Argentine Supremacy (Water Falling Off Cliffs II)

The Argentinian side is another planet. I arrived with a decent amount of pesos and dollars. The dollars were a godsend, since absolutely noone took cards. Why this is I cannot imagine – Brazil has all mod cons, and Argentina decides to arrange itself like the wild west. Perhaps there's a certain amount of smugness involved, a “we don't have to try, have you seen our cataratas” that ought to tip the traveller off to something special about to happen.

First, though, I had to get there. One of the worst things about Linguistic Incompetence is an inability to adjust: things are confusing enough, so if something doesn't pan out the way you expect, thr result is a borderline panic attack. LP had told me there was a Falls bus from the Terminal for $10. When I arrived, people tried to sell me tickets for $30. Convinced that someone was trying to rip me off, I got a cab instead for $120. Note: the falls buses are run by a company called Rio Uruguay (for no obvious reason). They are the only game in town as far as I could work out (and I did ask around the English speaking staff at the Park). 300% inflation is pretty startling, but once I worked this out I stopped taking taxis at last.

I'd tried to get there as early as possible, having experienced the claustrophobia of the shuffling Human Centipede of other tourists. I had the walkways largely to myself, but then suffered a small camera crisis as I tried to work out why all the photos were coming out in strips which by the time I had resolved it meant that the crowds had caught me up.

Yup. It's pretty good. 

I was still broadly ahead of the game, however, and so it was that the moment was not entirely spoiled when I rounded a bank of trees to be presented with the magnificent sight of Iguazu curving magnificently in a crescent of green and white, jungle and spray framing the torrents as they bent their way along the visible horizon. Forget the slow burn of the Brazilian falls, this was splendour from the word go. I stood and gawped for a while, before remembering myself and my camera. The photographs, no matter how hard I tried, don't really do it justice.

View from "the other side"

The fun of having been to Brazil the day before is that you realise you are walking the same gantries and paths that you could see from the other side. The walkways snake to and fro amongst the cataratas, giving you a chance to look out over them, or stand beneath their spray or catch them in panorama. I walked the high path first, imagining that it would become busier the soonest. That may have been true, but by the time I tried to walk the lower path under the waterfalls, it was already thronging with people wanting their photos taken in front of bits of water.

Hundreds of people photographing themselves. Probably.  

I'm going to take time out to rant. The walkways are constructed so that if you walk along them you get a magnificent view of one of the planet's most visually arresting landscapes. If you do just that, even if you stop to take photographs of said landscape, the system works very well. Where it breaks down is when scores of people decide that taking photos isn't enough, but they must appear in every single one of them. That requires someone to stand on the opposite side of the walkway taking the picture, physically blocking most of the gantry while the remaining space is a no-go area due to the general politeness of tourists waiting for the impromptu photo shoot to finish. It's annoying, but I truly don't understand the narcissism of sticking yourself in every single sodding shot of one of nature's triumphs. Is your sunburned face, baseball gap and brightly coloured t-shirt really adding much to your memory of your adventure? Will you forget you were there if you're not in the frame? I don't know.

Rant over.

The 1st few rows will get wet. 

After a while the sheer volume of people, whether self-photographing or not, began to get oppressive. It was hot, I fancied a sit down, and one of the boat trips offered by Iguazu Jungle suddenly seems appealing. I bought myself a AR$150 ticket for a 'nautical adventure', which seemed to be the one involving being driven into the waterfalls themselves.  I was then sent down a long and winding path, itself showing some spectacular views of the falls, until I encountered a small throng. There was enough time to change into lighter clothing and apply sunscreen before we were offered waterproof bags and lifejackets. My proper camera was put away, and photo responsibility given over to my iPhone and it's handy waterproof sleeve.  Sadly all the photos look a bit like they've been taken through a plastic bag, but it's better than nothing. The tour takes you around the river for a while before driving you almost into the torrents themselves, getting close enough to give the excited passengers a mighty fine dousing in the spray and some outlying splashes. It's a short trip, but it's fun and extremely refreshing. The waterproof bags are highly effective and I managed not to drop my phone. I could, had I so desired, have bought a DVD of my experiences. I gave it a miss.

At rest... the one on the right has lost its wings. 

After a bottle of coke at a cafe where the main attraction was coatis stealing people's sandwiches,  I set off for the Argentinian view of The Devil's Throat, which juts out over its very highest point and looks down into the spray filled valley. It is also a very long way from the rest of the Argentine falls, and the park lays on a small train to deliver the swarming hordes. I thought I'd avoid those swarms by walking, and instead encountered a most delightful swarm, as a passing train disturbed a mass of feeding butterflies, which flapped and fluttered about my face as I passed them by. They settled down to continue doing whatever they were doing (some of the yellow ones were making friends with a yellow plastic bag), hanging out with small green butterflies and odd waspy looking things, but there were further flurries of butterflies along the track, and these colourful blizzards kept me smiling as I trudged hotly down the red-earth track to the Devil's Throat.

The Rainbow Pit

Whereas in Brazil the thickness of the crowds diminished as the afternoon grew hot, here the sheer variety of sights meant that the trails were still thronged with excited visitors even as the act of walking along the metal gantries began to feel like punishment. The first aids stations positioned along the track were filling up with fainting tourists, but not enough to make it any easier to make your way to the edge of the Devil's Throat platform.  Eventually, enough narcissists stopped their self-photography long enough me to worm my way to the edge, and look down into the gullet of Satan.

There's not a hope of seeing the bottom. Instead, what you are presented with is an image from Narnia or some other fantasy world, a pit where all the rainbows of the world are kept for when they are needed. Tiny rainbows flickered in the spray, and one magnificent bow spread its arch from one side to the other of the massive, spray-filled bowl. Looking up, you can see the fluttering Brazilian flag and the tiny specks emerging from their pointless lift. This is Iguazu's highest point, metaphorically and literally. Behind you the Iguazu river approaches, steadily, utterly unaware of the fate awaiting. To the left the canyon marches downwards, further torrents adding their froth to the passage of the river. But right there, in that spot, you could be a pre-Columbian sailor gripping the railing of your ship and ready to go over the edge of the world.

