BUENOS AIRES - ARGENTINA

Another 20 odd hour bus journey later and I had made my way from Peninsula Valdes to Buenos Aires, ´Capital Federal´ taking in some more of that ´incredible´ coastal patagonian scenery along the way !! After such a long period of time sitting down I decided the 40 minute walk to the hostel would be a welcome reprieve and after checking in I just chilled in the hostel, talking with a few of the people there.

My first few days in the city were largely uneventful although I did wander around parts of the city with a danish friend of mine, Else and we checked out the old part of the city, Recoleta along with the very nice harbour area. The hot summer days did however mean that I was restricted as far as what I could achieve during the middle of the day and I suffered a number of bouts of sunburn before I fully grasped this fact. As such, the first few days of my stay were rather uneventful apart from meeting up for dinner and lunch with Else and a university collegue of mine (Fernando) and his wife (Alison).

On the Thursday I ventured to the colourful working class suburb of La Boca with Fernando and Alison and despite the oppressive heat we wandered around for a few hours, taking in the brightly painted buildings and array of artworks being sold in the street. That evening, the 3 of us along with Else went to a Tango show to take in the national dance of Argentina. Despite being quite short, the show was excellent and we were treated to some excellent dancing. Even more fun was the opportunity for us all to dance a little with the ´instructors´. With the exception of Alison, who was actually quite good, we all made complete fools of ourselves but had a great time doing it so that was all that mattered. After the show I contemplated going out but the lack of enthusiasm shown by people at the hostel meant this idea was put to rest quite quickly.

Friday was another lazy day although in the evening the hostel was cranking as nearly everyone seemed up for a bender ! After a great deal of beer (we finished all the supplies at the hostel) about 15 of us jumped in taxis and went to a club down by the harbour. Although quite a good night, it was nothing quite like some of my previous experiences (an unfortunate circumstance of anticipation and expectation), mainly because there were no more than 500 people in the club meaning that only 3 of the 10 or so rooms were open. Consequently the range of music on offer was rather limited leaving a choice of rubbish hip-hop, soft house or funky chilled out music. I drifted between the 3 rooms, chatting with various people and having a good time. I met some friendly Argentines and a heap of Israeli´s but around 5am decided to call it a night and so 6 or so of us had a 2 taxi race back to the hostel (even if the taxi drivers didn´t quite know about it).

Saturday was the last day for Fernando and Alison in Buenos Aires and so after having a goodbye lunch with them I went to check out the markets at Recoleta where I bought some more artworks, similar to those I picked up at the same location just under a year ago. That night proved quite uneventful as I was once again hampered by a lack of interest from various parties (both people at the hostel and friends of mine in Buenos Aires). I managed only a solitary beer before deciding to cut my losses and head home.

My last days in the city were rather quiet, just organising things for the next stage of my trip, wandering around the antique markets in San Telmo (which was a bit of a laugh considering what some of the people were trying to sell !) and just hanging with some of the people at the hostel. Although it didn´t live up to expectations, my time in B.A. wasn´t a complete waste..

Photo 1: Avoiding the Buenos Aires ´rays´ with Claudia.
Photos 2&3: Colourful suburb of La Boca
Photo 4: Else and I sticking to what we know best - drinking beer (Quilmes)
Photos 5-9: Tango show - all of us having a go & Fernando possibly enjoying himself too much !
Photo 10: Partying on the hostel roof.
Photos 11-13: Crazy steve (Irish) demonstratingthe progressive effects of alcohol.
Photos 14-20: Everyone having a blast at the club on Friday night.
Photo 21: Fernando, Alison and myself.
Photo 22: Just another photo with people making stupid faces.

PENINSULA VALDES - ARGENTINA

Managing to get a ticket to visit the south coast of Argentina proved quite difficult given that almost every single Argentine and his dog seemed to be travelling during January. However having overcome this initial complication I travelled for about a day and a half from Cordoba to Puerto Madryn to visit this world reknowned marine wildlife sanctuary. My first ´half day´ Puerto Madryn was spent organising activities for the next day and with a little persuasion I managed to convince 3 others staying at the hostel that we should hire a car to explore the Peninsula rather than take an expensive tour option where there would be limited opportunities for photos. This proved rather more difficult than we had all first imagined given that none of us had credit cards (only debit cards) and so we had to cough up a significant quantity of cash to cover the insurance excess on the car.

Coastal Patagonia is characterised by some of the most monotonous and I must say boring landscapes I have ever encountered. Rolling plains which differ in altitude by at most 10 cm over a 1000km length, small shrubs and sandy terrain. Our adventure around the peninsula in our makeshift 4WD (a VW golf) took in alot of this scenery and we got a great look at it given that the gravel roads were so bad we could only really proceed safely at a speed of around 60km/h. The day trip seemed to encompass only small periods for viewing the abundant marine life in the aea and more time just driving between the various viewing points. Still, throughout the day we did manage to take in some interesting attractions including a very large seal and sea lion colony in the north of the peninsula, a large magellanic penguin colony in the south and my favourite, some crazy armadillos who raced between the shady areas in the parking lot of one of the wildlife sancutaries.

