I didn't have the energy or the mental coherence to be excited the following morning at 04:00 when the bus picked me up from my hostel, but climbed dazedly into the bus and slept all the way to Ollantaytambo (about two hours) where we stopped for breakfast. A little more awake now, we managed to chat a little, what we'd seen, what we wanted to see, who'd gotten sick (both altidudinally and gastronomically). From breakfast another 45 minutes to Km 82, the beginning of our journey back to Inca times (as I was thinking of it). I tried to imagine myself an Inca making a pilgrimage to Machupicchu. They of course would have made the trip in a little over half the time and without so much huffing and puffing, but it would be essentially the same. We got stamps in our passports for the start of the trail, took a "family picture" and we were off!
The first thing that struck me about the trail (aside from the literally jaw-droppingly awesome, majestic, imposing mountain landscape) was how...inhabited the trail was. What to us was an important relic of Peru's Inca heritage, to the Andeans was just the road. Thus many rural Peruvians live along the Inca trail, we passed their huts and occasionally them outside making food, utensils or clothes. There were also many locals leading their horses (taxis, according to Solay) along the trail looking for grazing land. Not to mention the porters whizzing by constantly (more about them later). What I thought would be a peaceful hike in the mountains turned out to be a stroll along a sort of rural Peruvian highway. I can't imagine what it must be like in the high tourist season.
The first part of the trail was fairly flat, and we reached our lunch spot not too exhausted and quite interested to know what would be served up for lunch. Just quietly, considering my previous experiences with camp food, I was expecting it to be pretty simple...sloppy porridge, crappy sandwiches, and tex-mex food. But not only did we get a four course meal (no not kidding) it was delicious. Salad (with alpaca cheese), soup, some kind of traditional Peruvian fish dish, then sloppy jelly pudding stuff for dessert. Then tea. The meal was great while it lasted (even Glenn, a chef at the ultra-trendy River Café in London, was amazed at the standard of the food, saying it was better than most of the restaurant food he'd eaten in Cusco). However, post-banquet, we had 700 metres of mountain to climb up. The morning had been fairly plain sailing but after lunch it was as if the landscape suddenly remembered it was the Andes and that it had better throw some inclines into the mix. So began five hours of slogging up, and up, and up...Surprisingly considering my only above average fitness I was heading up the bunch until the last half hour when my body just sort of said, "Right, that's it, I'm clocking off". Remember, I'd been up since 04:00, and it was now around 16:30, 12 hours later. Thankfully I hadn't suffered any altitude sickness like Bridey, who had felt nauseous all afternoon (how that must have sucked!). Even more thankfully, when we reached our campsite, Llulluchapampa)the porters (who had reached camp aaaages ago) had already set up camp, pitched the tents, and made us afternoon tea.
After a brief but exciting deer-spotting in the surrounding mountains we had our tea, and then basically chatted and killed time until dinner. This again was an amazing experience for me as usually when I'm camping reaching camp means the work is only just beginning - you have to pitch the tent (usually in the dark if it's winter, and the first night it's always a nightmare because no-one can remember how to pitch the tent, you can never find a flat spot with soft ground and usually there's a pole or something missing), then cook dinner, eat, wash up, and by that time it's well past bedtime. Again a huge and delicious meal (all thoughts regarding how much weight I was going to lose with all the walking were slowly but surely dispersing) and then more chatting until bedtime.
I was tired but happy that the first (and hardest walking) day was over. I was in love with the Andes and couldn't wait to start seeing the archeological sites that we were going to start finding along the way.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Peruvian Perdition
It was the day that´s been waiting to happen since I left Melbourne. You know, the day everything goes wrong? It finally happened the day I got to Peru. Having said goodbye to my family I hopped on the plane (late, thanks to monster queues at Ezeiza) and arrived safe and sound at Lima airport. So far, so good. Well, new country, new currency, so I went to try and change my left over pesos for New Soles. The banks and exchange bureaus laughed in the face of my pesos - turns out they only change USD, Euros, Yen, and one or two others. Fine. There´s always the ATM.
Armed with my Visa card I went to the ATM and requested 150 soles, only to be informed that the ATM was witholding my credit card "for my protection". What? Protection from overspending? To my credit I didn´t freak out, took a deep breath, found the number for Visa and tried to call them. And tried and tried. It turns out making a collect call from Peru is on a similar difficulty level than say, a NASA space shuttle launch. Plus it´s impossible to make collect calls from public telephones (I found out after an hour of fruitless attempts) so there was nothing to do but wait till I got to the hotel in Cusco. I sat down with my guide to Peru and tried to concentrate on figuring out what I was going to see when I got there. Finally it was almost time to board the plane to Cusco and I found my gate and sat down. I got chatting to a cool American guy sitting by me, when we started comparing passports. When I looked closely at mine, it appeared as though the immigrations lady had stamped my passport for entry 09/01/06 (all ok) but also for exit the same day. Which means I was supposed to leave that day or I´d be overstaying my welcome in Peru. What followed was half an hour of mild worry (I´d sort it out at the immigrations place in Cusco, if indeed there was one) until I finally realised with relief that the exit stamp was from Argentina. Iiiiidiot.
