Grace and Nia's South America Adventure

After a hectic first weekend in Rio, we headed for a few peaceful days on Ilha Grande, around 3 hours southwest of Rio. After a bus and ferry journey, with a considerable longer walk than we imagined between the two, we arrived on the island and set off to find our hostel. Out of the season, the island was pretty quiet, until we found our hostel at least. The Aquario Hostel had brought Magaluf to the island. Despite booking ahead the hostel was full and we put up in the cupboard next to reception which turned out to be the worst night we have had so far on the trip. After exploring the town and discovering our new found favourite snack – acai, banana, granola and honey – we headed back to the hostel for bbq night. Thankfully this also involved free caipirinhas which in hindsight did not help the sleeping situation as I woke up in the middle of the night with no idea where I was and convinced the guy above was having an epileptic fit after too much coke.

It was the next morning that we were thankful we had not booked onto the party boat with free caipirinha all day. Instead we set off on the two and half our hike to the gorgeous Lopez Mendes beach. For two people who had completed the Inca Trail we should have known better than to wear flip flops to do the hike. The beach itself and stunning and beautifully quiet and well worth the walk. Thankfully there was a boat back!

As lovely as Ilha Grande was, with Brazil through the quarter finals, and with our new found love of Rio, it was time to head back to the city after just two nights on the Island. Our new hostel for our final stay was the delightful, Lighthouse hostel. Arriving back in Rio mid afternoon we intended to head to Ipanema beach for sunset. However, as with our usual attempts to catch sunrise or sunset this was thwarted by a stop off for a smoothie and despite our quickest walk we once again missed it. Beach side caipirinhas, sushi, cake and a late night wander for some hot chocolate later completed a surprisingly tame and early evening in Rio.

Up early Friday morning we followed the stream of yellow and green, decking ourselves out on route, and headed to Copacabana beach to watch the game. The atmosphere was amazing despite us being outside the main fan park. Unfortunately the result was not to be and we joined the rest of Rio to wallow in their sorrows on the beach. It’s slightly easy to get over a defeat when you are on Copacabana beach! For the afternoon we intended to head up Sugarloaf for sunset but unfortunately it was only opened for VIPs that day. With Nia, now clutching a World Cup trophy replica – not the most practical of souvenirs – we went for a walk around the lake and headed back to the hostel in search of a night out. Clearly now completely incapable of taking ourselves out without a chaperone, this unfortunate task fell on two Swedish guys and thankfully a German girl who had already experienced the delights of Lapa and like us realised a camera and map were a bad idea. After an enjoyable evening in the hostel with the delightful Thomas and his renditions of Al Green, we set off for Lapa already fuelled up the night out. We had heard many things about Lapa, and it lived up to all expectations. It is basically one big street party with the option of going into one of the many clubs. A must do experience in Rio as these people know how to party.

Another day in Rio, and yet again another hangover. Today was all about last minute sightseeing. We headed into the centre to the local black market and then off to the hillside district of Santa Teresa. Boarding a dodgy looking tram, we headed up the hill, hoped off at the top in what is supposed to be the bohemian and artistic district, only to be told we were in a gun area, and swiftly hopped back on the tram and headed straight back down. The afternoon was then followed by attempt number two to make it Sugarloaf for sunset; however, by this point it had clouded over, and instead it was a case of last minute souvenir shopping.

For our final night in Rio. It was time to head back to Lapa to sample some famous samba. Joining up with two other British girls from the hostel and a poor Canadian who had only just arrived, and clearly had no idea what he was in for, the five of us squeezed into a taxi already fuelled by yet more cheap vodka and headed to a bar. A couple of caipirinhas and it was already clear that our final day in Rio was going to be another hungover one. The samba band was amazing and by this point we had clearly convinced ourselves we could hold our own with the Brazilians on the dancefloor. In hindsight, this was probably not the case but still a great night had by all.

As predicted our final day started with a sore head, and only our need to finally get up Sugarloaf mountain got our sorry soles out of bed. Third time lucky, we made it up Sugarloaf and enjoyed our last few hours in the sunshine. Truthfully, we spent much of our time enjoying the scenery from a bench as too much movement was a little beyond us. With souvenir shopping still to do – we do care everyone but we were having too much fun to do it any earlier – we went round the Ipanema Hippy Market, had another Brazilian classic, frozen yogurt, headed back to the hostel and off to the airport for the long flight home.

I think it is fair to say that I did not want to get on the flight home. The prospect of Willenhall after Rio is not a good one. The past two months have been amazing. We have been through seasons and terrains, up mountains and along coastlines, in 30 degrees and -20 degrees and everything in between, danced in the Amazon, been drunk in a favela, and have met some amazing people (and some highly irritating ones as well). Somehow we were still speaking by the end, although I probably should have been disowned a long time ago!