Water Falling off Cliffs

When I was asking people what I absolutely must do in Argentina, 90% of people said their cats preferred Iguazu Falls. Those 90% were quite firm: Iguazu is one of the most amazing things ever, life changingly, breath-takingly, heart-stoppingly awesome, said they. The 10% barely disagreed. Yeah, it's lovely, they conceded. But - they added, being the 10% 'n' all - it takes a lot of time/money/both to get there and see it, and there's lots of other lovely things, such as penguins.

In 2002 I missed three of history's most awesome Test cricket centuries to look at penguins. I'm not making any sacrifices and missing awesomeness for those waddling twats* ever again.

In all seriousness, taking a 2 week trip around somewhere as vast and amazement rich as Argentina does require what Tony would call hard choices. So it wasn't until several days into the trip that I though "sod it", and bought myself a ticket. Well, 10%, I'm glad I went with the ask the audience majority.

I arrived still a bit sick from my mystery cheese poisoning, so apart from a wander into Puerto Iguazu to find the cheapest purveyors of Coca-Cola and to get ripped off by a Cambio, I did very little. My plan, following further advice, was to start with a little trip to the rainforest wonderland of Brazil.

For those that don't know, the rivers around Iguazu serve as the border of three countries. Poor old Paraguay misses out on the Iguazu fun, the River Parana keeping them locked off a few miles up the road, reduced to luring tourists with cheap over-the-border malls (kill me first). That leaves Argentina and Brazil, two Iguazu Falls grinning at each other across the spray and torrents. Most of the smaller falls are on the Argentinian side, which means you can see them in panorama from Brazil, which also has a clearer overview of the famous Devil's Throat, with an unrivalled chance for you (and your camera) to get awfully soggy.

My original plan had been to be virtuous and bus my way to the Brasil Iguacu. In the end, the prospect of three buses and an uncertain amount of time standing by a roadside in Brazil convinced me to cheat and take a taxi (only $100), which meant my slim Spanish and my utterly non-existent Portuguese (taxi guy had to tell me how to say 'thank you') did not hamper me as we eased through the border controls.

The Brazilian side is a slick, modern operation, clearly having had an overhaul since 1939. There are cash machines (making me an utter sucker for using the Cambio), and cards can be used for most costs. A fleet of buses, more regular than the 38, sweep by to convey you to the park proper, dumping you outside the charming, pink Hotel das Cataratas.

Brazil is a country that I'd really like to visit, but this (ahem) well-trimmed Brazilian visit was merely a slow introduction to the wonders of the Falls, and not the nation. Iguazu on this side builds gently to a crescendo, each successive viewpoint giving you a little more until you hit the major viewing platforms around The Devil's Throat.

Step into the spray and you gain a rainbow, but lose a camera

There the Brazilians have built a huge platform jutting out to the edge of a lower fall, so that you stand looking down at a cascade below you, loomed over by another to your left, and faced with a wall of Argentinian splendour straight ahead of you. It is monstrously impressive. It is also, it must be said, very, very wet. Standing inside the cloud of spray will show you rainbows of vivid colour that follow you about, so that you are your very own crock of gold. They are, sadly, almost impossible to photograph without a waterproof camera, but that's not really the point of having your own personal rainbow anyway. I said goodbye to my own multihued serpentine pet of pure refraction with great reluctance.

One of the more bizarre features is the signage for the main viewing platform. It proclaims the platform's accessibility via elevator, and a zizag of patient tourists line up awaiting the once in the lifetime chance for 30 seconds in the world's sweatiest lift. However, you can reach the same platform by walking for about 4 minutes (but the signs do not reveal this). Just so you know. By the time you've queued, the more fleet of foot have been gazing at rainbows for about 10 minutes.

The Brazilian experience is shorter and more compact, and more is about giving you an overview than it is about chancing upon a surprise cataract, offering the climax of the Devil's Throat with little in the way of entertaining foreplay. I was worryingly underwhelmed at first, and sloped off with my impromptu travelling companion for the day, Jess of New York, to have a look at the bird park outside the entrance.

Even more underwhelmed by that, I decided it was time for another go. I left Jess to her Quilmes and plunged back into the park (I say plunged, the bureaucratic process for re-entry was fiddly). It was steamingly hot. I reapplied suncream (taking a short, shady wildlife walk to let it sink in, spotting an agouti as a reward) and then retrod my early steps.

Whereas before there were hordes of tourists, squeaky children and crushes on the narrow walkways, now there was just me and – occasionally – a pair of Germans photographing coatis. Each viewing station was deserted and beautiful, I could stay as long as I liked without guilt (though not without concern about the last bus) and the experience was transformed as a result. As I reached the Throat it was then that I was introduced to my pet prism, and it danced around me for ten minutes as I revelled in the roar of the falls unsullied by the screams of fellow humans. Finally, aware of the passing of time, I tore myself about from the spray and headed back to the buses, hot but very happy.

Pet Rainbow

* OK, I love penguins, but still...

Camera Obscura

A Bridge Too Narrow

One downside of visiting a magnificent place like Iguazu is that there's no way a snap-happy traveller can keep his camera tucked away no matter what the ambient conditions. And Iguazu being a big, soggy waterfall in the tropics, those conditions were humid, wet and oppressively warm. I don't really mind that as long as I'm not trying to bowl 8 overs or work, but my Canon 300D, being elderly and infirm, was having none of it. About an hour into day one my 7 year old SLR decided that it needed a teensy bit of help with the focusing on things. Well, that happens to all of us at a certain age. Manual focus takes quite a bit longer to set up, but does avoid those irritating moments where the camera is determined to focus on something you're not primarily photographing, and it no great disadvantage, if slightly irritating.

