of them fly back home at the end of the month. We're once again staying in our friend Felipe's lovely apartment in Belgrano (nice posh part of BsAs) with him, his brother and their hyper cat Nico - we're helping with the cooking and cleaning as our form payment :)

So far, it's been lovely and relaxing, walking around seeing more of the sights of the city in the glorious 25 degree heat (and they call this winter!). Been to a great fine art museum, a very interesting museum about Evita, a Japanese garden (photo 3), Chinatown and a very cool area of BsAs called Palermo. Yesterday we went on a trip to a little town called Tigre, just north of BsAs, on the banks of the river and known for its Puerto de Frutos. Naturally, we assumed there would be a lovely fresh fruit market in the Port of Fruits, but there turned out to be a couple of hundred handicraft market stalls (selling everything from sunglasses to wooden tables) and about 2 selling fruit! Baffling. But the river was lovely and we took a little boat trip along it to see all the cool houses on stilts with their own individual piers/ports/mooring station things (my nautical knowledge is rather limited I'm afraid).

Bariloche

2009-08-29T20:46:00.005+01:00

After Esquel, I travelled further up the west coast of Argentina to a town called Bariloche in the lake district. A lovely Alpine sort of town, next to lake Nahuel Huapi and surrounded by the mountains of the Andes. It's known for its skiing/snowboarding in winter (ie. August - it snowed quite a lot whilst I was there!) and also its chocolate shops - I indulged in many an amazing hot chocolate :)

I stayed in a great hostel with a really good atmosphere, good kitchen (it's so nice to be able to cook your own food sometimes in hostels) and brilliant views over the lakes (see photo 3), and luckily met some fun people to explore the area with. We went on a hike around one of the lakes and through the snowy woods which finished at hotel Llao Llao, one of the most famous hotels in Argentina (we tried to go in to get a drink after our long walk but because we entered from the grounds at the back of the hotel and not the front, they threw us out! Thrown out of Llao Llao - a Latino rockstar's dream!). Photo 2 is me doing my hiking pose next to the lake.

We also sampled a couple of local breweries, some of the declicious chocolate, both cheese and meat fondue (the town has a strong Swiss vibe!) and a fun red wine tasting party at the hostel. Sad to say I didn't get to try any of the skiing, but I did go up one of the mountains, Cerro Otto, in a cable car to appreciate the magnificant views, walk in the snow and have (yet another) hot choc in the revolving restaurant at the top! (Photo 1)

Esquel

2009-08-18T00:25:00.005+01:00

Well I survived my 24 hours in the bus. The temperature was rather stifling but bearable and the seat pretty comfy, it was only the excruciatingly bad choice of 4 films I had to sit through that pushed me to the edge! But I made it through and arrived in Esquel, in the lake district on the west side of Argentina near the Chilean border. I had also made friends with two French boys who had been on the same bus, so we spent the first night in Esquel sampling the cocktails that the town had to offer! The bar we found was hosting the first heat of this year´s Queen of Esquel competition (the town has a population of 30,000 so I´m not sure how stiff the competition really is!). Take a look at the last photo here is you would like to see the competitors in all their beauty queen glory. And of course you will recognise the girl in the green dress as the current reigning queen after winning last year´s competition.

After a late start the next day (we got back to the hostel around 4am!), I went to take a journey on 'La Trochita', otherwise known as The Patagonian Express. The 3rd photo here is the train itself and the 2nd is a view from along the journey. The train travels for about an hour from Esquel to El Maiten, waits there for a while (but there isn´t anything to do!) then returns. Not the most exciting but the views and landscape it travels through are lovely. Today, I went to Trevelin, a small Welsh town here in the province of Chubut. Had a walk around, went to a curious little museum about the life of the Welsh settlers who lived here 100 years ago, and made myself feel sick after eating a traditional Welsh tea (it included 5 different types of cake to try!).

The other photo (the first one) is of the moutains surrounding Esquel. It´s a small town, but wherever you walk on all sides of you are views of amazing mountains and hills. Hopefully travelling to El Bolson and Bariloche next, two more places near here in the lake district, with more mountains, lakes and national parks to explore.

