The Long Awaited Post (Bariloche and Pucon)

Wow! What a juicy title! First and foremost we would all like to apologise for not posting for this tremendous period of time. The constant rain and strange chilean customs have required us to adjust, and this adjustment has manifested itself in the form of a lack of posting.

Right, thats out the way, we´ve got a lot to get through so I shan´t fool about any longer. Writing to you from a hotel (A HOTEL!) in Viña del Mar, which is about 150km north of Santiago and on the Pacific Coast. If this sounds very exotic and not very rough-backpacker-timesaretough to you, you are correct. Although I will say that because the hotel is under construction, there is a constant drilling sound which wakes you up at 9am sharp (how thoughtful) and continues throughout the day, only stopping when the overweight Chilean driller takes a break to scratch his sweaty bum. Nice. But otherwise, yes I will admit, its all rather nice and a very welcome break from hostelling and sleeping in tiny bunk beds. However, since this is an update, in this blog you shall hear of our final Patagonian escapades, and in the next you shall learn of how we landed up in a hotel in Viña. I will say though that the next blog will follow soon. We´re also having serious trouble getting pics on picasa, but we shall keep working tirelessly to bring to up to the minute news from the front lines.

Now lets see...last time we spoke was nearly two weeks ago (whoops!). We were in Bariloche then and I think it was a thursday. Not much happened that day, or if it did, it was not special enough to make enough of an impression on me to stay in my mind, which means there´s no point blogging about it. However, that night, Fausto, using his charisma and charm, rounded up the inhabitants of the hostel and convinced them to bare the cold and walk to town to watch an Argie Ska band. However, we got the time wrong, and arrived there after the band had gone home (and the underage audience too). Not allowing ourselves to be despondent, we used this chance to get to know our fellow hostellers better. Nora was a swiss girl who could speak about 7 languages. That night she got far too drunk. She claims her drink was spiked, but after she got just as inebriated the following night, her story lost some credibility. Ahhh Nora. AnnoyingCanadian was an annoying Canadian, who had a chip on his shoulder about being ´different´and ´the odd one out´, so at a random point in the night he informed us he was going home because he was the 11th person in the group, and thus he was the odd one out - I´m not sure how this makes sense, perhaps its a Canadian thing, but I suspect he was just a doos (aaah the romance of the Afrikaans language). Karen and Grant were a couple from Ireland (well, Karen was from Ireland and Grant was from England but he now lives in Ireland), who we took a liking too and spent much time laughing at Grant (possibly the funniest person we´ve met on the whole trip, apart from each other of course). I would rehash some of his classic jokes, but they just wont sound as good, so i´ll leave it to you to imagine.

The next day we decided to organise a car to rent for the next day so that we could drive an hour to a nearby glacier. This was the only activity completed on this day. Oh yes, that night we ate Mexican food and then went to an Irish pub (as you can see, we were really engaging with Patagonian culture that night). At Wilkenny´s, we met an Aussie who thought my name was ´Stew´and then proceeded to tell us a very long story about a guy he knew called Stew who had a condition which made his testicles swell up to "the soays of a guud soayzed mengo" (Aussie accent), and this led to him becoming the famous "BigNuts", the headmaster of a local Sydney school, and his son, who inherited the disease, being called LittleBigNuts. Then I told him my name was in fact Steve, and not Stew, but this did not put him off.

The next day we arose early to make full use of our rental car. We were slightly apprehensive, since the day before Fausto had recieved a prophesy from a fortune-teller who foresaw some sort of complicated car accident, and since we had rented the car just moments before, we were slightly worried. However, deciding we could not live our lives in fear, we three Gringos, and Karen and Grant, set off in our Ford Fiesta Max (MAX!) for Mount Tronador, a 4000m Andean Glacier on the border between Chile and Argentina. After a slightly nervous drive there which went off without a hitch, we arrived at the national park entrance. I should mention that on this day it was pouring with rain, just as it had been for the last three days. We informed the guard that we wanted to drive the 60km up to the base of Tronador to see the glacier, and he waved us in the right direction. We thought it was a bit strange that there was no one else around (apart from one 4x4 who passed us early on, but we persisted anyway. After stopping at some incredible lakes and forests, the road began to get rather puddly (as in, full of puddles), and we began to put our little Fiesta to the test. The rain continued to lash down, an as we drove down into a valley with a raging river it became clear that parts of the river had in fact joined with the large puddles, created a SuperPuddle. On encountering the first of these SuperPuddles and successfully navigating our way through, we celebrated our achievement and thought ourselves silly for even worrying about the strength of our trusty steed, the Fiesta Max, not knowing that just around the corner lurked The Biggest Puddle in the History of Wetness. Upon rounding the corner we stopped the car and sat in silence as we surveyed the small oceanic puddle. Our laughs turned to whimpers, our smiles to nervous twitches, even our FiestaMax stopped revving proudly. However, since we had come this far, there was no way we were turning back, and so armed with the knowledge that, in puddleriver crossing, all one must concentrate on is not getting stuck and not losing momentum, our driver Fonzie set off into the AquaticBeast. When the water came over the bonnet of the Fiesta, we began to think that someone should have perhaps warned us that the roads to the glacier were inaccessible. But our little car kept going and going and managed to cross the puddle despite temporarily turning into a submarine. I would like to, at this point, advise everyone to trade in their cars, no matter what it is, and buy a Ford Fiesta Max. It is a beast of a car.

