Roxy is back in Business

Today we got Roxy back from her final repair, changing the windscreen.

What a trip to get it all done.
First I got an email to call a guy that the previous owner knows to change the glass and so I call and try to enquire with my broken spanish. Somehow I manage and have an appointment to asses the damage and give me a quote. I meet Raul on the corner of a main road in Valparaiso and he begins taking photos and telling me all is good and no need to worry. He makes a call and within 10min has a screen waiting and askes me very politely to come back to the exact same spot the next morning (this morning) Only thing is he needs the money upfront and the car keys to take it to be repaired. Oh and the legal papers for the car in car the police stop him. It was about now my European scepticism kicked in like a bad acid trip. I started asking questions and wanted to go with him, he provided ID's and addresses and phone number. Then however my South Africa vibe meter was showing the needle to the "it's all good" side. After some internal juggling of emotion we felt it's was ok and we let the man drive off with our car. Rebekka and I joked as we headed home on foot that either we are good judges of character or we would be writing a fantastic blog post and follow up short book on what NOT to do in South America. LOL

We'll needless to say all went well and he promptly brought our car back at 14:30 that same day fixed and looking good.

HUGE thanks to Raul and Juan Carlos (previous owner) for making this dream possible and under budget.

Say hello to my little friend

"Roxy 120" Roxy for her Foxy red looks and 120 after a very cheap but incredibly tasty red wine in Chile. She will take us across South America from now on. No more busses YAY!! (Hopefully) :-)
Got up this morning, caught a train, saw a man about a car, payed the man and Damien drove back, on the right for the first time since Italy 4-5 yrs ago. "Like riding a bike  She's a beaut"

Nissan Pathfinder 3.0L V6 1987 4x4

All that needs to be done on Monday to transfer her into Damien's name, Tuesday repair the windscreen and get the technical certificate. Then it's off on a 2000+ Km drive to Bolivia! 
Well, not quite, first its Easter Island, but thats a whole other story...

Some interesting numbers

Since we left Switzerland the 26th September 2012, we travelled aprox. 2'958 km and 31 hours  by car in South Africa, we spent about 28 hours in planes to do about 21'000 km and last but not least our travels in South America. We travelled for 75 hours to do 4'953 km with buses... I would like to point out that we spent 6 (!) hours at the Chilean border, most of the time waiting...

Break down of our travel route: We flew from Zürich to Johannesburg over Amsterdam. Then from Johannesburg to Cape Town and drove back to Pretoria via the Garden Route. We went again to Cape Town and explored Greyton and Struisbaai and back to Cape Town.  This time we flew back to Johannesburg. Then we visited Swaziland and later on Shelly Beach and Durban by car. Finally we left for Buenos Aires Argentina. In South America we travelled so far only by bus. Our route:
From Buenos Aires to Foz do Iguaçu in Brasil, then to Asuncion in Paraguay, crossing the border to Clorinda in Argentina, then going to Salta and Mendoza. From Mendoza we went to Santiago de Chile and from there to Valparaiso, that's were we are right now :-)

The travel has been quite an adventure... One of our favorite towns along the way was the tiny and run down town Clorinda, bordering Paraguay. It was crazy to see people riding their motorbikes with babies in their arms... But everybody was so friendly and nice to us. When I asked a gentlemen if I could take a picture of him drinking mate tea, he gladly posed for me and immediately offered me some tea.

Also our lunch was quite a different experience. We chose a tiny restaurant and Damien ordered a glass of red wine, the lady brought the bottle with the kork inside of the bottle. She told us that it was too much effort to get it out and it was much easier to just push it in... :-) According to Damien the wine didn't even taste too bad. When we finished our meal and paid, the lady run after us with the rest of the bottle. We didn't realise that we had purchased the whole bottle, it was so cheap (about 15 CHF for two meals, wine and water...) We left the wine for the people in the restaurant, since we were about to take our next bus ride and it would have not been the best idea to down a bottle of wine before that. Or maybe it would have been? ;-)

The Devil's Throat

We were staying in the really cool Favela Chic Hostel in Brazil in the town called Foz do Iguaçu.
Anyone that goes anywhere close to Iguaçu will hear a lot about the famous waterfalls and obviously we were super curious to go and explore what we had heard so much about, the powerful cascades, the rainbows, the butterflies, the forrest and jungle surrounding the falls...

As advised by the hostel, we took a local bus and the ride was bumpy as expected. But the bus driver was definitely more considerate and friendly than the bus drivers in Buenos Aires. (Damien's observation about the bus drivers in Buenos Aires was "They are rather formula 1 pilotes than bus drivers" I think that describes it best. They didn't really stop for passengers to get on and off the bus, it was merely a pit stop. The bus driver pulled of, whether a leg was still hanging outside of the bus, or an old granny just got on. The drivers were always in a terrible hurry, but we could not figure out why? It could not have been due to the time table, because that didn't really exist. Some times we were waiting for a bus for half an hour or more and sometimes 3 buses of the same line passed by in a row. So why all that hurry, one would ask?)

In our hiking boots we were well prepared to explore the park. It dazzled us to see people entering the park with Flip Flops. - Stupid tourists, we thought.
The park was so big, that we had to catch a bus to the starting point of the hiking trails. To our surprise, the parks path were paved, so the hiking boots were a little exaggerated -clearly we were the tourists!... :-) It was very peaceful and pretty, walking along the path and trough the thick forrest. Suddenly we had company from the inhabitants of the forrest, the Coati from the Raccoon's family.

As adorable as these Raccoon's were,  there were many signs throughout the park stating not to touch or feed these animals. Now I let you guess how most people interpreted these signs. On sight of the raccoons they hurriedly searched their pockets for food to attract them. Everybody seemed to be in competition to attract as many as possible. Some people even tried to stroke them. In secret I was waiting for one of these adorable raccoons to dig her teeth deep into a stroking or feeding hand... ;-) he he, but unfortunately nothing happened.

Trough the trees we could see the waterfalls from far away. Of course we were filming and taking pictures as if there was no tomorrow and it respectively took us quite a while to get to the parks main attraction, the Garganta do Diabo in Portugese or Garganta del Diablo in Spanish (The Devil's Throat)
Once we arrived at The Devil's Throat it was clear, why it was called like that. The water cascaded in a deafening roar at the bend of the river, where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet.

The Devil's Throat was U-shaped, 150 meters wide and 700 meters long (!)
On the Brazilian side we could come and stand up very close to the water, whereas on the Argentina side we got completely wet. We even took a boat trip that took us under the falls. Most of the time I couldn't even open my eyes, there was water everywhere! What an experience to be in a waterfall! Damien was filming with the Go Pro, I'm super curious to see the footage.
We also saw many rainbows and butterflies on the Argentina side, beautiful! We were really happy that we visited both sides of the falls, it was definitely worth it. The only down fall was, when we visited the Argentina side it was Good Friday and the park was completely crowded. The mass of visitors was in a harsh contrast with the beautiful landscape. We enjoyed both sides, but the Brazilian side was way more tranquil and nicer to walk, so the experience was more pleasant for us, but we would definitely go to both sides again! Just check before that there are no public holidays :-)

My best-of Album from our time in Brazil

Favela Chic

We had a wonderful time in Foz do Iguacu (in Brasil at the boarder of Argentina and Paraguay)
A big part of this was definitely because of the Favela Chic Hostel and its awesome staff, best hostel ever!!!
At first we did not plan to visit Brasil at all (time wise) but then it seemed to be the best option to renew our visa and on top of it we wanted to visit the Iguacu falls.
We had such a good time there that we didn't even get to upload our wonderful pics yet.... Coming soon, I promise...
In the meantime we are back in Argentina, a good opportunity to finish my story about Buenos Aires, enjoy!

Love-Hate Chapter 2

Like every Sunday we took a stroll at the flea market in San Telmo, and every time we had coffe in the Coffee House, where they made the best italian coffee we had found in the city. There, we had met an italian couple, that came to Buenos Aires every year to dance tango. They recommended us to see tango at the Torquato Tasso.

We followed their advice and took a taxi the same evening to go and see the locals tango. Just as we had arrived, the taxi driver told us that we should be carful. Apparently it wasn't the best area at night.
So we found ourselves walking attentively along the dimly lit street, when Damien pointed out that the street numbers were decreasing instead of increasing. The taxi driver had sent us in the wrong direction. I found this quite amusing, given that he particularly emphasised that we should be careful in this area...
Once we were heading in the right direction, we found the place quickly and without any incidents.
Situated in the middle of the room was a dance floor, filled with couples indulging in the art of tango, lost in their dance and partner, sweeping light footed across the floor.
We did not grow tired of watching the dancers the entire evening. A tango set consisted of four dances with the same partner, in between the songs the pair took a brief pause to talk to each another. We found this quite interesting and were told, that this ritual came from a tradition from a time where it was not allowed for unmarried men and women, to spend time together alone. The short breaks in between a set of tango was often their only chance to exchange information, without being overheard.
The whole atmosphere was magical and old school. The men asked the women with subtle eye contact for a dance. If the woman approved, she nodded slightly with her head.
Each dancer expressed his own style not only through the dance, but also trough the close and shoes.
There was a rasta dude, if I saw him in the streets, I would have never guessed that he can tango. His shirt and pants were quite simple, but his shoes were fabulous. Mafia style in yellow, red and green. Another man wore chic black and white striped trousers and black and white shoes. (Damien didn't like him to much, I have to admit he was more occupied with his looks, than with the dance) The women wore beautiful dresses, some were classic and black, others had modern cuts and bright colours.

The king of the dance floor...

The undisputed king of the dance floor was an older gentleman (we guessed his age about 80 +) He had silver shiny hair and was dressed in a classic custom made suit. His shoes were in traditional black colour. The women literally melted in his arms. Whether they were in their 20is or 70is, he had every one dance with him.
We noticed that the women seemed to dance better with him than with other partners. We were then told that there were no "bad" tango dancers, but only "bad" leaders. Obviously this was the secret of this gentleman. Instead of showing off with fancy moves, he took the dance experience of his partner in to account and didn't urge her to do complicated steps. Instead he guided with confidence and elegance across the dance floor, with an energy hard to believe for this seasoned dancer.
I made a VIDEO of this evening, unfortunately I could not capture the older gentleman, there was not enough light for that, but once the show couple came on the floor, they light the place up and it was my chance!

There were many other things we enjoyed in Buenos Aires, but if I'm writing an article about everything, I'm afraid, your face will fall asleep...

So in short, awesome museums and art exhibitions, the Centro Cultural for example is even free

Andi enjoyed BA and BA enjoyed Andi

The mix of old and new with the architecture was very interesting. La puente de la mujer (The Women's Bridge) belonged definitely to my favourites. Her architect was inspired by tango dancers to give the bridge the asymmetrical and sweeping lines.

We found the Floralis Generica also pretty cool. During the day her petals are open and as soon as the sun goes away, she closes her leafs.

Floralis Generica (Mechanical Flower)

And of course, the Argentina meat deserves a top rating. I'm not really in to meat, so for me saying that takes a lot. The meat was very tender and not fatty at all. The one evening, Damien was pretty disappointed when he noticed that I had eaten the whole steak he had cooked for me. Usually, I leave a fair piece for him...

We also liked the empanadas a lot, they look like dumplings filled with meat (of course) veggies or chicken. At some stage we kind of lived on empanadas.

The cappuccino's were also nice, they prepared them in smaller cups and I got to like it a lot. A coffee needs to be accompanied with medialunas (croissants)

The wine though, was not really something to rave about. Of course, you could find a good glass of red wine, but you had to pay a good price for it... Maybe we are to spoiled from Italy... ;-)

And last but not least, if you are in BA, don't miss a cocktail in the buzzy area of Las Canitas, Baez street.

CHEERS!

Love-Hate, part 1

I can say that we have left Buenos Aires in good spirits. We enjoyed the city and did a lot, but retrospectively we can say that two weeks would have been enough.

expresses our feelings best for this city

On the one hand Buenos Aires had to offer so many beautiful things: lots of beautiful parks in the city, the Botanical Gardens, a huge selection of museums, tango dancers, vibrant street markets, cafes, restaurants and shops were decorated with so much love and attention to detail, open and friendly people, great architecture ....
On the other hand, the city was incredibly dirty and loud. Yes, yes, I know, this characteristic applies to most cities and one can expect it. (NOISE + DIRT = CITY)
but ...

Sidewalks, Dog s... & Happy Flip Flops

Unlike in Florence, there were spacious sidewalks. Plenty place for pedestrians, fruit sellers, kiosks and most important of all dogs.

We were puzzled to see how many people had dogs, considering the apartments in the city are not really big and no one has a garden. It quickly became very obvious that the Argentine's are madly in love with their dogs. They got even jobs for dog-walkers, these people took the dogs from other people for a walk. It was quite entertaining to watch them walking the dog gang, from Rotweiler to Golden-retriever and Pudel. The record we saw was a guy with 12 dogs on the leach. Obviously all of the dogs need to do their business and the owners or dog-walkers didn't really care if that was in the middle of the sidewalk.... disgusting, even more because no one bothered to clean up afterwards....
Besides the dog sh.. (let me call it poop) there was also plenty of rubbish on the sidewalks. Firstly, because they hardly have the containers to throw in the rubbish bags, so the residents had no other choice then to put it on the side of the sidewalk and secondly because homeless people searched in the bags for food and in the process ripped the bags open. Straying dogs did the rest to the ripped open bags and you can imagine the result.

My flip flops were as a matter of fact on vacation, I only walked around in closed shoes.
Speaking of shoes, the young women wore quite unusual looking shoes. They looked like a "cross breeding" between Birkenstocksandale and Flip Flop, but high. The plateau sole was the same hight from the front to the back. We thought that they wore this ugly looking shoes, because of the waste and dirt on the sidewalks. When we asked them for the reason, we always got the same answer. It is fashion right now. -?- Ooookey.....
Apart from the dog poop and rubbish on the sidewalks, I should also mention that most of them were completely broken with big holes and broken tiles. However, this was actually not a problem for us, since we looked constantly were we were walking anyway.

Graffiti Mundo

Let me conclude this post with something nice about Buenos Aires. The rather unpleasant streets I just described, were decorated with many graffiti's. Buenos Aires greatly supports their graffiti and street art scene, there is even a guided tour by Graffitmundo to see the cities most famous graffiti. They are a non-profit organization and they work in close collaboration with the street artists to give a most authentic tour. Unfortunately we did not make the tour, but we tried to capture as many graffiti as possible whilst strolling through the town. (oops, just stood in dog poop .....)