So now I only had one problem to deal with, not two, and I relaxed the rest of the flight to Cusco. I landed with no problems, got my luggage, met Javier, the owner of the hostel I was staying at, and he took me out to the car to take me to the hostel. I had my backpack on my back and my daypack on my front, and unfortunately in the airport carpark there are some well hidden kerbs, one of which I immediately tripped over. Thanks to the amount of luggage I was carrying I wasn´t able to put my arms out to break my fall, which means the fall was broken with my nose. Javier was awesome, took me to the airport first aid desk where they cleaned me up and gave me an injection for the swelling and the pain (intramuscular, yay). They charged me 10 soles (which of course I didn´t have) which Javier lent me out of his own pocket. He took me to the hostel, made an appointment with a local doctor, then took me there on his way to tae-bo. Unfortunately the doctor was running late, and he missed his tae-bo class, but he said it was more important to make sure I was ok. To be honest he was pretty much my knight in shining armour as even with my Spanish I would never have been able to do it all without him. The radiography place the doctor sent us to to get my nose x-rayed was shut, we had to try three before we found an open one. They charged fifty soles for the x-rays which Javier again lent me out of his own pocket, but luckily the radiographer said she didn´t think it was fractured. Back to the doctor who had left for the day - "come back tomorrow at half past six". Fine.
Next day I was waiting dutifully at the surgery at 06:25. And waiting and waiting. I wasn't worried, as I figured this was down to the vagaries of "Latino time", where 06:30 can mean anytime between 05:30 and say, 09:00. Finally at about 10 or 20 past seven someone came out of the surgery.
"Are you waiting for someone?"
"Er, yes. Dr. Wilson. Do you know when he will be here?"
"None of the doctors are here. They only practise here in the afternoons."
"But the nurses told me to be here at half past six."
Even as I said it, the horrible truth was dawning on me. Yes, half past six. The half past six that was coming up in about 11 hours and 40 minutes. Apparently no doctors in Cusco have private practise in the daytime (strange but true) but the elusive Dr. Wilson could be found during the day at a local hospital. I resolved to go and find him - 5 hour wait be damned - just as soon as I did something about the aching hole in my stomach. Back to the hostel for breakfast where I told Vicky my sad, doctorless story. Within the hour Javier let me know that he had arranged to have the famous Dr. Wilson meet me at his surgery at 11:00. How? I have no idea. Why? He's just a nice guy.
Killed time until 11:00, then to the doctor's to await the verdict...was the Inca hike still on the cards or not? After he cleaned up the cut on my nose again and did a bit of poking and prodding, he looked at my x-rays and said, "I can't really tell anything from these. Where did you get them taken?" Shit. More poking. "Well," he continued, "Be careful on the hike and call me when you get back and I'll tell you if we need to operate.". Hmph. Not a very convincing diagnosis but I was going to Machu Picchu! (On foot). He prescribed me antibiotics so the cut didn´t get infected and anti-inflammatories for the swelling. These cost 100 soles which I paid for using my US dollars I had brought to pay for the Inca hike.
Well, that was my nose sorted but I was on my last soles and I had to pay the balance on the Inca hike (which I had brought with me from Argentina but had to spend on food, lodging and medicine since I had no credit card). I finally got through to Visa and got USD$200 in time to pay the hike (for which I was leaving the following day, the 11th). I went to the United Mice offices and we had our pre-briefing at 19:00. I met Jen, Nadelle, Bridey and Glenn who would be my co-torturees on the trip, and Solay, our guide. I also ended up having to buy some stuff I needed and hadn´t brought: torch, wet weather pants, beanie (stupidly sent to Boulder ahead of time), coca leaves and a walking stick (apparently there´s a lot of stairs on the trail which I was soon to find out for myself, to my chagrin). Luckily all this stuff was relatively cheap but my budget was also tiny, since 140 of those 200 dollars had gone to the hike people. After that my nightmare two days was finally over and I headed back to the hostel to sleep. Even that was prolonged as my mother rang me to let me know I had to talk to the travel insurance people right away or I wouldn´t be able to get money back for my nose-related expenses. Spent half an hour on the phone to the insurance company, then to my mother again, by which time it was 23:00 and I had to get up for the hike at 04:00. I collapsed into bed after a lukewarm shower for a restless night´s sleep.
Eventually as I dropped off to sleep and began to unplug myself from the VISA and nose débâcles, I began to mentally prepare myself for the next day - the Inca Trail! After eight years of dreaming, I was finally going! I was still a little anxious about how my body was going to cope with the Andes, but quietly confident that even if I had to push it to its limits, my body could handle whatever the Peruvian terrain threw at it.
