Santiago de Chilli!

Upon arroval in Santiago the first thing anyone said to me was "Be careful, its very dangerous as you are tall and blonde", a sentiment I have now heard repeated in every new place I've been to. It entertains me that the accent and people change, but the warning doesn't. I actually spent my short time in Santiago feeling incredibly safe, but perhaps this is because I always heed the warning.
The hostel I had chosen to stay in in Santiago was comically called Hostel Chilli, and was booked upon recommendation of my friend Emma, 'You HAVE to meet Elvis'. And it's true, he isn't dead, he's working in a backpacker hostel in Chile. The hostel, it has to be said, was one of the best I had stayed in so far. They had DUVETS!!! AND free pasta. AND free breakfast. And Elvis did turn out to be one truly awesome dude; when I first arrived at the hostel there were no other English speaking tourists there so Elvis took it upon himself ("my mum loved Costello, ok?") to take me on a 'lesser seen parts of Santiago tour' to see some of the pretty suburban areas so often missed out by tourists. This turned out to be a pretty entertaining afternoon as we had to get on several buses to reach our assorted destinations. In Chile this is a problem for non locals because you need an Oyster type card to get on any of them. Assuming I spoke no Spanish at all (he hadn't asked!!) I heard him say to the bus driver 'this is my friend, she is slow but harmless and has no money, can she ride for free?!', which the driver kindly assented to presumably not wanting to leave a disabled girl alone by the side of the road! When I questioned Elvis about this method it prompted about five minutes of hysterical laughter resulting in the entire bus probably thinking we both had issues.
The city itself was lovely, much more European feeling than anywhere else I've been out here, and the closest to the first world by miles. The Chilean's actually refer to themselves as the Europeans of South America, and with good cause (in Santiago its true anyway- other parts of the country are a shade rougher!). The architecture was, once again, a thing of beauty but much more consistant in style than anywhere else I've been. I somehow ended up in the middle of an extremely energetic demonstration about Universtiy fees while in the city centre which took me about half an hour to dinsentangle myself from (people kept dancing with me), I was very entertained by placards depicting the Chilean minister for education as Mr Burns. In the evening at the hostel there were free burgers and goregous chilean wine, and by this time I had been joined a couple of lovely but loud American girls and an enjoyably sacastic Ozzy. Plus a Brazillain guy called Douglas joined us from the night before who previously hadn't approached me because he thought I might be 'one of the bad sort of English' (people make comments like this a lot here- I'm not sure what other English backpackers are doing but I'm starting to build up a disappointing picture). We had a very enjoyable night getting increasingly sloshed and discussing our assorted travel plans, joined later by Elvis who isisted I show him my favourite songs from Lily Allen's back catalogue so he could download them 'and think of the crazy english chica' (truth be told, I'm not sure I want to be associated with Lily in anyone's memories, but he was happy).
The next day I had to catch my bus to San Pedro de Atacama in the afternoon, but I spent a productive morning hiking in the beautiful national park, up to see the staue of Maria that guard Santiago as Jesus does Rio. Unfortunately I only have phots from about half the hike as my camera batteries died... but it has to happen to the best of us once and next time I will check before leaving. Plus you poor people who will be expected to look at every single one of the 3000 phots taken SO FAR will definately not be upset about the loss of an extra 50 (I've recently realsied from talking to other travellers that I'm something of a photo fanatic, where they take one I'll take 15, but they're my favourite kind of souvineir so I have no intention of slowing down.).
I grabbed my bus to San Pedro about three thirty and bade Santiago goodbye. Some of the nicest people I've met so far, and definately the most developed city I've seen here, but to think it inhabits the same continent as the abysmally poverty ridden Paraguay blows my mind a little and part of me was glad to leave behind the European vibe and get back to seeing a whole different way of life.

Drive every mountain...

