The beach - Part 1 (of many to come)

Travelling to a beach - wow, that's unexpected. Apologies if you find this boring, or totally inadequate given the current low temperatures and volcano problems in Europe. Nevertheless, due to popular demand, we will share some pictures and background info about our beach time here in Southern Brazil.

 

After Iguazu, we headed for the beautiful Ilha do Mel, 'Island of Honey', in the state of Paraná. There are no cars on the island, and until recently, electricity was limited to several hours per day. Most of the island is a nature reserve. As a result, everything there is a bit more basic than elsewhere... the boat service is a bit rusty, the main road is really just a sandy walkway, and the island's nightlife is pretty much limited to either getting drunk in a hammock or dancing to cheesy Brazilian music with locals.

While we do enjoy cheesy Brazilian music, the main reason for us to come to Ilha do Mel was its beaches, obviously. And they are truly magificent.

After several days on the island, we again packed our backpacks, and said farewell to our many new mosquito friends. Back on the mainland, we hopped on what is said to be one of the most scenic train rides in Brazil (quite an achievement in a country where there are very few passenger trains in the first place). The name of the train, Serra Verde Express, is a classic euphemism, as it takes 5 hours for roughly 90 kms. Nevertheless, the views are stunning, as the 'Express' gently winds through subtropical rainforests and into Curitiba.

After a brief interlude in Curitiba (which really is a nice and well-designed city by South American standards), we continued our quest for sand and seawater in the city and the beaches of Florianopolis, in the state of Santa Catarina. 

Floripa is beautiful - clean, relatively safe, and surrounded by excellent surfing beaches. We checked in at a cool hostel overlooking 2 of the 20+ beaches on the city island. I actually wanted to upload more brag pictures, but our internet connection doesn't agree with me. So you'll just have to trust me on this one.

We also met Rodrigo, a Floripa local who is a friend of our friends Tati & Alex back home. Rodrigo is an extremely nice and funny person (even more so than your average Brazilan, who is already very friendly). Among other things, he took us to a Churrascaria - a restaurant where they serve meat on skewers until you drop - and we went sandboarding together. Again, we have some pretty decent and maybe slightly embarrassing sandboarding pics, but this freaking connection does a good job at preventing any uploads. I'll try to post them later.

Anyway, eventually, we had to say goodbye to Floripa, Rodrigo, our travel mate Maike (who went on to travel to Chile), and the beach. Next stop: the Amazon. Since internet here seems to be slightly shaky, it might be quite a while until we're back in civilisation ready to post our next little episode - so bear with us.

The waterfalls

Probably the most impressive waterfalls in the world can be found in the tri-border area of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. While not the tallest, widest, or most rapid falls around, it is the special combination of the above factors which makes the Iguazu Falls as spectacular as they are. In contrast to Iguazu, the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe & Zambia (the main waterfall there is actually wider than at Iguazu) apparently seem like a petting zoo for little girls. At least that's what the Iguazuans claim.

We got to Puerto Iguazu on the Argentinian side of the falls on a classy 17-hour overnight bus ride. I am not being sarcastic, Argentinian buses really can be very comfy, with welcome booze, champagne, warm meals, beer, bus hostesses, fully reclining seats and so on. 

Trying to avoid the tourist masses, we got up early the next day, and managed to get an up-close view of the most spectacular area, the Devil's Throat, before the many pensioners arrived. Nothing against pensioners, of course, Judith & I aim to retire as soon as possible.

When you get closer to the falls, you have two options. One is to get completely soaked within seconds. The alternative is to wear rain gear at 30°C. Since we arrived at the waterfalls shortly after the rainy season, the falls and hence the soaking effect were particularly strong. We opted to take along our rain gear, but didn't really wear it. Very clever.

The landscape around the falls itself is also quite impressive, with an abundance of tropical plants and wildlife featuring snakes, lizards, fantastic butterflies, and coatis (those things might not be coatis (Nasenbären) at all, but what do I know).


 

 









Judith, Lene, and her friend Maike went to Brazil the next day to see the falls from a different perspective. Since I had already seen the Brazilian side several years back, I took a local bus to the Paraguayan border, walked across the bridge, had a coffee, and went back. At least I got what I wanted: a nice (but illegible) Paraguayan immigration stamp in my passport. Yeah! 

Argentinians and Brazilians continue their football rivalry when it comes to deciding who ownes the best side of the Iguazu Falls. A sample poll among our little team of four resulted in a 2:2 draw. And so the rivalry continues.

After our time in Iguazu, we went on another overnight bus ride (thus saving on hostels) to the beautiful island Ilha do Mel - the Island of Honey - in Southern Brazil. More on that after the break.

The Southern South

As promised, this blog post will be less text-heavy but contain many colourful pictures - ideal for those of you who have developed very short attention spans due to high internet usage. 

Anyway, after our first few days in Buenos Aires, my parents, Judith's sister Lene, Judith & I flew down to Patagonia. The climate again came as a pleasant surprise, with temperatures reaching ~+15°C during the day. 

 
Patagonia really is a must-see for all people who love the outdoors: endless plains, mountain peaks, glaciers, and fascinating wildlife (sheep for example). Patagonia also features beautifully-maintained roads sponsored by taxes collected by President Kirchner's administation. Coincidentally, the Kirchner family also own a lot of land and hotels down there.

The first trip we did was to visit the Perito Moreno glacier in the Glaciares National Park. When you manage to avoid the tourist hordes, the Perito Moreno really is one of the most impressive natural structures on this planet. Millions of tons of ice moving at 2 meters per day, reaching the Lago Argentia with 60 meters in height above the water surface and roughly double that underwater... but see for yourself...

