The Uruguay-Brazil border avenue

This is the main avenue running through the small town of Chuy. The road separates Uruguay from Brazil. On the righthand side of the avenue, is Uruguay and everything is written in Spanish; on the left is Brazil and everything is written in Portuguese. We just got our passports stamped a couple of miles from the town on either side of the border. It was a very relaxed border crossing. We changed our money at the official rate with a nice man selling CDs on the street. 

Mate tea and thermos flasks

This is a common image in Argentina, Uruguay and the south of Brazil.  Nursing a thermos flask of hot water and sucking on a metal straw from a decorative cup full of herbs, adults of all ages are seen out and about. They are drinking mate tea. This is very much a do-it-yourself to your liking drink and you can't order it in cafes but there is a vast range of herb blends available in shops. It's amazing people don't need to wee all the time because they never stop drinking it - at bus stops, on the bus, wandering the streets etc.

Our only night in a dorm

Many people travel for months on end sleeping in dorm rooms in bunk beds with lots of other people every night. We can't imagine it - we would have probably been home within a few weeks had we had to stay in dorms. We have heard horror stories as follows: someone waking up in the middle of the night to find a stranger massaging them; a stolen camera; a stolen guidebook; bad wind; being awoken at 5am by spoilt British 18-year olds drinking and snorting drugs; people bringing back their conquests of the evening for further exploration. The list goes on. Everyone seems pretty cheerful about the state of affairs and presumably if you're travelling by yourself then there's also the appeal of meeting people easily.

We spent our first night in this dorm because we had spent 3 nights in a double room at the hostel and got a night in the dorm for free. It was hardly tough as we were the only people in there. Evenso, the room was dark and cramped and would have been hideous had it been full. We don't plan to repeat the experience. Maybe it's our age! Are we getting old?!

Simon's car blog

Approaching the back of this car as we walked through the streets of Colonia, I was absolutely stumped as to what it could be. Only when I walked round to the front did I make the amazing discovery that it was a Renault 4. A Renault 4 pick-up!It had no Renault badge, so I'm not sure if it's official, or a home-made effort, but either way, I found it rather charming.

Beaches glorious beaches

From Uruguay's capital, Montevideo, up to the Brazilian border, stretch miles and miles of gorgeous beaches. We had heard about this before we set off on our trip and so we were really looking forward to spending some time here.

High season is January and February, by May it should be chilly and wintry but this year it's still very dry and hot - not good for farmers but it worked out well us, as it's now out of season, so we had beautiful beaches virtually to ourselves in the sun. Punta del Diablo

We spent 5 nights relaxing by sandy beaches and splashing in the sea - 4 nights in a place called Punta del Diablo, which apparently has a fair population of surfers and travellers in January and February, and another night with a lovely, slightly drippy hippyish couple (very friendly but the 'spiritual' music we had to listen to nearly made us poorly) in a village called Valizas. Luciana and baby Safiro outside their very relaxing B&B home.

From Valizas we crossed a small estuary in a rowing boat and spent a lovely day walking along several miles of sand dunes and beaches with nobody else in sight.  We reached a tiny fishing village, Cabo Polonio, which is a popular hippy hangout in the summer but now is mainly shut up for winter. Fishing boats in Cabo Polonio

To get back to the main road from here we took a bumpy ride on top of an offroad truck across more beaches and sand dunes. We somehow missed our bus connection at the main road (the only one of the day) but it all worked out well when a kind man and his son gave us a lift in their van to the nearest town.  

The peninsular is called 'Devil's Point', probably due to how treacherous the sea is around here for ships. There are many shipwrecks, and the last notable boat to sink went down in the 1970s.

The beaches of Uruguay were exactly what we had hoped for: beautiful, relaxing, sunny, unspoilt and with endless stretches of golden sand all to ourselves.

Across the river to Uruguay

Our ferry in the port at Colonia.
We had to get up early for the first time in Buenos Aires the day we left to catch the ferry across the vast Rio Plata. We slept soundly for the 3 hours the ferry took to chug across the estuary and awoke to a much less hectic and populated place - Colonia de Sacramento.
View from the lighthouse.
This lovely old colonial town with fortress walls along the riverbanks was a relaxing place to spend a day and night. We wandered along its cobbled streets, climbed up its lighthouse and watched the sunset over a jetty. All very pleasant!
A vintage roofless car with a plant growing from withinA typical street in Colonia

We don´t know who he is but the bird is enjoying the perch.

