Sunday 13 March 2016

The end of the road

I've now been home from South America for 2 weeks. I can't really believe it's been that long already but at the same time it almost doesn't feel real that I was ever there. But before I get into that, I've got my last week and a half in Brazil to talk about- I wrote half this post while I was still there so forgive the mixing of tenses...

Please excuse me for using a Boyz II Men song as the title for the post- it was stuck in my head from the taxi I was in earlier. I'm currently on the way to São Paulo; Sod's law that my final bus of the trip is one of the only ones that has had working wifi. I'm flying home tomorrow, or rather I'm flying to Casablanca, hanging around for 6 hours and then I'm flying home. But first I've got to write a bit about my time in Salvador!
The day after Jack left I caught a flight to Salvador, about 2 hours north from Rio. If you ask most other travellers the first thing they'll say is that Salvador is cool but feels pretty sketchy. The lonely planet actually says 'if you're going to be mugged in Brazil, it'll happen in Salvador'. You can imagine my delight then when the taxi driver clearly didn't have a clue where my hostel was and just stopped on a road somewhere in the area and told me to get out. Luckily I found it after 5 minutes of wandering. 
Salvador has a different feel to the rest of the places I've been in Brazil. The history of the city isn't the best; it used to be the biggest port in the Americas for importing slaves and pretty much all of the buildings in the old town area were built by slaves. Nowadays the demographic is 90% African descendants, however my walking tour guide told me that unfortunately there still a lot of racism present in the city today.




The old town, Pelourinho, is where most tourists tend to stick to and the buildings are all very colourful and beautiful. Unfortunately the many shops in the area all sell the exact same overpriced souvenirs and paintings which was a bit disappointing. However a few days into my stay in Salvador I went on a free walking tour called Rebel Salvador, run by a guy named Pedro. While I found him to be a little dramatic at times, the tour was very good at getting out of the tourist bubble and seeing some places you'd never go alone. He also told us a lot about the current problems within the city- despite it holding a UNESCO world heritage site title, which should protect it from development, the government are tearing down buildings they shouldn't be and proposing to evict families who have lived in one street for generations in order to create boutique hotels. A group of locals are appealing to UNESCO and are raising money to help these families but the situation isn't looking good so far. It's a shame because I think Salvador has a lot of potential; if only the government could spend money where it's actually needed.





I also visited the Basilica do Senhor do Bonfim, which is a pretty famous church in the city. The railings surrounding the church are covered in wish ribbons, in about 10 different colours, all tied on by people who have prayed for their loved ones inside the church. I won't lie, I have no religious beliefs myself but it was still very impressive.


There's even a room inside the church with photos of people who have been 'blessed' all over the walls, and there are also lots of replica plastic body parts hanging from the ceiling which are meant to represent things people have prayed for there. Plastic hearts, hips, arms, heads, spines..you name it, it'll be there. It was a bit creepy to be honest!


I bought my own wish ribbon outside the church; you're supposed to make three wishes, tie the ribbon around your wrist with three knots and when it falls off your wishes come true. We'll see; if I ever end up living in a penthouse apartment in New York with a very rich husband, you'll know why...
I also had a popcorn blessing outside the church. Yes, a popcorn blessing. A woman in traditional dress came up, put some sort of oil on my forehead with her thumb and proceeded to say some things I didn't understand in portugeuse to me while throwing popcorn/corn kernels over my head. I have no idea why, I wish I could tell you! I just hope it actually was a blessing and not some sort of curse.



Overall I did enjoy Salvador, despite being very aware that by this point I was running out of steam a bit. My hostel also had a free caipirinha hour every night too which never hurts! Though I dread to think of the damage that almost 2 months of daily caipirinhas did to my poor teeth. I left Salvador on the Tuesday of my final week, which is a bit of a shame as apparently that's the day when all the fun happens! After that I went back to Rio for 2 more nights in Books hostel, where I honestly did nothing of interest. I felt I'd already done a lot in Rio and as I said, I was feeling pretty exhausted by this point. On Thursday I spent the day on the bus back to Sao Paulo where we got caught up in one of the worst thunder storms I've ever seen.