Anyway, we made it through the puddles and arrived at the base of the Glacier, supposedly offering the best views of the Icy Tronador. Due to the mist, we could not see a damn thing. However, this was the last thing on our minds, as the few inhabitants of the area were bewildered as to how we had managed to naviagate our way up across the river. When they saw our humble FiestaMax, their bewilderment turned to utter disbelief, all expressed in colloquial Spanish. We were faced with a predicament... the water was rising, and to get back to safety, we had to once again cross the giant RiverPuddles. Using our reason, we reasoned that the puddles would only get bigger, and since the locals at the top did not seem to care, since we woke them up from their siesta, we decided to brave the puddles and go back down. To cut a long story short, we made it through once again, cursing the park for their negligence in not warning us about the danger. We did not see any glacier or any part of the mighty Tronador, although the beastly mountain threw all it had at us and we suceeded, emerging triumphant having beaten the Phrophesy of Doom.

Peter Jackson directed that last paragraph. Sorry it was so long but i felt the terror and danger needed to be properly conveyed. Anyway, the events had scarred us so deeply, and the rain was so relentless that we decided to leave the town of Barliloche, and head for Chile. A day of travelling and a few busses later, we crossed the Andes (very slowly), and entered our third country, Chile (which is rather Chilly), arriving in Pucon, still in Patagonia but on a whole different side. We soon discovered that it was raining even harder here, and so we hurredly followed a local women we met at the bus station who ran a small guest house. The guest house was a cosy wooden cabin with a few rooms and with a warm fire place, just the thing to warm up some cold, wet and miserable Gringos. The cabin was inhabited by two English girls (Sophie and Louise), a Munchen (Florian), and an Israeli (Omer), all of whom welcomed us by inviting us to join in an Israeli card game called "Shalom a makai" (although thats not how you spell it). The game has very few rules, the main one being that if you make the slightest mistake or act silly in any way, you are punished by being given all the cards. Fun.

The rain in Pucon was so thick and relentless that it took us three days to work out that there were some huge mountains near the town. We staying indoors in our cabin, only venturing out for necessities like Chilean wine, and food. The whole point of going to Pucon, for most people, is to climb the giant Volcan Villarica, an active 4000m Volcano which is covered in snow and ice. The blasted rain prevented us from climbing the fiery inferno. However, we did do one activity which was particularly enjoyable - because of all the volcanic activity in the area, there are some amazing natural thermal springs, which form 6 separate rock pools of bath-temperature water. Setting off at 9pm, we got a transfer to the springs, and proceeded to explore the six giant steaming pools of magical water with the cold rain pouring down above us. It was pretty amazing, and it made us feel better about not being able to climb the volcano and being trapped indoors.

After a few more days of putting up with the rain, we decided to head North to Santiago, in the hopes that it would be drier. In Santiago we met up with Jax, who flew here from SA to travel with the gringos for a couple of weeks. After a few days in Santiago we headed to

Viña del Mar. All these adventures shall be chronicled in the next episode though. I have been typing for what feels like an eternity and my fingers are sore. I need lunch. Mmmmmm....

Ok. As I said, sorry there´s no pics on Picasa, but we´re trying.

K bye!

Update!

Ahoy!

Since it has been a week since our last post, I thought I´d give you a quick update to keep you all happy until we can blog properly. A bit of a blog-entree if you will :)

Since we last spoke (sort of), the rain set into Bariloche, and there was not much to do, however we did get up to some interesting things and the Gringos even had their first ´MediumToHigh Danger-RatedExperience´, which you´ll be glad to know we survived. I was not scared at all.

After Bariloche we moved into Chile, to a town called Pucon, and oh what a time was had there. Actually it was even more rainy there, but nevertheless the ever-exciting Gringo´s managed to have a blast there. All the blastings shall also be dealt with in the coming blog.

Also, in the next episode, you shall hear of our first impressions of Santiago, and also of the three Gringos temporarily becoming the Four Gringos (thats right, I said four). All this, and perhaps less, coming soon to a horribly boring deskjob near you.

Not sure this really counts as a blog entry. No, scrap that, this is a blog and this here is an entry. I know it wasn´t what you wanted, but we´ve just got off an overnight bus to Santiago and we´re tired. And blogging is seriously hard work. We´ve gotta load the pics off all the cameras, compile them into folders, back up the folders on our harddrives, then write writty and poignant words about our impressions of latin america which are relevant to today´s ever-changing society, before patiently slotting relevant photos amoungst said witty words and finally making sure you do all that before your time at the internet cafe runs out.

Im not complaining, just procrastinating in a whingy sort of way.

Well aren´t you excited now? All that juicy material for you to look forward to. Questions will be answered, questions like, Why is Chile called Chile and also is shaped like a Chilie?, Just how high are the Andes?, and, Why does Steve have such man-sized muscles?

If you want to know the answers, stay tuned.

Chchchch-aaaaau!

Links to Picasa

To see pics from Bariloche, go to http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/steveo.zogg/Bariloche

To see some much awaited Tango Show pics, go to http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/steveo.zogg/TheTangoShowCafeTortoni

Bariloche

Hello all. Writing from a very cold Patagonian town called Bariloche. We were supposed to get some snow today but all we got was very cold rain. Its not the same. Here´s an account of the past few days here.

After a tiresome 20 hours in the bus, the scenery began to get very mountainous (is that really how that word is spelt?), lakey (as in full of lakes) and autumnal. At 11:am we arrived in Bariloche, the largest (but still tiny) town of the Lake District of Patagonia. The town itself sits right on the edge of an incredibly large lake and is surrounded by mountains. In winter it fills up with ski and snowboarding types who flock here to take advantage of Argentina´s best skiing. However, we shall not be skiing as the season only begins in mid-june. Apparently the town was established by Swiss expats (who most probably remained neutral during the Falkland Island dispute), and thus there are many makro sized chocolate shops which have giant walls of every kind of chocolate you could imagine. Nadia and Esteban sat down at one of these shops for a cup of hot chocolate (heisse sjokie!!!) , which is more like melted chocolate in a cup (think Willie Wonka´s chocolate river). Although there´s no snow, the surrounding area is so staggeringly beautiful and the landscape is so mystical it does not seem like it should be on this planet.