Squinting in the sun at the top of the lighthouse.

Colonia is the oldest city in Uruguay and is located in an important strategic location at the mouth of the Rio Plata. Its fortress walls are testimony to its history of attempting to defend itself against invasion. Colonia moved between Portuguese and Spanish hands nine times over the 17th to 19th centuries, then it spent a few years under Brazilian rule before finally being declared a part of Uruguay in 1828.

Boca Juniors v Arsenal

After the excitement of the River Plate game we were looking forward to a match played by their arch rivals, Boca Juniors. Their ground, the Bombonera, is in a dodgy part of town but often attracts tourists as it is famous for its boisterous fans. Annoyingly, we had to buy tickets from touts at inflated prices, a scam the club were very much in on. 

The ground has steep stands on 3 sides and a wall of boxes on the fourth. It is the only stadium in South America we have been to without a running track. I can't think of another top flight club that would have a view like you must get from some of the boxes above the halfway line. Apparently Maradona has a box here but we didn't spot him. it's a great stadium to watch football in. We felt close to the action and the fans made some great noise.The opposite stand to ours was for members only, where most of the noise came from, and is known as 'player number 12'.

The hardcore fans were probably not quite as noisy as those of River Plate, but when the whole stadium were singing the atmosphere was electric.

The standard was very high and we enjoyed the match. The game finished 2-1 to Boca, so the fans were happy and so were all of us.

Food in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is famous for its steak and we were happy to get stuck in right from the off. On my birthday, our chosen restaurant was closed and by chance we ended up in what was described in the Time Out magazine as, 'probably the most popular traditional Argentinian restaurant in Buenos Aires right now'.  Despite being ravenous, we went with the waiter's recommendation of two steaks between three of us. We knew we were on to a winner when gigantic, heavy knives were laid on the table and we were not disappointed when he brought out an obscenely huge sirloin steak and a wapping great rump steak topped with pancetta. The steaks were accompanied by numerous small and tasty side dishes such as mashed sweet potato, beans in vinegar, onion chutney, and roasted peppers. One of many fine steaks we enjoyed in Buenos Aires

The kind people at the restaurant gave us complimentary champagne for my birthday and brought out this impressive tower of lollies.It's not all about eating out, we treated ourselves to some goodies from the deli and had a great birthday lunch time picnic on Anya's balcony.

Any half decent restaurant in Buenos Aires will bring out a generous selection of bread before every meal. We noticed other people only picking at their bread basket and were confused as to why they didn't feel the need to try every bread and polish it off if at all possible. There are starters on the menus but I can't think who would bother. 
This monster pasty was in fact more wholemeal bread than pastry and none the less tasty for it. As a post-football hangover remedy it worked well.  Called 'pan relleno' or 'stuffed bread' it was full of hot soft, white cheese, big lumps of ripe tomato and herbs.
The submarino appears on every cafe menu. It's a very popular do it yourself hot chocolate. Just dunk the bar into hot milk and stir. 

Los Desaparecidos (The Disappeared)

The 1970s are a very dark period in Argentina's history and politics, as in so many Latin American countries. The optimism of the 1960s and early 70s of electing left-wing politicians and parties that would introduce reforms leading to greater equality were crushed by military coups followed by dictatorships. 

In Argentina in 1976 the military once again overthrew the government and assumed power. During their period of rule until 1983, civil liberties were taken away - freedom of speech, freedom of association. Known as the 'dirty war', an estimated 30,000 people 'disappeared', suspected of 'subverting' the state.  They were taken from their homes in the middle of the night, blindfolded, or arrested on the street. 

People known to have been taken to Club Atletico and were never seen again

Amongst 'the Disappeared' are student leaders, union leaders, doctors, teachers, artists and writers. Many of these people were first taken for interrogation and torture underneath the Club Atletico in Buenos Aires. The building was demolished towards the end of the dictatorship in the early 80s and a motorway flyover has since been constructed in its place.