El Calafate

2009-08-13T17:43:00.002+01:00

I am now in a town called El Calafate in the south west of Argentina, in the depths of Patagonia. It is on the shore of lake Argentina (one of the biggest in the country) and the hostel I am staying in is on top of a hill so has lovely views over the lake, with a couple of sofas perfectly situated in front of big windows to lounge around on and admire the vista! Most people come here to visit the glacier Perito Moreno, which is one of the few in the world that is still moving.

It is absolutely huge - 5km long and 60 metres high (above the water) and advances around 2 metres per day! It´s also amazing to look at as a lot of it is a really vibrant blue colour (something to do with light wavelengths and air bubbles - not entitrely sure as my physics is a little weak nowadays!). We also saw some bits fall off into the water and that is really cool as the noise is incredibly loud, even when they are just little chucks of falling ice. See the pics above to get an idea of the glacier, but don´t think they will do the colour justice. The girl in the second photo with me is Siobhan, who I have been travelling with the last week or so, from Puerto Madryn down to here. But we are both leaving here tomorrow and going our separate ways.

My next destination is going to be Esquel and Bariloche, bit further up on the west side of the country. Lots of snow and mountains, so I may try to do some skiing! (Though not sure as this is winter high season for skiing, so may not be able to find anywhere I can afford.) Unfortunately the main highway that runs along the west side of Argentina is closed at the moment due to the bad weather, so my journey to travel up to Esquel will take me 24 hours sitting on a bus, going back down further south, over to the east side, up there and then over to the west! Ridiculous! Not really looking forward to it, but the buses are generally quite comfortable with food and films to watch too. Although there are always issues with them either being too cold or too hot, and the films being hit or miss - my last bus I had James Bond in Spanish, followed by a dreadful American film about child abuse! So we´ll see what my 24 hour journey has in store....xxxxx

Whale watching in Peninsula Valdes

2009-08-07T01:13:00.004+01:00

Went on a day trip today from Puerto Madryn to go whale watching in the Peninsula Valdes. As you can see from the pictures, we got to see loads of whales and some of them up close! There are lots to see just swimming around not far out to sea from the beach. But on the excursion, we also took a boat out to see to get up closer. The whales swim right up to the boat! It was quite amazing, the sheer size of the animals. And listening to them talking to each other was lovely as well. Also got to see some elephant seals along the coast, but it´s their mating season, so you can´t get very near to see them closely. Great day in the great outdoors, exploring the wildlife of Patagonia!

Leaving Bahia Blanca

2009-08-04T22:50:00.004+01:00

Today I arrived in Puerto Madryn in Patagonia, about 10 hours south of Bahia Blanca. I've come in search of whales and Wales! The whales are very common off the coast here and there are loads of excursions on offer to go out on boats and see them up close. I walked along the beach today and out onto the pier and spotted some not far off in my first 20 mins! It was lovely - they were spraying water and talking to each other. Patagonia also has many Welsh areas/towns, from the when the original Welsh settlers came over about 150 years ago, so I'm hoping to seek out some Welsh speakers to practice my 7 or so Welsh words. Not to mention going to experience the Welsh tea houses I've heard rumour of (ooh, the Stereophonics have just come onto my iPod - what good timing!!).

Yesterday was my last day in Bahia Blanca and at my volunteering project. How quickly that month flew by! Although it also felt that I'd been living there for about 6 months. But despite the nursery being closed (it re-opened today! The day after I left!) and not getting much interaction with the children, it was a great experience. There were so many other things I got to do and try, and I met so many people as well, from all walks of Argentinian life. Our painting of the nursery was a triumph, with one jungle themed room and the other an under the sea theme - I have learnt lots of animals in Spanish! There were some people who lived in the villa (the poor area where the nursery is) that came and helped out, which was great. Tango lessons were also a lot of fun and reasonably successful, I think I have at least mastered the basics... And the people in the class were very friendly and social, so we got to experience Argentinian nightclubs with them (from 3 - 6 am, naturally), as well as being invited round to their houses for evenings of empanada and beer take away. Very enjoyable.