After searching the town for a couple of hours (and witnessing Man U shamefully lifting the premier league trophy), we stumbled upon a hostel that had only been open for 4 weeks (and thus wasn´t in the Lonely (Lying) Planet). The owners are a young Irish Couple , John and Emma, who came to Bariloche for a ski season, planning to travel the rest of South America, but didn´t get any further than Bariloche. They rented a three story apartment with incredible views of the lake and have spent a year getting it ready as a hostel. They are both incredibly friendly and say things like ´one two tree´and ´are you tuursty´. Their dog, Milla, also lives in the hostel and having a big fluffy dog around makes it feel like we´re staying in their house rather than in a hostel. John and Emma live upstairs and are always happy to hang out with their guests over a pint.

And that brings me to the best part of the hostel - they have three kinds of locally brewed beer on tap. A local who lives up the road spends his time locked in his garage quietly brewing his Kölsch, Pale Ale, Stout, and his newest highly confidential brew made with a recipe from some monks in Belgium (not kidding). We know about his secret beer because yesterday the gringos went to his house and were invited to see the brewery and share a pint of the SecretBelgianMonkBeer (which is 9% alcohol) with the master brewer (the only brewer), a youngish man who could possibly be the shyest human being in the world. Makes great beer though. In the evenings, between 6 and 8pm (when its happy hour, or two hours) we often relax in the wooden bar area of the hostel and sip on these tasty full bodied beers to warm our hearts.

The day after we arrived was a fantastically clear and sunny day. The air was crisp and sharp and you could see for miles. We decided to take advantage of the weather and took a bus out of town to a nearby hill (i´d like to say mountain but it wasn´t that high), and took a steep hike to the top, from where we had a panoramic view of the many interconnected lakes and mountains surrounding Bariloche. It looked and felt like something out of Lord of the Rings, or Narnia (pick your favourite).















After chatting with a friendly Colombian on the top for a while, we clambered down and took a bus further out of town to a luxury hotel in Llao Llao (say Jao Jao). The hotel is rated as one of the best in Argentina, so we thought, to heck with it, we´ll stay a night here. particularly of the nearby volcano on the chillean border which is covered in snow and has a glacier on it. & On our way back to town we felt a bit peckish, and decided to have a bite to eat at a small unimposing cafe After realising that a few nights in this hotel would deplete our entire budget, we settled for a walk around the lawns in front of the hotel, from where we appreciated some spectacular views, called, I´m not kidding, Morfy´s. After eating the food of Morfys, we settled back at the hostel for a pint of the good stuff and warmed our bodies with a good soup that Nadia whipped up (thanks Knorr). We kept warm in the hostel and chatted to the other guests and to John and Emma.

Since that day of great weather, we´ve spent our days exploring the town and admiring the incredible views (mostly from the hostel). We had planned to rent some bicycles today and ride around the area, but we woke up to heavy rain and a significant drop in temperature, so we decided we´d rather keep warm and write a blog. Aren´t we nice? The days have been spent relaxing and recouping after a hectic time in BA. On tuesday night, John cooked an assado (meatfest) and for 30 pesos, we were entitled to literally all the meat we could eat. We ate all we could eat, and then ate some more. After fighting off the meatsweat, we enjoyed some wine and the company of the multinationals. We have also found a really good Mexican place (imagine that) where we can get huge frozen margarita´s (not that suited to cold weather, but good nonetheless) for only 4 pesos during happy hour. For some reason, there are hundreds of Irish people here, some with accents so strong you literally cannot understand what is being said. I sadly learnt last night that Limerick, the town from where my Ryan blood eminates, is affectionately known as the Stab Capital of Ireland. Lovely. We like the Irish though, lots of fun.

We´re looking forward to seeing more of the surrounding area and plan to rent a car to drive to a ´black glacier´(ooh). None of us (including the great Wikipedia) have any idea what a black glacier is, so its worth checking out. We´ll let you know.

We plan to move on to Chile on sunday, to another Lake District town of Pucon. Pucon is famous for its active volcano, which we intend to climb with icepicks and special boots.

That´s all for now, enjoy the pics and be jealous because this place is pretty special.

Besos.

Ahoy!

A quick update for you all read while you work off your saturday hangover (I mainly have thatdamncat in mind when I mention the hangover - if I could blog a loud noise I would... ha!).

We are still in Buenos Aires. We have tried so hard to leave this city, but it is difficult. We even went all the way to the bus station today, only to return home with the promise of leaving tomorrow. We will leave tomorrow. I think.

In the last couple of days we have been enjoying the city while trying to keep to our tight Saffer budget. We have not been able to keep to said budget, but we have been enjoying the city. Last night we went to a Tango show at Cafe Tortoni, a place which has been visited by people like Brad Pitt. Not quite as famous as Brad Pitt, but people similar to him have been there. And Hillary Clinton went there and loved it, which isn't a good advertisement in my opinion because I would generally stay away from things that Hillary loved (like Bill Clinton and The Cosby's on Ice), but this place kicked ass! Nadia had her heart set on seeing a tango show before we left BA, but most of the shows we priced were in the range of R400 - R600 which is very steep (even for Hillary). Just as it looked like we weren't going to see one, we priced Tortoni, saw it was affordable, and went for it. We were not disappointed. If my camera was not so far away right now (its all the way downstairs and I would have to navigate through 10 drunk Swedes, and a German with an awful haircut, playing cards to get to it), I would post some pictures so that you could see just how cool it was. I would also post a picture of the German's haircut. Nevertheless, I could use the power of prose to help you out. His hair is shaved bald except for a ponytail which extends to the top of his head. Oh ya the show... it was a small theater (about twelve tables) and a stage, with an incredible four piece tango band (piano, double bass, violin and accordian - essential for tango), and four seperate tango couples. There was also a really good male singer who played a waiter. From my understanding of the show, it was set in a small bar, and it detailed the goings on off the bar, with the waiter acting as a singing narrator. The main focus was the dancing and the music (well, I suppose they go hand in hand - it would be silly if they were dancing without music). Both the dancing and the music were unbelievable, and at a point even Esteban, the manliest of men, became rather emotional about the beauty of the tango. Although the dance is mainly just about sex (its a rather provocative thing), the sheer beauty of the movements (god I sound gay right now), is unreal. We took lots of video footage so you peeps will just have to wait until we get back to appreciate it. Otherwise, go to Buenos Aires... its worth it.