My flight from Sao Paulo to Casablanca was probably the scariest I've ever done. For one thing, it was the oldest plane ever. Secondly, even though the plane was already delayed, when we finally did board we were sat for about an hour waiting to set off. I was starting to get annoyed and try find out what was happening when all of a sudden 6 policemen boarded the plane, went over to a passenger on my row and asked for his boarding pass. Next thing he was being escorted off the plane and the cabin crew were searching all the overhead bins and pulling his seat apart. I have no idea what they were searching for but the guy never got back on the plane. Needless to say I was feeling pretty nervous after that and couldn't really relax for the first few hours of the flight. Much to my delight we landed in Casablanca safe and well, and after a few hours waiting around it was time to board my flight to Heathrow. A few episodes of Sex & the City later and I'd arrived back on British soil, exactly 7 months after I left it. After the standard long wait to get through passport control, I went to pick up my rucksack for the last time, expecting my bad luck to have kicked in and it to have gone missing. Luckily it hadn't and I was free to go meet my parents, where they were eagerly awaiting my arrival with a 'welcome home Hannah' sign and bovril sandwich in tow. We headed back to my sisters house for my requested indian takeaway and I slept in a room by myself for the first time in 7 months. I can't describe how well I slept that night.

As I said, it's now been two weeks since I got back to good old Yorkshire. It's been a lovely (but horribly cold) two weeks- I've been lucky enough to see almost all of my friends in that time and catch up with everyone. It's strange because everything is so familiar and most people say it feels like I never went away. It even feels like that to me sometimes. But at least I know that I have the added bonus of so many wonderful memories with some great new friends to help me through the next few weeks of job hunting, as well as the first tan of my life to serve as a reminder.

To anyone whose been following this blog throughout my little adventure, thank you and I hope you've enjoyed reading! Although I've been quite lazy and some of my blog posts are definitely the result of multiple text reminders from my parents, I'm really glad that I've tried to document my trip and I know I can look back in years to come and be amazed by how brave I was when I was 22. I'm hoping to do a few more posts on things that may interest anyone who is planning their own trip to South America- which I hope will be all of you reading this! For now, I'm happy to be home. I was ready to relax, recharge and eat good cheese again. But I know I'll be back- I definitely haven't got rid of my travel bug just yet...

Monday 22 February 2016

Christ and carnival

Rio de Janeiro is one of those places on my trip that I was really excited to finally get to. Everybody knows Rio, everyone has seen the photos of Christ the redeemer looking out over the city and pretty much everyone you meet on tour way tells you how much they love it there. Now I'm just another one of those people! Warning- this post is pretty picture heavy as I finally stopped being lazy with my camera.
When we first got to Rio we stayed in a hostel in an area called Leme, an old favela close to Copacabana beach. The area has been regenerated and feels nothing like a favela these days and seems very safe. I think one of the great things about Rio in general is the diversity of the city and the people living there- it's a lot harder to tell who is a local and who is a tourist and there seems to be less judgement of the poorer people living on the streets. We decided to head to Rio a few days before carnival started in order to get a lot of the touristy stuff out of the way before the madness of all day street parties kicked off. Our first tourist destination to tick off was sugarloaf mountain. Jack, Andrew, his friend Nick and myself all set off on a boiling hot day to go find the cable cars to take us to the top. There are two cable cars and I've heard that you can walk for the second one but I've no idea how/who would be daft enough to do so! The views at the top are pretty great with all the beaches and Christ peeking over the clouds in the distance. 



However this view paled, in my opinion, in comparison to what we did the next day. A few friends who had recently been to Rio recommended that we go do the two brothers mountain at the end of Ipanema beach. I was told it was a half hour hour walk up so you can imagine the shock and horror on my face when we got close to it and I was faced with these monsters (this photo taken later on in the day at sunset). 


So, the way to do the two brothers is to go to the bottom of the Vidigal favela. From there you get a motorbike taxi about 2/3 of the way up the mountain- which was pretty terrifying, those motorbike drivers are even crazier than normal taxi drivers! Then you're dropped off near some football courts, you go behind them and start hiking. I think everyone reading this by now has read enough tales of me hiking to know I probably didn't love this part- bear in mind it was about 35 degrees and humid as hell. On the way up you pass lookout points where you look down into the favela below, which is so far down at this point that it looks like it's made of lego.


After a bit more walking, about 45 minutes in total (probably faster without me holding you back), you get to the top and the view is incredible. Unlike at sugarloaf there's hardly anybody else up there and there are no railings so you're free to get as close to get edge as you like! I may have moaned the whole way up (seriously don't do anything that involved uphill walking with me if you have no patience) but it was so worth it and is probably one of the best things I did in my time in Rio. It's also really cool to see the favela on the way up and down the mountain- it's amazing how they managed to build whole towns on the side of a mountain and when you're looking over the whole of Rio it's very easy to spot them dotted all over the city. You can do favela tours but we decided against doing one as we weren't sure how much they benefit the people who live in them and in a way reduces them to being a tourist attraction which I'm not sure I feel comfortable with. 