At the end of the day, I dragged out the laptop and Googled away to find a solution to my problems. A forum eventually suggested that it was possible - in humid conditions - for one of the two primary mirrors to stick to the other one, and that if you prize them apart the autofocus should resume. Sure enough, on investigation only one mirror was visible, and it was indeed possible, with care and a thumbnail, to prise them apart. I aimed, pressed my silver button and heard the satisfying bleep of the autofocus doing its thing. I should probably have taken an actual photo, but hey - I was excited at my act of DIY, and not thinking entirely clearly.

The next day I set off to the Argentine side of the falls (see next post). The first sight was a beautiful waterfalls cascading out of think jungle. Out came the camera. 

The view through Ned Kelly's visor

And the result? Well, you can see for yourself. No sign of the waterfall, just a thick line of leaves and a lot of black. I tried again. And again. Focus fine, actual field of vision, limited.So, I sat down on a bench and disassembled the camera again, hoping that a combination of sweat, spray and giant brown wasps didn't get inside.

The first option to my befuddled mind was simply this: put right what once went wrong. Despite the mirrors looking quite happy at their right angles, I snapped them back together. Sure enough, my field of vision was again TV shaped, but the autofocus was buggered again.

So, my choice was, take ludicrously narrow photographs like some sort of desperate Peter Lik wannabe, but have autofocus, or take proper shots and have to do it myself. Clearly it was no choice at all.

It's sort of pretty. But at the same time, quite crap.

It only really became an issue when I was trying to get a good shot of the ubiquitous coaties who refused to stay still and smile for the camera. I will need to fix my trusty snapping friend before I try any wildlife photography again.

Stay still, you stripy shit! 

Alas, with so much time spent with the lens removed, some spray did get into the camera sensor, so when I got back to the hotel I had to spend hours cleaning up the pictures to get rid of the spots. At least it still actually works - I shouldn't complain. 

Sierra de las Quijadas Queso Crisis

It's not a bad photo, is it? It's a bit dark and contrasty, but then so are most of my photos. Sadly, its resemblance is coincidental, as I didn't take the damned thing.

Because of pizza.

Well, possibly. Cheese is about the only possible candidate for whatever knocked me out of action on my Quijadas focused trip to San Luis.


I'd made up my mind, at last, about what do do with that precious time between Mendoza and my flight to Iguazu. Although keen to visit Cordoba, I'd worked out the practicalities, and it was easier to pop to San Luis and go for a rock formation adventure in the Quijadas.

Now, San Luis is not somewhere that I would recommend. It's not that there's anything wrong with it, as such, it's just there's not a lot to recommend it when you could go practically anywhere else. The cathedral in the pretty little plaza is just fine, and its bell ringers were, I swear, ringing out popular hits from the 60s at one point, but on a Sunday it might as well have been the opening episode of "Day of the Triffids". There were more House Martins than humans, and I sat outside in a cafe watching them swirl and dive until the darkness blotted out their intricate ballet.

San Luis Cathedral: Don't get too excited

And that was when I ordered the pizza. And chips. And a beer. One of these things was a mistake; possibly all of them, like the combining poison used by The Joker in the first Tim Burton Batman movie. Whatever it was, I awoke early the next day with stomach cramps and a worrying sense of impermanence to the contents of my bowels. I'd never had diarrhoea before, but its symptoms were rather unmistakeable.  I had to dash to the hostel toilet (that was nice - such good timing that I wasn't in a comfortable, plush hotel at this point), where I had plenty of time to ponder the disruption to Plan A.

Not Quijadas

I refused to give up. But firstly I needed to sort out the problem at hand, especially with a 12 hour bus journey ahead of me. A bit of crowd sourcing on the internet gave me the language required from the chemists and having translated the rest onto my iPad I, er, trotted off to locate a Farmacie. San Luis seems so quiet it wouldn't say goo to a boose, but the shop staff almost rugby tackled me as I walked into the Chemists with a shoulder bag. I was firmly directed to a burly security guard who dropped my bag into a bigger, blue shoulder bag, but with a zip and lock mechanism, and then handed back my sealed possessions, this intricate process doubtless preventing me from making off with an illicit haul of Lemsips. "Um," I said. "I actually need something in there". So the whole shenanigan was repeated while I retrieved my iPad. I think he hated me at that point.  I managed to communicate my needs to the pharmacist without too much graphic pointing, grabbed my drugs and a Gatorade and escaped. I popped my pills in the plaza, pondering my options.

These were rather limited, for the following reasons:

• I had arrived on a Sunday. San Luis is not the sort of town that does anything on a Sunday except give Gringos poisoned pizza
• Said poisoned pizza aftermath had now occupied my time till 11am
• None of the travel agencies in town spoken any English
• The hostel tour people didn't do Quijadas on a Monday. 
• Public Transport can get you there, but with something like a 4 hour round trip. 
• I had a bus to catch at 20:30. 



Still not Quijadas

• I still felt like shit. 

Having trudged round town failing to communicate with the agents, I retreated to the hostel where I then got into a long running dispute with the receptionist who, no matter which words from the phrase book I used, couldn't grasp that I'd been told that I could pay half a day for a late check out (£5) and that I wished to avail myself of said option. She tried to usher me out of the hostel about three times before I managed to explain to her why I wasn't going anywhere. And I'm sure I just used the same words as before - maybe my pronunciation was evolving. 

So, no Quijadas for me. Still, I've seen quite a lot of pointy red rocks in my life, maybe a day sitting on my bum was a better bet. I was quite exhausted by this point. I thought about a mini photo project of sleeping dogs in San Luis (of which there were a phenomenal amount), and then thought better of it. I would save my energy for Iguazu. 

Spot the Difference

Alto Images

Aconcagua, impossibly massive, shrouds itself from view. And then, as its might lies hid, a wind picks up, stripping strands of cloud from off the mountain's face until...

"Hola". The tour guide jumps up and down excitedly, pointing at fellow travellers returning to their tour bus. I take a last, lingering glance at almost-clear Aconcagua, but this would not be a good place to be stranded, so I trudge back over the scree to rejoin the bus.