Armed with my Visa card I went to the ATM and requested 150 soles, only to be informed that the ATM was witholding my credit card "for my protection". What? Protection from overspending? To my credit I didn´t freak out, took a deep breath, found the number for Visa and tried to call them. And tried and tried. It turns out making a collect call from Peru is on a similar difficulty level than say, a NASA space shuttle launch. Plus it´s impossible to make collect calls from public telephones (I found out after an hour of fruitless attempts) so there was nothing to do but wait till I got to the hotel in Cusco. I sat down with my guide to Peru and tried to concentrate on figuring out what I was going to see when I got there. Finally it was almost time to board the plane to Cusco and I found my gate and sat down. I got chatting to a cool American guy sitting by me, when we started comparing passports. When I looked closely at mine, it appeared as though the immigrations lady had stamped my passport for entry 09/01/06 (all ok) but also for exit the same day. Which means I was supposed to leave that day or I´d be overstaying my welcome in Peru. What followed was half an hour of mild worry (I´d sort it out at the immigrations place in Cusco, if indeed there was one) until I finally realised with relief that the exit stamp was from Argentina. Iiiiidiot.
So now I only had one problem to deal with, not two, and I relaxed the rest of the flight to Cusco. I landed with no problems, got my luggage, met Javier, the owner of the hostel I was staying at, and he took me out to the car to take me to the hostel. I had my backpack on my back and my daypack on my front, and unfortunately in the airport carpark there are some well hidden kerbs, one of which I immediately tripped over. Thanks to the amount of luggage I was carrying I wasn´t able to put my arms out to break my fall, which means the fall was broken with my nose. Javier was awesome, took me to the airport first aid desk where they cleaned me up and gave me an injection for the swelling and the pain (intramuscular, yay). They charged me 10 soles (which of course I didn´t have) which Javier lent me out of his own pocket. He took me to the hostel, made an appointment with a local doctor, then took me there on his way to tae-bo. Unfortunately the doctor was running late, and he missed his tae-bo class, but he said it was more important to make sure I was ok. To be honest he was pretty much my knight in shining armour as even with my Spanish I would never have been able to do it all without him. The radiography place the doctor sent us to to get my nose x-rayed was shut, we had to try three before we found an open one. They charged fifty soles for the x-rays which Javier again lent me out of his own pocket, but luckily the radiographer said she didn´t think it was fractured. Back to the doctor who had left for the day - "come back tomorrow at half past six". Fine.
Next day I was waiting dutifully at the surgery at 06:25. And waiting and waiting. I wasn't worried, as I figured this was down to the vagaries of "Latino time", where 06:30 can mean anytime between 05:30 and say, 09:00. Finally at about 10 or 20 past seven someone came out of the surgery.
"Are you waiting for someone?"
"Er, yes. Dr. Wilson. Do you know when he will be here?"
"None of the doctors are here. They only practise here in the afternoons."
"But the nurses told me to be here at half past six."
Even as I said it, the horrible truth was dawning on me. Yes, half past six. The half past six that was coming up in about 11 hours and 40 minutes. Apparently no doctors in Cusco have private practise in the daytime (strange but true) but the elusive Dr. Wilson could be found during the day at a local hospital. I resolved to go and find him - 5 hour wait be damned - just as soon as I did something about the aching hole in my stomach. Back to the hostel for breakfast where I told Vicky my sad, doctorless story. Within the hour Javier let me know that he had arranged to have the famous Dr. Wilson meet me at his surgery at 11:00. How? I have no idea. Why? He's just a nice guy.
Killed time until 11:00, then to the doctor's to await the verdict...was the Inca hike still on the cards or not? After he cleaned up the cut on my nose again and did a bit of poking and prodding, he looked at my x-rays and said, "I can't really tell anything from these. Where did you get them taken?" Shit. More poking. "Well," he continued, "Be careful on the hike and call me when you get back and I'll tell you if we need to operate.". Hmph. Not a very convincing diagnosis but I was going to Machu Picchu! (On foot). He prescribed me antibiotics so the cut didn´t get infected and anti-inflammatories for the swelling. These cost 100 soles which I paid for using my US dollars I had brought to pay for the Inca hike.