And now it’s back to the sunny West Midlands and North Wales. Until next time of course...

Iguacu Falls
The bus journey from Buenos Aires to Iguacu Falls was mammoth, the scheduled 20 hours turned into 24, all was ok as it was an empty bus they let us sit upstairs in cama where you can put the seat that far back and your feet up it’s like lying in a proper bed. This combined with travel sickness tablets and some wine definitely made sure we had a good night’s sleep!

Had we not slept I don’t think the fact that they decided to close the road for 4 hours the next day would have been quite so amusing. Our two hours to go turned into six but we got there in the end!
Arrived at the hostel to find it was BBQ and Samba night. Grace was up to dance first, showing us all how it was done then we had a whole group fiasco followed by a conga train, close call as Grace’s bag popped open and the room key went sliding across the floor. Luckily we were saved a search post samba as some kind soul had handed the key in to reception.

We headed to the Argentinean side of the falls the next day, walking the upper circuit first, catching the odd glimpse and splash from the waterfalls, walking the lower circuit took us closer still, and we started to get our soaking as we took the steps down to take out boat to ride underneath the falls. “Don’t sit at the back” said one extremely soaked lady, but you can guess that we ended up right?

We were ultra prepared with our waterproof trousers and jackets, a quick photo opportunity in the boat before we went racing underneath the falls and I was the one that ended up with the soaking sitting at the edge of the boat! We then decided to take a 3km walk along a trail which was deserted compared to the rest of the park but it was worth it as we ended up walking to a waterfall where we were the only ones there, had our lunch, before I braved it and went for a dip in the ice cold water of the waterfalls.

After walking back we took the train to the far end of the park where we walked along a path to the best close-up view of Devil’s Throat and all other surrounding waterfalls. It was spectacular and we were snap happy but all the photos we took couldn’t live up to how spectacular the falls were.

Iguacu Falls – Brazilian side
Next day, once we’d crossed the Brazilian border, making sure to get in the right line as there’s a different queue if you’re just crossing over to visit the falls for the day, we made it to the Brazilian side of the falls where the walk along the edge of the falls is much prettier as there is much more of a grand overview of the falls with us trying to spot where we’d gone underneath the falls the previous day. Here we had our first bit of Brazilian football fever, watching Brazil’s last game in the quarter finals, Brazil v Portugal, and if we thought they were obsessed in Argentina, this was only a flavour of things to come!

We took our flight up to Rio in the afternoon, having thought that no city could be as fab as Buenos Aires but the beach and the sun when we arrived was a bit much for us after weeks of winter! Having arrived at the hostel, we took ourselves to a Mexican; it was going to be a quiet evening with a couple of Caipirinhas until the waiter plonked down the hugest frozen Strawberry Daiquiri in front of us!

Rio Part 1
Excitement the next morning when we were picked up from our hostel to go handgliding from the top of Pedro Bonita, 520m above sea level. Apparently conditions were good, the wind not too strong and we practiced our “run run run from the edge of the ramp don’t jump” and our landing on the beach “wait wait wait, RUN” and not before! I was first to do the tandem handglide, a tad apprehensive when running off the cliff but as soon as we hit the air felt calm and enjoyed the view on the way down, several photos were taken and the landing on the beach smooth. Then it was Grace’s turn and all too soon our handgliding experience was over and after a slightly hilarious incident where we thought we wouldn’t be able to withdraw enough cash to pay the handgliding man, it was back to the hostel before hitting the beach for the afternoon. Saturday night saw us at Shennanigans, an Irish bar with a fab live band, the minimum spend and marking your drinks on a card before paying at the end was a slightly odd as were the people that befriended us for the evening, our new friend claiming she was an international journalist, we since learnt that the place has a slightly dodgy rep!!

Sunday morning we headed over to the football fanfest on Copacabana beach for the England v Germany game, surrounded by many many Germans, but maybe the sun and sand slightly softened the defeat and the end of England’s 2010 world cup.

In the afternoon we went to visit Christ the Redeemer which involved six buses in total, the dodgiest being the one across town on the way back, when the bus jerked every time we changed gear and considering the bus stopped what felt like every 100 yards it made it a very long journey! Christ itself was impressive, so tall you couldn’t fit it into a single camera shot and you were able to see a circular view of the whole city from the summit.

Sunday night was possible our funnest night out of the whole trip as we headed over to Favela Funk with a group from the hostel, over in the Favela they have a massive party in a club every Sunday night where we danced the night away to funk music until the early early hours.

More football followed on Monday when Brazil beat the fellow South Americans, Chile and there was a party in the street as they were through to the quarters, a slightly more chilled evening of film watching followed our weekend of partying before getting ready to head to Ilha Grande in the morning.

