The Airport and some stuff that happened before I got here

Once again it has been a while since I.ve actually made a blog entry and this will actually be the last entry I make while actually being ¨on the road¨ so I will make it as good as possilble in the remaining few minutes of internet time that I have

PATAGONIA

-USHUIA

was a bit cold but still like 20 degrees except up on the mountain or on a few days when it was really cold. The park here was beautifull and the city was very charming and was perfecly what a remote cold town should be with dogs roaming the streets etc. Got to climb a mountain and see some penguins and eat some decent food.

-Puerto Natales and Torres Del Paine national park

This was a very backwater town and very very windy. We had sand blowing in our faces at all angles. We were lucky to arrive at all because on the second leg of our 16 hour bus ride the company had double booked our seats and we only got to go because we refused to get off the bus. A few people had to stand for the whole four hours.

The park here was the most amazing of the trip though with beautifull scenery and we got to take it all in from our minivan tour for slackers which we had no choice to be because we had only one day to see the whole place and it took the whole time in the van with a few mini hikes thrown in for good measure. The park was amazing with glacier lakes and chunks of glacier ice floating around and crazy mountains etc. etc. We stayed at a hostel with a crazy mean owner who had something bad to say about everything, even though we bought all kinds of tickets from her.

-El Calafate and Perito Moreno Glacier

Next stop was el Calafate. A ski resort type town, turned desert hiking resort in the summer. There is one main street that is packed with shops and cafes and tourists and many surrounding dirt roads with scattered hotels and hostels overlooking amazing views of mountains lakes and valleys. The Perito Moreno Glacier is huge and beatifull, and pieces were falling off of it all the time. We took a boat trip to get close but really the network of paths and balconies they have on a hillside infront of the glacier is just as close. This is a very well established tourist attraction, and there are really no hiking trails avaliable to explore the rest of the park, which is composed of moslty gentle hills of arid shrubs and rocky glacier covered mountains so we just stood and watched the glacier for a few hours trying to coax some really big chunks of ice into the lake...

-El Cheltain

This was a beautifull town in the middle of a national park managed by pasionate and knowledgable park staff. We did a long hike out to a glacier and on the way saw many pretty sites including canyons and river valleys and were chased by many aggressive, large, lazy flies one of which almost drove Patricia crazy. I got myself injured and did some small relaxed hikes the next day while Patricia and Luciana tackeled the toughest trail in the park. Patricia made it all the way to the end which was quite a feat and when they returned they were adequately destroyed to enjoy the 36 hour bus journey to Bariloche after a shower and a good meal (the best one in a while for me; giant triangular raviolies stuffed with squash and covered in butter and cheese. mmmmm)

-Routa Quarente (40)

After being convinced by our hostel staff of the beauty of this long, winding and largely unpaved road, we decided to go this route to Bariloche. However, the scenery, though beatifull was more or less the same for the whole 36 hours. We did get treated to seeing a sunset and moonrise over an exceptionally flat part of the road. On one side of the bus the moon was full and glowing orange as it rose over the horizon in a matter of minutes, while the sky was still glowing pink and red from the sunset. Very amazing. Then we slept and woke up in Bariloche.

-Bariloche

Bariloche is another town in the middle of a national park but in contrast to tiny quiet el Cheltain this is a bustling city. Set on a giant blue lake surrounded by distant snowy mountains and scattered with variouse forms of pine tree, Bariloche closely resembled Vancouver. And when we got the view from above, the network of lakes, and islands in lakes and intricately curved shorlines, it strongly resembled the gulf islands. But the clear blue water of the lakes was quite unique and make it look more like the mediterainian and I wished we hadn,t been too lazy to pack our bathing suits on our sole excursion out of the city.

RETURNING to Buenos Aires

We returned to Buenos Aires on another rediculously long bus ride - this time with very large comfortable seats but with very loud airconditioning and flashes of porn on the tv.s, and bad food except for the chicken and mashed potatoe dinner, - and did some shopping and went out for dinner and slept and woke up and now I am here at the airport... and I have to go get my plane

Windy Season Uruguay

So, again it has been a while since I updated this but here is an update. No photos yet again, I will have to do that when I get back home. So last I wrote, we were enjoying the rain in Florianopolis in the south east of Brazil. We did get one day of clouds with no rain that was suitable for a walk on the beach, down a dirt road, through some woods and over some sanddunes before we had to head out for the 18 hour bus ride to Montevideo in Uruguay with a short stop over in Puerto Alegra which was a very unfreindly unpretty city, for the three hours we were there. We finally did arive early one morning in Montevideo, and we are lucky we did because there has been serious flooding in south east Brazil since we left and the road to Uruguay is unpassable at present.

We spent one day in Montevideo wandering around the city, seeing the sites and stocking up on bikinis for our impending beachfront vacation. Montevideo is a very relaxed city with many old buildings that have been abandoned and left run down, and that appear to be gradually being restored into high-end condos and offices. They have a great waterfront that somewhat resembles Miami Beach in a 1980´s detective show with rows of massive palm trees and people running and walking and playing soccer and drinking matte (the last two I suppose are not so miami-ish and it was not at all glitzy or glamorous like you would suppose Miami to be: just nice and relaxed and very very very windy. After seeing the sun go down over the water we waited several hours at our hostel for a so called all-you-can-eat assado (uruguayan barbecue) pizza extravaganza, when it was finally ready, we got once piece of barbecued pizza each, (thin crust and crispy and good) eventually we got another piece, but by the third 2 by 2 inch helping our chef started to be amazed the we actually wanted more... so we eventually got shamed out of actually eating all we could eat...

The next day we headed off to Colonia which is a beatifull small historical port town, that was nice to explore and relax in and really very very very beatifull. And also very very very windy.

Next we back tracked through Montevideo and made for Punta Del Este, a fancy beach front town that is supposed to be humming with celbreties and beatufull rich people in high season but which was all but deserted when we were there. We stayed in a neigboorhood about 20 minutes out of the city called Manantielles. Patricia had to spend the whole week attending a conference on shallow lakes, and I was stuck with the very daunting task of doing absolutly whatever I wanted for the whole week which went essentially like this: Walk to the conference hotel with the conferencers, swim in the fancy conference hotel pool, walk a few meters to the beach, get harrased by the excesively strong wind and watch the excessively huge waves, walk down the beach for a while, walk to the store, buy some food, walk back to the house-hotel we were staying in, swim in the pool there, study some spanish, relax, eat etc... There was also some salsa dancing and various other kinds of dancing and since I have to mention food in some detail, there was also a few authentic home-made by real authentic Uruguayans, Uruguayan Assado, which involves barbecuing a lot of meat, cutting it up in to small peices, passing it around the table and eating little bits at at time, randomly applauding the guy at the barbecue and drinking beer and whisky with ice. That was nice.

I have to say that Urugay is a very awsome country. Everywhere we went just seemed very calm and chill and relaxed and freindly. People actually stoped us in the street to ask us if we were lost and tell us how to get where we were going. And everyone is addicted to matte and walks around with a mate gourd in hand (the thing they drink the yerba mate out of) and a thermos of hot water under their arm (the thing they use to allow themselves to be constantly drinking mate all day long). Maybe this is why they are very relaxed but in short it was a very nice country oh and also very windy, but I might have already mentioned that.

After my very relaxing week in Punta I was all recharged to make the stomach-turning boat trip back over to Argentina on a catamaran in the middle of a big storm, walk around Buenos Aires for about 8 hours straight, and fly to Ushuia (way way down south) at 5 oclock in the morning which is where I am right at this very moment. And now I am going to go have a nap in our room that smells like a long-distance bus bathroom stall. Aside from the smell in our room it seems very nice here. I will write more when I have been here for more than two hours.

Curitiba, Joinville and Florianopolis

Writing this on a cold and rainy day on the island of Santa Catarina / Florianopolis where there are dozens of beatufull beaches that I haven´t been able to really enjoy because of bad weather. In Florianopolis I have seen: many crazy motercyclists, many crazy surfers, many freindly stray dogs, many horses pulling carts loaded with various things and many cows, sheep and goats...all in all an interesting place...but would be better if I could see many sunny beaches instead of many rainy, stormy freezing cold beaches...they do have thier charm but it wears off after a few days. Maybe the sun will make an appearance before we leave for Montevideo on wednesday...

Before Florianopolis, we visited Joinville, the town where Patricia was born. The first highlight of Joinville, was the all you can eat pizza place with ten thousand different varieties of pizza with the thinnest crust you´ve ever seen, in fact you almost couldn´t see it it was that thin. This pizza was all about the toppings - cheese, garlic, olives, salamie, peperonie, ham, arugula, sundried tomatoes, egg, palm hearts, chicken hearts, ground meat, sliced meat, shredded meat etc. etc. even chocolate, and fruit... The second highlight was the tapioca - they take tapica flour, spread it in a frying pan with some oil so it forms in to kind of a crispy on the outside soft on the inside shell, then they fill it with tasty fillings and fold it up and give it to you to eat and then you eat it and it is sooo good. The third highlight was the bottle of very bad wine bought from a very Italian man with a pot-belly along with some seafood paella the combination of which made us feel not well for the rest of the day. There were also some highlights that were not directly related to food including: cool old buildings, a street lined with tightly packed extremely tall palm trees, a cool modern cathedral and a flower show with many many orchids... all of which I will post photos of sometime in the not too distant future.