In all, the peninsula was actually quite dissapointing and perhaps a little too far out of the way to warrant a trip just to see the wildlife. This is of course based purely on my point of view and can perhaps be attributed to the fact that in Australia we are spoilt with an abundance of wildlife - we have whales in Sydney harbour for instance and there aren´t many cities in the world that can match that ! Also, the timing of my visit to the peninsula could have been better as it was not the right season for viewing whales and there had not been an orca sighting for almost a week.

Whilst the visual attractions of the peninsula and area around Puerto Madryn left a little to be desired, my other experiences in the area were very favourable. The city of Madryn was absolutely packed full of visitors, both from abroad and within Argentina. As such the nightlife was absolutely cranking ! After changing hostels in search of a better vibe, I had a great time just chilling in a nice hostel filled with great people including a nice bunch of Australians and 6 crazy but absolutely awesome argentine girls. Together, the 10 of us, plus a few others, enjoyed some great meals and parties at the hostel and also frequented a number of clubs and bars in Madryn on both Friday and Saturday nights and had a great time. The friendships formed with people at the hostel are some of the strongest I have made in all my travels and I´m hoping I can catch up with many of them again.

There are far too many stories from my time in Madryn to possibly cover them all here but some of the more notable ones include:

1) Dancing on the sandy beach at one of the nightclubs and then having half of the sand their deposited all over us by the Patagonian wind.
2) Gareth playing 1 Tracy Chapman song about 10 times with a 5 string guitar.
3) ¨Cordoba¨ cooking up a storm and never managing to be seen wearing a shirt (see photo).
4) Me ¨being asleep¨ and the need for me to be ¨part of the family¨ and to provide the necessary ¨Australian papers¨.
5) Learning some very useful Argentine insults - ¨Forro¨& ¨Boludo¨ etc.
6) ¨Todo Bom¨
7) ¨Calmly¨ discussing Argentines comming from other regions to steal the jobs in La Plata.

Despite being quite ordinary in terms of the scenery on offer my visit to the Peninsula was well worth it and definately one of the best experiences thus far in my travels !

Photos 1&2: Beach alongside Puerto Madryn.
Photos 3: Penguin colony in the south of the peninsula.
Photos 4&5: Armadillo at the parking lot at Punta Norte.
Photos 6&7: Patagonian scenery - flat !
Photo 8: Peninsula valdes exploration group members.
Photos 9-15: Hostel group enjoying a tasty Asado and later one of the many clubs in Madryn.

CORDOBA - ARGENTINA

Requiring a break from the incessant partying endured in Mendoza, I travelled to Cordoba, primarily to visit a few friends of mine from my previous trip to Argentina´s second largest city. Throughout my whole stay in the city however I was inhibited by the ridiculously hot conditions, with the average for my 5 day stay being around 40 degrees. As such I spent a large amount of my time indoors, reading my book, chatting with people and browsing a number of the large shopping malls in Cordoba.

Cordoba province contains a number of interesting towns, a number of which I visited during my previous visit, however I was intending to visit a few more this time. Unfortunately as I already iterated, the weather made this almost impossible. As such, my attempt to relax and get away from the party atmosphere, at least for a few days was thwarted.

During my stay I caught up with a friend of a friend (Kristen from Newcastle, Australia). It was good having a local contact with Argentine friends, meaning that I spent quite a bit of my time hanging out with the group, going out and catching up in Cordoba.

The only real interesting stories from my stay came from my nightly ventures into town. The first adventure on a thursday night proved to be extremely good fun as the nightclub I visited with a few of my Argentine friends was packed full of a young and enthusiastic crowd, made up of many locals and a few others from elsewhere in Argentina. I had a great time and met some awesome people, I was continually just blown away by how friendly everyone was. Deciding to walk home with a number of the boys staying at the hostel, I enjoyed watching them try desperately to charm some of the local argentine ladies, without any spanish, instead relying on drunken and slurred english. I of course stayed right out of it, occassionally providing a translation, whilst also enjoying the amuesments transpiring.

The next night I met up with Kristen and a few of her friends and we went out to a club. Unfortunately the vibe wasn´t quite as good as the previous night, probably because the crowd was slightly older and as such didn´t go quite as nuts. The club was however pretty packed and we struggled to find sufficient room to bust out a few dance moves. After leaving the club around 6am we eventually found somewhere to grab a bite before I left them at the bus station and returned to the hostel.

My last night was again spent with Kristen and her gang although this time I travelled the 1 hour to a small town close to Cordoba (Rio Segundo) where they were all living. The night was fully planned out and we were meant to drive the 30 or so minutes to a nearby town in order to visit a different club. Unfortunately however, this club and pretty much every other club in all the small towns nearby were closed and so we spent around 3 hours driving between places, only to return to Rio Segundo. Everyone was pretty annoyed however we did manage to spend an hour or so in the club in Rio Segundo, which was a different to anything I had experienced before. Whilst it wasn´t the greatest night out, in hindsight it was still pretty cool. Another morning pizza was followed by the hour bus journey to Cordoba.

