Sunday Afternoon Tango in Buenos Aires

Tango in Dorrego Square, Buenos Aires

On our last Sunday afternoon we decided we really should do something ‘typical’ in Buenos Aires. And what could be more typical than tango?

Instead of going to one of the hugely expensive tango shows (where dinner is included and starts at 10pm, after which the show starts), we decided to try something a little more down to earth, and headed to San Telmo district, where we were told there was more informal tango in some of the squares.

After elbowing our way through the crowds that had gathered for the Sunday flea market, which spreads across a vast area of the barrio and has everything from genuine antiques to beautiful crafts and pottery to ‘designer’ gear, we came across a crowd of locals and foreigners alike surrounding a makeshift dance floor in a shady square. The dancers took it in turns to strut their stuff, and there was most definitely a range of abilities, but everyone seemed to be enjoying it, despite the very serious ‘tango faces’ during the actual performances.

We spent a good hour enjoying the show (and doing our best ‘Craig the mean judge from strictly’ impressions) and it was a lovely way to pass a hot and humid Sunday afternoon.

Check out this small clip of our favourites:

A Day of Contrasts

Now I don’t want this to come off as too negative, but Argentina can be jolly hard work. Today we had two tasks – change some money, and buy some credit for my phone.

This literally took most of the day.

I had been told to bring lots of cash (dollars, or euros) rather than relying on ATMs. So I did. I have been able to pay for a number of things with my no-fees, perfect-exchange-rate credit card, so that’s been good when it works, but then it has also been randomly rejected at times forcing me to use cash or other cards with big fees/commissions. Getting money out of ATMs with that card costs 6 pounds a go, and when you can only get 74 pounds per transaction, that’s huge! But for any other card, its 6 pounds a go plus whatever my home bank charges. So I could easily be paying 10% of your cash in ATM fees!

I was told by our hotel reception that if I had notes smaller than 100 USD or 100 Euro, that exchange houses may not want them, or give me a worse rate. Bonkers as this may seem, this tallied with other reports I’d seen of casas de cambios refusing smaller notes or giving much worse rates for them. So we headed off to the Santander Bank, 5 minutes from the hotel. The queue was immense and luckily a security guard told us right off that the bank didn’t have an exchange function. He gave us directions to a cambio that we followed but never found (which could have been my Spanish). We then headed for another bank that we were told did do exchange.

Their queues were even more immense (I counted 47 people just queuing to use the ATM – inside there were many more) and to even get in a queue you had to get a ticket from an electronic machine – but to get a ticket you had to input your tax ID number. There was literally no other option, and no helpful information desk. Hmmm. I asked a guy standing patiently behind us while I tried to work out what to do, and he said they also had no cambio. By this point we had traversed half of Iguazu – a town, let me remind you, that borders two different countries and receives millions of international tourists a year.

We were then directed to a cambio across the road – it was supposed to close at 12.30 and by now it was 12.20, so wonderful, we were in luck! Erm… no. It was closed already, and would only reopen at 4.30.  By this point, the insatiable black hole that is Lauren’s stomach was getting grumpy and noises were being made about lunch… but I was reluctant to completely wipe out our remaining cash. We agreed to try one more cambio place, listed on google maps. It was a fair trek and we arrived after 12.30 so with little hope, but it was open and eventually when we got served gave us a reasonable (for Argentina) rate for my cash. Phew.

So, lets have lunch.

Ah, yes, even that seems to have a system here (to be fair this is the only place that we have encountered this system, but it was not the day for it). We got to a café and sat down at a free table. Not being served after a while, we figure out you have to take a ticket and wait in line. No problem! Happy to queue! We are British after all!

Leaving Lauren at the table (guarding our masses of cash, plus the bag with my passport in as I’d needed it for money exchange) I took a ticket and joined the huddle of people round the counter. When it was my turn I ordered. I was then given a piece of paper with my order on it. I then had to join another queue to get the drinks, and then another queue to pay – presenting my bit of paper and the bottle of water I’d chosen. Once I’d paid, (with my card, which required me to enter my pin, sign my name, and present my passport so they could write down the passport number) I then had to go to a different part of the first counter, with my bit of paper now stamped, and give it to the woman there. She had my order prepared and there next to her, but did she at this point (queue number 4 remember…) hand it over to me?

Oh no, she took my bit of paper and told me to sit down!!!! After about ten minutes she brought it over! Luckily just sandwiches and nothing hot as it would have been stone cold by then.

After lunch we felt sufficiently revived to tackle the task of buying credit for my phone.