I hate tours. I love what they enable me to see, but I still hate them. They are not really a sensible way for the photo-obsessed traveller to get his or her fill of picturesque sites. In order to have only 5 mins with the Western Hemisphere's tallest pebble we spent 30 mins at least looking at inadequate woven goods and mineral bunnies at Puente de los Incas, and 25 mins and at a service station where I had to bargain the owner down from $20* for a small Coke (the karma of my successful 50% negotiation was dented later when I had to pay $5 for a banana).

Having overreached myself the day before, I thought I ought not to go with the exciting option of hiking through the Silver Mountains and instead signed up for tour of los Alto Montagnes. The final warning from the tour operators was that the tour came with a Spanish-speaking guide, and they could not guarantee that they would speak any English. Resigned to this, I paid up and thought "I'm only here for the views".

And what views they were! It's been 11 years since I crossed the southern Alps (in a car with a speedily diminishing petrol supply, which was a bit distracting), and probably 5 years since I scaled Mt Kosciusko in Australia (not tricky, though my ex got a bit dizzy half way up and had to turn back). Aconcagua, its peak lost to view, is thrice the height of the latter and almost twice that of Cook. I was looking at some seriously pointy rocks, and the novelty was exhilarating.

British-built hot baths - like Tunbridge, but with extra yellow slime

Of course, with me nothing could be entirely straight forward. I tried my best to pick out Spanish words of which I knew or guess the meaning, successfully interpreting that petrolium was Mendoza's biggest economic activity, and the fact that the Rio Mendoza looked like flowing chocolate because of 'muchos sedimenta' didn't take too much work either.  That said, Hericka (sp?) the loquacious tour guide was concerned that I could not understand her, and arranged for me to transfer to another tour, with an anglophone guide, as the next rest stop. In the meantime, I practiced taking photos out of the window to get round the lack of scenic stops.

Having secured my discount Coke, I was introduced to Carolina, the English-speaking guide. I was slightly alarmed to find I could barely understand her but I thought, if she's got a bus full of English-speaking people that's got to be OK. I said goodbye to my new friends, the Argentinian family and Alessio, Daniella and Marco from Italy, and set off on the new bus.

It because rapidly clear that this was not the best idea. The tour was a bilingual one, in both English and Spanish.  Even the non-Argentine tourists admitted they found it easier to follow her Spanish comments. Worse still for me, not only was I no longer sitting by a window that opened, but the glass was twice as tinted as the first bus, meaning mobile photos were now entirely out of the question. Despite having a chance to chat to a very nice Swedish couple, I mostly sat and seethed at screwing up yet again.

My salvation came at the very next stop. As I sullenly rode down the $60 cable car at Los Penitentes, familiar faces greeted me in the other direction. Bus Numero Uno had stopped to look at a Hollywood built Tibetan bridge, Bus Numero Dos had not, so we had overtaken them despite their 20 minute start. After a moment's thought (and checking that my seat by the window was still available) I hopped back on. Like Quantum Leap, I had put right what once went wrong, but with Christ the Redeemer doing the hard yards instead of Sam Beckett. Don't worry, I'm not photoshopping that.

It didn't really matter that I couldn't understand the tour. The Italians and Argentinians filled in with helpful translations, and Hericka's enthusiasm was worth listening to even if the meaning was lost.  And then there were those lovely mountains. Reunited with my open window, I clicked myself silly, grumpy only at the short time at the view point for Aconcagua. We ascended right up into the mountain passes that originally joined Argentina and Chile, and an icy wind greeted us as we frolicked at El Cristo la Redentor and admired some of the Andes at their best.

No, it's not Scott Bakula.

* OK, it's only £2.50, but honestly. What is this, a minibar? 



 

 

Suicycle, or Aimless Wineless.

On the face of it, a cycle ride around a vineyard-rich countryside, sampling olive oil, jams and wines sounds incredibly relaxing. However, if you put together one cyclist who doesn't know how to ride slowly, a terrible sense of direction, a forgotten suncream bottle, recent recovery from a nasty illness and 34º heat, and the whole thing starts looking a bit less clever. 

It started well enough. OK, even that's not actually true. The grand plan for the day was to ascend the Municipal Council building to appreciate their famous terraza with panoramic views of the city in its mountains' foot nesting place, then hop a bus to Maipu while there was still a morning's coolness in the air. I got going quickly enough, but got lost finding an ATM and then more lost finding the city council, which looks a little like an east end tower block. 

I then got more confused, if not actually lost, by the fact that following directions to the terrazzo leads you to an office where the city council staff are tapping away at their computers. Noone looks up. An elderly Spanish-speaking lady says something, but obviously in Spanish. At my look of incomprehension and my muttered "yo no entiendo, no hablo Espanol" she points at a younger man chatting two another two slightly confused looking people.  

It turns out that the famous terrazzo is now so famous that depressed citizens seek it out to end their lives with a stunning backdrop. Therefore the council can only let people onto it with supervision. They refer to you to the designated officer charged with jangling the keys and making pleasant small talk with linguistic incompetents. He was very nice.
   

Not being able to speak Spanish provides innumerable opportunities for unnecessary panic. It's a bit like being a real man: you can't ask directions and you always have to be right first time. LP recommends you take the 176 to Maipu and that it costs at least $6. I arrived at the bus stop to see a bus already there with “Mendoza-Maipu” emblazoned on it. So I leapt on, muttering 'Maipu?' as I did so. The driver nodded curtly.

 

This is obviously a good start, but I clocked that I'd boarded a number 10, not a 176. I then used my 'Redbus' oyster-style card (which had taken a ludicrous amount of time to ask for. In London, if you walked into a newsagents with an Oyster sign and just said “Oyster, please” I suspect they'd know what you meant. Not so in Mendoza, unless I looked up the word for 'Bus'. Despite what LP claims, it's apparently 'Bus') and was charged only $2.75.

I still don't know if I was somehow supposed to pay more for going all the way to Maipu, but noone said anything. My next challenge was working out where to get off. Again, LP wades in and describes a triangular roundabout. Unfortunately, these are quite common. I held my nerve past several trianglabouts, until instinct kicked me off the bus on a pleasant, tree-lined avenue. It was all very leafy, but I had no idea if I was in the right place.

