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Around 1900 Argentina was the richest country on earth and its capital Buenos Aires was known as the ‘Paris of the south’. That’s understandable; it still has a Parisian feel with its wide leafy boulevards and streets, its impressive architecture and its interesting streetside cafes, bars and patisseries. And plenty of dog manure to avoid underfoot too.
We came here by ferry from Uruguay on Friday 22 January, and set up shop for eight nights in a 5th floor apartment on Carlos Calvo street in the ‘blue collar’ suburb of San Telmo, a 15 minute walk from the city centre. Sunday market along Defensa Street in San Telmo is a popular tourist attraction and we joined the throng to wander amongst the colourful stalls selling handicrafts and collectibles, and to watch a bit of tango. We didn’t join in; I wasn’t keen in the humidity (convenient excuse I know), and so that was the end of it as you may already have heard that it takes two to tango.
Dylan joined us on Monday after flying from Sydney via Santiago in Chile. He was due on Sunday night but his flight from Santiago was cancelled due to mechanical problems, so he had an unplanned night’s stay there. Everything sorted itself out the following day, so we’ll be travelling now as a trio for several weeks until Dylan tires of South America and heads on to Europe for awhile.
Buenos Aires has an excellent city bus system that combined with a helpful interactive website and smart card, makes planning and doing travel in this large city of four million people a breeze. It’s not a cheap place; its problematic economy has been ravaged by inflation, resulting in some of the highest cafe and supermarket prices in South America. But there seem to be two notable exceptions; city bus travel at around AUD30 cents a ride, and wine. Wine’s almost as cheap as water, and very good quality. The 2012 cabernet sauvignon we’re having again for dinner tonight with our stir-fried Argentinian beef, bell peppers, spring onions, mushrooms, chilli and ginger was the equivalent of AUD$6. It’s surprising that this price can buy such good quality wine. The Argentinian government must be laying off taxing alcohol; perhaps they realize the Argentines need and deserve something both affordable and effective in which to drown their economic sorrows.
After consulting the Buenos Aires public transport website each morning we spent our days crisscrossing the city to see the sights, rapidly coming to the conclusion that BA is a go-ahead, thoroughly modern city that would hold its own against any place of similar size. An impressive highlight was the huge urban renewal project at Puerto Madero; what was once 170 hectares of crumbling dockside warehouses and swamp is now a whole leafy suburb of high rise apartments, waterside living and cafes (although at AUD$150 for a mixed plate of premium beef we won’t be seen there with a napkin on our laps anytime soon). Bordering the development is an expansive, well managed wetland, a haven for many species of birds, and paradise for joggers and cyclists.
There aren’t many cities in the world where the main tourist attraction is a cemetery. But Buenos Aires’ cemetery in the upmarket district of Recoleta is no ordinary burial place. Opened in 1822, it has become the final resting place for many of Argentina’s most influential citizens – politicians, military leaders, statesmen, explorers, writers and poets. What makes Recoleta different is that burials here are not in graves but in impressively ornate, individualistic, above-ground family vaults. Many are fantastic pieces of funeral architectural art quite apart from anything else, and must have cost their well-heeled families a fortune to create. Without doubt the burial vault most visited by tourists, though perhaps surprisingly one of the least ostentatious, is the one containing the remains of the most famous ‘First Lady’ of Argentina, Eva Peron, or simply Evita as she was known to thousands of her adoring followers. The story of rags to riches Eva, in both life and death, is astonishing, and she remains a very controversial figure in Argentine politics, though the fact that three million people attended her funeral must say something objective about her.
Our Recoleta wander over, we adjourned to a cafe just across the road from the high cemetery wall and ordered empanadas and beer for lunch. From there it was a short walk to the cinema in nearby Recoleta Mall where we sank into airconditioned comfort for two hours to watch The Big Short while working our way through a freight container of popcorn.
Uruguay’s capital Montevideo repays inspection. It’s not immediately beautiful like New York or Rio; at 1.3 million people it’s just a minnow compared with those visitor hotspots. But stay here for several days, and wander around a few of its districts, and it quickly grows on you. It’s a highly developed, fairly prosperous place with pleasant tree-lined streets and many interesting, characterful, owner-operated shops and cafes.
We arrived by bus from Colonia del Sacramento and knocked on the door of the apartment we’d booked for six days on airbnb. Or more to the point, the room we’d booked in an apartment owned by a retired University literature teacher, and now airbnb host Marisa. Leetuan led the way with her Spanish and we were soon sitting in Marisa’s pleasant lounge room listening to John Coltrane on Uruguayan FM radio.
Marisa is a good conversationalist, a traveller herself, and she suggested some of her favourite Spanish-speaking singers to have a listen to. I was getting over a head cold and so our following days were lazier than intended, with a fair bit of lounging around “at home”, Leetuan reading her latest novel while I checked out Marisa’s CD collection and “Youtubed” some of the singers she’d mentioned.