Oddly enough, a lot of time in my last couple of weeks in BB was spent in a big Walmart hypermarket wrapping presents! Here in Argentina, along with Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day, they also have special Days for practically everyone else - Grandparents' Day, Day of the Friend, Day of the Student, Day of the Secretary (I'm serious). And it's soon El Dia del Niño (Day of the Child) so lots of people were buying presents in Walmart and it was our job to wrap them, for a small donation which went towards the nursery. A very strange experience all in all! And not always enjoyable when having to listen to the greatest hits of Simply Red....for half an hour at a time. Piedra Libre (the organisation I was volunteering for) also organised a big public sort of fete on Sunday to celebrate El Dia del Niño and we volunteers were asked to help out. Luckily, I was too short to be inside one of the hideous Disney character outfits (well actually they were Disney characters and then the Pink Panther for some reason), so my job was facepainting with Christiane, another volunteer. Overall was quite fun, although a little tiresome after painting the thirtieth butterfly on another niña´s face and rather a challenge to avoid the snotty noses (Christiane had one child with a dried snotty and bloody nose!!)

But I made lots of friends, both from Argentina and Europe, and definately got to see a non-touristy side of Argentinian life. My Spanish has improved a lot, I've eaten a fair bit of meat now (experienced a proper 'asado' - basically a BBQ with lots of different meat), I visited the mountains in the Pampas outside of BB when there was snow (which is very rare and the people were all so excited by it!), and I survived living in the house with no heating or hot water (when I left yesterday they had just installed a thingy for hot water and bought a washing machine - luxuries for the next lot of volunteers!).

So now I'm starting my travelling proper! Plan at the moment is a bit more time down here in the south (not as cold as I thought it would be which is a nice surprise), then back up to travel round more of the middle of Argentina (Mendoza, Cordoba, etc), into Chile for a bit, and also back to Buenos Aires to meet up with some of the other volunteers again before they fly back home at the end of the month. xxxx

???

2009-07-24T22:08:00.002+01:00

I found it really funny and surprising when I saw this (in a big shopping mall in Buenos Aires) that I had to take a photo and am sharing it with you now. Needless to say I immediately bought a kosher big mac and fries and ate it as a guilt-free Jewish vegetarian!! (Not really)

Me!

2009-07-24T22:02:00.002+01:00

This is me with a yummy snack called a 'cubanito' that are sold in the parks of Argentina! A bit like ice cream is in summer. It is chocolate covered crunchy waffle with dulce de leche inside and costs about 9p each! I was restrained and only ate one. Please also note my lovely new jacket that I bought here for my birthday - thanks Kat :)

Colonia, Uruguay

2009-07-24T20:41:00.003+01:00

These are photos from Colonia and our day trip to Uruguay.
The first is from the boys' boat we were invited onto - that is Javier 'el capitan' and Christiane drinking the mate (note typical gourd and silver straw!). The second is of a lovely plaza in the old town of Colonia.

Ninos in the guardaria

2009-07-24T20:36:00.001+01:00

Here are some of the children in the nursery, on the day of the little birthday party last week. Enjoying their cheese & ham sandwiches and chocolate milk! Pretty staple food here.

Painting the guardaria

2009-07-24T20:29:00.002+01:00

This is me painting butterflies in the guardaria! I also did the big cartoon snake and flowers beneath. Judith is next to me painting monkeys and tigers! The jungle scene has grown a lot since this picture so I will take another one once we have completed it and post the photo for the world to see the true Picasso I really am.

House in Bahia Blanca

2009-07-24T20:20:00.002+01:00

This is the outside of our 'complejo' in Bahia Blanca. The big wheel thing on the right is the big outdoor BBQ for 'asados' which we haven't tried yet! And that's also Manchi the dog outside too.

2009-07-23T00:07:00.002+01:00

Oh, and I´ve eaten meat! (No, that´s not a euphemism...) I have eaten beef and also some chorizo. It was yummy :)

Buenos Aires & Uruguay

2009-07-22T23:04:00.002+01:00

At the moment, I am back in Buenos Aires. Have been here since Saturday morning (after we took the overnight coach from Bahia Blanca here) and we are returning tonight to Bahia. It has been raining almost solidly for 2 days here and apparently it is snowing in Bahia at the moment. Hhhhmmmmm, and I thought I would be getting a tan whilst in Argentina!!

But despite the terrible weather, it has been lovely to come back to BsAs - I can see why people fall in love with this city! We were lucky enough to stay in the apartment of a friend of a friend of one of the other volunteers in Belgrano, which is a lovely and rich area of BsAs. The Argentine hospitality is overwhelming! The family in Bahia Blanca insisted all 4 of us girls stay in their apartment in BsAs with their son who is at uni here, after having only met one of us once. Their son was equally welcoming and took us out round the city, and on a night out with his friends. And we also had a very funny night in a local bar where, once again, we got a lot of attention being foreign girls - a nearby table of artistic intellectuals came over with a cartoon strip they had been sketching for their online mag and asked us to say something in English and German for the final picture! Then they gave us an interpretive sketch they had done of us. Has been a lot of fun! It has also been interesting to see how the other wealthy side of Argentina lives, compared with the poorer side in Bahia and especially those in the villa where the nursery is.

We also went to Uruguay on Monday for the day. We took the ferry from BsAs across the rio to a town called Colonnia which only took an hour. And it was really beautiful! Like a town in Spain or Greece, with white houses, pretty green plazas and a lovely harbour. Whilst we were walking along the pier taking photos, 2 boys on a boat moored below spotted us as foreigners and invited us aboard to go for a trip round the bay! We didn´t have time, so instead they insisted we go aboard to chat and drink mate (the tea they all drink here - consisting of fine dried herbs, drunk out of a round gourd through a silver straw. It´s passed round and everyone drinks from the same one. Ann, you would hate it!). People here are so friendly and welcoming! So we had a lovely time in Colonnia, wandering along the cobbled streets and gazing at the lovely view of the sea. Two countries in South America down now....quite a few more to go! xxx

Busy in Bahia!

2009-07-18T02:43:00.000+01:00

Well you´ll all be pleased to know that we now have a new shower in our house here in Bahia Blanca, so we are 4 happy girls! In fact, it happened on a day when I was really at the end of my tether as we had run out of gas, were running low on water, the phone wasn´t working and we had nearly eaten all our food! But all has now been fixed, replaced or renewed, so things are a little more comfortable at the moment which is better.

Myself and the other 3 volunteers here have spent this week painting in the nursery which has been much more fun. We are painting the first room in a jungle theme so I have been painting giant snakes, colourful plants and lots of butterflies! We have also had more of a chance to meet some of the children, as some have come in to help with painting and some have come in with their mothers when they have come to collect the clothes donations. Today we also had a small birthday party for two of them, with a big cake and games outside, although I didn´t really understand any of the rules or the words to the songs we were singing, but it was good fun nonetheless. The area that the nursery is in is so poor and the families have so little that even holding a little party outside for the kids to come and enjoy themselves and eat some proper food is really important. One of the boys whose birthday it was has 4 other brothers and their mother, who is about 24, has another on the way, and their house is basically just one big room that they live in altogether. It´s a life I just can´t imagine living and makes me feel grateful for everything I´ve got.

But on a more cheery note, I have also started tango lessons here and it´s great fun! It´s bloomin’ difficult but I have now had 3 lessons and am not doing too badly, even if I do say so myself. After the lesson on Thursday, one of the boys in the class invited all of us and the teachers back to his house to have pizza and empanadas (little pastys that are very common here, filled with cheese and other fillings – scrummy!) which was lovely as we got to spend an evening in proper Argentinian company.

This weekend, myself and the other girls are off to Buenos Aires and over to Uruguay (it´s just a short ferry ride away) for a couple of days, so I will let you know all about our Uruguayan adventure next time I write xxxx

Argentinian club night!