I should say that the process of getting the sim card had previously taken 2 visits to the phone company, the entering of immensely detailed information into their system, presentation of my passport, and then being told that the phone company could only provide the sim card, not any actual credit, for which we needed to go to a service station.

Various places around Iguazu have the Movistar sticker in the window, but only sell the sim card, not credit. It seems like only service stations sell credit. Oh, and you can’t pay for credit using a card, or online, and if you have a phone bought outside the country it won’t let you download the app to manage your account. Nowhere on your phone menu does it tell you what your number is, nor is this on the information that comes with the sim card, so woe betide anyone who loses the post-it note the phone company gives you with your number on. Because without knowing your number you can’t buy credit.

We headed off to the shell garage, braced for drama, but in actual fact the guy there was very pleasant – he couldn’t work out one of the numbers on the aforementioned post-it note (I only use my phone for data so have had no need to find out my number after the initial top up) so he kindly used his own phone to phone me and check, before selling me 200 pesos worth of credit for …… 210 pesos…. Whatever.

So by the time we had changed money, had lunch and bought phone credit, having seen most of the town in the process, we felt we were entitled to a quiet afternoon under the AC, catching up on emails, and watching TV. Sometimes, travel is exhausting and some downtime is needed.

Given it was such an arduous day, we treated ourselves to dinner ‘out-out’ (as in, at a nice restaurant as opposed to the cheapest café we can find something reasonable in – I do miss cooking) and so the travails of the day were soundly compensated for by our first taste of Argentinian steak – yes, it was as good as everyone says, check out Lauren’s face below, she ate two thirds of my steak – and I even treated myself to a caipirinha.

Well-deserved bliss.

 

Iguazu Falls, Argentina!!!

Today was the big day – the reason we had trekked this far north and endured that overnight bus journey.

A visit to the awe inspiring Iguazu Falls.

These incredible waterfalls emerge out of the jungle at various points around a wide basin, and plunge into the river below. It’s the biggest waterfall system in the world, and is shared by Argentina and Brazil, with the border running right down the river. Most of the falls are in Argentina, but from Brazil you get a wider view of them all – while in Argentina you can get up close to many of the falls. I had visited the Brazilian side 20 years ago (I don’t feel old enough to have done anything 20 years ago….) and was keen to share the experience of the Argentinean side with Lauren.

There are various islands and many different waterfalls, with the biggest and most dramatic being the garaganta del diablo  or devils throat, where about half of the water falls.

Its hard to describe Iguazu falls – and even harder to capture in photos – just how enormous and spread out the falls are. From the fairly slow moving river spread over a vast swathe of rainforest upriver, cutting through rocky outcrops and small islands and boulders, with huge catfish lazily swimming around and occasionally grabbing a fly, to the increasing urgency as the water reaches the top of the falls, still spread over an immense area, to the intense power and drama of the cliff edge around a huge semi-circular bowl in the earth, as the water swirls and pulses and turns in on itself, throwing mist many metres into the air, at many points along the edge, before plunging down to the river below, dividing round a big island and once again slowing down into a wide and fairly placid mud-coloured river strewn with boulders.

I can’t do it justice in words, and the pictures try, but convey more ‘pretty’ than ‘immense and awe-inspiring’ – so you will just have to visit one day yourselves!

Ah yes, starting to look a bit more dramatic….

View from the top of Garaganta del Diablo

Garaganta del Diablo – the force of the water at this point is incredible.

After getting up close, we went for a jungle trek to gain some perspective – this is a view of where we were in the morning from about a KM downstream…..

Isla San Martin in the middle obscures some of the falls, but this tries to show how vast the falls are, ranged around in a massive semi-circle in the rainforest.

There are many smaller (but still incredibly impressive) individual waterfalls throughout the park…

By this stage of the day we had walked a good few KM through the dense rainforest, in incredible heat, and this pool looked very tempting….

There were lots of these coatis (with their kits) around the areas where people congregated, and despite signs everywhere asking people not to feed/pet them, of course people did.

Not sure what this was (its huge) but we kept it to ourselves to spare it the attention of other tourists.

There were many enormous butterflies, with incredible colours, but impossible to photograph – this little fellow obligingly stopped by and I got this shot.

As I say, if you get the chance, do visit – its one of those wonders of nature that truly needs to be seen to be believed.

22 hours, 3 buses and 5 hours of Uno

We finally made it to Puerto Iguazu, after a mammoth 22 hour journey involving 3 different buses, an international border, and 5 hours at the bus station in Concordia where we played endless Uno, given it was far too hot to explore the unremarkable looking town with our backpacks.

