Posts with tag 'Argentina'

Dont cry for me Argentina

Hi everyone, Matt here from Sunny Argentina the first stop on our South American adventure :-) So first stop Buenos Aires and what an amazing and huge city as were to find out yesterday when we went to explore with our city map and ended up walking for five hours, these things deserve a beer or three.

Well first major place we visited was the La Boca neighbourhood which is an old port town built by Migrants mainly Italian but also some Scots as we were to find out later on at a visit to Boca Juniors who have a player by the name of "Carlos McAllister". The main attractions of La Boca are the colourful Cominito area where all the houses are painted in bright colours, people dancing tango on the streets without a care in the world, Artists selling paintings of their work and an abundance of eateries and coffee shops. Only a few streets away is the imposing home of La Boca Juniors Football club, the Bombenea. The Bombenera is possibly the craziest stadium i have ever seen, a mish mash of terraces and the pitch is within touching distance making the atmosphere on match day immense and you can understand why the fans are known as "the twelve’s" as in twelfth man. We didn’t actually get to sample a game due to there not being one for a month but we will put that right in Brazil.

We also managed to get around all the other bright and colourful neighbourhoods but i have to say Boca was my favourite. All in all an excellent four days in which we managed to see most if not all of the City, visited the famous Bombenera, Sampled a famous Argentinean steak, hit a few bars and clubs, managed to get by with having only received one fake note, a common occurrence so we hear and our Spanish is slowly improving from awful to not quite awful, Enjoy the pics next stop is Rio....................

La boca Neighbourhood

La Boca club shop

La Boca Stadium

Martin Palermo signing autographs

Trophy Dispay

Night out at Cro bar club

Iguazu Falls

Iguazu falls was the latest outting we have had. When Elanor Roosevelt saw the falls she said, "poor Niagra". Now I have never seen the Niagra falls but Iguazu is amazing. The devil´s throat being the main waterfall there, dividing Argentina and Brazil. At 150m wide and 700m long it the devil´s throat is the largest of 275 waterfalls in the system. Iguazu falls is smaller only than Victoria falls in Africa and in terms of the size of the "curtain of water" is vastly bigger than Niagra!

We arrived yesterday in Puerto Iguazu on the Argentinian side. Our first place to try was Hostel Inn as we have heard good things but it was full so we wandered around til we found a room in Las Palmeiras (I think thats the name anyway).

Today we headed to the falls early to avoid the rush. We got the 8.30 bus to the falls and if we had gone any later it would have been a nightmare because its high season and the crowd build up fast. After a walk to the side of the Devil´s Throat we went to go on the boat trip. This was 20 minutes that brought you right up to the water falls and needless to say, got you very wet! It was well worth doing but if you are doing it, bring some spare clothes.

After that with the bad weather and considering the crowds and bad weather we called an end to our Iguazu trip. In fairness all we didn´t do was go to the top of some waterfalls but I feel that we havent missed out on anything we didn´t see already.

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Tomorrow, if the weather is good, we are doing a helicopter ride on the Brazilian side and then to Paraguy where I want to buy an iPod to replace mine. 3 countries in one day! Will finish the post then ;)
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So today is the tomorrow mentioned above. No flights because of poor weather so we just went to Paraguy where we bought a few things... like a razor to get that thing off my face!

Later

Brian

Matt on our way to the Devil´s Throat

The Devil´s Throat

The Devil´s Throat again. Cooudlnt see all of it from the top. I think the spray goes up about 200m!

Can´t remember the name of this fall but was able to get a low shutter speed which gives the effect of curtain of water

Other of the water falls. Our boat brought us right beside on of them!

Dry... for now!

Now for a few pics of me!! I´m not photoshopped into this one.

Signs warned us to beware of snakes the size of men!!!

Salta

So after a 23hr bus journey we arrived in Salta looking for the 3rd of Keirans Hostel recommendations, we never did find the first two but im happy to say it was third time lucky on this occasion!

Salta itself is clean, well kept and orientated like most Argentinian towns around the main plaza that's overlooked by lots of Spanish-style colonial architecture.

We only stayed the two nights in Salta and on the first we had an all you can eat BBQ for 25 peso´s about 4 pound or 7 Euro´s with the other members of the Hostel, this gave us a great excuse to practice our Spanish or for me especially realise how bad i actually am! this will change once we take lessons in Bolivia i hope! after the BBQ we headed into town with some new friends and the night ended at around breakfast on Sunday morning, needless to say Sunday was spent rehydrating and feeling sorry for ourselves.

On our final day we headed into town to check out the local neighbourhood take some snaps and seek out a little resteraunt we visited to get some Empananda´s(the local delicacy) only to find it closes on a monday! oh well another excuse to revisit Argentina in the future.

Later were heading to watch Batman and then get the night bus to Bolivia so tune back in, in a few days for some pics of the salt flats.

Caio for now amigo´s

View at the police stop

Me Bri and Rita

Brian, Rita, Sue and Gráinne

The Gang night out

Water feature in the Town Park

Local means of transport

Malvinas/Faulklands are obviously a touchy subject around here

Matt takes a rest on the bridge in the park

This is one of those buildings you see a lot in postcards.