Well, that was my nose sorted but I was on my last soles and I had to pay the balance on the Inca hike (which I had brought with me from Argentina but had to spend on food, lodging and medicine since I had no credit card). I finally got through to Visa and got USD$200 in time to pay the hike (for which I was leaving the following day, the 11th). I went to the United Mice offices and we had our pre-briefing at 19:00. I met Jen, Nadelle, Bridey and Glenn who would be my co-torturees on the trip, and Solay, our guide. I also ended up having to buy some stuff I needed and hadn´t brought: torch, wet weather pants, beanie (stupidly sent to Boulder ahead of time), coca leaves and a walking stick (apparently there´s a lot of stairs on the trail which I was soon to find out for myself, to my chagrin). Luckily all this stuff was relatively cheap but my budget was also tiny, since 140 of those 200 dollars had gone to the hike people. After that my nightmare two days was finally over and I headed back to the hostel to sleep. Even that was prolonged as my mother rang me to let me know I had to talk to the travel insurance people right away or I wouldn´t be able to get money back for my nose-related expenses. Spent half an hour on the phone to the insurance company, then to my mother again, by which time it was 23:00 and I had to get up for the hike at 04:00. I collapsed into bed after a lukewarm shower for a restless night´s sleep.
Eventually as I dropped off to sleep and began to unplug myself from the VISA and nose débâcles, I began to mentally prepare myself for the next day - the Inca Trail! After eight years of dreaming, I was finally going! I was still a little anxious about how my body was going to cope with the Andes, but quietly confident that even if I had to push it to its limits, my body could handle whatever the Peruvian terrain threw at it.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Hasta Luego, España
After we’d ingested obscene amounts of sugar and fat, we headed back to the hostel and tumbled into bed. We woke up (I use the term loosely) later in the day to check out the Palacio Real, the old palace of the Kings and Queens of Spain. It was spectacular, I must admit, but running on about three hours of sleep I was incredibly blasé about what I was seeing – another tapestry, nice chair, cool throne, whatever. Afterwards I was tired and grumpy and so headed back to bed for the afternoon while Jules went to the Prado. I really wanted to check it out but in my "barely alive" state I wouldn’t have enjoyed it at all so I figured my time was better spent sleeping.
Somewhere in the mix there we went to Toledo, which is a couple of hours from Madrid. Toledo is an incredible little walled city which literally makes you feel like you’ve stepped back in time into a fantasyland of swashbuckling pirates, blushing maidens, duelling, chests of gold dubloons, and maps of deserted islands marked with an ‘X’. There are only two drawbacks – the stores sell nothing but overpriced souvenirs and (very expensive but real) swords; and the streets are so narrow, short and windy and the buildings are so tall that it is impossible to find your way around, even with a well-marked map. At one point we were searching for the cathedral (absolutely huge, beautiful, and full of priceless art) when we realised we had been circling it for the last 5 minutes. Toledo is well worth a visit though, if you can stomach the tourist-trappy aspect which is very hard to ignore.
Eventually our time in Madrid came to a close, Jules went to catch the bus to Valladolid from which she was going to London, and I went to Starbucks and spent the day drinking Chai Tea Lattes with a copy of "El Jueves". Normally I’m dead-set against Starbucks as a propagator of extremely bad coffee, but seeing as I was in Madrid, a city which reminded me so much of New York, being in Starbucks felt right somehow (although Starbucks coffee is deplorable, it’s a damn sight better than the filter stuff that you get everywhere else in the Big Apple). Then off to the airport to catch my flight to Roma. I’d never been to Italy before, and was practically trembling with excitement at the prospect of so much history, culture and art. I was also looking forward to staying in the same place for more than two or three days! My cold was proving impossible to shake and I badly needed rest and relaxation. But how could I relax when there was a new city to explore?
Somewhere in the mix there we went to Toledo, which is a couple of hours from Madrid. Toledo is an incredible little walled city which literally makes you feel like you’ve stepped back in time into a fantasyland of swashbuckling pirates, blushing maidens, duelling, chests of gold dubloons, and maps of deserted islands marked with an ‘X’. There are only two drawbacks – the stores sell nothing but overpriced souvenirs and (very expensive but real) swords; and the streets are so narrow, short and windy and the buildings are so tall that it is impossible to find your way around, even with a well-marked map. At one point we were searching for the cathedral (absolutely huge, beautiful, and full of priceless art) when we realised we had been circling it for the last 5 minutes. Toledo is well worth a visit though, if you can stomach the tourist-trappy aspect which is very hard to ignore.
Eventually our time in Madrid came to a close, Jules went to catch the bus to Valladolid from which she was going to London, and I went to Starbucks and spent the day drinking Chai Tea Lattes with a copy of "El Jueves". Normally I’m dead-set against Starbucks as a propagator of extremely bad coffee, but seeing as I was in Madrid, a city which reminded me so much of New York, being in Starbucks felt right somehow (although Starbucks coffee is deplorable, it’s a damn sight better than the filter stuff that you get everywhere else in the Big Apple). Then off to the airport to catch my flight to Roma. I’d never been to Italy before, and was practically trembling with excitement at the prospect of so much history, culture and art. I was also looking forward to staying in the same place for more than two or three days! My cold was proving impossible to shake and I badly needed rest and relaxation. But how could I relax when there was a new city to explore?