Other than that, we are all well. I am slightly ill because I contracted an infection from a little baaastard on a bus and I havent been able to shake it off (the child). Fonz and the Nadia are both in excellent health however. We have days of homesickness, where we wish we were chilling at home with friends and family, but overall we still have a lot left in us (which is just as well because there is a shiteload left to see). You could spend 7 months getting to know Buenos Aires, let alone Argentina, let alone South America. Is that one too many let-alones? Im not sure of the rules of let-aloning. Excuse the punctuation errors -the keyboard is a rubbish.

Anyway, how about a revised plan of our journey for you guys? Considering the plan keeps changing day to day, take it with a pinch of salt, but here it is. From here we go to Bariloche, in the lake district of Patagonia, tomorrow afternoon. The bus is over 20 hours, which is not fun, no matter how you look at it. I can honestly say that during those 20 hours I would rather be any of you than be in that bus for that amount of time, so at least you guys don't have to be jealous of us tomorrow. We have heard that it is very cold in Bariloche - snowy temps - and Nadia is finding it rather cold in 12 degree BA, so she's gonna freeze in 0 degrees, but it should be alright. From there we cross into Chile, to go to Pucon. Pucon is famous for having an active volcano. At this point I would like to assure all the worried mothers (mine) reading this blog, that the volcano that erupted in central Chile this week has not erupted properly (yet) and the evacuations of the town south of Santiago are merely a precaution in case the thing starts spewing hot magma everywhere. We will be alright. On a lighter note, in the news today it turns out the government of Argentina has managed to blame Chile for the volcano's smoke polluting the air of BA. Classic. I'm not sure how they thought Chile was responsible for making their volcano errupt, but they're pretty pissed off. Naughty VolcanoWhispering Chileans.

I think I've gotten sidetracked. Anyway, from Pucon we shall make our make our way north to Santiago (so we can get closer to the magma :)) and to the towns of Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. After that the plan is to go to wine country of Mendoza, then Salta, and then to cross into the Wild West of Bolivia. From what we have heard, you can pretty much do whatever you want in Bolivia. For example, if hunting Anacondas is your thing (its not my thing), you can do that. If buying sticks of Dynamite for $1 and blowing up random things in a quarry is your thing, you can organise that too. Anything goes in Bolivia, we've heard. After Bolivia things are far less certain, but it looks like: Peru, Ecuador, Colombia (Go FARC yourself), and then Panama and Costa Rica to catch a flight from San Jose (Do you know the way?) to Habana, Cuba before that salty Castro shuffles off his mortal coil to let Raul take over.

But as I say, the plans could change. Anyway, there's a little update for you guys, I gotta get to bed. And there's a dutch person waiting to use the computer. And you know how the Dutch get when they're waiting. They colonize. Or smoke pot and watch porn. Either way its not pretty.

K ciao! Keep the comments coming we're very happy with the new commenters, and the not so new ones too. Except the comments about me getting chubby, I dont like those. Booo hooo!

Bye!

Buenos Aires (with the three gringos)

Hello all. Writing to you from Buenos Aires, a city that is far too much fun for its own good. We are all feeling the effects of too many late nights and far too much overindulgence. We would however like to point out that it is not possible to go to sleep before 3am in this city - it appears that the quietest time to sleep is during the day. We were supposed to leave tomorrow but decided that we were enjoying it far too much so we´re gonna stick around until the weekend before heading south to Patagonia. After meeting Fonz at the airport on tuesday, the Gringos were reunited. Here is an account of what we´ve been up to.

Tuesday:
Aurelio´s old school friend, Ricardo, picked us all up from the airport and took us to his house in Pilar, a small, very cold, town just outside of BA. Ricardo is in fact the real Ron Burgundy (the man who Will Ferrell played in Anchorman). His english catchphrase is ¨Tight, son¨, but other than that he does not speak much english. Ricardo made us a good asado in his annexed asado room (a must for manly men like Ricardo) and we all chilled out (it was freezing) by the fireplace and warmed our bodies with red wine and fernet. Ricardo, being the man´s man he is, had to leave the braai in order to go and fight a fire (and, we suspect, hunt and kill a giant bear before consuming its liver), but he returned and we got back to enjoying the food. Don´t Braai for me Argentina. His son, Facundo, a mountain of a man who we are told will one day play rugby for the puma´s, returned from his late-night rugby practice to join us. Fun was had.

Wednesday:

We slowly made our way back into the city of BA, where we checked into a new hostel, Milhouse. We had heard that this was the party hostel of BA and that it was an achievement to last a week there, so we decided that we should check it out. Upon entering the hostel, we realised it was more like a giant bar/club with 150 travellers in various states of drunkeness. After checking into our dorm room, we watched Liverpool lose to Chelsea, along with the many many many many British inhabitants of Milhouse. After having a couple of beers in the bar, we made some dinner and then turned in for an earlyish night.