The excavation area

Recently, remains of the gruesome government building were discovered and work is underway to excavate the area and uncover more of what took place there as part of a movement for 'memory, truth and justice'. There is an organisation dedicated to these aims and to ensuring that this may never happen again. They have a powerful website, www.desaparecidos.org which includes a memory wall of photos of the 'disappeared' as they uncover more about who they were and personal details of some of the torturers. 

Underneath the flyover - 'San Telmo (district of Buenos Aires where many were arrested) has a memory, we have 30,000 reasons to go on fighting, do not forget nor pardon'

Dotted around the city on the pavements are plaques on the exact spot where individuals were arrested, never to be seen again. The plaques detail their names and date of disappearance.  

The Mothers of the 25 de Mayo Square (the main square outside the presidential palace) was founded by the mother's of the disappeared.  Every Thursday for over 20 years they met together in the square and walked in silence and dignity with an incredibly moving sense of purpose carrying photographs of their children and demanding justice. They have since taken on other human rights and political causes and continue to meet and march.

A sculpture on the former site of the Club Atletico torture chambers.

Tango toes

I associate salsa with two things: trying to avoid gyrating Mexicans whose heads reached my boob level in Mexico in 2001 and treading on people's feet. I realise this is doing it a big disservice but for me, this is how it is. Whereas tango, in Simon's words, is perfectly summed up by, 'Que romantico!'

The December before last we were in Brussels visiting my friend Kate when we happened upon a small, 1930s-style, smoky, atmospheric bar at 1am which was full of tangoing couples. The graceful strides and the flicky leg moves impressed us enormously. We vowed to learn to tango when we visited Argentina. 

So to Buenos Aires, the home of tango. Two days in and we and Max were at our first tango lesson at Salon Canning, a traditional tango hall. Things got off to an unfortunate start when we arrived too late for the beginner's class and so joined in with the 'intermediate-expert'. All the ladies were wearing stiletto tango heels which I think may aid the near impossible angle that women's pelvis' are expected to assume for hours on end.The first key to tango is that the men are in charge and in total control. The women must follow their every move. We were off to a tricky start. I was out of my natural territory with this. I must sense when Simon is about to move and follow him. He goes forwards and I go backwards. This was not easy.  We trod on one another's feet and banged in to other couples and of course, I kept trying to lead. Then there is the posture, lean in and stride backwards in a graceful manner. 'Obey me'

We didn't master it but our two hour lesson was followed by a fascinating insight into tango in the city.  Our lesson finished at 11pm on a Tuesday evening and the tango hall, which had tables reserved all around the dancefloor filled with people of all ages dressed to the nines and ready for a tango boogie. We retired to the periphery to observe with a bottle of wine. A couple of hours later, all ages, from 20 to 80 years old, were still going strong. At 1.30am they retreated to their tables and we were subjected to a couple of awful slideshow-style videos of some old, former professional couples shuffling around the dancefloor in their twilight years. The evening was a homage to them. We were tempted to leave at this point but were glad we didn't when the professionals came to the dancefloor. The dances were graceful and incredibly complex. We appreciated it all the more after our own dismal efforts.

This is how it should be done. The video is pretty long, our video editing isn't working. The really fancy footwork starts about 2 minutes in.  

A few days later and we were back for more tango with the brilliantly enthusiastic Max as well as Erica and Anya at a contemporary tango hall in a converted wooden cathedral. After several hours more of lessons, which included partner changing a little too often, we concluded that tango for us was not coming naturally and perhaps we enjoy observing it more that participating in it. 

Tango is enjoying a renaissance in Buenos Aires, some dancing traditional tango, others funking it up a bit. I don't think its new found popularity was of a 'Strictly Come Dancing' tv-initiated nature, rather that tango never went away and more people are now realising what an important place it holds in the heart of this city.

La Boca - Buenos Aires' eastend district

The Boca Juniors stadium towers over traditionally painted buildings in the colourful district of La Boca.