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Hasta luego, BA
When I got back from Ostende it was finally time to do what I'd been meaning to do this whole trip - begin to get to know the city of my birth. Basically that means getting a guidebook and visiting all the tourist traps, and hopefully learning something about Baires in the process. I mean, I wasn't going to learn a lot about Argentine politics from looking at a bunch of government buildings, but at least I was going to pick up a bit of culture from the very fact that I was alone and therefore forced to interact with people I didn't know. Plus, tourist traps are so for a reason...they're cool to see. I'm not going to describe everything I did and saw because that would take forever, so here are the highlights:
I started off walking down Avenida de Mayo, one of the main streets which has some spectacular buildings including the amazing old-style Cafe Tortoni and the Palacio del Congreso (Congress). That leads you down to the Plaza de Mayo, the heart of the city and home to the Casa Rosada, literally the "Pink House", which is the seat of parliament. At first I thought pink was a strange colour to pick for the centre of such a male-dominated arena as politics, but clearly the Argentine men have no limiting prejudices about the supposed femininity of the colour pink, as I found that pink shirts on Argentine men have reached epidemic proportions. The Plaza also has an amazing cathedral, in which the remains of José de San Martin, who liberated Argentina from the tyranny of the Spanish (yay) and possibly apart from Ernesto "El Che" Guevara, is the biggest Argentine hero, are buried. They even have poker-faced guards wearing silly hats guarding the mausoleum. I don't really understand this thing with the hats. Do the governments of the world have some special people that they go to to design the hats for their guards? Some wacked-out bunch who have listened to Seargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band a few too many times?
Plaza San Martin is another plaza in Baires, much greener and a bit nicer than Plaza de Mayo. It's a cool place to hang out, people-watch, read a book, or just lie in the sun. There's a Palacio de San Martin, and an arms museum (interesting but not fascinating) and a war memorial for those that gave their lives in the Falklands War. The memorial is pretty nice actually. If I lived in Baires I could see myself spending a lot of time in that plaza.
For some reason I really like cemetaries, and the one in Baires, the Cementerio de la Recoleta is one of the top three cemetaries in the world, so I was pretty excited about going there. Luckily I arrived just as a tour was starting so I learned all about the different types of graves they have there (mausoleums, niches, and I can't remember the names of all the other ones). The guide showed us some of the important people that were buried there, including a couple of presidents and the one and only Evita Perón. The Duarte family mausoleum isn't one of the most fancy ones in the cemetary, but there were so many people crowded around it you could barely see it, let alone get a picture. Some of the mausoleums were huge with sculptures, different levels, marble, inscriptions, the works. One even had a small chapel inside so you could have the last rites or whatever in there. Nonetheless despite all the grandeur I still like the Assistens Kirkegård in Copenhagen better. Recoleta is like a little metropolis - all built up with no greenery. You can't walk around and feel peaceful with so much concrete and granite. Of course it was still fascinating. I wasn't able to locate my family's mausoleum - there are thousands in the cemetary and for them to be able to find it you need to give them the deathdate of one of the people buried inside. Of course I had no clue, and I wasn't about to wander the cemetary all day in search of the needle in the haystack.
Another cool part of Buenos Aires is Puerto Madero, and the Costa Nera which is right behind it. Puerto Madero is a little port that has just been revitalised and upmarketed. Now it's full of expensive hotels, restaurants and bars but if you look around you can still eat fairly cheaply. The water is quite pretty and it's even nicer at night. Behind Puerto Madero is the Costa Nera which is by a river which was all dried up when I was there so it was a river of mud and green slime (erk). The Costa Nera is home to the dodgy chorizo stands of Buenos Aires, and practically any time of day or night you can find the little carts lined up with choripan, chimichurri, vacio, and other delicious wares. It's buyer beware though, make sure you ask the locals which carts are ok, because you just might end up with a case of dysentery.
One of the days I went to see the Teatro Colón (shut) the Palacio de Justicia (covered by scaffolding) the Teatro Cervantes (shut) and the Museum of Modern Art (shut). At that point I decided it just wasn't going to be my day and went shopping. Well, window shopping anyway. Calle Florida isn't the cheapest place to buy stuff. Another day I went shopping in Once, and there I did go to town. It's like the unofficial Chinatown of Baires, where you can get clothes really cheap. They're not really of the highest quality, but hey, they're really cheap! I bought, amongst other things, a really really really really cool red patent leather backpack shaped like a record, with actual records on the front and back! It's hard to describe, maybe when I get back to Dublin I'll take a picture of it and post it here. Suffice to say it's really cool.
These small descriptions don't really do justice to the amount of sightseeing I really did (and the sheer amount of walking I really did) but I know this must be like going through someone else's endless albums of holiday snaps (ie. you can't wait for it to be over) so I'm going to end it here.