2009-07-13T00:32:00.007+01:00

You´ll all be pleased to hear that I have finally been up to more exciting things in Bahia Blanca! Along with spending lots of time in our house (reading, cooking, cleaning, doing arts & crafty stuff, watching films, playing with the kitten) and some time at the nursery (tidying, re-organising, sorting clothes donations for the people in the barrio), we have also been out a bit more in the city - couple of meals, couple of parks, seen a few more different areas.

Most excitingly, I have finally experienced an Argentinian club!! We went out to a bar in the centre on Friday night, arriving there about 10pm when it was very quiet. We had some cocktails (less than 2 quid each but pretty strong so we went easy!), then one of the teachers from the nursery came to meet us there about 1am. We waited a while, then left for the club about 2:30am because that´s when is starts to open. It was a student club near the university here and was kind of like a big sports hall with a bar at one side and a big dancefloor. Along with a mirrorball, screen for showing music videos and a cloakroom that definately was at the side of a big basketball court! Strangest of all was that some of the street dogs from outside had wandered in behind the people as they entered, but the security didn´t bother to throw them out so they were sleeping at the side of the dancefloor!! We got there at 3am, it didn´t get busy until 4am, then we managed another hour and a half of dancing before we gave in at 5:30 and went home!

I´m also finally attaching some photos! One of the other 3 volunteers with our 2 project leaders sitting in our house (in our newly painted purple room)...and the other ones I have just tried to upload have failed, so there is only one for you to see! Right, that´s it, I´m going to find a bloody internet cafe or somewhere with faster internet connection so I can sort out all my photos and successfully attach them! xxx

Ramblings...

2009-07-08T22:40:00.004+01:00

First of all (whilst I remember), thanks for all your comments on my posts! I have been reading them but am not sure that if I reply to your posts by simply adding another comment, you will see them (as don`t think you will get a notification that I have replied. But I dunno, maybe you do?!) So I am officially saying thanks now.
Secondly, I will hopefully be sorting out posting some more photos for you all to see later (if I can find an internet place where I can plug in my camera), as I agree that one photo of Kevin is a bit rubbish! (Though I did see a whole Kevin display on a shelf in a Pharmacy the other day.)
It`s still cold here! And because the house we are living in is the sort of thing you stay in when you go on school journeys or Brownie camps (I will post a pic), it`s not very cosy at the moment! Plus, I think our shower broke this morning and that was the only way we could get any hot water without boiling it on the stove (none of the taps have hot water), so that`s not good. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I`ve just realised it really is like a month of Brownie pack holiday or school journey! Basic living, everything always being a little bit dirty, hotch potch of crockery, cutlery, furtniture, doing washing in a bucket and hanging it up on the line outside! All most amusing :) Anyway, nothing else to say at the mo. Think I might get an empanada and go and catch the bus home (I`m in an internet cafe in the centre at the mo) xxxx

Start of volunteering...

2009-07-04T20:18:00.003+01:00

Well, I am here in Bahia Blanca (a city 10 hours south of Buenos Aires in Argentina) for one month to do my volunteering placement in a small nursery school in a very deprived area, and guess what - this is the month that the Argentinian government order most schools and nurseries to close because of the Swine flu epidemic! (I have a knack for choosing to travel to countries at unfortunate times - I had already booked to go to Kenya last year when they had violent elections and the foreign embassy advised not to travel there! Now it`s Swine flu in South America!)

So everything is still a bit up in the air as to what myself and the other volunteers here are going to be doing. There is a lot of work and sorting to be done in both the nursery itself and the house in which we volunteers live, so I think I will be doing a lot of painting, DIY and sorting through junk in the next few weeks! There are 4 other volunteers here at the mo - 2 girls from Germany and 1 from Switzerland. We also have a cat and a dog (plus another dog who stays outside because he is a manky street dog! I don`t really understand if he is a pet of theirs or not, as there are soooooo many street dogs everywhere here, but they feed this one and he helps guard the house!) My Spanish is slowly improving and I am understanding more, but it is still quite hard to understand everything as the accent here and all the different words and pronounciations.

They still don`t understand my vegetarianism and made cheese and ham empanadas for me last week, as they didn`t consider ham to be meat. They also keep checking if I will eat eggs and cheese or not. This being Argentina, if I didn`t eat cheese or eggs, the only things left for me to eat would be pasta, bread and potatoes (with lots of salt and sugar most likely) as dietry choice is quite limited!