Before Joinville we visited Curitiba, which had no culniary highlights aside from some mediocher German food and a reletively decent hostel breakfast and some good Acai. It was a very organized and easy to visit city and the nicest thing about it was the multitude of little parks and public spaces most of which were adorned with big trees and/or beautifull fountains.
It also had a bus which took you around the city to visit all the tourist sites most of which were not very remarkable excepting the art museum which was awsome (pictures to come).

You may be noticing a trend toward food oriented descriptions in this blog - however I have done some things besides eat, like ride in buses, walk around, and look at things... but it is just so nice to relive some of the very awsome meals I´ve had here so that´s that.

Rio and Iguasu Falls

Since my last post I spent a wondefull week in Rio and a few days at the amazing Iguasu falls. On account of the slow internet connections of late I wont be posting any photos instead I talk a bit about food.

Food has been the best part of this trip so far and I got to try all kinds of new things with Patricia and her Aunt guiding me around Rio. They have all kinds of great fresh juices made of all kinds of great tropical fruits. My favorite has been the Acai which is a kind of energy rich berry (we get them at home) that they make into a thick smothie, then you eat it with these crunchy tapioca balls... mmmmm. I have also made a habit of doping my self with maricuja (passion fruit) juice daily - aparently it has a sedative effect, they give passion fruit concentrate to hyperactive kids down here... as a result I have been feeling very chill... though that could be attributed to the fact that I~m on vacation, I will have to do a control trial when I get home and start working again.

I have also been eating record quantities of chese, milk, yogurt and meat... the meat here truly does taste better than at home, by leaps and bounds, all you need is a little salt for seasoning and it~s pretty much the best thing ever. You can get all kinds of cuts at any resaurant that does a barbecue - my favorite cut so far is called picanha I have no idea what cut it is but it sure is good. It~s supposedly better because all the cattle here is grass fed.

Then there are these things called Pastel that are just fried dough stuffed with pretty much whatever your heart desires, chese, meat, shrimp, chocolate, bananas...whatever, and served piping hot.....

Pão de Queijo (cheese bread) are buns of variose shapes and sizes made of a dough of manioc flour and cheese and baked to a deliciouse stretchy chewy deliciousness...these are very addictive and very dangerouse to anyone attempting any sort of a diet.

Finally I will mention this crazy soup called Tacacá that is from the north and made of variouse goopy and soupy manioc products and a certain kind of leaf called Jambú and served with dried shrimp. It somehow makes your toung go numb as you are eating it which is a kind of cool sensation, and it tastes very awsome....

Hmmm, I think I am going to have go go eat now

photos

And more pictures...Everyone drinks lots of coffee here... they sit for hours in the afternoon and drink very strong coffee and eat cookies and pastries. I had two coffees the other day and I almost died from a caffine overdose, but I´m getting properly addicted now.

There is a lot of traffic here.

This is the fanciest church in town where all the rich people go. Aparently if you are rich and want to get married here you have to wait two years.

photos of BA

more pictures from Buneos Aires!
A Giant Rubber Tree ' 150 years old and so big it needs to have it´s branches supported.


The fanciest apartment building in town... very old and nicely restored, many buildings here have nice enclosed courtyards, and people do amazing things with plants on thier balconies.
This building was world class and one of the tallest anywhere when it was build 1920 I think..

more pictures

The nicest hostel that ever there was
An artsty picture of an art flyer on the bed in the nicest hostel that ever there was
Some Flowers on a fence
Some art from the place featured in the artsy flyer on the bed in the nicest hostel that ever there was.

By the River

Pictures

Hueston Airport and my 8 hour layover
The road into town
...more on the road into town
Pigeons, cobble stones, grass, bricks and a tree trunk

Buenos Aires

First couple of days in Buenos Aires have been good. Day one was recovering from 26hour flight, being overwhelmed by the throngs of people in the neighboorhood where my hostel is and learning to watch my feet instead of the scenery incase I fall into an unexpected hole in the middle of the side walk or trip over some uneven pavement (I will get some pictures for you). Day 2 was exploring in a torrential down pour, meeting several Australians, finding a nice place by the docks where there were not throngs of people and learning to watch my feet instead of the senery in case I step into a giant puddle. I also signed up for a spanish class since the most I can comprehend in spanish is hola and ciao. That starts tomorrow.

¡Disclaimer! If my spelling sucks it´s because this computer is set for spanish so spell checker is useless '- I take no personal responsibility for the spelling of words on this blog.

yo, this is my blog

Hi, I´m traveling in South America for a few months and I´m going to try this blogging thing so people won´t get sick of my emails and all that.