The best and worst thing abou the last days in Baires was catching up with everybody for the last time. In Mar de Las Pampas, we'd arranged for a sort of cousin's dinner (there were only four of us in Baires at the time, but hell, it's better than nothing, which is what I have 99% of the time). We went to Gustavo's house, and my god, the man can cook! I was astounded at the deliciousness of everything and now am all inspired to expand my culinary repertoire which currently consists of spaghetti bolognaise, stirfry, cheese on toast and canned soup. We chatted, ate, drank and chatted, and laughed. Regular stuff, stuff I really like.
On the way home, Maru realised that her mobile phone, usually surgically attached to either her hip or her ear, was missing. After some minutes of flipping out, we realised she'd left it at Gus's house. Bad luck for her but good luck for me, as it gave Gus and I an excuse (like we really needed one) to meet up for lunch the next day. We had a lovely lunch and said goodbye (sad but inevitable), and I hand delivered the phone to Maru's office (what service!!).
That night I met up with Clau and Juan and we walked up Puerto Madero and Costa Nera, after eating some delicious icecream (and discovering they now have beer flavoured icecream, strange but true). More and more chatting, and we would have stayed out but it had started to rain (plus we were really hungry) so it was time for another delicious parrillada. Mmmm. The restaurant was really cool (if noisy) and the lights were low (I think we were eating by candlelight) so we basically couldn't see what we were eating. This is totally fun. Plus with parrillada everything is delicious so there's no chance of biting into something you don't like. Plus the tablecloths were paper and they provided you with crayons to draw with, also appealing to my child-like mindset. We had planned to go home and have some caipirinhas but in the end after all the walking, plus the mountain of food, we were pretty wrecked and (well, Clau and I anyway) fell into bed as soon as we got home.
The next day I met up with my old friend Maura who I'd made friends with on my last trip in '97. We've kept in contact a little over the years but sadly my email writing frequency is generally quite low and Mau has suffered the consequences of that! We went shopping, I tried not to buy things, she showed me the state of the Showcentre, and what a sad state it's in! Last time I was in Baires, the Showcentre had just opened, and it was full of shoppers during the day, and at night the big open spaces were full of people dancing. Now, we went and I think there was about seven people there, not including us. All the shops except for a video arcade and a fast food joint were shut. It was generally eerie, and they should tear it down and build something useful there. That night I had dinner at her place with her family. Mau's boyfriend was the guest of honour as he had just graduated from University with a degree in Engineering. Congratulations Diego! We ate tonnes of food (duh) and the conversation was lively - it was interesting trying to find someone I hated at Maxi's insistence! They found out I love dictionaries so now I think they think I'm a bit weird. But hey, I guess that's old news.
The next day - the tango capital of Buenos Aires - Caminito and San Telmo. San Telmo is full of awesome antique shops and cute little boutique stores - as well as tourist trappy markets selling Boca Juniors merchandise and handicrafts. What I love about the area is all the colour, especially in Caminito where all the houses are painted in different bright colours, Nyhaven style. Pity the place is full of tourists, but it's not like I can complain. Plus we saw some tango dancers and listened to tango while we had lunch. There were Boca fans everywhere, but what can you do. In the afternoon we went to Carla's place to see her and say goodbye, and laze around a bit in the pool. Juan and Clau drove me back to my aunt and uncle's in the city, and Clau and I said a watery goodbye. Man I hate goodbyes, and I'd been full of them over the last days.
That night I had arranged to go out with Maru and her friends, to dance the night away. True to form we didn't go anywhere until about midnight, had some drinks at a bar and then went to the nightclub to dance. We all had a blast, the music was fun, we went crazy and left the club at...I don't even remember what time. We left the club and the sky looked kind of grim and threatening. By the time we had bought and eaten hot dogs, it was pouring with rain. We were completely saturated running the fifteen metres from the hotdog stand to the car. We dropped Maru's friends off at home and began the longish drive to the Quinta in Maschwitz. The car ride was awesome fun, we stopped for terrible roadside coffee and got even wetter (if indeed such a thing was possible), "I got my mind set on you" by George Harrison came on the radio, (which has become kind of like my Buenos Aires theme song) and arrived at Maschwitz dead tired but contented. Lunch ensued, then sleep, then driving back to Baires in preparation for my flight the next morning.
Maru had kindly offered to drive me to the airport at dead o'clock in the morning, which I especially appreciate as she is soooo not a morning person. We left kind of on time which was pretty good for us two, and made it to the airport with two hours to spare. This we thought would be plenty until we actually arrived at the airport and saw the queue was similar in size to the one formed behind my parents when they took 45 minutes to check in. We installed ourselves amnd prepared for the long wait with coffee and cereal bars, and checking out the cuties in the line behind us, who ended up on my flight (yay) but not sitting anywhere near me (boo). In the end by the time I checked in it was boarding time and we didn't have any time to just hang out, so straight to the big blue doors to say goodbye for the last time (for this trip anyway). I didn't want to leave Baires, I'd had such a good time, but it was time for it to end. Time to move on to other things. Time to go to Peru and tackle the Andes. I was scared, but excited. Little did I know what was awaiting me in Lima.