First, we got a little local bus from the small village of Daymán, where we had been staying – the locals were very casual about it and told us just to stand on the side of the road and flag it down when it went past around 11am.

This worked just fine, and we trundled into town (Salto is Uruguay’s second city but it looked like a fairly dusty small town from what we saw – maybe we missed the centre).

I caught a glimpse of a high-ceilinged building attached to a modern looking shopping mall, and I assumed it was the bus station – started getting my backpack on but we kept going straight past.  Turns out the bus stops outside the bus station rather than in it – I soon alerted the driver to my concerns (he was very patient, as everyone has been, with my attempts to communicate in Spanish) and we were dumped by the side of the road, about 500m past where we want to be.

Not a big deal, but it was insanely hot and humid, so we struggled uphill with our bags to the welcome blast of aircon once we got to the bus station. Lauren, as usual, was stoic and uncomplaining.

Thank God I didn’t raise a whiner.

We had a couple of hours in Salto so after buying our tickets to Concordia – an hour away but on the other side of the border in Argentina – we had lunch and bought a few snacks and groceries with the last of our Uruguayan pesos.

The bus to Concordia left on time and took us out of town and up to the bridge that crosses the river that marks the border with Argentina.

Uruguay on the right, Argentina on the left.

This is a ‘one-stop’ border, and perhaps only my friend Carrie   will understand my excitement at going through one.

 

It was quick, pleasant and easy, although I had been a bit nervous after reading all sorts of posts in Argentina forums about how immigration officials will refuse you entry if you don’t have proof of onward travel out of the country. Given I only have a vague idea of where we might exit the country, or when, I didn’t have such proof, but I figured we looked harmless enough, and indeed the official just asked our destination, and gave us 90 days with a smile. Sometimes a child is the best travel accessory 🙂

I had planned to dump the bags in left luggage and head out for a wander around town in Concordia, given we had 5 hours to kill, but the heat was nudging 40 degrees, it was incredibly humid, and the bus station seemed miles from anywhere so the air-conditioning of the rather decrepit bus station won out – we ended up having a 5-hour Uno session.

It was actually quite pleasant watching the comings and goings of Argentinian families heading off on holiday with endless quantities of ramshackle bags and flasks of mate.

Eventually at about ten minutes past the scheduled time (we’d been told our bus would be un poquito atrasado ) a bus was announced to Iguazu, so we jumped up, put our bags on, and raced outside, where a guy was throwing bags into the baggage compartment at great speed. We handed ours over, he threw the bag in and tore our tickets, before noticing that actually we were on a different bus. In both Uruguay and Argentina there are many different independent bus companies plying the same routes and the buses are announced by company and then by schedule. This can get quite confusing when you want to go somewhere, as you have to go up and down all the various kiosks at the bus station to find the company that goes where you want to.

Anyway, our bus eventually arrived an hour late, and we were ‘allowed’ to board with our damaged tickets.

It was worth the wait – our bus was slightly more expensive but I’d gone for the cama category – the seats were massive, like business class seats on a plane, and with a pull-out part that transformed it into an almost fully reclining bed.

They were super comfortable and we both slept well. The only major downside was the fierce air-conditioning, which despite our fleeces, socks and scarves and a blanket provided by the company, made us fairly cold.

It was quite a funny sight seeing everyone arrive in the incredibly hot Puerto Iguazu the following morning, emerging into the sunlight in thick coats, boots etc, and immediately stripping off.

By Lauren: Acuamania Water Park!

We are in Dayman, a small village in Uruguay. We came here mainly to go to Acuamania, which is a massive waterpark.

I was really lucky to meet some new friends to go to Acuamania with. They were really nice, an Argentinian family whose daughter is 11 years old and was very nice to me. We made very good friends.

 

Acuamania was amazing!

It had everything; some water slides and even a Zipwire where you slide across and then whenever you want you can just jump into the pool.

My favourite ride was definitely the Zipwire – at first i was scared  because of how high it was but when you do it the first time without giving up then you never want to stop!

There were slides that were like a cliff edge – you would go straight down and when you hit the bottom you make a wave like a tsunami! I never went on that, it was too scary.

Acuamania also had a bucket full of 200 Litres of freezing cold water, that tipped up onto you when you stood underneath. I went under that twice and when the water fell,  it was so heavy that my head was pushed down so far it probably looked like I didn’t have a neck. After that freezing water, I went straight to the warm pool!

There was also a good not too fast or too slow slide where once I thought I was going to fly of the edge of it!

Acuamania was awesome!!!!!!