South American Adventure

Mendoza was a great litle town. We took the overnight bus there (praise the lord for cama class bus rides). Even stepping off the bus we could feel that the air was a little bit colder. Mendoza is a region reknowned for its wine production. The Argentinian ´Malbec´is very highly reccommended.

We stayed at Hostel Laos, which i would probably rate as one of our best hostels so far. It was clean, and had an amazing relaxed vibe, two friendly dogs, and a constant stream of decent music playng. Mendoza itself is also amazing. There are plenty of plazas everywhere, and the streets are very wide and lined with shady trees.

Our second day there, we took a little trip out of toiwn and went rafting. It was supposed to be white water rafting, but in reality the rapids were quite tame. Our guide was fun though, and we got the opportunity to spin around and pile up from one side of he raft to the other while rafting. He was clearly trying to make it more fun for us.

The higlight of that afternoon was another awkward travelling incident - the purchase of 50 empanadas from a nice restaurant, as though we were ordering greasy takeaway from a fish and chip shop down the road. Empanadas are little pastry pockets filled with meat and spices. In Argentina they make them very small (usually as a side dish or appetiser). We decided to order 10 each, and the look on the waitress´face was priceless. Especially when we requested them to take away. Everyone involved was quite amused.

After a 6 hour bus ride, we made it to Cordoba, a bustling town reknowned for having a thriving social scene. The town is home to seven universities, so you can imagine that it was pretty hectic.

We arrived at our hostel, Baluch, greeted by the incredibly slow talking host. Cordoba is a town with a high Israeli population, and many of the guests and staff at Baluch were Israeli. We would later, after Cordoba, refer to our hostel by crying out ¨Baluuuch!!¨and shaking a fist at the sky. It really did feel like they stuffed us around by putting us in separate rooms and moving us around to different rooms after the first night.

The first night we had asado on the rooftop of the hostel. Asado is traditional slow cooked Argentinian barbecue. The meat was amazing. We met a kiwi couple who were really funny and they even showed their charity to John by donating not one but two jumpers to him!

Day two involved exploring the town. We visited the main cathedral in Plaza San Martin, and the art museum. That night we watched ¨lions for lambs¨(worst movie ever) at the cinema. Cordoba was an awesome town because there were heaps of buskers and street performers all through the town. It made for an ambience that I hadn´t experienced anywhere in Argentina before. In the main pedestrian mall there was a uni band that performed that evening. Ann and I stayed and watched them for a bit.

The following day we made a day trip out of Cordoba to Alta Gracia, a town where Che Guevara spent his childhood years. We hired mountain bikes and raced through the hills behind the town. Being a recently (very recently) reformed smoker I pretty much almost died going up the hills. Downhill was awesome, but Ann completely stacked it going down a really steep bit and grazed huge chunks out of her legs. Because I was the nancy going slowly downhill, I was the only one that saw her stack it. After determining she didn´t need to go to hospital, we rode to the Che museum (his old house converted into a museum) and checked that out. While we were in there it started hailing (weather here is completely crazy - it´s like Mebourne every day).

The next day was our last in Cordoba. We were waiting around at the hostel for our night bus to Mendoza when some other backpackers tell us that the bus company we booked through has gone on strike. We completely freak out when we discover that not only has that bus company gone on strike, but so have three others. We haul our packs to the bus station immediately and end up booking another bus. Outside the strikers are banging drums, and I feel really bad, because in effect by catching the bus that is running we are supporting the non union scabs! But, we had to make it to Mendoza. We waited in the bus station for two hours, playing memory and debating about the correct rules of the card game ¨hearts¨. When it was time to get on the bus, we enjoyed the spacious comfort of ¨cama¨class and drove off into the night heading west for Mendoza, a region famous for its wine, and getting ever closer to the Andes.

After a four hour bus ride (in quite a comfortable coach) we made it to Rosario. Our first impression was that it was a great deal quieter that Buenos Aires (we drove in on a Sunday).

Our hostel, Che Pampas, was amazing and totally different to the Milhouse. It was small, we were virtually the only guests, and the facilities were very modern and clean. On the other hand the Milhouse was a huge party hostel that held over 200 people. The receptionist that greeted us, Debbie, was really nice and friendly- probably one of the nicest hostel staff we have met the entire trip.

The first night we got to drinking some more Quilmes, discovered the financial benefit of cooking our own food in the hostel kitchen, and had a language miscomprehension incident at the supermarket. The cashier hated us! She was trying to explain the recycling system they have (you pay extra for glass bottles at the supermarket, and when you return the bottle, you get the money back.) We were kind of infamous there because we kept going back.