I was saved by a young local accosting tourists in front of me. He was handing them maps, advertising one of the many cycle-hire businesses (in his case Maipu Cycles). It turns out I was in exactly the right place, and just 50 yards further down the road was Mr Hugo's bike hire. A more confident tourist might have checked Mr Hugo's bikes and rates and then gone shopping around. I was just relieved to be where I was supposed to be, and took a map and bike for $35.

My first stop was La Rural, a nice looking establishment with obsolete equipment littered prettily about its gravelly yard. Tours were $50 – in Spanish. They kindly let me wander about on my own.

A bored girl at the gate was handing out flyers to everyone inviting them to come to the next stop, an olive oil producers (Olivos) on the edge of civilization (or so the proprietor told me, warning me not to cycle in the wrong direction lest I be skinned and eaten). The $20 tour consisted of one olive bush, but it was a native olive bush, called an Arauco (no relation to Monkey Puzzles, alas), and it was followed up with, basically, lunch as I was invited to tuck into 3 different oils, 5 tapenades and 6 jams. Oh, and then 24 pieces of chocolate and two shots. The banana leche was so nice I bought the company. Sorry, a bottle.

Not where I was supposed to be

And that, dear reader, was where it all started to go wrong. I was not skinned and eaten, which I suppose is a victory of sorts, but as I made my way to the next tasty venue I missed a turning, forcing me to cycle an enormous loop before I got myself back onto the map. At this point, my levels of fitness, the heat and my stubborn insistence on caning it combined to leave me struggling a little energy wise, and also in the process (unbeknownst to me at this point) of developing nasty radiation burns. Right, I think – let's get to the furthest point on the map and then I can drift back in short easy stages.

The problem is the road north is not the beautiful poplar-lined avenues like those down which my unfortunate detour had taken me; there is a mile at least of open, sun-bleached, truck-rumbled, dusty highway to contend with before wine country resumes, and I was no longer in great shape for it. The temperature had probably got close to its 34º peak, my drinking water was as hot as tea and I was beginning to feel the sun burning me. Foolishly, my response was to try and get through this Mordor-like stretch as quickly as possible. I rattled through the mile until the road transformed from Mordor to Mirkwood, and endless tunnel of green stretching as far as I could see. The damage was done, however, and I flopped off the bike and sat under a tree for a while, pondering the distances remaining to be covered.

If it had all been like this...

By the time I actually rolled dejectedly into the Antigua Bodega, run by the family Di Tomaso, I was about as interested in wine as I am in football. What I needed was water, and lots of it. Fortunately Antigua has a pleasantly shaded outdoor restaurant where I was supplied with water and a minty sort of lemonade, of which I guzzled a whole jug. I was too hot to eat, and I was certainly too hot to taste wine, and by the time I began to feel myself again the time had slipped on so much I was starting to worry about organising trips for the next day. I slunk back to my bike and drifted back to Mr Hugo, having drunk precisely zero ml of wine on my wine tour.

Oh, and on the way back I got overtaken by a tandem from Maipu Cycles. They're worth a look, I would guess.

Meandering and Mendoza

I was told before I left home that I had to experience 1^st class bus travel in Argentina. Buses are the main means of transport (I am told) for Argentinians moving about the major centres, and they are designed to be comfortable covering the vast distances involved in traversing a country of 1,000,000 square miles. One rather optimistic review, that bus travel would spoil me for flying for ever more proved not quite on the mark, as we shall see*, but in the grand scheme of bus travel, the Argentinians do it phenomenally well.

Of course, you have to get the bus first. Liniers bus station is roughly equidistant between Voidia and Erehwon, firmly placing it in the middle of nowhere. But that's fine – it's a fixed point in space (if not in time) and as such is relatively easy to find if you know how to hail a cab and mutter about el estacion de autobus. (my cab driver was evidently a chatty sort, and tried to start up several conversations which – of course – resulted in me looking slightly sad and apologetic.) Understanding what's going on when you get there, why that's a whole differently coloured painted pony.

There at least 11 stops at Liniers. Although they are no more than a hundred yards apart at most, they are arranged in a horseshoe shape with the travellers on the outside, so that it is impossible to keep an eye on all of them from one location. And the buses famously arrive mere minutes before their departure, which (just as famously) is almost always on time. Of course, to the hispanophone the constant tannoy announcements offer a helpful hint. To the linguistic incompetent, however, even listening out for the destination offers no clues, as there may be several buses heading there all leaving within moments of each other.

The solution, as ever, was to follow the herd. I kept a close eye on the 'Cata International' desk and watched who asked the rather sleepy looking man for information as departure time loomed. Following a tannoy announcement (which I swear made no mention of Mendoza, syllables I was straining to hear), several of these herd passengers made a suddenly break for the invisible left hand curve of the horseshoe. I had chosen the right herd.

From there on in it was all comparatively simple. The luggage attendant understood more Ingles than the man on the information desk (interesting choice, there), while the main ticket guy was keen to point me to my seat, my general demeanour of cluelessness clearly giving the impression of a man who not only did not understand speech, but also the Arabic numeral system.

Like a first class railway carriage in the UK, the bus operators make space by removing a column of seats, leaving banks of 2-1 arrangements in the first class cabin (though oddly they do this on Mendozan local buses too, making the bus about 45% floor). Travelling alone is possibly not common, since I shared the cabin with two couples (possibly related to each other) and the remaining single seat was unoccupied. The seat reclines from the conventional all the way back to the horizontal, and a versatile padded board can be used to create a gentle slope for your legs or an entire bed platform with the reclined seat. As with all such ventures, the airconditioning is a little overzealous (oh, how I miss it right now), so I slept in a beanie. But, dear reader, I slept.

I kept a note of some of my thoughts as we hurtled through the night.

