Yo Yo from Uruguay

Yo from Uruguay! I am now in Montevideo, Uruguay which is certainly a contrast from Buenos Aires. Much smaller, from what I´ve seen, and I would say poorer. Palm trees line the central squares, and some of the roads in the countryside too.. which I found a bit random! Cows fill the fields, you can see where they got all the meat to make those pies in Fray Bentos. 

Live
 
Today I´m feeling good. Yesterday was quite tiring as I was up until 2AM the night before sorting my bags and finding hostels here on the internet, and then I had an 8 hour bus ride (see travel below). Once I got to the hostel, it was good though. Ok, it´s not as good as the hostel in Buenos Aires, but I met people as soon as I opened the door, and once I´d dumped my stuff, sat down with 4 Brazilians & an Argentine to watch footie - Argentina v Colombia.

After a lot of cheering from the Argentine guy when they won we went to an Irish pub and were drink litre bottles of beer for just over a pound. Muy bien! Thankfully it´s not quite as cold here as Buenos Aires and to be honest today I really don´t need this fleece I´ve got on. Stuff just seems to get cheaper too.. I´ve just been to the Uruguayan version of Pizza Hut and had a pizza and two drinks for one pound, fifty pence!

Listen
 
Listening has been interesting over past few days, and as with other stuff, has been a thing of contrasts. A selection include: From the incredible noise generated by Buenos Aires traffic, protestors and clubs, to the Montevideo sea front, where all I could hear was the wind. One of the funniest things has to be South American football commentary...

GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLL ARG-EN-TINA!

very funny. They are very passionate about their football. I´ve also heard the bus engine, the honk of old fashioned truck horns on the motorways of Uruguay (if you can call them that!), the blaring music from a kid´s headphones on the bus, badly dubbed spanish films and sweet sound of a covers band doing High & Dry by Radiohead in an Irish pub in Montevideo - so good, if Thom Yorke leaves Radiohead, this guy could fill in!

Travel

Obviously it´s going to be pretty tough to beat the travel documented in the last post, but there´s been a bit done in the last 5 days. I´ve walked round a fair proportion of central Buenos Aires at all hours of the day and night. Interesting to see a city that truly never sleeps! After meeting some people at the hostel there, we went out from 8 at night til almost 8 the next morning, obviously slightly worse for wear by the morning ;-) Walking around there, also involves a good proportion of getting lost, but at least that way you get to see more of the city!

Then there was the bus to here. Getting the ticket itself turned into a bit of a trek as I headed in completely the wrong direction. Luckily the Porteños of Buenos Aires are darn sight friendlier than your stereotypical Londoner or Parisian, and they pointed me in the right direction (which I understood!). After getting the ticket, I found the short way back on my own via the supermarket and cooked myself a feast of pasta with peppers, onions and tomatoes. The peppers were of a ridiculous size, "giant" wouldn´t be a big enough description!

The next morning I got up for the bus in time, got a taxi, and got on the bus to Montevideo. It was an interesting ride - cows, pampas, slums. They were the main things that stood out! Oh but I can´t forget the border crossing, which was at best confusing, but I got my stamps and thats what matters :) After getting here, I got a taxi to the hostel as I hadn´t a clue where it was and it was getting dark.

Right I´d better be off otherwise I´ll be paying extra! Watch for another post soon. Take care.

Buenos dias en Buenos Aires

... or should I say Buenos tardes! I´m now in Buenos Aires after what seemed like a day on the plane from Frankfurt! The 14 hour flight ended up taking 16 as the authorities decided to shut Buenos Aires airport, I´m guessing because of bad weather. Therefore we had to land in Sao Paulo which was either foggy or smoggy and goodness only knows how the pilot found the runway! Thankfully, after 2 hours, we took off again and got to Buenos Aires.

Live
 
I´m feeling quite tired at the moment, I guess it maybe jet lag after crossing one hour to Germany and then 5 hours back to Argentina! I don´t feel too bad though, and have been for a wander today (see below). I´m glad to be here at last :):):) It´s pretty cold, but that doesn´t bother me.. better cold then very hot for me.

The hotel I´m staying in is very nice too. It´s near where all the theatres are and you even get smoked salmon and that sort of calibre of food for breakfast! Obviously I can´t stay in that sort of place for my whole trip as it´d only last a quarter of the time, but as a starting point, it´s very nice indeed! Tomorrow, I´m going to a hostel, but it too sounds good, and for only a fiver a night :)

Listen
 
Listening... well in the last 36hrs it´s been weird! From the rumble of the jet engines in my ear for 16hrs to the hum of the air-con in my room in the hotel, from listening out for German and then for Spanish it´s been interesting and constantly changing. I´ve managed to understand a fair bit of spanish, but not everything! I also keep wanting to speak in German, which I know will get me less further than English. Hopefully, I´ll get the knack soon and start reeling off spanish like.. well.. a spaniard!
There was one beautiful moment to do with listening though.. as we descended into Sao Paulo at 6AM in the dark, I was listening to Bruce Springsteen´s "Dancing in the dark". People, you may laugh, but you had to be there to understand! I think it was because it was so peaceful up there and there was all these lights below. Something like that anyway.