In no way was I expecting the 20 hour bus journey from Buenos Aries to the Chilean capital of Sandiago to be particularly noteworthy. Sure I knew we were going over the Andes but due to the many distractions Buenos Aries had conspired to provide I had somehow failed to process that this meant I would be seeing first hand some of the most beautiful and breathtaking mountains in the world. I especially hadn't expected to be waking up just in time to witness the sunrise over the crest of the surrounding mountains which was truly lovely to behold. This experience was only slightly tempered by the fact that Chilean customs are IN the mountains and its rather gosh darn chilly at 2000 meters above sea level at 7am! The Chilean adjuanas (customs- the MOST important word I've learned en Español) were by far the strictest I'd seen yet, with individual screening of every bag, plus randomised drug searching (I'm obviously starting to look like a real backpacker! A fact I was semi- pleased about when my heart started beating again post invasive backpack searching). I also got stamped into the country twice as the woman on the desk had a stamp malfunction on the first attempt- we shall see what ramifications this has for trying to leave the country again on Monday. However, the drive down into the city itself was spectacular and the Santiago subway system (navigated with help from a very friendly local- the first of several that would accost me to 'practise English so I can be rich in Australia', apparently the true Chilean dream) was just as easy at that of Buenos Aries.

And so I arrived at my hostel with the minimum of fuss to be greeted by a lovely 'young' man called Elvis...

Colonia de Sniggermento

Having already been on a short trip to Uruguay I was well prepared for the biting wind as we stepped off the ferry. Despite days of planning, discussing, negotiating times Emma could reasonably be expected to get up with a hangover (for some reason she seemed unprepared to make the hangover a variable of the trip), and despite all of us finally getting up at 7ish we still only managed to get out of the hostel at 9am, with hopes of catching the 9.45 ferry across to the picturesque Colonia de Sacremento. And to be fair if the directions to the ferry given by the hostel's 'Im SO not bothered' receptionist had been clearer, or I'd been able to focus on the further directions the gorgeous Argentinan policeman gave us in rapid Spanish instead of admiring his looks we would have made it to the ferry terminal for the 9.45 boarding. We in fact made it to the terminal for 9.38 which would have been tight but possible for the quarter-to boat, that is, if the information on the website had been correct and the boat hadn't actually left at half nine. This is basically an unbelievable occurance as everything else scheduled to leave at a set time in South America actually happens at least half an hour after its supposed to, if at all. However, not ones to be so easily defeated we booked onto the express ferry at 12.30 and actually only ended up losing an hour in Colonia (which considering the weather actually turned out to be a blessing). I was travelling to Colonia for the day with Emma, a radio broadcaster/fellow traveller with a mere 2 weeks left of her year long world tour, and Jenny, a primary teacher taking a career break. Having only gone to bed at 4am the morning before all three of us were sleep deprived and feeling a little crazy, which went a long way to set the tone for the day. After spending the wait for our new ferry ride in an expensive riverside cafe nursing one orange juice between three, comparing ex- boyfriend horror stories and talking about the English food we were going to eat in huge quantites upon our homecoming, we were in something of a silly mood. And by the time we got to Uruguay we were in near hysterics running away from dogs (the Lonely Planet does say to do this to avoid rabies... but perhaps not with flailing arms), taking photos of old men waving (in Colonia anybody incidently in a photograph, of the landscape for example, waves enthusiastically) and spending several hours in a resturant eating VERY slowly so we didn't have to go back out in the cold.
The town itself was actually beautiful; ancient but well maintained buildings against the tableau of the tempestuous sea, but there was a little voice at the back of my head that kept pointing out that it was probably even prettier when it was sunny and all the tourist stuff was open or could be comfortably participated in outside. However I'm glad that we made a day of it; partly because it was a beautiful little town it would have been a shame to miss, partly because I love getting more stamps in my passport, partly because otherwise I would have never tried egg casserole with fresh tomatoes (which sounds vile but was actually DELICIOUS), but mainly because I haven't laughed that hard since the night Mum, Imke and I got pissed and went to see Shrek 4 covered in Barburrito
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Buenos Aires- city of sleep deprivation