Oh yeah! Btw, clicking to enlage is actively encouraged.

That's right!

We also engaged in some serious hiking action in El Chaltén, Argentina's self-proclaimed hiking capital. We got up at 6am that day (!!) to start our 12 hour tour along a beautiful valley to Glaciar Grande. On the way, we saw the sunrise lighting Mount Fitz Roy and the Cerro Torre, both of which are very impressive peaks.

The hike was a bit challenging, but we were happy to see that having spent years in a comfy office chair hadn't killed our ability to cope with this.

 

Arriving at the glacier, we put on our crampons, and started walking across the ice. Thankfully, the number of visitors to the glacier is limited, so we didn't contribute to too much damage. 

 

I never would have thought that walking on a proper glacier could be both that impressive and fun.

So that's it for today. As I post this, we are on our way to close this first chapter of our trip, Argentina, and preparing to cross into - wait for it - Braziiiiiiiiiil!!!!

When travelling goes wrong - Part 1

Travelling in places you don’t know well always means that things can go wrong - and quite a few things did go wrong for us during our first few days. Luckily, all turned out fine in the end. I would like to share a selection of the worst things that happened to us in the following section to warn you all that traveling is pure evil and you’d better not try this at home.

• On the very first day, as Judith and I were cheerfully strolling along the avenidas of Buenos Aires, we decided to stop to get some cash. Unfortunately, while the ATM did provide us the money we had requested, it decided to keep Judith’s credit card in return. Of course, it was a Saturday and the bank branch was closed. This gave us the pleasure of spending most of Saturday afternoon spelling Judith’s card details to an (admittedly very nice) Visa call center employee called Al probably located somewhere on the Philippines.  
• What I didn’t mention about the superclásico match yet is that the rain was really, really strong and the pitch was in a miserable state with puddles all over the place. As a result, the referee decided to suspend the match 8 minutes into the first half (aaaaaaarrrrrghhh)! It had been very difficult for Esteban to get ahold of a ticket for the die-hard supporters section of the stadium for me in the first place - and I had spent a small fortune on it. Of course, the match was to be repeated on a day when I would already be in Patagonia. 
• I don’t know what it is but insects love me. Usually, this results in small and itchy bite marks on my skin, which I have gotten used to over the years. This time, I believe I fell victim to a what I now deem the ‘inverted insect’. The bite marks I got were not itchy at all, but they turned out to be the biggest bite marks I had ever seen. It felt like my lower left arm and my right elbow had increased by roughly 50% in size, really. Brushing my teeth felt like having small weights attached to my arms. Anyway, after some medical treatment the swelling reduced significantly - phew!
• My poor mother got a painful virus infection since her immune system had been weakened by a yellow fever vaccination the week before. On top of that, she managed to get attacked by a baby Guanaco (a small Lama), after the milk bottle she fed it had depleted. Fortunately, baby Guanacos are not particularly dangerous predators, so my mother wasn’t hurt. The picture below shows Judith feeding the very same aggressive beast in an act of insanity.

• Finally, Judith's sister Lene had originally planned to fly in from Panama to join us on our trip to Patagonia. When checking in in Panama, the guy at the counter told her "sorry lady, your ticket has not yet been paid for". When Lene insisted that she had in fact paid already, the guy slowly went to check whether this was true. After 25 minutes, he concluded that she actually had been right all the way. Too bad that in the meantime boarding had closed and Lene missed her flight. What an %&/Ä+*!!!

That said, all things turned out fine in the end. My mother is recovering well, Judith got a spare Visa card, my insect bites are gone, Lene managed to take the plane the following day, and I will never forget the great atmosphere of the Superclásico.

The next post will be uploaded soon, this time with a lot less useless text (apologies for today), but with many great, thrilling, two-thumbs-up pictures from the Southern end of South America.

The first few days

Stepping out of the plane in Buenos Aires came with a very nice surprise - temperatures of 20-25°C after the harsh winter back home felt like finally reaching the bus terminal after a long bus journey with a stretched bladder.

After we had stored our bags at the hostel, Judith & I headed down to La Boca where our friend Esteban prepared an amazing barbecue/asado for us. His place has a truly beautiful roof terrace overlooking the city's skyline and the Boca Juniors stadium. There might be some things Argentines do not do well (like accepting a defeat in a world cup quarter final), but they certainly know how to prepare the best barbecues in the world - apologies to my American, Australian, Brazilian & South African readers. 

The next day, we spent wandering the streets of Buenos Aires, and preparing for the legendary Superclásico football match between Boca Juniors and River Plate. Preparing here actually meant buying a baseball cap to cover my blond gringo hair in the stadium. In the evening, we met up with my parents, whom we were planning to travel to Patagonia with for the next two weeks.

On Sunday, Esteban, his brother Nico, and I finally went to the match. Judith didn’t come along because, well, the Superclásico is notorious for its ‘roughness‘, and years back, some 70 people had been trampled to death in a mass panic. Not so good for the ladies. We spent roughly 2 hours in the rain waiting in the queue in front of the entrance. After passing the ticket and lax security checks, we waited another two hours in the fenced area of the stadium dedicated to the hardcore supporters of Boca Juniors. Waiting actually is the wrong term - we sang, danced, jumped, and consistently accused the River Plate supporters of being sons of women who belong to a particular profession. I’ve been to many stadiums in Europe, but this was a completely different level. The number of chants, the cleverness in finding items to throw at the pitch, the way the pitch was prepared (due to the rain, they actually had a guy with a basket of paint and a brush consistently re-painting the white lines), the age and state of the stadium - something you would never see in the Premier League or the Bundesliga. Fabulous!