I started off walking down Avenida de Mayo, one of the main streets which has some spectacular buildings including the amazing old-style Cafe Tortoni and the Palacio del Congreso (Congress). That leads you down to the Plaza de Mayo, the heart of the city and home to the Casa Rosada, literally the "Pink House", which is the seat of parliament. At first I thought pink was a strange colour to pick for the centre of such a male-dominated arena as politics, but clearly the Argentine men have no limiting prejudices about the supposed femininity of the colour pink, as I found that pink shirts on Argentine men have reached epidemic proportions. The Plaza also has an amazing cathedral, in which the remains of José de San Martin, who liberated Argentina from the tyranny of the Spanish (yay) and possibly apart from Ernesto "El Che" Guevara, is the biggest Argentine hero, are buried. They even have poker-faced guards wearing silly hats guarding the mausoleum. I don't really understand this thing with the hats. Do the governments of the world have some special people that they go to to design the hats for their guards? Some wacked-out bunch who have listened to Seargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band a few too many times?
Plaza San Martin is another plaza in Baires, much greener and a bit nicer than Plaza de Mayo. It's a cool place to hang out, people-watch, read a book, or just lie in the sun. There's a Palacio de San Martin, and an arms museum (interesting but not fascinating) and a war memorial for those that gave their lives in the Falklands War. The memorial is pretty nice actually. If I lived in Baires I could see myself spending a lot of time in that plaza.
For some reason I really like cemetaries, and the one in Baires, the Cementerio de la Recoleta is one of the top three cemetaries in the world, so I was pretty excited about going there. Luckily I arrived just as a tour was starting so I learned all about the different types of graves they have there (mausoleums, niches, and I can't remember the names of all the other ones). The guide showed us some of the important people that were buried there, including a couple of presidents and the one and only Evita Perón. The Duarte family mausoleum isn't one of the most fancy ones in the cemetary, but there were so many people crowded around it you could barely see it, let alone get a picture. Some of the mausoleums were huge with sculptures, different levels, marble, inscriptions, the works. One even had a small chapel inside so you could have the last rites or whatever in there. Nonetheless despite all the grandeur I still like the Assistens Kirkegård in Copenhagen better. Recoleta is like a little metropolis - all built up with no greenery. You can't walk around and feel peaceful with so much concrete and granite. Of course it was still fascinating. I wasn't able to locate my family's mausoleum - there are thousands in the cemetary and for them to be able to find it you need to give them the deathdate of one of the people buried inside. Of course I had no clue, and I wasn't about to wander the cemetary all day in search of the needle in the haystack.
Another cool part of Buenos Aires is Puerto Madero, and the Costa Nera which is right behind it. Puerto Madero is a little port that has just been revitalised and upmarketed. Now it's full of expensive hotels, restaurants and bars but if you look around you can still eat fairly cheaply. The water is quite pretty and it's even nicer at night. Behind Puerto Madero is the Costa Nera which is by a river which was all dried up when I was there so it was a river of mud and green slime (erk). The Costa Nera is home to the dodgy chorizo stands of Buenos Aires, and practically any time of day or night you can find the little carts lined up with choripan, chimichurri, vacio, and other delicious wares. It's buyer beware though, make sure you ask the locals which carts are ok, because you just might end up with a case of dysentery.
One of the days I went to see the Teatro Colón (shut) the Palacio de Justicia (covered by scaffolding) the Teatro Cervantes (shut) and the Museum of Modern Art (shut). At that point I decided it just wasn't going to be my day and went shopping. Well, window shopping anyway. Calle Florida isn't the cheapest place to buy stuff. Another day I went shopping in Once, and there I did go to town. It's like the unofficial Chinatown of Baires, where you can get clothes really cheap. They're not really of the highest quality, but hey, they're really cheap! I bought, amongst other things, a really really really really cool red patent leather backpack shaped like a record, with actual records on the front and back! It's hard to describe, maybe when I get back to Dublin I'll take a picture of it and post it here. Suffice to say it's really cool.
These small descriptions don't really do justice to the amount of sightseeing I really did (and the sheer amount of walking I really did) but I know this must be like going through someone else's endless albums of holiday snaps (ie. you can't wait for it to be over) so I'm going to end it here.
The best and worst thing abou the last days in Baires was catching up with everybody for the last time. In Mar de Las Pampas, we'd arranged for a sort of cousin's dinner (there were only four of us in Baires at the time, but hell, it's better than nothing, which is what I have 99% of the time). We went to Gustavo's house, and my god, the man can cook! I was astounded at the deliciousness of everything and now am all inspired to expand my culinary repertoire which currently consists of spaghetti bolognaise, stirfry, cheese on toast and canned soup. We chatted, ate, drank and chatted, and laughed. Regular stuff, stuff I really like.