Buenos Aires
After nearly two weeks meandering through Argentina we were finally near to reaching the capital city, Buenos Aires. For me, this was one of the places I was most looking forward to especially after Nia’s descriptions from her previous visit. We arrived at our hostel, America del Sur, which was more like a hotel than a hostel equipped with a hair dryer although this could do nothing to disguise the current ginger look I am sporting.

For our first evening we explored the river front area and San Telmo district where we were staying. Our five days in Buenos Aires can pretty much be summed up by shopping, eating and drinking. After six weeks on the road with virtually nearly no decent shops our excitement got the better of us and incidentally our bank balances. Our legwarmers, walking boots and alpaca inspired accessories that had carried us through so far had no place in Buenos Aires so shopping was therefore a must. We headed to the Palermo Viejo district shopping mall and later the very cool Palermo Soho full of individual fashion markets and shops. The shops were so exciting I even forgo watching the England game until the last 20 minutes , and even then I wished I hadn’t bothered. After some mojitos to ease the pain we went for dinner at a local parilla and then to one of Buenos Aires many old traditional cafes for some cider and champagne.

As Nia had already visited many of the sites, she proved to be a handy tour guide as we headed to the centre to visit Casa Rosado, where Evita gave her famous speech from. Inside are some magnificently decorated rooms, although once again our language skills failed us as we ended up on a Spanish speaking tour. As the previous days shopping had clearly not fulfilled us we did some more on Avenue Florida before visiting Plaza San Martin and finally for afternoon coffee in Cafe Tortoni, one of Buenos Aires’s most well known cafes, evident as we joined the queue of tourists outside waiting to be seated.

For Saturday night, we decided a night out in the fashionable district, Palermo was in order. Actually managing to make ourselves look vaguely presentable for decided to make use of the hostels happy hour before heading out. It was from here that the evening took a different turn and didn’t end up as quite the sophisticated evening we hoped for. Joined by the folk band who had been playing at the hostel, the evening descended into a mixture of poor Spanish and English conversations about A Clockwork Orange, the Argentina economy and the Argentina’s obsession with 80’s music. The evening could go only further downhill as more beer was opened by which point we had been convinced that a local student party would be a good idea. Still being chaperoned by the folk band, now rather drunk and stoned, we took a taxi which then involved a wind keyboard and guitar session. It was about this point that we realised we had managed to spend out Saturday night in Buenos Aires in a grey concrete block with student cheap alcohol, dodgy dancing to appalling music. Despite being pretty merry ourselves or new found friends were gone on all levels so after an hour or so we managed to make our escape.

With just a few hours sleep and feeling a little worse for wear we headed to the San Telmo Sunday fair full of stalls with old antique jewellery, bags, watches and gramophones. Not the most sensible gift idea! On the evening we headed to Palermo’s La Cabrera – Lonely Planet’s splurge option – it was obviously time to treat ourselves. We finally managed to find the place, rammed with similar Lonely Planet devotees, and finally sat down to eat at 11.30pm. The food and service here was amazing and definitely worth splashing out on as both of us agreed it was one of the best meals we had ever had, nicely finished off with complimentary glasses of champagne and lollipops.
By Monday we had started to realise that living by our previous standards was not as possible in Buenos Aires has it had been for the rest of the trip, and so a day of free sightseeing was in order. Firstly we visited the Cementario de la Recoleta, the resting place of the Argentinean aristocracy, finding Evita’s grave where the largest huddle of tourists were. After visiting the church and cloisters we wandered through the local parks before stopping for some must have ice cream

For our final day we indulged in our favourite past time, more shopping, with both of us now fully equipped with new boots, bags and clothes to blend in with the locals. For lunch w went for pizza and the Buenos Aires institution El Cuartito, for one of the best pizzaz ever. Buenos Aires had come alive today as it was Argentina’s final group games. We followed the masses to the Plaza San Martin to watch the game on the big screen enjoying the amazing atmosphere and continual drumming from the band. Not as enjoyable, was the subway ride back to our hostel after the game which blew all levels of busyness on the London Underground out of the water. The concept of health and safety hasn’t been invented here yet. Somehow we managed to get off the subway and back to the hostel in readiness for our 18 hour bus journey to Puerto Iguazu.

Córdoba
We rocked up to Córdoba early morning, super impressed with the hostel, Che Salguero, run by a great bunch of guys and top rated despite only being open six months. Today was goinbg to be a good Day, Argentina and Englands opening games in the World Cup and a Saturday night out in a decent city.

The build up to the Argentina game was as impressive as the game itself, streets lined with avid supporters and their horns and blue and white stripes everywhere with Argentina scored their goal.

Managed a couple of hours kip before the England game despite a party en masse having started and constant drumming to celebrate their only goal!