Thursday:

Because of the generally late hours in BA, it is perfectly reasonable to get up at midday. In fact, the quietest time in the hostel is from about 8am until 2pm, when most of the hostel sleeps. The noisiest time is exactly when you would want to sleep (from about midnight until the morning). Thus, while adjusting to this lifestyle, we did not manage to get much done during the day. However, we had heard that Groove Armada was playing in Buenos Aires that night, and that we should try and get tickets as soon as possible, which sprung us into action. Made some calls and found out they were playing late at night, but that we would have to go to the venue early in order to get tickets. So, with a backpack full of beer and peanuts (all you really need), the Gringos made their way to the venue and purchased their tickets. To pass the time we hung around on the sidewalk and drank beer like very civilised people. It was at this time that we met up with some Frankfurters we´d met the night before. The time flew by (I think we must have been having fun), and soon it was time to go in. We got our tickets out and were soon the victims of a heartless crime -ticket theft. Nadia had her ticket in her hand, a crowd went by, Nadia did not have her ticket in her hand. After much frantic searching and cursing, we gave in and bought another ticket. Nadia now lays claim to the title of Biggest Fan, since she bought not one, but two tickets. Those bastards. As can be expected from a Groove Armada performance, the night was fantastic, and soon we had forgotten all about our ticket misfortunes. Look at the pictures and be jealous.

We´ve realised that while this city is not dangerous in the way that Joburg may be dangerous (no one here is going to knife you in the head, for instance), but everyone here is trying very hard to get their hands on a little bit of your money. Taxi drivers do not hesitate to completely rip tourists off, kiosk venders attempt to give you fake banknotes in change (I think they have a pile of fake notes labelled ¨GringoChange¨) and people generally seem to try to help themselves to a little bit of your foreign money. When that foreign money is Sterling, I´m all for it, since it doesn´t even make a dent in the British budget. However, our pathetic Rand does not go far here, so it can be irritating at times. Argentina seems to be a paradise for the Brits, since its cheap as hell, so they generally just go mad. We lie awake at night and fantasize about travelling with Pounds. Aaaah.

Friday:

Owing to our tight budget, we had to choose between going to a big club on Friday night, or on Saturday night. Seeing as we had only gotten home very late from Groove, and had slept in, we decided to have a ¨chilled¨evening and save the club for saturday. We spent the afternoon walking around downtown Florida street, a pedestrian street with some great shops, and then returned to the hostel to discover that we had some new roomates - two British (3rd Gen from India) chaps from Oxford University who were both called Vesh. Vesh 1 and Vesh 2 invited us to join them for dinner so we found a quiet local cafe and enjoyed some food. In preparation for our planned big night, we decided to get an earlyish night and go to sleep at 2am.

Saturday:

Today was an eventful day. We decided to make use of the daylight hours, and so we took the Tren de La Costa (Train of the Coast, for all the monolingual readers), a train which travels up the coast near BA and ends up in Tigre, stopping in all the little towns along the way. We stopped in San Isidro where we found a nice pub beer garden thing, and decided to have a nice meaty lunch. & We then explored Tigre, but lamented the fact that we had arrived so late and could not enter the Tigre theme park. Fonzo was especially upset about this, and so we consoled him with a hug and had coffee at a waffle bar. The bus back from the Tren took an incredibly long time and so we only got back to our hostel at 9, leaving very little time for our planned Siesta, since Happy Hour in the hostel (thats right, a hostel with a happy hour) began at 10. We wanted to sleep, but the prospect of two for one cocktails appealed to our budget, so we did the responsible thing and skipped the sleep so that we could drink. A rep from Pacha, one of the biggest clubs in BA (and internationally) came round to the hostel to sell tickets to the party that night, and we decided to go big and see what the Pacha fuss was all about. The entrance alone cost us 70 Pesos (about R150), but we thought that the drinks at least would be reasonably priced. After paying R35 for a can of beer, and R300 for a round of three Vodka and Mixers, we realised that this was a club for the superrich Argentinians, or anyone with Pounds - The Saffers were struggling! The club itself was an absolute shock - we have never seen so many people, lights, and craziness in one place before. && However, the night wore on and the alcohol wore off, and by about 5am, Nadia and Esteban had had enough of the Progressive House (translate into ShitHouse) and had run out of money, so decided to call it a night (its a night!) at about 5:30am, much to the shock of everyone in the club who thought that this was not a reasonable time to go home. Fonzo was still enjoying himself, and so he stayed and rocked the party with the various Brits, only to return at 8:30am, triumphant at having shown that night who was boss.

Sunday:

Turns out the night had the last laugh after all. When we finally rolled out of bed at 3pm (3pm!), our heads hurt, our bodies ached, and most of all our wallets were so very empty - we felt very sorry for ourselves and wallowed in our own selfpity for most of the day. We decided that we needed some fresh air, so we took the subway to the mall to go and watch a movie. Ironman, while unlikely to change the face of Cinema, provided us with some good entertainment and was just what we needed to stop feeling so sorry for ourselves. In the Cinema´s here, you can skip the popcorn and coke and enjoy nachos and a pint of beer. Nice. The mall is also home to a completely Kosher McDonald´s, a seperate restaurant to the regular McD´s where the menu is in Hebrew and the BigMac is called the McHezmita. After returning home, we did not feel like hanging around in the bar, so we sat upstairs with the Veshes (as a pair we know them simply as Vicious) and chatted about various silly things.

Monday:

Sick of not making the most of the day, we decided to wake up early and see some sights. Took the Bus to La Boca, the famous workingclass neighbourhood which is home to Maradonna´s Boca Juniors football team. We explored the very colourful streets and attempted to dance Tango with some locals. & That afternoon we decided to check out Recoletta, since the Fonz (now known as Fozzle by some of the Brits in the hostel) had not seen the crazy cemetary yet. We also stumbled across a park with a giant mechanical flower which opens and closes according to the sun (not bad eh?). We had a nap in the park and generally just chilled out in Recoletta, a rather nice leafy area where the rich of Buenos Aires spend their time.