The next day, feeling like very good travellers for being so productive, the four of us decided it was finally time to go see the big guy. Again, you can walk up the road leading to Christ the Redeemer but we decided that we weren't feeling quite that unhinged and instead went to go get the shuttle bus up there. Much like when I got to Machu Picchu, I find it pretty hard to describe what it's like when you're actually there staring up at the huge statue, apart from the obvious that it's really impressive! The only problem is just the amount of other tourists up there- it takes so long to try get 'that' photo without other people or their selfie sticks invading it. By the end Jack and I were just trying to get in as many other people's photos as possible- spiteful maybe but entertaining all the same. 



We didn't do too much on the nights for our first few days apart from venturing a couple of blocks down to Copacabana beach to sit and drink a few beers. However the next day we moved to our hostel in Botafogo which we were using as a base for Carnival. We also met back up with Neil there who we spent Christmas and New Years with so it was lovely to see him again! 
Carnival is basically constant street parties known as 'blocos'- it's impossible to keep track of them yourself but luckily our hostel had a list of them all on the wall, as well as highlighting the ones they recommended for each day, which helped us out no end. The festivities started on Friday the 5th, so that morning we all headed into town to pick up some costume items. We'd heard that people go all out dressing up for the parties so we all grabbed a strange and wonderful mix of things, plus a lot of glitter, and went back to the hostel to get dressed. That night we decided to head to a bloco on Copacabana beach where we watched a big parade and then just continued the night amongst the crowds, drinking and having fun spotting all the other costumes out there. 



One of the real highlights of carnival was the sambadrome on Sunday night. We decided to get tickets pretty last minute and in true traveller style got the cheapest ones possible, meaning we were in the final block where the parade finishes. I had no idea what to expect of the sambadrome but we had so much fun! The parade starts at 9pm and there are 6 different samba schools competing, then another 6 the next night. Each school has a different theme and each parade lasts at least an hour, meaning it ends up being a pretty late night! The floats and costumes were incredible to see and absolutely huge- being at the end of the sambadrome meant that we got a good view of the cranes at the end that were used to get the dancers down from the floats, so that gives you an idea of how big they were! All the locals in the crowd are singing and dancing along giving a really fun atmosphere, despite none of us having a clue what any of the words to the songs were. As the night went on I started feeling pretty sick so a few of us left at about 4am but I don't think it ended properly until at least an hour after. All my photos are taken with my iPhone so excuse the quality- unfortunately you hear a lot of stories of people being mugged on their way to the sambadrome so I decided not to take my proper camera.







The next morning I was feeling better, very luckily, as we were heading off to the bloco that we were most excited about; Sargento Pimenta, which was described as 'The Beatles to a samba rhythm'. I know, doesn't that sound like so much fun? Off we went at 10am, armed with some cans of Skol Beats (sort of like Smirnoff ice but stronger) to the park where it was being held which was absolutely packed and boiling hot. As soon as the band kicked off we knew we were in for a good time- they started with a medley of a few different songs, which ended in one of my favourites, twist and shout. They went on over the next three and a half hours to play pretty much every Beatles song I know, including a lot of the less well-known songs. The surprising thing was that so many of the locals around us knew every word just as well as Jack and I did! I think this bloco actually beats the sambadrome as my favourite part of carnival- I think there are a few videos of them on YouTube if you're interested, but if you ever happen to be at Rio Carnival in the future please go to see them!

Over the days we went to various parties across the city, but the other bloco we were really excited for was a Super Mario themed bloco up in Santa Teresa. We went up there at the right time and found various Marios and Luigis up there but unfortunately the bloco never really kicked off. However the organisers had hung a few pixelated coins from the trees- Jack and his stepbrother managed to get one down so we could at least entertain ourselves by putting it over the heads of the disappointed dressed up Marios. I was also given a costume that someone had taken from the sambadrome to wear for a bit which I appreciated as most of my costume items had been lost or discarded over the course of Carnival. 


Needless to say, the few days after carnival were pretty uneventful. A lot of Netflix was watched and a lot of sleeping was done. Jack and I also went to go see The Revenant at the cinema as it turns out most foreign films are shown in the original language in Brazil. It felt strange to be doing something so normal in Rio! On the Friday we then moved to our final hostel in Rio which was in an area called Lapa, which is where a lot of travellers stay but is maybe a little less safe than other areas we stayed in. Our hostel there, called Books, was really cool though and was a good place to spend a few days before Jack finished his trip and flew home. We went to see the famous Lapa stairs nearby, which were really impressive. Jorge Selaron, a Chilean artist, started working on the stairs in 1990. He wanted to cover the stairs in mosaic-style tiles, originally only using the colours of the Brazilian flag, but eventually using many others and actually asking people from all over the world to send tiles from where they lived to use on the stairs. Because of this there are so many different tiles- I spotted some religious ones, one with the Simpsons on, ones with musicians on and many many more. 