That first night, we got to play John´s ¨great¨board game... Imaginiff. It was pretty fun, we were totally stuffed so didnt end up exploring the town that night.

The second day we went for a massive walk around the town. We saw el monumento a la bandera (monument to the flag) a massive stone and water feature (which also contained an ever burning flame) that honoured the man that designed the Argentinian flag. He was also buried in the monument. The town itself was quite nice. There was a lot of colonial type architecture and parks. We walked along the river, which was quite nice in the morning.

That afternoon we met an Irishman at our hostel (whose name was Karol - so there were TWO carrolls for a short time). Our time in Rosario wasn´t actually that exciting. I think we were all recovering from Buenos Aires! There is apparently quite a great music scene in Rosario - and there were several theatres we passed that I would have enjoyed going to, but the option of seeing a play in castellano didn´t really appeal to anyone else (fair enough).

We only spent those two nights there in Rosario, and then it was time to leave the comfort of Che Pampas for Cordoba, the next town on our list - heading west across Argentina.

After stopovers in South Africa too painful to mention, we finally made it to South America. We were totally stuffed after the almost three day journey, but even that couldn´t contain our excitement to be there.

Buenos Aires was our first destination, and was very impressive. For good reason is it known as the ´Paris´of South America. It is very cosmopolitan, the people are all gorgeous and well dressed, and the city centre combines colonial type buildings with delapidated apartments, modern skyscrapers and crowded pedestrian malls. It is crazy.

We were in BA for four days, staying at the Milhouse Hostel. It was exciting to finally test out some Spanish, and we managed to make it through various scenarios: ordering at the cafe, in the pharmacy, and of course, buying drinks.

Highlights included -
San Telmo: a bohemian and older part of town. Lots of antique stores, lunch in an outside park cafe complete with dancing and music.
Recoleta: the ritzy (expensive) end of town. The cemetery where the rich go to be entombed is absolutely amazing. Everyone is buried in crypts that were adorned with statues and made of marble, bronze or stone. We saw Evita´s tomb there (family tomb).
The Zoo: I don´t know whether to call this a highlight or a lowlight... totally mangy animals, deformed Llama (hilarious photos to come) and half the exhibits were missing. Wrought iron cages and faded signs were telling: the place was certainly past its prime. (And no sloths - despite our efforts to explain what they were to the tourist information people, we had no luck in finding one).
Quilmes: Argentina´s drink of choice. We got to know it well, as it was very cheap and sold in litre quantities! John and I ended up drinking at the obelisk (monument) at 6 in the morning with two Danish guys - that was a crazy time.
Food: Steak at a tiny bar near San Telmo was amazing. The ambience too was great - red dim lighting and the Beatles in the background (totally universal music).
Learning to cross the road: it was quite difficult to get used to the different lanes and this made for a few (luckily minor) incidents on the roads.

After BA, we made the adventure to the bus terminal (by metro) to make our way to Rosario, the birthplace of Che Guevara, and reknowned for being a very cultural small city.

Keeping up with a blog was bound to be time consuming and I was clearly bound to be slack with it... but I have finally decided to get my act together and write something. I thought I´d start with the day we spent in Malaysia in transit.

We flew in to Kuala Lumpur and basically had about 18 hours to kill. Our friend Mindee from IH picked us up from the free hotel the airline gave us, and took us around the city. It was pretty awesome - very humid though. There are all these little markets with every fake designer item you could ever want. and it´s all pretty cheap. Mindee showed us how to haggle, and we gt a bit cocky about it - we were the biggest teases to all the stall operatrors - looking interested, but then we wouldnt purchase anything... they would be shouting after us : i make it lower... lower!

We drank Tiger beer in the street in the middle of the day - it felt weird to be drinking in public, but it didn´t seem to be a problem. After my beer I went back to the vendor to buy water, and they didn´t want to sell me water... she was like: more beer? you buy more beer!

That night we went to Mindee´s house - it was so cool! They had all this amazing petrified wood furniture, a stalactite and lots of ornaments. The highlight was a tennis racquet shaped bug zapper - hours of amusement.

When Mindee´s parents gt home that evening, they took us out for seafood. Absolutely amazing - world famous Malaysian chilli crab, oyster omelette, tofu, greens, lemon chicken, pippis in broth... and more I can´t even think of ...

Mindee´s folks were great. They literally were plying us with booze! We loved it! If only we didnt have to fly we would have surely indulged their hospitality much more!! (Although John did get the benefit of 5 refils of whiskey at the table that night, courtesy of Mindee´s dad..)

The flight left at 1am Malaysian time. I must say, the KL Airport was abslutely amazing. A truly great facility, worthy of it´s claim to be the world´s best airport.

So that was Malaysia in a nutshell.