That night we returned to the Drumming party we had gone to last monday, and we enjoyed it just as much, however I am not going to write about it again, because that would be silly. If you really want, read up on the last one again, and change the date. Went back to the Hostel which was hosting a Pyjama Party (honestly its more of a fully licsenced club than a hostel), complete with barmen, djs, and packed with people. Nadia and Steve decided they´d rather chill our at a cafe and share a bottle of wine, but Fonz was keen to rock it with his pj´s so we parted ways for a couple hours. We returned to an even fuller hostel bar, and the sight of Fausto wearing nothing but longjohns and a wifebeater vest. Some of the hostel folk were dressed completely ridiculously - men in nightie´s, bear hats, pink dressing gowns. In fact, right now, as we speak, an Irish lad is still wearing his pink pyjamas from the night before, except now he´s got a superman hat on and is mumbling something incomprehensible about being a superhero. We don´t think he slept last night, so his PJ party is still going on. This is pretty standard behaiviour in the hostel we´re in - its common to see someone in the bar at the same seat, twleve hours after you left them there, completely unaware as to whether it is day or night. This city can take its toll on your body.

We´re a bit sick of the crazy hostel, and feel we need to chill out a bit, so we have booked into a hostel in the quiter suburb of Palermo, where we will stay until Friday. We are quite proud that we have lasted a week in Milhouse, since many weaker travellers drop dead in the attempt and their bones are kept in the cellar.

Thats all for now. Riot about now. Our next stop is Bariloche in the Lake District of Patagonia. Sounds crap doesn´t it - all those beautiful lakes and incredible mountains, to be honest I´d much rather be sitting in a office reading this blog - which is probably what many of you are doing right now.

Aight, hope you enjoyed the blog. We´ll try put pics into the blog but this internet cafe is just so damn pricey, so we might not be able to. You should definitely check out the pics on Picasa though, here´s the link

http://picasaweb.google.com/steveo.zogg/BuenosAiresWithTheThreeGringos

We posted pics of our eyes, so check em out and vote for who has got the best one (ones?). Interactive blogging, yes please!
And the photos of Pilar are here too : http://picasaweb.google.com/steveo.zogg/Pilar

K bye!

Bloggy Bloggy Blog

We just got a cool writeup on a South African blog called SA Rocks. Check it out: www.sarocks.co.za
Yup, famous and shit. Thanks to Nic.

Right now, Steve is on the phone back home, so if your phone isn,t ringing, you know he doesn,t care. Excuse the terrible punctuation, this keyboard is defunct. We are heading now to get on a little train for a tour of Buenos Aires.

Hasta Leugo

Los Gringos

Buenos Aires (Nadia and Steve)

As promised, here is an account of the first few days of our Buenos Aires experience. Fausto remained in Cordoba with his dad, and joined us on Tueday, so here´s what we did from saturday night until tuesday.



We arrived after a busride which took 13 hours instead of 10, and not having slept the night before, we were rather tired, and Esteban´s lungs felt as if they were filled with hot lava. We tried to work out the complicated bus system, and after missing many busses (the busdrivers only give you a few seconds to get on here and then they drive away, chuckling) we eventually cracked it and made our way to San Telmo, where we found our hostel and checked in. Not having eaten the whole day, we found a little red corner cafe where we ate some pasta and Milanesa and took in the vibe of the streets. Feeling exhausted, we decided to turn in.



Sunday:

Woke up very late in the day and decided to explore Buenos Aires. Took the metro to the center and wandered around the plaza´s admiring the beautiful buildings and streets. The city looks more like it belongs in Europe than in South America, and the people seem so European that you get the feeling that they truly don´t believe they are a South American city. Amazingly good looking place. I bought a fake LaCoste shirt to go with my fake Rolex, and Nadia bought some other bits and `pieces from a store on the busy pedestrian shopping street of Av Florida. We then made our way to the San Telmo antiques market, where we wandered around a bustling street market filled with many interesting bits and pieces. The area of San Telmo is full of cobbled streets lined with antiques stores, and is the heart of BA´s tango culture. Nice.

That night we felt in desperate need of a good dinner, so we took the metro to a Palermo, where the rich live, en route to what is known as one of the best steakhouses in BA, La Cabrera. While waiting for our table, we were given some wine to ease our wait. Once shown to our table, the tremendous eating fest commenced with some parmaham and rocket salad starter thing. Nadia ordered the Bife de Chorizo (rump steak) and I ordered the Ojo de Bife (Ribeye steak). Upon ordering the mains, the waiter asked if Esteban would like a half portion of his steak, but of course I was having none of that, and since the menu did not mention the portion size, I did not want to be disappointed with a small piece of steak. When they brought the steak, we got a bit worried at the termendous size of the piece of meat. As it turns out, that was Nadia´s half-portion of rump, and when my full size ribeye arrived, we were both speechless. The restaurant was started by Frenchmen, who decided to keep to the Argentine tradition of huge delicious steaks, but added a French touch by accompanying the meats with many many little snacks. On our table we had two incredibly large and tasty steaks, and about 20 little bowls of side tapas, like mushrooms, beans, potatos, lentils, onions in pear sauce, artichokes, olives... all amazing. After trying really hard to finish the steaks but not succeding, we asked for coffee, which was presented with a marble block with some belgian chocolates on it, and then the bill, which came with some champagne. We were rather happy with this restaurant.

We took a walk around Palermo Viejo to find a jazz bar, but being sunday night, not much was happening, so after a quick Fernet and Coke, we took a bus back to our hostel at about 3am.