Another day we also went to the maracana football stadium. I wasn't that bothered about going but it was Jacks last full day in South America so I decided to be nice and go with him! I think we'd both agree that the tour itself wasn't the best but at least now I've seen where some of the 2016 Olympics will be held! 


Last Tuesday Jack flew home after 5 months out in South America and about 4 months since I first met him in Cusco! It's very strange to be completely by myself again but I've been in Salvador the last few days- I'll leave that, and my last few days in South America, for yet another update coming soon. 

I really did have such a great time in Rio and Carnival was such a cool time to be there- if you can ever make it there you 100% should go!

Wednesday 17 February 2016

Brazil pt. 1

I feel like I've been in Brazil for so long. It's been a month and a half of beaches, sun and just a few English-style downpours and I can't say it's been anything but great. I'm very close to the end of my trip now (hence the fact I remembered I actually have a huge blog post to write) and though I feel pretty ready to come home, I have a lot of amazing places in Brazil to tell you about. I also want to apologise for the lack of photos- this is due to a combination of being lazy and also not wanting to take my camera out to the many beaches I've been to so as not to get sand in the lens. 
My first stop in Brazil was in Foz do Iguacu, where most people go see the other side of the Iguazu Falls that I mentioned in my last post. Unfortunately timings meant that I had to skip the Brazilian side, so my only experience with Foz was in the bus station. It wasn't the most pleasant experience either; angry-looking armed police men with sniffer dogs came round the station and arrested two separate people, I couldn't get any money out meaning I had no Brazilian currency and my bus was delayed an hour. Nevertheless, eventually my bus turned up and off I went to Florianopolis. Floripa, as the locals call it, is a lovely place- however my time there also had a stressful start as I still couldn't get any money out of the ATMs and I knew my hostel was ages away, leaving me a bit worried about how I was going to get there. In the end I plucked up the courage to ask three friendly-looking fellow travellers if they happened to be heading the same way. Luckily they were and offered to lend me money for my share of the taxi! Travel karma is a very real thing I think. Once I arrived at my hostel in Barra da Lagoa, a good 40 minutes away (Floripa is huge), I started to relax. Barra is a chilled beach town with a good mix of tourists and locals, and my first hostel there (Barra Beach Club) basically overlooks its own private beach. The only problem is that Barra doesn't have any cash machines either and the closest place, Lagoa, can be reached by a bus, which sits in traffic for an hour, or by a 30 minute speedboat. At this point my lack of money was becoming a big problem so I opted for the boat; I think this is definitely the better option as you get to see kids playing in the river, other people waving at you from their own private boats and as you head across the sea you're surrounded by people kite-surfing as well as various other water sports that I don't know the name of. Anyway, I finally managed to get money out at a proper bank and could finally stop worrying. I stayed in Barra for about a week, not doing too much to be honest, just enjoying the sun and the caipirinhas. If you're not familiar with them, they're Brazil's favourite cocktail made from an alarming amount of sugar, limes and a liquor called Cachaca. They're delicious but deadly, especially when the street vendors sell pints of them for the equivalent of £1.50. One day I also joined a guy from my hostel in a hike across to another beach, Praia Mole, which he described as a nice walk away. Instead it was like trekking through the jungle- the beauty of Brazil is in the fact that every city seems like it's just been plonked down between masses of dense jungle and forest. This sometimes makes it hard to get around but it's certainly a lot more visually pleasing to drive through than the dull stretches of land that Argentina has. We also headed to a daytime pool party at a club called P12. I'm not really up on my DJs but Robin Schulz played a set and I'm pretty sure he's fairly famous (do I sound cool yet?) and we had such a good day dancing and drinking in the sun, watching wealthy Brazilians flaunting their plastic-surgery-enhanced bodies. When I say flaunt I really mean it- the girls all wear thong bikinis and the men all wear, for lack of a better term, 'budgie smugglers'. I almost feel like a prude wearing my high waisted bikini! 



The rest of our nights in Floripa were pretty fun too. Every night you can go down to the beach to watch teams from all over Brazil playing football, which ordinarily I wouldn't really choose to watch but seeing them play in the sand was pretty impressive! Otherwise there are always local musicians and bands playing music in the streets which was pretty cool too. Later on in the evening we often headed over to the private beach to chill on the rocks with a bottle of rum, where there also tended to be musicians sat around entertaining the crowds. However on one such night I got a bit carried away watching the waves coming in and out, so much so that unfortunately one of my sandals got washed out to sea. Luckily Havaiana flip flops are really cheap in Brazil- problem solved! 