A slightly different end to the England game where Grace said that even a glass of wine didnt help matters!

Our bearings of the city becoming a tad better we went in search of the student Plaza to spend a chilled hour listening to a live band in the chilly sunshine.

Us and a couple of Scottish girls went in hunt of some food and gigantic empanadas and copious wine was had, including our lush wine purchased in a vineyard in Cafayate before we were ferried off to the club by the hostel staff Who took us out despite being off duty!

The music was a great change from panpipes, we finally heard a new song!

Slightly sore heads followed the next Day and an amble wander around the town with the shape of the buildings outlined in Black paving slabs on the pathway which was v cool.

Next Day saw us wandering off to a nearby German colony so off we all trooped on the bus to V.G Belgrano . We had also been recommendd by the ubder helpful hostel staff to go to a nearby village and althoough the road the bus took there resembled parto f the journey in BOLÍVIA it was wroth it, because although it was siesta time when we got there, we got took up to a restaurant with gorgeous views of the valley where the rest had trout and I opted for strudel, fearing the trout would not be as good as the one in Copacabana! Back to the German town after full of delicious chocolate shops, some of which ahd to be purchased! In our ignorance we had not noticed that the quaint German town was in fact a town full of Nazis that had fled to Argentina after the second world war!!

Rosário
Arriving into Rosário late evening we decided to take a wonder to the old ferry terminal, now converted in to restaurants and found a quaint sushi place next to the riverside with na amzing Japanese garden. A bit cold to sit outside though but we were treated to amazing fresh fish inside.

With our bellies full we ventured to the tange place, recommended by the hostel receptionist, the floor was full of dancers and we felt quite bad havinng to say No se Tango when asked to dance but we dont know a single step! The floor cleared and a famous couple from Buenos Aires started dancing and they were so so good, a definite highlight!

A day of miandering around Rosário, the birthplace of Che Guevara. Cultural evening(!) followed, a trip to the cinema to see Sex and the City 2!

Salta

After the worst overnight bus journey yet, involving another of Bolivia´s fine roads and one smashed window we finally made it to the Bolivia/Argentina border. Bleary eyed in the early morning and slightly confused by the long stream of beeping cars we headed in the general direction of everyone else and crossed the border. One hour ahead, and with no one in sight we had finally made it to Argentina. After Bolivia, Argentina feels like a completly different continent; the sight of tarmaced roads has possibly never been so exciting. With some new found energy, possibly the result of being out of Bolivia at last, we got another seven hour bus and continued on to Salta.

After a game of musical hostels we finally settled on Backpackers Home only to discover that the promised swimming pool was not really in use and it was miles out of town. After one night we headed to the much cheaper and central el andulaz. Having reached Argentina, we now didn´t have much planned tourist wise until Iguazu falls and so the trip is now centred around eating and drinking! After a day wandering around we fell upon the most amazing deli and wine store and although expensive we indulged in some amazing food in a very unique place.

For our second day in Salta we had booked a day horse riding and headed to a nearby ranch. Supervising us for the day was a Dutch girl who was working there for the summer and a gaucho who clearly secretly wanted a spot on X Factor. It transpired that I had never been on a horse before which was clearly evident the moment we set off. Even more so when we attempted cantering by which point I was feeling a little travel sick! After three hours on a horse we went back to the ranch for a bbq and wine. Too much wine it would transpire as the overly gracious hosts forced copious amounts of food and wine under the pretence that I needed more meat on my bones and that red meat was beneficial for a good sex life.

Cafayate

The following day we left Salta for the nearby wine town of Cafayate. A small but pretty town if it wasn´t for the stray dogs who seemed to take quite a liking to me leaving us slightly scratched and bruised. Deciding we were much more capable of taking ourselves on a tour of the vineyards than on an organised one we set off armed with a map to explore. After gatecrashing a tour at the first stop we set off in search of the next vineyard. After a good few hours we conceded defeat and headed back to the town to the infamous wine flavoured ice cream shop. The afternoon visits to the vineyards were much more successful particularly those in English as opposed to us having to pretend we understand Spanish. Although Cafayate was lovely it was very quiet and so we headed to the next city Tucuman.

Tucuman

Our plan in Tucuman was to go paragliding. Unfortunatetly the weather had other ideas. With no hostel for the night we decided to catch the overnight bus to Cordoba; however, this meant whiling away the day in Tucuman which proved to be more difficult than imagined. Determined not to spend the day eating and drinking we did some shopping however 11pm seemed a long way away. The main highlight of the day was realising we had spent much of it trailing after the Scottish Rugby Team. Despite my observations that there were a group of guys walking around in Scottish kits this took quite some time to sink in!

Grateful to get on the bus,we finally headed off to Cordoba in time for the first Argentina game.