Travel
 
I can say with no holding back, that I certainly have travelled since the last post! From Heathrow (with a scalded hand - THANK YOU COSTA COFFEE!) to Frankfurt and then 24 hours later from Frankfurt to Buenos Aires via an unscheduled Sao Paulo. I reckon about 7500 miles in 36 hours or there abouts!

It was great to see friends in Frankfurt as I hadn´t seen my mum´s friends for a while and also got to say bye to Paul and his family. Then I got to the airport where there was a suspicious baggage! Luckily I could still check in and by the time I´d finished it had gone. I got through passport control wandered a bit and then went to the gate, where they were none too pleased when they asked for my return ticket and I produced one from Canada next year! They said this was no good, but luckily I went to the help desk explained, and a lady wangled it for me and gave me a piece of paper to show if I get asked again.

I got on the plane and was happy to find I had two seats to myself.. this also meant two pillows, two blankets, but unfortunately not two portions of food. I managed to sleep for a couple of hours and then woke up and listened to a bit of Starsky and Hutch. Then I fell asleep again and was woken next by the captains voice saying that we had to land in Sao Paulo as they had shut Buenos Aires airport and he didn´t have enough fuel. I thought we were gonna get stranded and I would be going by bus! Luckily we took off again, and got to BsAs two hours late. Then immigration there wanted to know everything on a form, but then when I handed it in, didn´t seem too bothered and just stamped my passport! Suits me! I hope every country is like that :)

Today so far I´ve been for a wander around downtown BsAs which seems nice, but very busy, I´ve been up to where Evita was shouting from a balcony and to the biggest avenue in the world - Avenida 9 Julio, which certainly is very big! There was also a big protest on about something.. which taxi drivers, driving around them didn´t seem too happy about!

Right I´ll be off now, as I´m ready for some more wandering. I´ll be updating again soon as soon as I´ve got some more to tell you :)

Adios!

Bloggin'tastic - 9 days to go!

Hello

 

So here I am, back in bloggin business after a fairly long gap since the last one. As the title might suggest there is now only 9 days to go til I leave for South America.. WOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

 

You may notice some photos appear on here of my trip to Norway/Sweden/Finland last year in the next few days as I will be testing it's capabilities. If you haven't seen these yet, hope you enjoy them!

LIVE

 

Right now, I'm feeling good - 5 days of work left to go before I finish work, why wouldn't I?! Other than that, I'm feeling pretty relaxed which is good as I have almost everything in place for the start of my travels. I've just got my malaria pills and a couple of things to buy and I should be done! People seem suprised that I'm not nervous, but I feel that I have everything under control. Maybe it'll be different in a weeks time?

 

LISTEN

 

In the past 24 hours, I've heard: my alarm clock loudly ringing in my ear; Audioslave on my walkman as I walked to and from work; customers moaning about bath screens; colleagues voices; the pouring rain in fits and bursts; the modem connecting to the internet; the Beastie Boys latest album; cars passing by outside; the news; the sad news that Marlon Brando died; my mobile phone ring; my family's voices.

 

TRAVEL

 

Tomorrow evening I'm travelling to Liverpool to see my friend Mark's band - Blind Frog Ernie - http://www.blindfrogernie.co.uk play at the Cavern. They're great and I reckon they get better everytime they play.. do check out the website! If you're in Hull, keep an eye out for their gigs, they play in a wide range of places and definitely worth the effort to go and see them.

 

So, South America travel plans.  After some further consultation with people on the Lonely Planet forum (very helpful indeed!), once I've finished in Buenos Aires, I'm going to go to Uruguay. The reason being that Uruguay is just too difficult and expensive to get to from any other country and I really don't want to miss out on visiting it.

 

Once I've finished in Uruguay, I'll actually re-enter Argentina in the north and then work my way south down to Ushuaia from there. Then I'll cross into Chile, go up Chile and into Peru, then to Bolivia, then Brazil and from Brazil fly to Nicaragua.

 

I've decided to throw Nicaragua in as it sounds an interesting country and according to the foreign office fairly safe. From there it starts to get a little cloudy. I may make my way through Honduras to Guatemala or I may get a flight direct as Honduras does have its fair share of problems. Following Guatemala, I'll travel overland to Belize, somehow get to Cuba, back to Mexico and then into the U.S..

 

Canada is currently looking unlikely due to the fact that I underestimated the costs of U.S. accomodation. I would prefer to travel the U.S. properly rather than rush it and then rush Canada. I'll definitely go to Canada someday though, as it sounds just too good not to!

 

 

 

Well that's me done for now. The next blog you read will most probably be from Buenos Aires or Uruguay, but if I get chance to blog again in these last few days, I will!

 

Thanks for reading.