After Floripa I decided to head on to São Paulo with a few others that I'd met at various points on the trip- two of the guys I actually met for the first time in Quito, Ecuador so they probably win as my longest running friends I keep bumping into on the way! I had my worries about São Paulo as a lot of people say it's really dodgy but yet again word of mouth was proven wrong. We stayed in a hostel in the Vila Madalena part of town which is the more bohemian young area, so I suppose it probably did feel safer than other parts of the city would have. 
São Paulo also doesn't have as many well known attractions as other big cities and is more known for the nightlife; however one day a few of us went for a wander to the grafitti alleys near the hostel which were pretty cool to see.




The next day Alexia & I also did the free walking tour around the downtown area. Unfortunately we both felt it was a bit too long and the history and architecture of São Paulo not quite gripping enough to impress us too much, but we did find out about the municipal market where we later went to eat enormous ham sandwiches. I also got given a free bag of mixed olives, peppers and garlic by one stall owner- I tried to pay him but he just pointed at my face and said 'linda' which means beautiful so I just went with it! 
Something I did find odd about São Paulo was that it has the highest Japanese population outside of Japan, meaning there are Japanese restaurants everywhere. Unfortunately I don't eat fish so sushi is lost on me but everyone else seemed to enjoy their food! I won't lie, it wasn't my favourite city ever but nowhere near as bad as I'd heard from others. After a few nights there I headed to Paraty, meeting Jack at the bus station after his solo trip to Iguazu. 

When we arrived it was absolutely pissing it down- South America is currently experiencing what they refer to as the 'El Nino' phenomenon. Every 5 years (I think) for some reason the weather during summer is a lot more overcast and rainy than every other year. I haven't done much research into why this is but it was pretty annoying for a few weeks! Our hostel in Paraty was right across the road from a popular but small beach and 10 minutes walk from the lovely old town area, all cobbled streets and street vendors selling their crafts to the crowds of tourists. Paraty was very chilled for us, partly because the weather wasn't the best and partly because we were sort of killing time before eventually getting to Rio for Carnaval. Still we had a good time relaxing by the beach with a few beers. One day we did venture to a nearby town called Trinidade- unfortunately El Niño hit again and the weather wasn't the best for a beach day which is a shame as it seemed like a cool little town. We also discovered an amazing Thai restaurant in Paraty simply called Thai Brasil- we were both craving something resembling curry and this place did not disappoint. After months of being disappointed by things claiming to be spicy but being anything but, this restaurant was a godsend and I'd highly recommend it.

After Paraty came Ilha Grande, an island (would you believe it) about 40 minutes boat ride off the coast. The only way I can describe my first impression is that it felt like arriving at Jurassic World. The whole island is covered in dense jungle with just a few restaurants and buildings dotted along near the pier. There are mountains covered in mist in the distance and just walking 5 minutes to our hostel we spotted little monkeys running along the power cables above us. It turns out this is pretty common in Brazil as we saw them loads in Rio too; I think they're kind of the equivalent of squirrels in England. 
Ilha Grande has loads of different beaches that you can either get taxi boats or trek to. On our first full day we just went for a short walk to find a nearby beach. Unfortunately the weather had also been a bit rubbish in IG for the last few days meaning that the whole walk I was convinced I was going to end up falling in the mud. We made it there eventually and found a sunbathing pig there so it was definitely worth the mud-filled walk. 




We also went to a beach called Lopes Mendes. Again, this involved another terrifying walk- the trails are all pretty steep, slippery and impossible to navigate in flip flops. Jack got a lot of entertainment from watching me struggle down the pathways, holding on to vines and branches to steady myself, muttering swear words under my breath and hating him for making me go. Lucky for him the beach itself was really beautiful, probably the nicest beach I've ever been to! 
Our nights in Ilha Grande were spent drinking cachaca and rum on the beach with others from our hostel- one of the good things about Brazil is that drinking on the streets is perfectly legal, meaning a night out can be extremely cheap! Although I did wake up one morning with half of one of my big toe nails hanging off and not much recollection of how it happened..

We left Ilha Grande after 5 nights, accompanied by Luke, an English guy we met in the hostel and another girl who we met on the boat back to shore who was also heading to Rio. We bought our bus tickets and waited for the bus- a few buses pulled up but the guy working there told us ours was the next one. 25 minutes later the same guy then put into google translate 'that was your bus, do you want a car there?', leaving us all a bit confused and annoyed. He walked off then two minutes later pulled up in a van, gesturing for us to get in the back. Still a bit confused we all piled in the back of his little van and off we went. I was the only one with a 'seat' (a spare tyre) which I was quite grateful for as the other three were clinging to the walls; drivers in South America are absolutely nuts and this guy was no exception. About 40 minutes later we finally arrived at our destination- a service station where the bus was waiting for us to catch up to them. I have to give them credit, although the mistake itself was annoying, at least they put in the effort to sort it out! Anyway, after another hour and a half spent snoozing we finally arrived in Rio and bought tickets to our final destination of the day, Buzios. 