Monday:

We had some steak left over from last night, so we decided to buy some fresh bread, mustard, a tomato and some olives from the supermarket and packed a picnic. We headed to the very green and upmarket area of Recoletta to enjoy our picnic in one of the many parks in the area. Recoletta is where the uberrich of BA live, and its also where the ex-rich get buried, in the massive Recoletta Cemetary. After our picnic, we decided to explore the cemetary, which is more like a small city than a traditional graveyard. Huge 2 story Shrines, Sepulchres and Masoleums line cobbled streets - the place is incredibly eerie. We were on a mission to find the most pimp grave - we found it in the middle - about 3 stories of gold and mosaiced walls and archways, bigger than many houses in the poorer areas of BA. We then visited the most famous grave there, belonging to some chick who looks like Madonna in that one movie where she sings from a baclony about crying in Argentina. Just kidding, we shed a tear at the grave of Evita and the Perons before getting the hell out of the creepiest damn place in the world.



That night our hostel invited us to a drumming party in a nearby area. We envisioned a small hippie´s drum circle, but what we were confronted with was 1000 people in a huge old amazing warehouse, all watching a 20 piece percussion group who were led by a conductor, as if it was an orchestra. The amount of control the conductor had over his drummers was incredible, and the different sounds and rhythms they could achieve was unbelievable. The vibe of the place was amazing, and we both had a darn cool time. Afterwards we went to a cuban bar with Nico, a greek guy, and Gerard, a Catalan from Barcelona (probably slightly insane), both of whom we met in the hostel.



The next day we stuggled through the rush hour of Buenos Aires, trying to get to the airport to meet Fonz. The subways were so full that people were stuck up against the glass like insects that had flown into oncoming traffic. After being warned in Spanish that there was no way we would fit on these trains with our huge backpacks, we gave up and took a taxi to the airport, where we were reunited with our lost gringo. Met up with Ricardo, a friend of Aurelio´s, who bears an amazing resemblance to Ron Burgundy, and went to his place in Pilar.



We shall save that for the next blog though.



K thats all the time we´ve got for now. Wil write more about BA soon.



Ciao ciao ciao

Fonz´s Days in Cordoba

Hola hola,


So, right now Steve and Nadia are seated next to me and here is the official simultaneous blogging because we are on seperate computers writing seperate posts. I know this has so much to do with South America, you must be enthralled. Well, here is my blog of what I did from when Steve and Nadia left for Buenos Aires and I remained at the casa of Gustavo for 3 more days in Cordoba.

The night of the wedding was magical. Kind of. It was actually quite a different experience, mainly because after operating on Argentinian time (which infact is slower than African time) and observing a fight over a tie we missed the ceremony in the church and Flor and Gusti had to show some face as everyone was walking out. Beautiful. Then we moved on to the afterparty where it was basically like a large pimpy lounge for all the guests to mingle and eat small foods. The exciting stuff started happening when they finished showing us their movie-film and they opened up the bars. Fernet and coke is an effective digestive as well as party-starter. Everyone hit the dance floor and I was soon coaxed into the middle of it all. The music of choice in Cordoba is called Cuarteta. It is not exactly my kind of thing, or anyone else´s, and I wish I could explain it but it isn´t exactly the most appealing music. However, at this point I realised it was my hour of Argentine Pride. Allow me to explain. Back home in South Africa, I know I am a pretty good dancer, in fact I am fucking amazing (this is what I believe). However, the cringed-up faces of people in clubs in Melville and Rivonia do not confirm my beliefs. But when I hit the floor with Cuarteto on, the roots of my Argentinian history kick in and my blood goes straight to my feet. Let´s just say that I was breaking it down, and it was drawing some attention. Shortly thereafter I was severely reprimanded by some of the Family´s cousins for apparently cramping their style and they kept a close watch on me. I made it home at about 4 and then had to wake up at 9 for another session at the Campo, this time with my pops.

The day at the Campo was very chilled and I can´t really say much about it except that I ate one the best steaks ever at some little Parilla in Villa Belgrano (the German Nazi town, remember?) and that we lazed the day away cracking jokes and listening to Gustavo tell us about the wind.
Another highlight of the day was watching a soccer match on TV. But not actually watching any footage with a ball in it. The reason for this is that the channel I was watching didn´t have the rights to screen the game, so they set up a whole bunch of cameras focused and ready to take in the action of.......... the crowds. 90 minutes of people jumping and cheering. How exciting.

Later, I missioned to the mall to buy some shoes and it in fact turned out to be a serious mission and I felt as though I was shopping for a pair of shoes in Hong Kong because they didn´t have my size in anything.

On Monday, I decided to go with Flor to her university and sit in on some classes. She studies Nutrition and there are about 200 students in the class, of which about 7 are guys. So, Flor hard warned me prior, as we walked into the hall an hour late (we took the bus there), I had the whole class eye me like I was a steak or a ladies steak (this was one of the first times I have ever wished I was a woman or gay). Then, out of the whole massive class, a siff stray dog bust in and decided to find me and its point of rest, sitting right at my feet I realised he actually did need some nutritional information, the bugger was quite thin.The whole varsity experience was quite enlightening; they definately do things differently over here. For example, they take register in a class of 200 hundred, which was very strange for me. Later, Gusti arrived and Flor, her friend Valen and I all went to Junior B to eat another lomo and feel good about a hard day studying nutrition.

Later that night my pops and I visited an old buddy of his for an amazing dinner of Rabbit and wine. After that I went out for a couple of drinks with Flor, Valen and Gusti but unfortunately Mondays are dead as dead as dead in Argentina so it wasn´t anything to write home (on the blog) about. I only got to sleep at 5 and I had to be up at 6 to get ready for...... my flight to Buenos Aires! Yes, I finally got to fly, me and my dad, in the air. I have never loved flying so much, especially considering Steve and Nadia spent over 12 hours in a bus for this same journey compared to my 50 minutes with coffee and beautiful air hostesses. I am rubbing it in.