• I've got my feet up now. My view ahead is a red curtain. All very Baz Lurhmann. There's no curtain between me and the corridor, so I might get disturbed by people faffing in the night. There're power ballads playing in my right ear, buzzing at me like musical gnats. I've spotted the Power of Love, and several vague eighties hits of which I can never remember the title. It's dark outside, so no real sights till morning. God, I hope I sleep. The couple to my left keep coughing. They are elderly. I think they're travelling with family, also quite old. I'm the baby of first class. Lucky me.
• There was just an announcement. The speaker is broken, so there was a weird clunking sound all the way through like a mechanical chipmunk, but I wouldn't have understood anyway. It might have been about food: I thought I heard 'vegetarian', but that might be wishful thinking, since I also heard 'meatio', and I'm pretty certain that isn't even a word.
• At least I know my tinto from by blanco, though having tasted the vino I wish I'd asked for Coke.
• Picking up more passengers. That's two extra stops now. No wonder it takes 14 hours.
• Ah. They clearly didn't say vegetarian. It's a good job I had a huge lunch. Quite enjoyed the little pot of veg though. Mind you, the old woman next to me has handed hers back, and the waitress has looked at it like a Last of the Summer Wine character presented with Compo's matchboox. If I had the language skills to ask, I still wouldn't.
• Just passed an industrial estate. Saw an illuminated company log with a kangaroo on it. Poor South America, they got the shit end of the marsupial wedge.
• Good God, this wine is rank.
• What, whisky after red wine? Why not? Anything to wash away the taste.
• People are trying to eat tinned glacier cherries and drink champagne simultaneously. Need more hands.
• Ah. I think this whisky may be industrial cleaner. Come back tinto, all is forgiven.
• So, thus far I'm finding my recent enforced period of immobility useful practise for Argentine travel.
• Reach for the stars, though as flaming balls of gas they do represent a health & safety hazard. Nice to see the southern hemisphere sky again.
• Awoke wondering why some idiot had turned on the lights. It is daytime. How did that happen? Look! Rocks! Cows! Otherwise could be Essex. I don't mean the cows. This is very comfy though.
• Mountains! At least I think so. It's all so hazy they could actually be clouds. Or very big cows. But looking good.
• And it gets even more exciting. It's a left turn! We must be approaching civilization. Remarkable, and it lets me see what are now definitely mountains to my right. Snow capped peaks!
• Damn, turned right again. Goodbye snow capped peaks.
• Local vandals have desecrated a pedestrian sign with some sort of priapic demon. Too slow to grab camera.
• We might just be early.

And we were. Which was actually rather bothersome, as my check in time wasn't until 3pm. After wandering up and down the bus station looking for a loo (and to kill time) I joined the queue for taxis, reasoning that even with time to kill my enormous backpack would preclude me walking the mile into town. Spotting an English language Lonely Planet ahead of me in the queue, I quickly arranged a cab share with Ingles couple Sam and Camilla (getting ready to rough it in a hostel after staying in a nice BA hotel on Daddy's air miles for a week) and got dumped next to a giant menorah and a multi-coloured hostel (all hostels in Mendoza are brightly coloured, as if they doubled up as playgroups). My hotel was around the corner. I could have checked in straight away, but it would have cost me AR$250. I politely declined.

A fountain and a mountain (somewhere)

Mendoza, at first glance at least, is a sleepy sort of place. This is probably inevitable given average day time temperatures this week of 30 degrees (at one point it was still 34º at 10pm, though as the weather app helpfully supplied it had a 'real feel' of 33º, so that's all right). Moving swiftly would result in the need to change one's shirt thirteen times a day and regularly to dunk one's head in one of the many irrigation ditches gurgling their merry way through the streets and parks. The city is very generously supplied with trees (including a few joyful Monkey Puzzles), though while keeping your head shady this does mean it's almost impossible to appreciate the city's 'foot of the mountains' location without climbing a building like King Kong, or standing right in the middle of the Plaza Independecia and risking a soaking from the rather overenthusiastic array of fountains.

Mendoza doesn't have much park action as such (and I was warned by a local that Parque Bernardo O'Higgins was to be avoided unless I wanted to “meet some robbers” - I demurred), but it makes up for it with ornate and nicely planted squares. There are five central plazas (nicely described in the Lonely Planet as “arranged like the five-roll on a die”), each with a distinguishing characteristic (though I thought Plaza Espana looked more Moroccan, and the Plaza Italia was only appropriate if you believed that Italy was defined by a rickety construction like a cross between a giraffe and a bus shelter, and a slight homo-erotic statue. Actually...), with Independencia in the middle and most ambitious. It's really quite nice, like Russell Square, if Russell Square was frequently invaded by bongo-drummers and hordes of squealing children at 7pm each evening.

New Hotel view - Monkey Puzzle!

The bus ride had wiped me out, though, so there wasn't much more chance to explore. I checked in, thought I'd have a little lie down, and woke up with the sun setting (and the children squealing). Perhaps bus travel isn't quite so effortless after all. 

* this is what happens to your writing style if you read The Hobbit too much 

The One Jogger of the Apocalypse, and Bussing La Boca

 I got blasé about Boca just in time. I patiently constructed the question “where do I catch buses to La Boca”, but of course I couldn't understand any of the replies, so it was walk or miss out. The city if markedly different here from the affluent north, with narrower streets and small shops consisting largely of security bars dotted here and there. But it seemed safe enough, especially when the scruffy but pleasant Parque Lezama contained nothing more terrifying than a group of old ladies doing aerobics in the shadow of a graffiti'd statue.

The Holloway of the South

I was reminded to be careful, however, but the exclamation of a passing jogger as I stopped to casually snap a distinctive building with my iPhone. “Be careful!” he said, pointing at my hands. “Be careful, e machine!” he added, before jogging sweatily away. Now, I have to agree that e-machines were a terrible make of PC, and I wish I had been careful before buying one for my mum, but the urgency in his voice had me slipping the phone back into my pocket (I'm torn as to whether that was very kind of him, or whether he just put the wind up me for no good reason), and I took no more photos until I reached the edge of the La Boca tourist district..