Buzios is a popular holiday destination a bit further north from Rio. It has 21 beaches and is apparently famous for being Brigitte Bardos' favourite place- they even have a street named after her.


This post is already incredibly long and to be honest this was another place where we just chilled out for a week, visiting different beaches every day or just enjoying the hostel pool with some homemade caipirinhas. We met some great people there- one hilarious Aussie guy called Andrew, and two lovely Argentinian girls who went spent most of our days with.


In the evenings I'd cook big family meals for the group and one night Luke even made the whole hostel an apple crumble! If you ever find yourself in Buzios I'd totally recommend Lagoa Beach hostel- really cool staff and a great atmosphere which feels a lot more like someone's home than just another hostel. 

I think Rio deserves a post all of its own so I'm going to leave this one here- I'll do my best to have everything finished before I leave Brazil this Friday! 

Monday 11 January 2016

Cider throwing and torn up calendars

So at the end of my last post I dropped the bombshell that unfortunately Jack managed to get bed bugs in Córdoba. This, of course, meant that our first port of call in Buenos Aires was to rid him of his infestation. Luckily our hostel was experienced in this department (I know it's gross but I have met lots of people so far who have had this problem!) and they offered to fumigate his whole bag for him for free. They didn't do his shoes though and we met someone who said they decided to boil their shoes when they got bed bugs, just in case. I tried my hardest to convince Jack to boil his trainers in the kitchen but he flat out refused for some reason. 
Moving on, bed bug free, Buenos Aires was a really cool place. We spent 2 weeks there in the end and I really enjoyed my time in the city. It has so many different sorts of areas- we started off in a hostel called Milhouse Hipo which was quite close to a cool area called San Telmo. That whole area seemed really Parisian to me in the architecture and the general vibe it had- lots of shops selling vintage clothes and old records, little cafes and cool graffiti on the walls.




 We found one of our favourite bars there too- it was called La Puerta Roja (the red door) where we spent a good few hours a few days in a row. They also did pretty great nachos which always helps me like a place! The good steaks also continued in Buenos Aires- I don't know why but somehow Argentinians really know how to do a great steak, and for so much cheaper than at home! I think English steak may be ruined for me forever.
On the second week in BA the three of us plus a couple other fellow English travellers, Neil & Kira, decided to rent an airbnb flat together. It was the week of Christmas so we though it might be nice to have our own space to cook a proper dinner. We moved to an area of town called Palermo which was meant to be the up-and-coming part of town with lots of bars, restaurants and clubs. I really liked that part of town and could definitely see myself living there- especially as we discovered a great little burger place (simply called Burger Joint) that I'm still dreaming of now a few weeks on! 
I admit that for a few days leading up to Christmas I hadn't really been feeling myself. I was feeling homesick while all my friends were having festive gatherings, seeing my mum put up the Christmas tree (I sat on Skype and watched her do it for 3 whole hours) and just generally missing the build up that comes with the western world. In hindsight it was quite refreshing though to not hear the same songs every day since November 1st. Our Christmas in the flat was really lovely! In true Argentinian style we bought a beef joint, bought some muffin tins to make Yorkshire puddings in and made a huge pile of pigs in blankets. We stocked up on cheap bubbly and played all the Christmas songs we were missing from home all day. And, just to make everyone at home jealous of our 28 degree heat Christmas Day, we went out to the local park while the food was cooking to chill and kick Jacks new secret Santa football around. We rounded our day off with a few hundred games of our favourite card game, cambio, as sadly we were lacking a trivial pursuit board which is my family's usual Christmas game of choice. I had a really great day with my temporary little travelling family and I know that next year I'll appreciate my return to 'normal' festivities even more because of it. 




Another cool thing we  did in BA was going to see a show called La Bomba de Tiempo, a big drum show on Monday nights in a sort of old warehouse. It goes on for a couple of hours and is really impressive- I think the highlight was when an electric cello was brought on- something I never thought I'd say. We spent a good couple of hours having a dance about and I'd highly recommend it if you ever visit. 

Originally we thought we'd stay in Buenos for New Years too but after doing a bit of research the five of us decided to head over to Uruguay for the festivities. It's really easy to get there by ferry- it only takes about an hour and a half. The city you dock in is called Sacramento Del Colonia; we had a few days to kill until NYE so we spent a couple of nights there first. There isn't too much there really and the sea is a pretty unappealing brown colour, though we did find a nice bar (with air con, it was constantly 30 degrees) which served pitchers of gin and tonic to while away a few hours in! Unfortunately our hostel wasn't that great either and after a night being serenaded until 3am by another group of travellers who were trying and failing to play the trumpet, I think we were all very ready to travel a couple more hours to Montevideo. 