We explored the old part of the city where there are still fine colonial-era buildings, visited by throngs of tourists spilling off the cruise ships that often dock for a few hours here, and two or three times we took a bus to the pleasant upmarket seaside district of Pocitos where we learned there were several English language cinemas. We walked along wide, sandy Pocitos beach for a bit but it was too hot and windy to tarry for longer than needed to take a few photos.
Montevideo has many theatres and we saw that at one near our place, Sala Zitarrosa, a Cuban band was playing on Wednesday night, led by enthusiastic showman and musician extraordinaire Humberto Casanova. He seemed to be able to play any instrument, very well, hopping at will from brass to keyboard to drums to guitar, like an excited boy in a toyshop. Marisa and her husband Sergio came with us; it was a good show we all thought.
Our final night in Montevideo turned out to be the kick-off date for Montevideo’s 2016 Carnaval season. Carnavale in Rio is world famous, but many other South American cities celebrate Carnavale too, though not on such a grand scale. But what Friday’s opening procession in Montevideo may have lacked in extravagance compared with Rio, it certainly made up for it in length. Apparently it’s the longest procession in the world! We were there at the start, at 8.30 pm, and threw in the towel at midnight, at which time there was still no end in sight. So we left the crowd of thousands and walked home, where Marisa told us there were still drumming groups to come in the procession, but we’d had enough and didn’t venture back out onto the streets. Phew, Uruguayans really know how to put on a parade! That, and BBQ beef.
A two hour flight on Aerolineas Argentinas last Thursday morning took us south from Puerto Iguazu to Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires. But we didn’t stop there. At the airport we hired a taxi to take us to the ferry dock in the city centre, then a 70 minute crossing of Rio de la Plata had us in the small Uruguayan town of Colonia del Sacramento by 1.30pm.
Colonia started out as a 1600s’ smugglers’ haunt for Portuguese traders spotting a business opportunity when Spanish-administered Buenos Aires across the water restricted imports. Decades later the Spanish attacked and took over Colonia themselves. The result today is a quaint atmospheric village with cobblestone streets and old colonial buildings. On steroids. For these days Colonia receives thousands of daytrippers from Buenos Aires and Montevideo. It certainly would be a pleasant laid-back weekend getaway for workers from the larger more modern cities in the vicinity, once the daytrippers board the ferries at 4pm and leave.
Our guidebook was effusive about Colonia, but we thought this was a bit over the top. It’s certainly a pleasant place, but not earth shattering. Uruguayans don’t have dinner until 9 or 10pm; a local was incredulous when we said we usually have dinner at 6.30. So one night we were stifling yawns and ready for bed by the time our Uruguayan BBQ arrived on our plate at 10.30. The chunky beef ribs and sausages slow-cooked over coals were delicious, and were sent on their way with copious amounts of good red wine. It was a big, big dinner that seemed to alter my centre of gravity, keeping me not unwillingly pinned to the cool sheets until noon the following day. Of course Sun and its fellow thug Humidity were up early as usual in these parts, daring anyone to go out before late afternoon. Fortunately in Colonia del Sacramento there’s no need to.
Whoaa!! Arrange 250 big waterfalls close together at different levels and orientations within tropical rainforest, the raging flood waters plunging 300 feet into the abyss, and what do you have? The world’s most spectacular falls, Iguazu. No wonder Eleanor Roosevelt on seeing Iguazu for the first time exclaimed ‘poor Niagara’.
The Iguazu Falls (Iguacu in Brazil) are on the river of the same name at the point where it marks the boundary between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. 80% of the falls are on the Argentinian side, the remainder opposite in Brazil. Both are spectacular.
To get here from Rio de Janerio we had two choices; a 20 hour bus trip, or 2 hour flight. We flew, on Sunday, landing mid morning in the small southern Brazilian town of Foz do Iguacu, only 10 minutes by bus from the Falls. We spent the rest of the day exploring the Falls on that side of the border, then with dusk approaching, took a bus that within an hour had us through two border immigration posts and into the Argentinian town of Puerto Iguazu on the other side of the river, where we stayed for the next four nights.
Words or photos are near useless to describe the power, grandeur and noise of the Iguazu Falls. We think they create the most spectacular vista we’ve ever seen, topping even the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon in the USA, and the Yuanyang rice terraces in China. At the Devil’s Throat, a 270 degree circle of raging, plunging water, it seemed for a moment like the Big Bang in reverse, with water, mist, cloud and even rainbows being sucked into the roaring abyss. Almost scary.
We thought the humidity was challenging in Rio, but that was nothing compared with Iguazu where the Falls generate their own rain, spray and wind. The humidity was intense, but the Falls so spectacular that it didn’t seem to matter while we pushed on through kilometres of tropical rainforest path, an incredible new vista around each bend.
We made a couple of short videos (click to view); the first at Devil’s Throat:
