Travels

So much for a day or two. Its a long time in coming but here we go - update from Uruguay to present day! Where were we....

So we caught the ferry from Buenos Aires (abbreviated to BA from now on) to Colonia in Uruguay and then hopped on two buses to get us to Maldonado, where Larry lives. Larry collected us from the bus and brought us back to his house and introduced to to the most enthusiastic dog in the world - Manola (name was made up from the names Martin, Noel and Larry - a bit of trivia for ye). Aoife went on to make great friends with the dog as Larry got her to feed the dog every night - the friendship was cemented when Aoife fed her leftovers from pork chops! After settling in Larry then brought us out for steak in town - hooray!

The weather, contrary to expectations, turned out to be gorgeous! Larry gave us a tour of the local area and beaches - one of which was the world famous beach Punta Del Este and its surrounds. We saw some seals where the boats come in with their catches, and we got the obligatory photo with the hand sculture coming out of the sand

On the third day (Saturday) in Uruguay we spent the afternoon baking at Punta Del Este. Only that we were out of season we would have been rubbing shoulders with the glitterati of Argentina and Uruguay (literally rubbing shoulders probably because it gets packed in summer!!) We even managed to get into the water (Atlantic) for a dip. It was FREEZING!! We failed to take into account the fact that seals tend to live in pretty cold water...

On the Sunday we went to mass with Larry - we chose the later mass (surprise surprise). A very different experience to masses at home or (especially) in India. We've never gotten so many kisses and hugs from so many people in a single day! Everyone was so friendly and seemed delighted to see us and our lack of Spanish did not deter them one little bit with chatting away to us. After mass we went to watch the rugby. At least there were no Argentinians around to rub our faces in it...

On the Monday we went with Larry to Montevideo. Larry had a meeting to attend so our plan was to spend a few hours seeing the sights, grab something nice for lunch, and meet up again with Larry in time for the afternoon bus back to Maldonado. We hit a snag.. ALL sights were closed - all of them! Even the gallery that was supposed to be open shut for the morning for renovations!!! We wandered around a bit, walked a lot, got a steak, and then plodded our way back to the bus station in time to meet Larry. Montevideo was definitely NOT our friend.

On Tuesday (2nd of October - my birthday ) we had a real Uruguayan treat - Asado (a big bbq type thing with more meat than you can shake a stick at. Carnivores dream - veggies nightmare). It was great Larry's neighbour Bebe (definitely an ironic nickname!) took care of the cooking and I was his apprentice for the day. I took lots of photos so that one day I will be able to build my own asado (Aoife is delighted... ). When the meat was ready the party was assembled - Myself, Aoife, Larry, Bebe, Christina and Valentina (Bebe's wife and daughter) - and the eating began. A very enjoyable, if sometimes baffling, bilingual affair! There was so much food left over that we all had a second go at it for supper. A great day all in all

The following morning Larry, in great traditional family style, fed us up with a top breakfast before sending us on our way. Its becoming a pattern - its either that we give the impression that we would happily sacrifice our meals for beers or that they are just being really nice We're hoping the latter After breakfast we said our goodbyes and did the trip back to BA in reverse (bus, bus, ferry, taxi).

We only spent the one night in BA before hopping on to a bus to Mendoza. A mere 14 hours later we were there. We were staying in a hostel - the girls were staying in "The Hyatt". The gulf was widening. Fiona gave the address as "The Hyatt, Fancy Pants Street" - was pretty fancy we must concede. We were very jealous. To compensate we were allowed to spend all our spare time there, enough even to convince the doormen that we (they probably referred to us as "those scruffy looking backpackers" - in spanish) were actually staying there. It was cool having them open the doors of our taxis though. Yes - we spent most of our time there with the girls marvelling at the amount of free space in the room, massive beds (none of which were bunkbeds), ordering room service, and demanding that more ice be brought up to room 551.

One of the days we got a bus out to Maipu - an area thick with vineyards. We all hired bikes and went out for the day to do some tasting. Weather was beautiful so it was a very pleasant way to spend a few hours. We visited two vineyards, an olive oil factory and a very nice restaurant. The restaurant was so good in fact that we totally lost track of time and had to make a mad dash back to get the bikes left back in time for 6! We made it (pretty much). We then however had another problem - we needed exact change for the bus. We had exactly no change. It seemed as if there was some kind of small change money racket going on in the town as no single shop would give out more than 1 peso in change at a time. All in all we spent an hour visiting about 10 shops and we ended up buying a bottle of wine, a bottle of sprite, a bottle of coke, two packets of chewing gum (bought individually - Aoife didn't even get a coin back for one of these as she made the mistake of giving a 10 peso note and they were able to give her the change back entirely in notes ), and a set of dodgy looking hair bobbins. Even then we didn't have enough change! We sent Aoife over to the guy who rented us the bikes (she was nominated to go and attempt to charm him) - she earned a peso for her efforts (thats about 25 cent), much to the amusement of everyone. She would like to point out at this stage that she was actually looking for change of a 2 peso note - not begging. We then managed through some wheeler dealing to get some backpackers to give us change as well. The bus arrived exactly as we got the correct amount together - perfect.

The next day we went white water rafting. Not really that much to say about it - nobody fell out but everyone really enjoyed it and we have a load of photos (to follow). The only incident of note was that "we" had to carry the raft back to the truck at the end. I use "we" here because the only one carrying the bloody thing was me!! Being at least half a foot taller than everyone else meant that it rested on my head and was too high up for everyone else - I ended up bearing almost the entire weight and my legs were so shaky at the end I could barely get back in the bus! The girls found it pretty funny though...

We got a REALLY fancy bus back from Mendoza to BA. Champagne, plenty of movies in english, seats that recline fully flat, and.... wait for it... BINGO! Yes - they played Bingo with the passengers on the bus. Bizarre - yes. Fun - definitely

The afternoon we got back to BA we were meant to meet the girls. It transpired however that they were planning a Pretty Woman type shopping expedition. It was raining as well so we decided we'd meet for dinner later instead We went to the famous "La Cabrera" restaurant in Palermo. We had serious problems getting a taxi due to the weather - we arrived an hour late and soaked to the skin! It turned out that there was no rush - we had to queue for another hour before we got in. On the plus side there was free champagne and snacks while we waited.. I'm only sorry neither me nor Mary had a camera with us. I got the biggest steak I have ever seen and maybe the only steak I have ever not finished. Wow. The food and wine were great and as if that wasn't enough - the girls treated us (in true fancy pants style). If we didn't say thank you enough on the night - thanks again!!! Yum yum.

As the next night was due to be our last night we decided to do it in style - we went for one last steak in the place that Padraic showed us on our first night (everyones favourite steak in Argentina), and then caught a taxi to Recoleta to hit a nightclub. We found somewhere where the girls all got in for free so I was overruled. It started a bit surreal - an Argentinian drag queen doing stand up (yep - we didn't understand a word) before judging an impromptu dance competition. Then the music started and a good night was had by all.

Maybe too good a night.... The next morning we were due to fly to Mexico City at 11:40. You can imagine the scenes when we awoke at 10:45 - we had slept through both our alarms and the Airport was about 40mins away. It was looking bad. Cue major panic (by Aoife - I was cool as a cucumber... ). A few minutes later it was all sorted out - Aoife rang our buddies in Qantas and arranged for us to get on a later flight - phew!!

So Mexico City is where you find us (thankfully). Not what we expected at all at all - very nice place so far and the weather is scorching. We are going on a city tour tomorrow to see all the sights so we should have plenty of photos of Mexico City for ye then. Apologies for such a looooonnnng post - will try really hard to update this again sooner.

Take care - Tadhg & Aoife

So we finally got round to booking the trip on Saturday. Took almost two hours and was a bit of an ordeal but we got there in the end! Click the image below to get an Indiana Jones-esque image of the route we intend to take (only the flights are shown at the moment - will update the overland sections later..)