I'm not sure what I expected of Uruguay to be honest- people doing this general route don't say much about it and I imagine people skip it a lot of the time. I can say I'm so happy we decided to spend NYE there because I imagine it'll be one of the most memorable I'll ever have. First of all during the day it's tradition for office workers to take to the streets, ripping up their old calendars and agendas, leaving the streets littered with numbered confetti. The next tradition; everyone takes to the streets in the daytime with the cheapest possible bottles of cider and literally drenches each other in it. We heard about this and kind of didn't expect it to be quite as ridiculous as it sounds. We headed towards the old part of town and started seeing people looking pretty wet. We saw people starting to throw the cider, and sometimes water, down from their balconies overlooking the streets. Then we turned a corner and two guys with huge buckets (luckily filled with water) apparently took a liking to me and absolutely soaked me through. After that it was carnage. We bought our own bottles, found the main procession of people dancing around to a big drum band and got stuck in- as you can see from the photos...




After a while we decided to try find a street party that a local had told Jack about. We found it eventually, after a quick McDonalds pit stop (don't judge me), and the party continued. Hundreds of people were in one cordoned off street dancing along to blaring music, every so often being sprayed with hose pipes from the bars along the street. It was so much fun; a year ago when I was wondering where on earth I'd be in another year I don't think I expected that to be the answer. 
Later on, sufficiently sticky from drying cider, we headed back to our hostel to shower and join the bbq they were hosting there. Unfortunately the staff took about 4 hours to get all the bbq ready so we were sat around for a long time which was a bit disappointing, but we just about finished eating in time to run down to the sea front for the countdown to 2016. We watched fireworks going off in every direction as we sang a pathetically bad version of Auld Langs Syne, then shouted "Feliz Año!" to anyone and any car that happened to be passing. All in all, my start to 2016 was better than I could've imagined and I'm hoping it has set the bar high for the rest of the year to come! 
The day after New Year's Day (which was spent doing not much but eating all the carbs ever) we got the bus over to Punta del Este, a beach a few hours away. The beach was lovely and I felt very happy to be there on the 2nd of January enjoying the sunshine- however we also encountered the age old problem of 5 Brits going to the beach; extreme sunburn. I promise I actually used my factor 55 sunscreen, but somehow I ended up with the worst sunburn on my back I've had in years. Carrying a rucksack on sunburn really isn't fun. 

The next day Kira, Neil and I split off along with 3 guys from Lancashire to get the ferry back to BA as we wanted to fly up to the Argentinian side of Iguazu falls. The ferry was fine and we spent the day in an all-you-can-eat steak restaurant but unfortunately the flight wasn't meant to be. When you book that many flights, buses and hostels online it's not a surprise that at some point you choose the wrong day..
To cut a long story short, we ended up getting a bus up to Iguazu in the end so we arrived the next day instead, meaning I didn't have time to do both sides of the falls which is what I had intended to do. I'm choosing to believe the people who say that the Argentinian side of the falls is better because that's the side I decided to go see as I heard you can spend much logger there and get much closer to the waterfalls. 
Words and photos could never do Iguazu Falls justice. I know waterfalls may not sound that exciting, but t's probably one of the best things I've seen on my trip. If I remember correctly there are actually about 250 waterfalls in the whole area, but the most famous one is the Devils Throat- this is the one you can get right up next to and believe me when I say you get very very wet doing so. 



There are a few trails to do in the park too in order to see the other waterfalls- these were also really impressive, however there were a few times I was questioning the safety of the walkways over the falls.. 



Later on in the day after the falls it was time to head to my next and (probably) final country; Brazil. A quick taxi ride with a lovely old Argentinian man who sang Engelbert Humperdink to me for the duration of the journey and I was over the border and waiting for my bus. 
I think this post is quite long enough for now so I'll leave it there! Hasta luega chicos!

Friday 1 January 2016

Confessions of a bad blogger

First things first; happy new year! I can't believe we're in 2016 and that I've now been travelling for close to half a year- it feels like forever and 5 minutes since I left England all at the same time. Second thing; I'm the worst blogger ever. I haven't posted anything since I was in Chile which was well over a month ago now. I have good intentions but I've done so much in the last few months that it's almost overwhelming to sit down and write about it all. I know, what a hard life I live.. Anyway I'm determined to post something today while I'm waiting for my bus tonight, even if I don't get fully caught up! Apologies if I do and this post takes you an hour to read...