Upon arrival at the AeroParque, I was elated to exhaustedly stumble into the terminal to see the fresh faces of my gringo compatriots, Chicken Wet and Nads standing there with their big eyes. Happy to be reunited we met up with Ricardo, another of my dad´s friends and we made our way to Pilar.


I am so happy to be in Buenos Aires, it is cold as hell and I just ate two big macs at the same McDonald´s that Nadia bit into a rotten McApple. Terrible. In half an hour we are heading to try hook up some Groove Armada tickets and dancedancedance. Anyways, I hope you are enjoying our blogs and our photos because they do actually require a lot of time and money.


Hasta Leugo

El Faust

Here is a link for some of my photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/steveo.zogg/CordobaFonz

The Last Days of Cordoba

Hi all.

Fausto just ate two Big Macs in a row.

Sorry we haven´t written in a while, but unlike el Fonzo, when Esteban says he´s on a strike, he means it. Until he feels like updating the blog. But all your comments were well recieved (especially from virgin commentor Adam) and thus we have decided to resume our writing. You shall be showered with multiple blogs this week, since this post is about our last days in Cordoba together, while Fausto is currently writing a blog next to me about his last days in Cordoba while we were in BA, and soon there will be another blog about Steve and Nadia´s first few days in Buenos Aires. How lucky you are.

Now where did we get to?

Monday (the day after we went to the countryside):
We did not do much on this day. In fact it was a rather boring day I think because, sitting here now, nothing in particular stands out. We chilled around the house, had something to eat, went somewhere for dinner, and then I think we went to sleep. Wow. Oh ya, the dinner we had made Nadia sick, and she ended up vommiting on Fausto´s face. Not really, but she did get ill.

Tuesday:
Cotti, Fonz´s mother´s cousin, picked us up and took us back to Villa Carlos Paz, to her father´s mansion on the lake. He has slowly been building this incredible house, more as a hobby than as a place to live, since the house has three huge bedrooms, a dining room, kitchen, everything, and Bruno (the housebuilder) prefers to live in a smallish room downstairs. Amazing house though - he built the roof and the outside structure first, and the walls are just large sheets of glass so that you can appreciate the amazing views of the lake. Bruno took us to a town called La Cumbre where his son owns a small Raspberry farm where they make jams and all kinds of deliciousness. La Cumbre is a tiny little town up in the mountains. Famous for being very English, the people who live there are decendents from English settlers and build their houses in typically English-Countryside styles. Very charming town in an amazing setting.
We spent the afternoon exploring the farm before heading back to Bruno´s house in Carlos Paz. After some very very long Spanish conversations with Bruno in which he seeked to show us the wonder of nature and its relevance to the existence of God (interesting but rather difficult given the language barrier). Inspired by this, we decided to drink some Fernet and have our own debate (in English) while admiring the view of the moon rising over the lake. It was very romantic. I looked deeply into Fausto´s eyes and told him he was completely wrong about his views on God and destiny. Eventually we all got tired of arguing and went to bed in rooms that no one has ever slept in, and most probably, that no one will ever sleep in.

Wednesday:
Left Carlos Paz to go and watch the football match (man u vs. Barca) back at the Manzur household. It was a boring awful match played by two soulless teams. Fausto then went to the airport to fetch PapaFonzie. Aurelio had some stuff to do in Cordoba and so Fonzie was reunited with his father after a long 5 weeks apart. It was emotional. To celebrate this joyous occasion, Emilce made Arrabes (lebanese empanadas) and we ate and drank the night away.

Thursday:
Today we went to a nearby suburb, Alta Gracia, to visit the house of Che Guevara. The Guevara´s lived in a small house in Alta Gracia for quite some time and now there is a small museum in his house, full of his old possesions, some really rare and interesting photos of him, and other bits and pieces from his life. Each room was a different stage of his life - what was interesting was the focus on his young years and his cycling trips around Argentina. Feeling inspired by the Revolution, we decided to go and start a revolution of our own, by quietly drinking a beer at a local cafe.
Gustavo picked us up from Alta and we went for dinner in Cordoba in delayed celbration of the arrival of Aurelio. We went to a local Parilla (a Rodizio style restaurant where the focus is meat meat and more meat). You each get a big wooden board, and every five minutes a waiter comes and brings a different cut of meat, and doesnt stop until you swear at him while throwing up. It was fantastic. We went to Contender, the pool bar, and had a couple games of pool before getting an early night (at 4am).

Friday:
Today Fausto´s dad decided he wanted to get some Ink done (being the pimp Gangsta that he is) so we went to the local Tattoo Parlour where he got a sweet ass tattoo of the Led Zeppelin symbols on his arm. We then all got tattoo´s of each other´s faces on our asses. Not really. We just chilled at home the rest of the day. That night we went to a house party with Azu and Flor, where we met some of their friends, drank too much Fernet, and were told by a large Mexican about a Tequila so delicious that you had to be the President of Mexico, or at least his very good friend, to even taste it. Nadia and Steve had a bus booked for 8am on saturday morning, and since morning was rapidly approaching, we made the decision to not even attempt any sleep. After a quick cup of coffee and packing of bags, the Manzur´s took us to the bus station and helped us onto the bus. We slept most of the way to Buenos Aires and arrived that night in a beautiful city.

We will write a post about our first few days in Buenos Aires soon, so keep checking, and keep commenting at this rapid rate. Cat and Moose, thanks for your banter in the comments. I would like to officially state that I have no idea what Justin Timberlake´s music was doing on that harddrive. Like the miniblog Neil, its very thoughtful. Sorry if the blog seemed rushed, but we only had an hour and we´ve got some stuff to do. Stuff to do like go and see Groove Armada play in Buenos Aires. God this life is tough.

Check out the pics at
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/steveo.zogg/CordobaPart2
and
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/steveo.zogg/CordobaPart3

Ciao for nao.

BYeeeeee