This begins, roughly, with Buenos Aires' own answer to Holloway. Boca Juniors' home stadium, La Bombonera, looms out over a shabby mixture of scruffy houses, railway lines, abandoned mattresses and garages. The area around the stadium is incredible peaceful, something I imagine is not the case on match days. From there it is very simple to find El Caminito, the famous heart of La Boca, as it had a halo of white tourist buses around it. Once through these circled wagons, it was easy to see the attraction. Although almost entirely aimed at tourists (think Camden market) the playful colour schemes are just so joyful in their garishness that I found it impossible not to smile at them. There are only few streets of concentrated colour, but that's enough space for papiermache Perons, model Maradonnas, painted ponies and tourist-trap tangoers. What real working class life led to the creation of these rainbow byways is no longer terribly apparent (I'm told the port workers used to liberate leftover paint after seeing to the barges, careless of the colours until they'd inadvertently created a masterpiece), but it was certainly worth the walk.

Just past the bus-stops to return home you could see the divide between fluffy tourist land and the real district. It does not look inviting, though part of me is sad that it isn't safe to go and see the real face of La Boca (the strange part of me that is more interested in people than in multicoloured shop facades – it must be stopped!).

In general, anywhere in the world it is easier to hop a bus back to the city centre than work out where to take one to an outlying district, so I finally boarded a bus (staffed by a driver happy to indulge in the pointing game) and made my way back to Alcazar to get ready for a bus trip of a different order: 14 hours to Mendoza. Wish me luck.

City of Death

Buenos Aires came alive today, so naturally I spent most of the day with the dead. The cemetery in Recoleta is renowned mostly for the presence of Eva Peron's tomb. If, however, you couldn't really give a stuff about Evita this is still most definitely impressive, especially if you just want to look at creepy statues and keep repeating “Don't Blink” to yourself.

The 'English Tower' opposite the station

I had toyed with a trip to La Boca today, but the guidebook says don't walk there or you'll be eaten by Maradonna-shaped goblins, or something, and I can barely work out how to order food let alone understand the city's bus system. So instead I headed north to Retiro and Recoleta, both of which are apparently goblin-free as long as you don't go behind the British-built railway station (it must be a bit like Somers Town). Early in my holidays I always take these warnings seriously. By the time I leave I'll probably be wandering around like an idiot, just like I did when I started hopping Sri Lankan buses at the height of the LTTE terrorist campaign. Sorry, mum, I forgot, all right? So La Boca can wait for an understanding of buses or a general ennui about life to kick in, and I walked from the station to the cemetery, taking in all that Retiro and North Barrio have to offer.

Which was mostly people. If Sunday was a day to appreciate the loveliness of BA's architecture and greenery, today was a day to be struck by the sheer busyness of the place. Also almost literally struck by the rather combative walking techniques of the locals. If you ever thought the pavement politics of London were a bit tricky, try BA, where everyone down to and including little old grannies will hold their path determinedly, except when they choose to wobble directly into your recalibrated path as you try to avoid them. Stranded as I was in polite Englishman mode I think I walked an extra mile or two as I dodged and weaved and generally subjugated all pride and dignity in this pavemental pissing contest. I will have to toughen up.

In my fear of getting soaked – a thunderstorm threatened through much of the morning, but ended up a little more than a passing shower – I did get a little lost, but BA is (delightfully) almost impossible to get lost in, at least when they remember to provide roadsigns (about 75% of the time). The quasi-grid system works here just as well as it does anywhere else, and only gets confused when the presence of parks and plazas bends the grid out of shape, like some sort of road-based theory of relativity. I got back on track and, my feet beginning to hurt just a little, found myself on the edges of the Recoleta Cemetery.

The city has not missed a trick in exploiting the popularity of the mausoleums. Unpromisingly, there are three McDonald's outlets right outside (a cafe, and ice-cream vendor and traditional variety) and behind them a shiny shopping mall, the only redeeming feature of which was a bookshop where every shelf was topped with globes of various sizes and colours. Along another of the cemetery walls is a strand of slightly suspect restaurants of the kind often found on tourist thoroughfares (the kind that has illuminated pictures of food outside). Most odd was the presence of a red, panelled telephone box. Perhaps it is used to reassure tourists of the safety of the area, the glass panels being resolutely un-kicked-in.

Desperate for some energy before I plunged into the jungle of slabs and statues I skimmed past the various outlets until I came to the final one, a branch of Freddo's. An elderly tour party, consisting of a San Fransiscan lady and two Aussie gents, helped me navigate the unfamiliar process of buying a Freddo's ice-cream (choose and pay first, then go to collect your ice-cream from a woman who doesn't know what you just chose and paid for), and I rewarded them by helping out with the traditional change-crisis and donating a peso. So it was, sated, sticky, but at least having actually spoken to humans for the first time in a couple of days, that I plunged revitalised into the City of Death.

Laser Angel

Cemetery does not really describe it at all. Although the elaborate constructions mourning the dead have a Victorian indulgence about them, this is not the leafy wilderness of a classic British cemetery. It really is a town of the dead: tightly packed streets stretch on their own grid system, different architectural styles compete or compliment and the skyline is studded with brooding hooded figures. After a while you start to recognise certain statue archetypes: there is the angel poised to drop some sort of grape on your head; there are angels with what look like laser guns; there are several burdened Christs, crowned in thorns, looking bug-eyed at passers-by; there are angels pointing at the sky, either indicating the destination of their dead people, or disco dancing (I like to think maybe both); there are representations of the dead, nearly always wearing humorous moustaches and preserving ill-suited fashion trends for all eternity – the richer of these structures often show the dead as a dominating figure surrounded by supplicant angelic forms bowing, kneeling or pawing at the majestic deceased, like a frame of a 19^th century rap video. But even if some of the shapes on show are funny, there's a quiet majesty to others.

Hello, would you like one of these? Open wide!