Not seen that much of the town here in Bahia Blanca yet, but it seems pretty average by most accounts. This isn`t a tourist destination at all. Have been out to dinner one night (very tasty pasta!), been to a tango class which was difficult but enjoyable (couldn`t really understand a word they were telling me about what to actually do, so had to just try and copy them!) and spent a lot of time in our house in jumpers and scarves sitting in front of the heaters as it`s pretty cold here. And yes, I know most of you are experiencing a heatwave at the moment - no need to rub in the fact I`m giving myself a year of winter!

Went to the nursery to meet the kids on my first day (the day before everything closed) and they were all very sweet. They kept getting confused about my name and calling me `maraca`! Easy mistake to make in Spanish. Hope I will get to interact with them again at some point again this month, but it`s all very up in the air at the mo. Will keep you posted..... xxx

Birthday evening hilarity

2009-06-28T16:29:00.003+01:00

Hi all - a little update of what I have been up to the last few days and my birthday evening too....

My birthday ended up being a nice relaxing day, with a little bit of shopping (I ended up buying myself a nice new jacket for here, for the inbetween warm and cold weather at the moment - ta mucho Kat!x) and a little sight-seeing. Then in the evening myself and Vicky went to the Plaza near us in San Telmo to find a bar but the fun one from a previous night was full and the others were empty. However, we went into one of the more empty ones and realised our mistake quite quickly when we realised there really was no-one else in there except people who worked there and the couple of musicians who were to play shortly - and when they did they were pretty bad, with a pretentious girl singing harmonies and playing awful chime bells!

Anyway, we left after one drink and returned to the fun music bar where there was now a table free (having picked up a rather strange (but well meaning) Portuguese chap from our hostel who joined us in the previous bar) and there was a cool blues trio playing. The strangeness of the night began when a guy sitting at one the tables in the bar stood up with a saxophone and joined in with the blues group. Impromptu but very good. Turned out that the 3 other guys at his table also each had their own saxophone and later in the eve, the bar was treated to an impromptu saxophone quartet performance! But before this and after the blues band finished, there was a belly dance performance by 2 girls (this was pre-arranged by the bar) which began with some pretentious dancing with candles and ended with a sort of red-coat 'let's get the audience involved and bring 3 men up to the front to try to belly dance' embarressment! We weren't impressed but the Argentians loved it and the men really gave it their best shot.

After this was the saxophone quartet who, after a few impressive songs, suddenly turned to our table, lights went out and they started playing 'feliz compleanos' when the bar owner and very nice waitress came over to me with an ice cream sundae complete with birthday candle!! Very sweet of them and very embarressing for me, but luckily it was dark so people couldn't see how red I was! Following this there was more impromtu music with another guy suddenly bringing out his guitar and another his tambourine, so the band got their instruments out again too, more music, more dancing from the girls with other bar members. All very funny. When our Portuguese acquaintance left us (around 3am), we suddenly noticed a lot more eyes turn towards Vicky and I and it seemed to be a bit like 'oohhh, the foreign girls are without a chaperone now - let's go and talk to them'. Lucky us, the first guy to come over was a very drunk man we had already nicknamed 'the lion king' because of his big mane of hair. We couldn't understand a word he said except 'cerveza' (beer) with a forceful clink of our beer glasses, but it was most amusing.

All in all, a very strange and funny night in Buenos Aires! We kept asking if this was a normal night in a bar in BsAs and the reply seemed to be that you never know what you are going to get on a night out here! But this is a long enough post now. I leave here tomorrow to go to Bahia Blanca to start my volunteering, so will write again soon to keep you updated. Will also try to get some more piccies posted too xxxx

Mi Compleaños!

2009-06-25T16:10:00.003+01:00

Thank you for all my birthday messages! Thought it would be easier to write how I am spending my birthday on the blog, rather than repeat it to all individually - hope you don´t mind!