Last time, I was in Santiago about to head down to Patagonia. I flew down there to avoid the 50 hour bus journey that the boys undertook, landing in the quiet town of Punta Arenas. The next day I took the short bus to Puerto Natales which most people use as a base for starting a trek around Torres Del Paine. Personally I'm not a big trekker. I'm happy with a good long day walk but multiply that by 5 and make me carry all my food and tent with me and you're looking at one miserable Hannah. With this in mind I decided the popular W trek wasn't for me, but I still wanted to see the national park. I booked onto a day tour which drives you around the main sights of the park with a few little walks in between. Call me lazy, you're probably right! I really enjoyed my day trip- the park was breathtakingly beautiful. For some reason I thought I might be underwhelmed by it but the sights were incredible. It's so untouched and when you realise you're about as far south as you'll ever get in the world (without actually going to Antarctica) it really feels special. The weather was also perfect- people say in Torres del Paine you tend to get all 4 seasons in one day but it was glorious sunshine all day, meaning the mountains were really clear. I'll let the photos speak for themselves. 





That night I met back up with Jack, Mike and a couple of Aussies we met along the way as they'd just finished their 5 day hike and we polished off a few 1.5 litre bottles of wine while we all caught up and they told me how great their hike had been. The next day, feeling a little worse for wear, we set off to our next destination across the border into Argentina. The town, El Calafate, is a popular spot for people to go to to see the nearby Perito Moreño glacier. It's supposed to be one of the most active glaciers in the world so you can see bits of the ice falling off all the time. However, we somehow kept missing the big bits falling off- instead just hearing the lucky ones who did see it gasp in awe. Still it was really cool to see- pardon the pun. The only problem with Calafate is that it really hit home to us how expensive Argentina was going to be!



The next stop after that came after a 30 hour bus ride- the longest of my journey so far. It actually wasn't that bad, apart from when we got off for a quick break and the bus pulled away without explanation with all our stuff on it. Luckily it turned up again 10 minutes later with all my valuables still there! The rest of the bus was pretty uneventful, though I can safely say that I'm sick of seeing films with Vin Diesel and The Rock in after taking so many South American buses. 
The bus was to a place called Bariloche which is in the Lake District of Argentina. 
The area was absolutely beautiful, although a little odd as the town itself looks like it could be a ski town in Switzerland. That may be something to do with the fact that apparently it was where a lot of Nazis escaped to after the war..
Anyway, apart from the architecture it also resembled a Swiss town as the main street was full of chocolate shops. If you ever go there you have to go to Rapa Nui- I can vouch for the dulce de leche ice cream and I think Jack would highly recommend the Baileys flavour chocolates! I did also find a caterpillar in my salad there but I'm willing to let it slide- what was I thinking getting a Caesar salad in a chocolate shop restaurant anyway. 
Aside from eating chocolate (and almost bugs) I also got a local bus a bit out of town to head up Cerro Campanerio, a big hill where you can get amazing views of all the lakes and mountains all around.




I'm not sure what I expected of South America to be honest but I'm not sure that I thought that I'd see quite as many breathtaking views as I have done- this continent really is an amazing place. 

After Bariloche came Mendoza- the wine region responsible for Malbec wine and therefore a place that I was very excited to visit. I think the day we did a wine tour was one of my favourite days of the past few months to be honest! Myself, Jack, Mike and a whole load of other people from my hostel headed out to Maipu, a nearby town, to rent bikes to cycle around the local vineyards. I know that wine and bikes doesn't sound like it should really go together but I can now say that I actually think wine makes me a better cyclist! First we visited an olive oil factory which made the best olive and garlic spread ever, before starting on the vineyards. We went on a proper tour of one, Trapiche, before sampling a few of their different wines and making very insightful remarks while doing so e.g. "so yeah it's definitely red" "I hear 2014 was a great year for wine". I did actually learn one thing- that you can make white wine from red grapes, you just remove the skins. Sufficiently happy with our one new fact for the day, at the last vineyard we decided to just buy 11 different bottles between the 14 of us and lay out on the grass in the sun. Bear in mind this was at about 3.30pm and we had to cycle back on actual roads with cars and I'm sure you'll agree it sounds like a great idea! We also just happened to get back to our hostel in time for the free wine they gave out from 7-9 every night. I don't think I need to explain how much of a headache I had the next day... Mendoza is also where I think I had the best steak of my life- they really aren't kidding about those Argentinian cows. 


This is the whole group at lunch, when we were considerably less wobbly on our bikes

After Mendoza, Jack and I headed to Córdoba to break up the journey to Buenos Aires. Córdoba is a big student city in Argentina so we thought it sounded like a fun place to head to. I'll be honest, we didn't do very much to speak of in Córdoba. We wandered the city and lounged around in the local parks, but honestly it was absolutely boiling when we were there so we just felt tired all the time. This was, however, where we discovered that Jack had managed to pick up bed bugs...

I'm going to leave this post on that cliffhanger. Tune in next time (it'll be up in the next 2 days I promise) for tales of Christmas in Buenos Aires and New Years Eve in Montevideo!