The bus from Paraguay arrived a staggering 4 hours early, but luckily as I had gained an hour on my travel I could just about check into my hostel. Negotiating the Buenos Aries subté system was actually refreshingly easy, and I bimbled off the subway on Av. 9 de Julio (6 lanes of traffic in each direction- the widest street in the world) and had the jammy and coincidental luck of ending up right in front of Lime House Hostel. I had booked this particular hostel as it was not only on this awesome iconic street but it was the first one listed in the guidebook and, without a recommendation from a friend, it basically guaranteed there would be other backpackers there to meet. I wasn't wrong, and within a few hours I had met met Andrew (a 2m tall, dreadlock wearing, Canadian tango instructor come computer programmer) and Emma (an English girl who's been travelling on her own for 11 months and is a mine of useful information for me having just done my journey backwards). After a quick jaunt around the city to get my bearings the three of us quickly made plans to go out that night and Andrew offered to take us to a Milonga (tango meeting) at a bar he knew uptown. La Cathedral was one of the coolest bars I've ever been to; a cross between a boutique bar, antiques shop and an art gallery, and the Tango was absolutely fantastic to watch,I was even persuded to get up and have a very brief go without totally disaterous consequences (I clearly am changing out here!). We also managed to consume a bottle of totally gorgeous Chilean red wine each (no hangover either- the good stuff is sooo awesomely cheap out here) and so going for dinner at 3am seemed like a good idea. We sat outside of Argentinian congress and ate Roquefort pizza and sang 'Don't cry for me Argentina' which had the waiter in stitches as Emma and I stood in the café appealing to the locals to forgive us, we had to change, which was a lovely change from the last month which has mainly seen me scarfing down greasy empanadas by the side of a dusty motorway!
The next day I felt great and full of energy so planned myself a lovely 7 mile run encompassing all the main city sights and taking in the lovely docks (that look nearly identical to those in Liverpool- very comforting). While I was running I was absolutely overwhelmed by the gorgeous and iconic buildings (running alongside the famous Casa Rosada was just bizarre), I would say this is one of the most friendly, livable cities I have visited yet- it has such a wonderful vibe I encourage all of you to visit! When I got back Emma and I decided to walk to Florida Street and look at the really cosmopolitan bit of the city, plus return to Casa Rosada to take some phots and see where Evita did her biz (Emma knows a lot more of the musical than I do, but that didn't stop me joining in with the singing). We had been invited out the night before by some Argentinian young men and so after a siesta (absolutely nescessary here) we headed out to meet him and his friends at 0030 and had an awesome Buenos Aries night out of the type for which the city is famed, enjoying the hospitality of the locals (women almost drink free- har har), the vibrant bars and the edgy nightclub. Rolling back in at 6am (standard time for everyone here to get in, even if they work the next day) we snatched a few hours before we were up again to go out to Roquoleta to see Evita's grave and the tango/ music festival that was going on out there (yes, I can now proudly say I've watched Punch and Judy in Castellano Spanish, '¡Él está detrás de ti!'). By this point we had been joined by a Welsh girl called Jenny and had a lovely day basically being girly and chatting away ("Charlotte Church was WAAAY too good for Gavin anyway!"). On return to the hostel we decided to hang out in the Lime House bar which was an excellent move as we got to meet all kinds of other travellers staying here and planned a big group trip to the famous San Telmo market the next day. I was particularly entertained to meet my first Australian of my travels who lived spectacularly up to his national stereotype by joining us for the market after a breakfast beer and no sleep, deciding the whole experience was too complicated, somehow ending up at the BA football match and being breathalized by security on the way in where he got such a high score he was told to go home and drink several litres of water and lie in a darkened room. The market, even sans ozzy, was lovely (although quite Londony), and Boca which we visited after was even prettier.In Boca we were much amused by the street performers,one of whom simply carried a wooden doll about as if dragging a corpse, very bizarre. Despite my best efforts to catch upon my sleep I was awoken this morning by a mosquito dive bombing my head ("Oh you wont get bitten in Buenos Aries", I love being the exception that proves the rule), and today we venture across the water to Colonia in Uruguay which I hope will be as good as the Lonely Planet promises!

Chilling Chako

I was expecting the crossing from Paraguay into Buenos Aries to be through Encarnation; basically the exact same road I had travelled days earlier to get to the Jesuit missions. I was thrilled therefore when the bus instead took a straight line on the single bridge over the Rio Paraguay and headed into the Chako- the most uninhabited area of the continent. The experience of passing through the Argentinian boarder in the middle of this wildlife- rich deserted expanse was one I didn't think I'd get the opportunity to enjoy. And while the customs in such a strange place became even more complicated than was standard (Castellanio for 'Where on earth have you taken my passport you crazy grinning Argentinian?' anyone?!) the experience of travelling 24 hours on a bus full of increasingly jubilant (and increasingly smelly) Paraguayans through the total other-worldly darkness is a twilight moment that will stay with me for some time. The journey was pitch black, darkness like I didn't think existed anywhere in the world- no habitation for literally hundreds of miles around us. Zero light pollution of any kind. And beyond the eerie darkness the experience was something to behold in that so very few European people have ever traversed the Chako, it being so easy to get lost (it is largely unmapped) that many travellers bypass it altogether. I also think it might be one of the only times in my life I've been the only European; not a single other person on that bus was from anywhere other than Paraguay.

I in no way expected the 24 hour bus journey connecting the two capitals to be a highlight of my trip, but I think I will always remember the frightening calm of being miles from anywhere, in the pitch black, seeing lands few other people I will ever meet will see, on a bus without a single other person who could speak my language. And I will forever be grateful that not only did I speak enough Spanish to get my passport back, but that the bus didn't break down out there 'coz God only knows what would have happened then...

A final post from Paraguay

With only one (very busy) day left here in this spartanly beautiful country now comes the time to write my final post from Paraguay.



The weekend trip to Encarnacion was all it promised to be; the ruins very similar to Roman Ruins that can be seen in good ol´Blighty, and the weather a dance like worse! Despite the Paraguayan tourist experience being as expected we actually had a very enjoyable time. Employing the use of the trusty Lonely Planet we managed to find a coffee shops with the most decidant cakes imaginable, proper coffee for my first time since Monte, and heating!! Sat around with Sue, Noemi (our volunteer supervisor) and new recruit Samantha it was hard not to giggle as we wondered why we had braved the overnight bus to get to the friendly but dank ´city´. We explored the tiny border town (really all it was), and had a quick play on the see-saws (most of these people have never encountered the English before... and it´s SO important to make a good first impression). Later enjoying cafe stops for the best food we´d tasted in weeks and before retiring to our tiny, filthy hotel room with a litre of ´Bull's Blood´- a potent combination of red wine and Calpol apparently. Sans heating, light or working toilet the hotel was another example of what is fast becoming the standard quality of such accomodation on this trip!! I would always always book a hostel now in preference to a cheap hotel, infinately better and more fun... however, Encarnation doesn´t have a single hostel, giving a good indication of the size and popularity of Paraguay´s premire tourist spot!
Tomorrow we head to San Bernadino for the day- the local Paraguayan 'beach'. Except for the lake it boarders is toxic, so to swim would equal death. But apprently it´s pretty, and I´m looking forward to an enjoyable last day in a sleepy Py backwater....



And so, for the final part of my final post from Paraguay I would like to take a second to summarise some key life lessons learned here:

• You will get bitten in the two seconds between getting out the shower and reapplying your mosquito repellant.
• Upon first arrival you will be able to smell the slums from several miles away, after a month here you won´t notice the smell while you´re walking round them.
• Doing washing in a bucket has limited novelty value, and limited purpose.
• Paraguayan people who´ve never met a foreigner before will simply repeat the same sentence in Spanish louder and louder in the hopes you will develop fluency through deafness.
• A flushing toilet is not nescessary for survival, but boy is it nice.
• Being tall and blonde is a bad idea in Paraguay.
• You can sleep anywhere, and through anything, if you are tired enough.
• An eight year old Paraguayan child can apply enough glitter to your scalp in 5 seconds to last a week and a half.
• Never try to learn a language by repeating what the children say.
• All the children here know more swearwords than I do.
• Just because it looks like food, doesn´t mean that it´ll taste like food

And so, a tiny bit wiser and older, on to Buenos Aries...