Actually, not that I have that much to say yet really! Am having an easy morning so far. Two of the lovely girls who work at the hostel gave me a birthday cake this morning which was very sweet (in both senses of the word! It was a dulce de leche cake which, as any of you who have been to south america will know, is everywhere here. It´s a bit like caramel and really rather yummy) And people have sung ´feliz compleaños´ to me :)

Yesterday I went to Palermo, a really nice area of BsAs, with Vicky (my German roommate) , another English girl and an American guy all from the hostel. We went to a really cool art museum of Latin American art there as well, which had a real life Frida Khalo in it! And a painting/sculpture piece that had a real live fish in it too. Strange. In the evening we went to a bar in San Telmo, near our hostel, and bizarrely enough, I ran into a boy I went to uni with in Cardiff!!! What a small world. So this evening, I think we are either going to go out with them to some bars somewhere, or to a tango bar after the tango class that happens in the hostel on a Thursday. We´ll see - I´ll let you know the night´s escapades when I next write! xxxx

My first week in Buenos Aires

2009-06-23T23:58:00.002+01:00

Oh good, the photo thing worked. I can do proper ones now of nice and exciting things I have seen (not that the idea of an aftershave called Kevin isn't exciting).

So I have now been here almost a week and it has really flown by! Done a lot of walking around the city, eating food consisting mainly of some form of cheese and bread (being a veggie is quite limiting), speaking a lot of Spanish and understanding a lot less! Not really been to many museums yet, but have seen some of the squares here, the big cemetery which has Evita's grave (it was a bit busy so I'm afraid I didn't sing 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina' to her) and a great market in San Telmo near my hostel.

Went out over the weekend with some other people at the hostel - one evening we went to find a bar with some tango and ended up in a bar with live reggae/jazz! Not what we were looking for but was cool. Then on Sunday night we went to a Milonga which is a night of tango where people sit at tables/the bar drinking and eating, and there is a dance floor where couples tango. It was so impressive! Myself and the girls I was with were asked to dance a lot by the Argentinian men (because we are foreign and especially the blonde ladies!), but I haven't tried it yet. Think it's best to try in a class first as it's bloody tricky!

Right, that's enough for now. Going out for dinner soon. Am still getting used to how late people here go out for dinner and in general (milongas start around 10pm - on a sunday and everything!!). Love to all xxx

Photos...?

2009-06-23T23:46:00.003+01:00

I'm trying out whether I can put photos on my blog with the written post and thought a good place to start would be with a photo to show the culture of Buenos Aires - how cosmopolitan and stylish the place is. If this works, you should be able to see an advert for a new male aftershave here called 'Kevin'.

2009-06-19T23:50:00.000+01:00

Hola todos! Estoy en Argentina:)

After nearly 24 hours of travelling (which included an incredibly boring 8 hour wait in Sao Paulo airport with absolutely nothing to do), I arrived last night here at my hostel in San Telmo, Buenos Aires. It´s very nice with really friendly people and seems to be in a cool area, though I haven´t had much time to explore it yet. But I´ve been told there will be people tango dancing in the streets on Sunday, woo hoo!

I´ve spent my first proper day here mainly in the centre off Buenos Aires with another girl from my room at the hostel, so I´m happy I´ve made a friend already! She´s German so we have both been putting our Spanish to the test and getting by on broken Spanish and English (my German consists of 3 words so hasn´t been much help). Haven´t seen that much of the city so far, but I can see what people mean when they say it feels very European.

Anyway, that´s it so far. All going well and am looking forward to more exploring and Spanish improvement! xxx

2009-06-17T21:08:00.000+01:00

I'm at the airport.....!!!!! (with time to kill and British change to get rid of!) All fine so far :)

2009-06-16T23:15:00.000+01:00

Hello! (Or should I say "hola"!)

This is me testing to see if I've set this Blogspot thing up correctly - I guess I'll find out shortly....

I'll keep it brief as it's the night before I go and I still have to finish packing as well as sort some other final pre-travel bits 'n' bobs. Nothing like leaving it all to the last minute to really build the excitement.

Hopefully, the next time you hear from me I'll be in Argentina!! Argh!! xxx