In essence, Cordoba was not as fun or as interesting as Mendoza the reasons for this being:
1) Many locals had left to holiday elsewhere in Argentina meaning the vibe was more relaxed.
2) The weather was opresively hot.
3) Bad luck I guess.

Still, it was good to visit the area again.

Photos 1-3: Thursday night in Cordoba with friends old and new.
Photos 4-8 Kristen, Romi & friends in Cordoba (Friday night) & Rio Segundo (Saturday night).
Photo 9: Quick roadisde toilet stop for the girls.

MENDOZA - ARGENTINA

Filled with expectations of another amazing trip, terrific people and experiences so different from anything I could imagine in Australia, I left all that was familiar on the 27th of December and after an overnight stop in Sydney and a few hours in Auckland I arrived into Santiago de Chile and made the all too familiar bus ride into the city as soon as possible, attempting to minimise the amount of time I had to spend in the more expensive and for me, less exciting neighbour to Argentina. Luckily I was easily able to take an afternoon bus from Santiago to Mendoza and with the help of a friendly local managed to get a good price also.

The bus ride over the Andes was wonderful, despite it being my third time. Instead of the white snow capped mountains and frozen rivers that I had seen during my two previous trips, this time I was greeted by amazing amounts of green and brown, earthly colours which I can imagine must only exist for a small number of months prior to the onset of winter. Despite being couped up in the bus I still managed to capture a number of good photos of the scenery.

I arrived weary into Mendoza and checked into my hostel. The city was just as I remembered, with the main street busy as ever at night, filled with revelers enjoying the pleasant weather and great food Argentina has to offer. I even by chance bumped into a friend of mine from my previous visit, a nice surprise !

Unfortunately I had not managed to stay awake for all of my bus ride from Santiago and hence was hit with jet-lag pretty hard, meaning I was forced to just make conversation with whoever wanted to listen until about 4am at which point I gave up and tried to go to sleep, a partially successful campaign.

My stay in Mendoza was rather chilled out, my time spent just talking with other travellers and easing my way back into travelling, the Argentine culture and so on. I did manage to catch up with a few friends during my time there and enjoyed a number of ´long lunches´. The hostel I stayed at was extremely fun and filled with a good crowd. A number of us ventured out on the Friday night before New years and were not dissapointed with one of the newer clubs in Mendoza, Carilo . Another amazing clubbing experience, with the setting providing much of the enjoyment from the whole night... The sheer number of people at the club meant that I quickly became separated from the rest of the group, which wasn´t too much of a drama as I seemed to make friends with almost everyone. Offering ´snus´ to anyone who was willing to try it I was amazed once again by just how friendly the Argentines were and found it difficult to understand how people from other regions of Argentina could think that Mendoza was a rather closed community, difficult to break into.

I had a great time just talking with loads of people and dancing the night away until the orange sun rose above the horizon, giving rise to amazing vistas with the sprawling metropolis of Mendoza in the valley below. This is life !!!

The following evening, New Years eve was an absolute hoot ! After purchasing $400 pesos worth of fireworks (about 10% of an average monthly wage in Argentina) a group of us engaged in some urban warfare with the younger Mendozan community, each group attemtping to outdo the other in terms of just how loud they could be. It´s fair to say we won hands down and with the help of the friendly fireworks shop owner put on a great display for everyone. The hostel did a great job of organising a feast and later on a DJ for us all to enjoy and so we tucked into the $50 pesos worth of food and alcohol like it was the last day of the year !!!

There were so many funny moments from the night it is difficult for me to recount them all. Some of the highlights included the new spanish phrase of ´F#cking Bueno !´, people nuding up in the pool, misplaced fireworks (i.e. bombs) destroying some of the deckchairs around the pool and some of the dance moves being busted out. We all partied well into the night although not all of us made it out to the club later on, myself included. From all accounts it was another great clubbing experience and I was dissapointed not to have been involved. Still, around 7am, after only a few hours sleep a number of us decided to wake up the few people which had not ventured out so as to continue drinking, whether it be around the pool, down the street (where we were hassled by some of Mendoza´s ´finest´ citizens such as sleezy 70 year old man and people just starting to fights) or wherever we could.

This nonsense continued until well into the afternoon until I almost collapsed from exhaustion. This wasn´t of course until after we had pushed every single person with dry clothes into the pool (in the process causing some people to become rather upset - only because they hadn´t slept and also a number of injuries including a sprained ankle and cut foot) and ´acquired´ as many free beers as we could before the hostel staff caught onto our plans. Needless to say my remaining day in Mendoza was one of rest and relaxation as I tried to say a few goodbyes before taking an overnight bus to Cordoba.

I cannot remember having enjoyed a New Years celebrations so much in recent memory and my experiences only strengthened my opinions of just what a wonderful city Mendoza is...

Photos 1-3: Andes pass between Santiago and Mendoza.
Photo 4: Cerro de La Gloria - Mendoza
Photos 5&6: Hostel travellers and locals at Carilo.
Photos 7- 11: New Years celebrations at the hostel.