A further thought

Yesterday I booked my ticket to Buenos Aries, I will now officially be spending the entirity of next Wednesday on a bus in order to grasp an opportunity to see the (hopefully) beautiful and unique Argentinian captial. And despite my excitement, mingled with the inherant terror I´ve felt every shaky step of this trip to date, I feel a sadness to be departing from Asuncion. Even though it has little to offer in the way of a tourist experience this city offers something unique through that failing alone. What other city (much less capital city) can realistically boast that you can walk through it without seeing another English person?
This sadness is also prompted by the fact that the project is now fully up and running, and becoming an increasingly fulfilling experience as I get to know the children and my Spanish is starting to improve. I feel incredibly proud to have been part of setting up something that I truly believe will make a difference here, and look forward to tracking the project´s development after my departure. Coupled with the fact that yesterday I finally visited the market here, which was by miles the best thing I´ve seen in Ascuncion. Finally, the ebb and flow of loud noisy South Americans going about their daily lives! A hundred time closer to what I was hoping for than the fume ridden banality of Acesso Sur. And this must be my top tip for visiting this place; go to the market, buy manyoca fresh from the stall, get a fake iPod for a tenner (a Paraguayan speciality), and learn enough Spanish to understand the noise of the gloriously stereotypical South American life around you- then you will leave this city with the warm glow of life experienced.
While I have another week here, the Jesuit missions to visit this weekend, and San Bernadino to visit next Tuesday (ie. pleanty of time to be sick to death of it all!!) I feel pretty certain in saying that this time next week I will be sad to leave this hauntingly tourist-void country behind.

A Paraguayan tourist experience

Since rocking up in this country a little over two weeks ago I have done my best to make the most of what there is to see here; when visiting the falls Izzy and I scheduled in a trip to see the Itapu Dam, the second biggest hydroelectric dam in the world (China beating Paraguay, and the rest of the world, with superior technology a few years ago). A monumental abomination (destroying falls bigger than those I went to see) making Paraguay the biggest supplier of hydroelectricity in the world (and a big reason why my current Wednesday evening activity is to sit in the dark, wearing a headtorch, playing cards- oh yes, powercuts are frequent and loooong). You can tell how thrilling I found this experience by the fact it wasn´t even mentioned in the relevant blog.

However, I mention it now because I feel it perfectly underlines my inability to believe that this country has nothing to offer a tourist, in the sense that the Friday past saw my colleagues and I enbark on a two hour bone shaking bus journey to see 'The Vatican City of Paraguay'. A place hailed by the Paraguayan tourist board as a monument to rival that of Rome. Naturally when we got there we found not architecture to rival Italy but a single smegging church, which was very pretty in its own way, but definately not worth the crippling two hour, 35 degree journey (the picture shows the entirety of Vatican City- apprently thousands visit here at Xmas, it´s beyond me how they fit them all in).

On the plus side it did prove that no matter how removed a country is from a traditional tourist trade the scope for manufacturing total crap still abounds. And trust me, if this country had anything nearing a postal system one of the delightful figurines pictured below would be winging its way towards the garden of Dudley Road. My favourite one was Spongebob Squarepants.

We visit the Jesuit Missions next week, a Lonely Planet reccommended visit (but then again so was the damn dam). I think my optimism keeps me young...

Coatamundi

A post just for my little sister.

How cute are these little South American critters?!

Anyone who wants one let me know and I´ll fed-ex it to you next time I hit civilisation.

A word about Paraguay

Ok, so I´ve been in the ´heart of South America´for a whole two weeks today and I thought now might be an appropriate time to pen a few words about the city I currently call home and the project I´m currently working on.

In order to properly picture Asuncion I would ask you to please go to your washing machine, empty the contents of your kitchen and bathroon bin into the drum, wash, then take the resultant mush to you back garden. Once this is done cover the pile liberally with sand, buy the oldest loudest motorbike you can find and wedge it so the exhaust coughs out over the mess and then place a dead dog in the middle. Once you´ve put your face in it you will have some idea of what Ascuncion smells, looks ad sounds like. And I´m not joking about the dead dog either, I passed four out running yesterday. That said the people here are lovely, very quiet, in sharp contrast to their automobiles. The sunsets are beautiful and some of the more central buildings are architecturally lovely. Our flat here is best descibed as an experience (my bedroom door pictured above). We do the washing in a bucket, and because of the humidity it takes about 2 days for clothes to dry. The only hot water is in the bathroom and that is inconsistent at best. The curtains are nailed to the wall. However it is quite a sweet little flat (on the scariest road in the world- pictured left), and I think I have acclimatised to the conditions here fairly fast- I can run much faster than the buses that thunder about outside now!