It is also staggeringly hot. Apart from a pleasant central plaza with monkey puzzles and a water fountain, there is very little greenery in this graveyard. Walking around the necropolis in the heat of the early afternoon, the tombs radiate the heat back out and with the sun high in the sky provide no shelter unless you press yourself right against the hot stone to escape the sun for a moment, which to me sounds too much like a recipe for horror movie disaster.

Scattered amongst the cartoonery of the dead are some far more traditional, Buffyish tombs, with chains and broken windows and dark shadowy interiors. I liked them. At least at 1 o'clock in the afternoon.

Early concept art for Lord of the Rings? El Ateneo fresco

At this point I really had broken my feet. Finding Eva's tomb by searching for the gaggle of tourists and dash of floral colour of her tributes, I excused myself of Buenos Aires' great and dead, and went in search of food. It's very easy to find veggie food in BA, as long as you don't mind walking. This time I crossed over in Palermo again to try about Natural Deli. I will say that only the crumbliest, flakiest veggie-burger tastes like burger never tasted before; alas not in a good way. But points for trying, and the juices were lovely, once I worked out how to order them. 

--> On the way I stopped at the magnificent El Ateneo, possibly the only bookshop in the world where the venue is more striking than the contents. They do a lot of things right in BA.

Escape from Alcatraz: Adventures of a Linguistic Incompetent

Well, not exactly Alcatraz. I'm staying in the Hotel Alcazar in Buenos Aires, and while the room is a little cell like, it's actually very nice. And I'm not totally linguistically incompetent, it's just my second language (if you can quite call it that) is French, and I've never really got my head around Spanish. So, you could call my rain-besieged island home Alcatraz if you were feeling unfair and melodramatic, and I have less Spanish than Bilbo Baggins, so we'll leave the title as it is...

The flight was uneventful. This is normally a good thing, but some of the events that were missing were decent entertainment and the right food showing up. I suppose I shouldn't expect the Spanish to grasp the concept of vegetarian food*. At least they didn't hide any ham in my fruit salad.

The plane was also late. It never seems terribly important when that happens to a flight expected in at 2:30pm. It starts making a difference in the late evening. I eventually crept into my hotel at about 23:10, my journey being further delayed by: slow baggage delivery (no cute dogs), a shortage of ATMs that actually did any telling, standing around at a transport interchange trying to work out how to say "how do I get to Microcentro" in Spanish and, crucially, understand the answer (as it turn out, someone Habloed some Ingles, saving me the bother). 

Buenos Aires feels astonishingly European. That shouldn't be particularly surprising but then again Sydney and Wellington don't feel Astonishingly British. So far, however, this judgement is coloured by the fact that I've really only seen it on a Sunday.  The buildings aren't suddenly going to change of course (at least, I really hope not) but if the BA culture is significantly different it will be interesting to see how the place changes when it's full - people make a city, no matter how many nice wrought-iron balconies there are.

The city centre was deader than a Recoleta Cemetery inhabitant, including an absence of open cafes. This became pressing after an hour's aimless wandering, as wobbliness was setting in with no sign of relief. I swiftly changed plans, heading out to Palermo's green spaces, assuming that if the local cafes around parks and museums shut on a Sunday afternoon it was no wonder the economy was struggling.

Palermo, however, is a pastry paradise. Bewildered by the cream filled choice, I eventually selected both shop and produce, and retreated to the botanical gardens to munch away opposite a statue of an incredible surprised wolf.  A trip to the Japanese Garden allowed me to see my first flag-in-the-shape-of-a-fish, as well as some beautiful and very well kept shrubbery. My language being poor I could not establish the word being spelled out by being cut into the lawn. Perhaps it was mischevous graffita and read simply "mow me".

The MALBA Museum, a shiny modern art block not far from the conglomeration of massive Japanese goldfish, was an entertaining (and airconditioned) treat. The highlight was Oscar Munoz's paintings on a shower curtain (no, really); the lowlight was the strange moment when the woman at the desk refused to take my AR$100 note to pay a $32 fee - she had no change. This is a problem across Argentina, apparently, but I wasn't quite expecting it from a top end tourist attraction. 'Maybe your bosses should have made the fee $30', I suggested, sadly in English. The change problem is such that when a cute child skipped through the Subte later on with a tiny fistful of coins and looked at me with big brown eyes, pleading for me to hand over a shiny centavos or two, I was able to say in all honesty, "you'll be lucky".    

I paid with a card. The museum, that is, not the cute child beggar.

My feet would have been even more sore if I hadn't been able to navigate the Subte system. It got off to a rocky start. I got on at Belgrano, where the woman in the ticket office didn't want to play a linguistic guessing game with me at first, and only (partialy) relented when I just stood there looking despondant and repeating "Lo siento, no hablo Espanol" until my tongue thickened with boredom and humiliation. What Argentines don't do, I've noticed, is type up the numbers on a till or calculator to show you (as happens in many other countries). Maybe the proximity of a British colony has had an effect - instead they just like to  repeat the numbers slowly and loudly English-style in the hope that they will magically make sense on the 17th try. I ended up with 5 subte tickets. I'm still a little hazy about how much they cost.

The next quirk is that Belgrano had literally no maps anywhere, meaning I had to guess a direction and hope for the best. Fortunately, the other stations were much better equipped (including free WiFi! Eat your heart out, Choob) so I found my way to wolves, fish and shower curtains.

Palermo really was quite lovely, and I strolled through the Veijo area to find a recommended vegetarian restaurant. Yes, that's right. My friends have been amusing themselves by telling me horror stories of how hard it is to get vegetarian food, but so far the Argentinians have been very obliging. Meraviglia is a simple but nice vegetarian cafe. As a simple but nice vegetarian it was all but perfect. The all-but being my fault again as I tried to understand the waitress explaining that the tofu stir-fry was off the menu.  Thanks to a helpful fellow diner I was eventually able to select a tasty alternative.

Perhaps I need to make a little more effort with the phrase book.


* one very wonderful member of the cabin crew was normally on hand moments later to stand the offending food away from me and admonish the staff until the right meal arrived. If only I could just carry her around with me.