Hey everyone,
We are writing to you from Puerto Iguazu, Argentina and we wish to apologise for our absence on the blogosphere. Last time we wrote on here we had just arrived in La Paz and boy have we got some stories to tell you about the time period between then and now. La Paz was a lot of fun and unbelievably cheap but we mostly took advantage of this by eating lots of Western food and drinking cheap alcohol rather than really appreciating the real La Paz which we suspect is quite different. We stayed there for three nights and then got the bumpiest overnight bus ever (the road was literally unpaved; several times we were convinced that our journey was going to end in the back end of Bolivia in a coach full of backpackers) to Uyuni, home of the Salar de Uyuni better known as the Salt Flats. We arrived at about 6am and five hours later we set off in a 4x4 to see what all the fuss was about.
Put simply the Salt Flats are just a deserted plain of salt, 10,582 square metres (thanks wikipedia) but in reality it is the most incredible, beautiful and surreal landscape. Our expedition started with a visit to a train cemetery which felt like the setting for a horror film and made for some great, if slightly spooky, photos. Next we drove onto the Salt Flat itself and spent a couple of hours admirng the amazing scenery, eating lunch and experimenting with perspective based photography (none of which was particularly successful). This is a lot to do with the fact that all the whiteness is absolutely blinding and we couldnt really tell what we were taking pictures of. We were very thankful that our car didnt break down and our driver wasnt drunk as we had pretty much been led to believe this was a given.
After Uyuni we then undertook the most ridiculous mess of a journey that we have ever been on. We got a 6am bus from Uyuni to Villazon (a town on the Bolivia/Argentina border) which took ten hours, was very bumpy and kept picking up random people off the side of the road so eventually the bus was full of old Bolvian ladies carrying huge sackfuls of coca leaves sitting on the floor and being incredibly noisy. This was mostly just amusing and a little uncomfortable - the real fun started later. When we got to Villazon we wandered around the whole bus terminal looking for a good bus and eventually found one that seemed legit. The bus driver told us we would have a stop at 11pm in a town called Jujuy where we would have to get off the bus, wait an hour and then get back on and continue to Buenos Aires. When we got on the bus we found out that our second bus would be with a different bus company, but we still were not worried. However, when we arrived in Jujuy we went looking for the new bus company´s office and found out that they didnt have one. We asked around and a man said "Oh yeah, that bus is leaving tomorrow, probably at around ten, or maybe eleven or twelve". Further enquires to the police in the bus terminal revealed that we had been sold a false bus ticket and that the bus we were waiting to get on did not, in fact, exist. We ended up getting safely to Buenos Aires on a new bus the next day but not before we had spent a night in a cockroach infested hostel. On checking out, Rebecca and the man at reception had the following dialogue:
Man: How was the room?
Rebecca: You know theres loads of bugs in there?
Man: But its fine! They wont do anything to you, no problem! (this last bit was said in English)
Rebecca: You are terr (not really, he probably wouldnt have understood).
When we finally arrived in Buenos Aires after over 50 hours on buses it (thank god) fully lived up to expectations. It is an amazing city, like New York meets Paris/Barcelona/any cool European city but full of super-cool, super-glam South Americans. We spent a lovely week wandering around the different neighbourhoods, seeing all the tourist sights, sampling some BA nightlife (including the school-disco style parties held daily by our hostel) and eating lots of dulce de leche which is the best thing evs. Despite having taking a gap year to broaden our horizons, we ended up dancing with a jewish ex UCS boy who once directed Rebecca´s boyfriend in a school play. We also did a tango lesson but found it hard to master wrapping our legs seductively around total strangers. One highlight of our week was strolling down a street in La Boca talking about how safe we felt in the apparently dangerous neighbourhood, only to walk straight into the path of two policeman who told us in no uncertain terms that it was ´not convenient´ for us to be there, that it ´didn´t look good´ for them if anything happened to us and that there were ´people there looking for "quilombo"´(which roughly translates as trouble, but literally means a brothel). We were then personally escorted into a more touristy area before we found any of that ´quilombo´.
Maya and Rebecca also did what everyone inevitably ends up doing on their gap year (and what Alex had already done in Israel) and got our noses pierced! We love them but we have to constantly apply an orange antibiotic spray which isnt the best look but by the time we are back in London we will be SUPER COOL LIKE ALEX. Our new claim to fame is that we got our piercings done in the same place Maradona once got a tattoo (and also some guy from Guns n Roses who wasnt Slash or Axl Rose) - pretty sweet I think you will all agree. Today we arrived in Iguazu after an extremely comfortable 16 hour bus ride during which we were offered whiskey and champagne before we went to bed! Tomorrow we are doing a trip to the Brazilian side of the falls, the day after we are doing a full day on the Argentinian side and then on Thursday we are heading off to Rio! Dont ask why doing things in that order makes sense, it just does.