The programme we are working on is a community outreach project to enable street children to learn some English. We go into centres around the city and teach the children English games, colours, numbers and animals etc... they are slowly beginning to pick up English, but what they are mainly learning is that English girls really hate glitter glue in thier hair. The children are generally poor and dirty, however not much poorer and dirtier than children you would find in the more impoverished areas of Britain. The project seems worthwhile, but is still in it´s very grassroots stages, and is knackering for someone like me who doesn´t speak Spanish well (the children speak sooo fast).

Anyway, I will keep you all updated about how it is going here. Remember, the moral of the story is, if the country doesn´t have a guidebook available at your local Waterstones, there´s a reason.

Puerto Iguazu (and the joy of customs)

So we arrived in Puerto Iguazu in Argentina on Friday of last week having finally managed to negotiate Paraguayan customs, then Brazilian customs and finally Argentinaian customs... little did we know that the worst of the customs was yet to come...

We booked our tickets to return to Paraguay at the bus station on arrival, along with tickets to the falls for the following day (including a speedboat ride through the gorgeous waterfalls!). After recruiting a French guy at the bus station by the name of Pierre Francoise (no joke), Izzy and I want to find our hostel, which was conveniently located not too far away. There we met a guy from Taiwan (call me Jerry), a girl from Chile (yes Imke... I finally met someone called Priscilla!!!), a couple from Ireland (Bill and Laura)... we decided to all meet up for drinks later. But first (minus Bill and Laura) we decided to go out for a traditional Argentinian dinner- this may or may not have been my fault... for some reason I thought traditional Argentinian would be steak... I was half right. For our delicious CUSTOMary dinner (see where I was going with that?!) we were bought two steaming delicious platters of small intestine, large intestine, black pudding, white pudding, chicken gizzards, kidney, liver and a chicken leg and small steak each. Oh yeah, just what I wanted. Now keen as ever to embrace my new intrepid traveller, open to all experiences, image I TRIED EVERYTHING (yes mum, the girl who was vegetarian for two whole years, who couldnt watch her sister eat bloody steak, the girl who cried at the thought of eating lamb). Sadly I was put to shame by Jerry who not only tried eveything but ate the remainder of everyone elses with gusto; god only knows what they eat in Taiwan. A word of advice for those of you wanting to try customary Argentinan food- close your eyes, dont ask what it is until after you´ve swallowed, don´t participate in a conversation about animal biology during, and the thing you actually really like but would never admit or bring yourself to eat again is large intestine.

Luckily we washed this all down with copius amounts of beer back at the hostel, a wonderful finish to a gorgous Argentinian day, and in the morning we were off to the falls!!!

Saturday (Sabado) started disappointingly cloudy, which turned out to be a blessing as the day wore on, as we would have been fried to a crisp walking round the oddly touristy waterfalls for 7 hours (I defy anyone lucky enought to visit to spend any less time in this gorgeously beautiful nature park). The waterfalls were literally amazing, the photos do them scarce justice as such epic beauty is almost unimaginable when right in front of you. I did my best to capture the scene digitally though with a minimal 400 photos (hands up who wants to see 400 pics of me in front of a waterfall, near a waterfall, with Izzy in front of a waterfall, waterfalls alone, a beach near a waterfall... you get the idea. Don´t worry, they´re not all facebook bound). The speedboat ride turned out to be an excellent choice too, not sure how to descibe the feeling of being under a 200 metre waterfall but it gave us an incredible adrenaline rush meaning that we didnt even mind our waterproofs being rendered moot!

After the falls we returned to Puerto Central to sample the Argeninian nightlife (exactly like being in 90 Degrees- expensive, sweaty, sticky floor and music from 1999), hit the hay around 3am (we wont metion Izzy´s extra two hours alone with Pierre) ready to catch the bus back to Asuncion the following day...