On the way home, Maru realised that her mobile phone, usually surgically attached to either her hip or her ear, was missing. After some minutes of flipping out, we realised she'd left it at Gus's house. Bad luck for her but good luck for me, as it gave Gus and I an excuse (like we really needed one) to meet up for lunch the next day. We had a lovely lunch and said goodbye (sad but inevitable), and I hand delivered the phone to Maru's office (what service!!).
That night I met up with Clau and Juan and we walked up Puerto Madero and Costa Nera, after eating some delicious icecream (and discovering they now have beer flavoured icecream, strange but true). More and more chatting, and we would have stayed out but it had started to rain (plus we were really hungry) so it was time for another delicious parrillada. Mmmm. The restaurant was really cool (if noisy) and the lights were low (I think we were eating by candlelight) so we basically couldn't see what we were eating. This is totally fun. Plus with parrillada everything is delicious so there's no chance of biting into something you don't like. Plus the tablecloths were paper and they provided you with crayons to draw with, also appealing to my child-like mindset. We had planned to go home and have some caipirinhas but in the end after all the walking, plus the mountain of food, we were pretty wrecked and (well, Clau and I anyway) fell into bed as soon as we got home.
The next day I met up with my old friend Maura who I'd made friends with on my last trip in '97. We've kept in contact a little over the years but sadly my email writing frequency is generally quite low and Mau has suffered the consequences of that! We went shopping, I tried not to buy things, she showed me the state of the Showcentre, and what a sad state it's in! Last time I was in Baires, the Showcentre had just opened, and it was full of shoppers during the day, and at night the big open spaces were full of people dancing. Now, we went and I think there was about seven people there, not including us. All the shops except for a video arcade and a fast food joint were shut. It was generally eerie, and they should tear it down and build something useful there. That night I had dinner at her place with her family. Mau's boyfriend was the guest of honour as he had just graduated from University with a degree in Engineering. Congratulations Diego! We ate tonnes of food (duh) and the conversation was lively - it was interesting trying to find someone I hated at Maxi's insistence! They found out I love dictionaries so now I think they think I'm a bit weird. But hey, I guess that's old news.
The next day - the tango capital of Buenos Aires - Caminito and San Telmo. San Telmo is full of awesome antique shops and cute little boutique stores - as well as tourist trappy markets selling Boca Juniors merchandise and handicrafts. What I love about the area is all the colour, especially in Caminito where all the houses are painted in different bright colours, Nyhaven style. Pity the place is full of tourists, but it's not like I can complain. Plus we saw some tango dancers and listened to tango while we had lunch. There were Boca fans everywhere, but what can you do. In the afternoon we went to Carla's place to see her and say goodbye, and laze around a bit in the pool. Juan and Clau drove me back to my aunt and uncle's in the city, and Clau and I said a watery goodbye. Man I hate goodbyes, and I'd been full of them over the last days.
That night I had arranged to go out with Maru and her friends, to dance the night away. True to form we didn't go anywhere until about midnight, had some drinks at a bar and then went to the nightclub to dance. We all had a blast, the music was fun, we went crazy and left the club at...I don't even remember what time. We left the club and the sky looked kind of grim and threatening. By the time we had bought and eaten hot dogs, it was pouring with rain. We were completely saturated running the fifteen metres from the hotdog stand to the car. We dropped Maru's friends off at home and began the longish drive to the Quinta in Maschwitz. The car ride was awesome fun, we stopped for terrible roadside coffee and got even wetter (if indeed such a thing was possible), "I got my mind set on you" by George Harrison came on the radio, (which has become kind of like my Buenos Aires theme song) and arrived at Maschwitz dead tired but contented. Lunch ensued, then sleep, then driving back to Baires in preparation for my flight the next morning.
Maru had kindly offered to drive me to the airport at dead o'clock in the morning, which I especially appreciate as she is soooo not a morning person. We left kind of on time which was pretty good for us two, and made it to the airport with two hours to spare. This we thought would be plenty until we actually arrived at the airport and saw the queue was similar in size to the one formed behind my parents when they took 45 minutes to check in. We installed ourselves amnd prepared for the long wait with coffee and cereal bars, and checking out the cuties in the line behind us, who ended up on my flight (yay) but not sitting anywhere near me (boo). In the end by the time I checked in it was boarding time and we didn't have any time to just hang out, so straight to the big blue doors to say goodbye for the last time (for this trip anyway). I didn't want to leave Baires, I'd had such a good time, but it was time for it to end. Time to move on to other things. Time to go to Peru and tackle the Andes. I was scared, but excited. Little did I know what was awaiting me in Lima.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)