Until next time!
xxxxx
We are writing to you from Puerto Iguazu, Argentina and we wish to apologise for our absence on the blogosphere. Last time we wrote on here we had just arrived in La Paz and boy have we got some stories to tell you about the time period between then and now. La Paz was a lot of fun and unbelievably cheap but we mostly took advantage of this by eating lots of Western food and drinking cheap alcohol rather than really appreciating the real La Paz which we suspect is quite different. We stayed there for three nights and then got the bumpiest overnight bus ever (the road was literally unpaved; several times we were convinced that our journey was going to end in the back end of Bolivia in a coach full of backpackers) to Uyuni, home of the Salar de Uyuni better known as the Salt Flats. We arrived at about 6am and five hours later we set off in a 4x4 to see what all the fuss was about.
Put simply the Salt Flats are just a deserted plain of salt, 10,582 square metres (thanks wikipedia) but in reality it is the most incredible, beautiful and surreal landscape. Our expedition started with a visit to a train cemetery which felt like the setting for a horror film and made for some great, if slightly spooky, photos. Next we drove onto the Salt Flat itself and spent a couple of hours admirng the amazing scenery, eating lunch and experimenting with perspective based photography (none of which was particularly successful). This is a lot to do with the fact that all the whiteness is absolutely blinding and we couldnt really tell what we were taking pictures of. We were very thankful that our car didnt break down and our driver wasnt drunk as we had pretty much been led to believe this was a given.
After Uyuni we then undertook the most ridiculous mess of a journey that we have ever been on. We got a 6am bus from Uyuni to Villazon (a town on the Bolivia/Argentina border) which took ten hours, was very bumpy and kept picking up random people off the side of the road so eventually the bus was full of old Bolvian ladies carrying huge sackfuls of coca leaves sitting on the floor and being incredibly noisy. This was mostly just amusing and a little uncomfortable - the real fun started later. When we got to Villazon we wandered around the whole bus terminal looking for a good bus and eventually found one that seemed legit. The bus driver told us we would have a stop at 11pm in a town called Jujuy where we would have to get off the bus, wait an hour and then get back on and continue to Buenos Aires. When we got on the bus we found out that our second bus would be with a different bus company, but we still were not worried. However, when we arrived in Jujuy we went looking for the new bus company´s office and found out that they didnt have one. We asked around and a man said "Oh yeah, that bus is leaving tomorrow, probably at around ten, or maybe eleven or twelve". Further enquires to the police in the bus terminal revealed that we had been sold a false bus ticket and that the bus we were waiting to get on did not, in fact, exist. We ended up getting safely to Buenos Aires on a new bus the next day but not before we had spent a night in a cockroach infested hostel. On checking out, Rebecca and the man at reception had the following dialogue:
Man: How was the room?
Rebecca: You know theres loads of bugs in there?
Man: But its fine! They wont do anything to you, no problem! (this last bit was said in English)
Rebecca: You are terr (not really, he probably wouldnt have understood).
When we finally arrived in Buenos Aires after over 50 hours on buses it (thank god) fully lived up to expectations. It is an amazing city, like New York meets Paris/Barcelona/any cool European city but full of super-cool, super-glam South Americans. We spent a lovely week wandering around the different neighbourhoods, seeing all the tourist sights, sampling some BA nightlife (including the school-disco style parties held daily by our hostel) and eating lots of dulce de leche which is the best thing evs. Despite having taking a gap year to broaden our horizons, we ended up dancing with a jewish ex UCS boy who once directed Rebecca´s boyfriend in a school play. We also did a tango lesson but found it hard to master wrapping our legs seductively around total strangers. One highlight of our week was strolling down a street in La Boca talking about how safe we felt in the apparently dangerous neighbourhood, only to walk straight into the path of two policeman who told us in no uncertain terms that it was ´not convenient´ for us to be there, that it ´didn´t look good´ for them if anything happened to us and that there were ´people there looking for "quilombo"´(which roughly translates as trouble, but literally means a brothel). We were then personally escorted into a more touristy area before we found any of that ´quilombo´.
Maya and Rebecca also did what everyone inevitably ends up doing on their gap year (and what Alex had already done in Israel) and got our noses pierced! We love them but we have to constantly apply an orange antibiotic spray which isnt the best look but by the time we are back in London we will be SUPER COOL LIKE ALEX. Our new claim to fame is that we got our piercings done in the same place Maradona once got a tattoo (and also some guy from Guns n Roses who wasnt Slash or Axl Rose) - pretty sweet I think you will all agree. Today we arrived in Iguazu after an extremely comfortable 16 hour bus ride during which we were offered whiskey and champagne before we went to bed! Tomorrow we are doing a trip to the Brazilian side of the falls, the day after we are doing a full day on the Argentinian side and then on Thursday we are heading off to Rio! Dont ask why doing things in that order makes sense, it just does.
Until next time!
xxxxx
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