La Boca is an area of Buenos Aires well known outside of Argentina thanks to its famous football club, Boca Juniors; the club of Maradona and Argentina's most supported team. It is a fairly centrally located, working class suburb which fell on hard times when the port was moved to another area in the city. It still has an edge to it and tourists are advised not to visit after dark.Many of the buildings are in the original style, constructed of wood and corrugated iron and painted in bright, primary colours; this due to a tradition of begging left-over paint from ships returning to port. This vibrancy has led to one part of Boca becoming a tourist hot spot with a plethora of souvenir shops, dodgy art and tango displays in bars.We spent a nice few hours wandering around the streets, into a few galleries and along the old docks. Down by the stagnant river  is where you get a feel for the real Boca (and at the football ground on match days of course). Despite a recent effort to clean the river ( it must have been foul before) there are many signs of a bustling industrial past. Old, disused bridges and mighty warehouses still stand in testament.Overall, it was not the most endearing place we visited in the city, mainly due to the naff tourist aspect, but the obvious and interesting history behind the district made it well worth the visit.

The sign on the front of this huge warehouse reads 'Barrio Bonito' or 'Beautiful Suburb', the irony made complete with a fake Nike swoosh.

Las Malvinas (The Falklands)

The sign reads 'Las Malvinas are and will be Argentine'

Back in the early 80s when Rach was being born some bright spark in the Argentinian military regime decided it would be a good move to take back 'Las Malvinas' or the Falkland Islands. This nationalist tactic would surely gain popular support and Britain certainly showed no signs of caring much about the islands having downgraded its inhabitants from British citizens to subjects of a British dependency, or something like that. Argentines have always considered the Falklands as their own, to the point where they are always included on the national map. 

Of course, the Argentinian big wigs hadn't reckoned on Maggie Thatcher's own nationalist agenda and need for patriotic fervour to deflect attention from the economic situation at home. The war began when Argentina invaded the islands in April 1982. A naval war ensued and 74 days, nearly a thousands lives and several expensive boats later, the islands were once again British and Maggie's government was well on the way to re-election and the days of Argentina's military dictatorship were numbered.

In the UK, outside of affected families, the Falklands War has been largely consigned to the history books. This is not the case in Argentina. The main square outside the Presidential Palace has a permanent demonstration by people who fought in the war (photo above). There is a large monument in one of the Buenos Aires parks listing the names of all the Argentines who lost their lives in the conflict alongside a flag and an eternal flame. 

 

In addition to this, the metro station in Belgrano that we used most frequently had a Falklands theme with lots of information about the war and a model of HMS Belgrano which was sunk in battle. 

Nottingham Reunited

With Anya in her flat attempting an Andean South American look with a funky hat twist

One of the best things about Buenos Aires for us was meeting up with friends. We stayed with my lovely friend Anya who has been teaching English here for the last four years. We were in Mexico together in our third year of uni and I haven't seen her for 5 years. I was so excited when I spotted on facebook that Anya's home town is now Buenos Aires and loved seeing her again. She also had so many top recommendations for days and nights out. Thank you Anya!

Also in Buenos Aires was Max who is here learning Spanish for a couple of months and Erica who is working in a school for a couple of months. It was so good to see friends again and hit the bars and football stadiums of Buenos Aires together.

A dead desirable residence

A couple of blocks of the Recoleta district of Buenos Aires houses the rich, famous and powerful dead people of Argentina. This is a cemetery on a grand scale with some extraordinarily architectural tombs. 

Walking along the paths between the tombs feels more like walking along the narrow streets of a low rise town. Boxed in here in marble or stone structures with elaborate designs are former presidents, generals, prominent people in the jockey club, bankers, insururers... you get the idea.

Graveyards- yeah!

We passed great tombs like Greek temples and a mock Eygptian pyramid with cherubs atop with somebody or other buried beneath it. By far the biggest pile of flowers in the cemetery was in front of Eva Peron's (Evita's) tomb, the wife of Argentina's leader, Juan Peron, in the 1940s, she captured the hearts and imaginations of the working classes whilst simultaneously leading a flamboyant lifestyle. She died of cancer in 1952 and is revered by many around the world (and was recently portrayed by Madonna in 'Evita'). 

Most of the flowers outside Eva Peron's tomb had seen better days.