26.05.2010
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Backpack adVentures
23.05.2010
I realise that I have failed miserably at updating my blog since my last post..which was a long time ago! Posting some pictures of my 2 week whirlwind trip to the North of Argentina – Salta, Tilcara and Cafayate. I have not seen such amazing scenery (and so many cactuses!) before and I didn´t think that I would fall in love with the desert landscape..but indeed I had!
After my trip to the north I had completely revised my itinerary (whch is subject to daily revisions anyway). Instead of heading over to Uruguay and Brazil, I would be heading to North of Chile instead as it seems like I will never get enough of these cactuses and mountains and horses and cows!
[Gallery not found]08.05.2010
If there is one thing about travelling which I do not like, it is the fact that you inevitably and eventually, at a certain point in time, need to bid farewell to all the good friends you have made along the road…unless they all follow me back to Hong Kong, of course! I have made such a true and nice friend in Beat, the crazy Swiss guy who has a lot of weird piercings around his head, who has a rather undecisive mind (kind of similar to me actually), who walks way too slowly according to my Hong Kong standards, who has a lot of funny ideas but who has, most importantly, a big and kind heart made of gold.
Beat has started his trip in South America a few months ago in Brazil, but has been sick for the majority of his journey, most likely due to a nasty food poisoning caused by street food. As a result he has not been able to enjoy his time here as much as he expected, and more than once he thought about returning to Switzerland (adding to the fact that our visit to the Swiss village in Cordoba yesterday didn´t exactly help to ease his homesickness)! We talked about this a couple of times and for me and for my own selfish reasons (it is not that easy to make a friend you can really depend on whilst you are on the road!), it is really sad to see him planning to leave the continent so soon.
Before I embarked on this long journey, I was reminded by my friends (thanks Guy and Eve!) the importance of setting a mission or a goal for my travels, as one may easily lose a sense of direction after months and months of being on the road, of feeling tired and at times very lonely. To be totally honest, I don´t have a specific goal but I think I do have some sort of idea as to what I want to achieve out of my S America trip. It is of course not as plausible as “striving for world peace” or other humanitarian causes, but if this trip helps to open my insensitive eyes and widen my narrow mindset, if this trip helps me to confront my own ignorance towards the world, and if this trip turns me into a wiser and better person, hopefully that will mean I will become less of a hazard/burden to the world(!!) which means there will be an indirect benefit to our nation at the very end wahhaa! For Beat, I wonder if his goal in this trip is to perhaps constantly stretch his own limits and test his strengths and challenge his weaknesses, but I guess putting aside all these “self-development theories” I am now advancing, one ultimately needs to enjoy the trip itself. At the end of the day, travelling should be fun and not a torture, no?
So I do hope Beat will consider staying in South America, and perhaps later in the year we will be able to meet up again somewhere. Yet, even if he decides to cut short his trip, I am sure that will work out best for him and I´m also sure that we will still be able to meet up again, some day and some where (most probably in a real Swiss village this time)! Ciao, Beat!
08.05.2010
Yesterday, I had one of the best excursions ever, in terms of scenery, landscape, food and wine. We visited the outskirts of Cordoba with a local tour guide, Darmien (whom, we found out later, also happens to be the night guard of our hostel…I like how people tend to multi-task here in this city!).
Darmien picked us up in his car in the morning, and we then set off to visit some stunning natural sceneries, trekked some small hills, visited some artificial lakes and a stunning waterfall, had a terrific Parrilla lunch (again, meat meat meat), and in the afternoon, hopped over to La Cumbrecita (a Swiss town) and Belgrano (a German town).
According to Darmien, many Swiss and German people emigrated to Argentina during the second world war, and thereafter congregated together and built these lovely serene Swiss and German villages around the outskirts of Cordoba. Cumbrecita and Belgrano both reminded me of my visit to Interlaken in Switzerland a few years ago with Rachel, where the houses were like those you oftentimes see in fairytale stories, and with most of the shops selling Swiss chocolates, German beer, oktoberfest type of giant beer mugs, and generally with people speaking Swiss-German and Hi-German everywhere. Don´t ask me what the difference is between the two languages though, I really have no idea but what I do know is that Swiss people will get quite offended if you tell them that they speak Hi-German! I tested this on Beat (who is Swiss) already, so you have to believe me!
We arrived back in the city around 7 yish to purchase our bus ticket to Salta for the following day. The long but rewarding day winded down with an asado organised by the hostel which started at 11:30 pm (not surprising according to Argentinean standards), during which we managed to eat even more meat and drank a lot of Quilmes beer. After dinner Beat and I went out for some dancing but as mentioned before, since Corboda is a famous university town, we did not exactly have the time of our lives partying with little kids (=P) and went back to the hostel quite early to hit the sack (4 yish, very early indeed, again according to Argentinean standards)!
One thing though…I feel more and more unhealthy these days due to over-consumption of meat and bread in Argentina. Yesterday for example, I think I nearly ate a whole cow (not eating it alive, of course), considering the quantity of meat intake throughout the day. Hopefully I can devote the next few days to a pure and strict fruit diet in order to restore the yin-yang balance back in my system. We´ll see!
07.05.2010
I left Buenos Aires on Wednesday night with a slight fever, and arrived at Cordoba on Thursday morning craving for a shower and big breakfast, but happy with the fact that my fever was nearly gone. Having dreaded it so much, it turns out that the 9-hour bus ride from Buenos Aires to Cordoba wasn´t that bad afterall!
Speaking of bus travel, there are different classes of long-distance buses which a traveller can book for his or her trip within Argentina. These are semi-coche (the seats reclining 120 degrees back), coche cama (reclination around 150 degrees) and coche suite (enabling you to lie down horizontally). The coche suite buses usually provide food as well as an air-hostess (oops, I mean, a bus hostess). Being budget-conscious but at the same time back/spine-conscious travellers, we naturally opted for the coche cama option, which was a good choice as I slept all throughout the way!
So here I am, now on the road with Lottie and Beat, although Beat will only be joining us for a few days in Cordoba, and thereafter he will be heading west to Mendoza instead. Poor Beat was “sooooo tall” (in his words) that he wasn´t able to get any sleep on the coche cama because the space between each seat was not wide enough for his looooong legs. Poor thing! So after we dropped our bags off in the hostel (Alvear hostel), Lottie and I headed out to stroll around the city while Beat stayed in to catch up on some sleep.
Cordoba is a refreshing change to the busyness of Buenos Aires. The city is compact enough to be explored entirely on foot, and the shops are all condensed in the central district so one would easily be able to find his way around town. Lottie and I had a lovely walk around Parque Sarmiento and caught some rays along some Hollywood-type boulevards. Cordoba is known to be the university town of Argentina, and hence the population here tends to be slightly younger compared to Buenos Aires. The people here don´t speak as much English as in BsAs, but this poses no problem for us as Lottie is a very fluent Spanish speaker, having lived in Mallorca for 2 years before.
After having lunch with Beat after he woke up, we sought to check out some museums, only to be held up by the array of clothing and other shopping stores around the vicinity of the town plaza (San Martin). I was still blaming myself of the fact that I very foolishly left my scarf on the night bus – a black scarf knitted by my mum before I set off for South America. Hence I spent a major part of the afternoon shopping for a replacement black warm scarf – but nothing can ever be its substitute, mum! I´m so sorry, please knit me a new one!
For dinner we had some nice lomos (meat sandwiches…very fattening ones…) in a local student joint, and headed back to the hostel after a quick drink. We will be out on a full day excursion tomorrow so better catch up on some sleep!
