Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay

Argentina – Buenos Aires

Our flight took us over the beautiful Andes. It was a plane headed for Amsterdam, with a stop over in Buenos Aires. There was a little part of me that wanted to stay on that plane and find my way home. But then I thought of work…and decided to jump off in Buenos Aires after all.

We landed in much warmer weather, and it was only going to get warmer from here as we headed north. After jumping on a bus, we managed to work our way to our couchsurfing host’s home. She was called Fiorella, and lived with her boyfriend Jonathan. They were a lovely couple and were keen to take us out that evening as it was an evening of free museums open around the city until 3am. It sounded amazing, but after an early couple of mornings with the two flights we had taken, we were knackered and decided to head to bed as they were heading out.




Mate cups

 

The next day was a Sunday, so we headed to the market that ran down a ridiculously long street all the way from the main plaza to another a good few blocks away. It was really cool, seeing different types of jewellery, mate (a herbal tea that South America seemed to be obsessed with), cups and filter straws for these teas, and many other little trinkets. As we got further down this street, it turned more vintage, with antiques everywhere and old toys.




Market road in BA

 

At the end was a square with live music and a few people performing the tango. It was amazing to watch, especially one woman who was incredible. We then walked back up to the main plaza and over to the other side of the river where there were several lagoons to have a walk. We had a stroll by the water and managed to spot a few birds, including some brilliantly colourful parrots. Too quick for a snap!



Tango in BA




Street performers in BA

 

The next day we had to organise our boat to Uruguay. It took a while! With only two companies, you’d think it would be simple. But one was pricey, and the other cheaper but only payable in dollars. There’s not a black market in Argentina, but a blue market. As I mentioned before, the inflation is crazy so everyone wants dollars and will give you Argentinian pesos for sometimes 30% higher than the actual rate. It’s insane, but luckily we had stocked up on dollars in Argentina. Unfortunately they were $20 and some had marks on them, which they don’t like because apparently that makes them more likely to be fake and the banks won’t exchange them for guys eventually. So we tried our luck down calle Florida, where the money changers hung out. We were told a rate of 15 to the dollar (actual rate being 10) so were pretty happy. But as soon she realised that our $100 was actually $20s and not just the one bill, the rate dropped to 13. She took us down the road and then onto a quieter one to her ‘office’ to meet the boss. The ground floor was empty and they were trying to usher us up the stairs. Ummm…no thanks. The door didn’t even have a handle and had to be locked from the inside, and there was just a weird vibe as the boss disappeared up the stairs. We weren’t going to chance it as there are too many stories of tourists being robbed, especially out of sight.

So we crossed the road and headed into a fancy hotel. The rate at the front desk was 12.5. not great, but we’d rather lose $10 in our exchange than lose it all. We bought our ferry tickets eventually and headed to La Boca, a district south of the centre. It was a poor neighbourhood, but frequented by tourists for a few streets that were lined with colourful houses, markets, restaurants and bars. We spent ages in the markets, sat in the sun and watched a bit of the tango going on in each restaurant.




Colourful streets of Boca

 

We eventually headed back to Fiorella’s house and packed up our stuff ready to leave the following day. It was an early start as we had to get to the ferry terminal at 7.30am so we were on the metro by 6am…exhausted and bleary eyed.

Uruguay - Montevideo

We boarded the boat at 8.30am after going through immigration (the quickest ever) and security. It was a 2 hour boat trip that took us to Colonia. We transferred over to a bus that took us straight to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. We dumped our bags in a hotel for the day and took a walk around the city. We decided to try and check out a museum that was free on Tuesdays, but it was closed. So we headed to the Mercado which was full of fancy restaurants selling every type of grilled meat possible. There was some amazing street art, but we started to feel like we had hit the dodgy end so turned ourselves around.

After picking up our bags, we went to meet Mariana, our host in Montevideo. She was 20 years old and at university studying music. She played the double bass and was in the youth orchestra. We met her boyfriend Mauro, and we had dinner with both of them for the next few nights after they finished university.




Uruguay street art

 

The next day, we headed back to the bus station, booking our bus to Paraguay for a few days time. It only went a couple days a week, and was the only bus company. It was extortionate at £90 for a 22 hour journey. They neglected to tell us the day before when we asked them the price (when we arrived in Montevideo) that it was due to increase 10% overnight so best to have got it then. Thanks!

After that we headed down a long road to get to the city’s beaches. It was lovely once we got there, but windy and cold. We spent a couple hours on the beach before heading back. That night, Mariana and Mauro took us out with their friend to see a live musician and for dinner. Unfortunately the guy was fashionably late by about 2 hours and we only listened to him for about 10 minutes before heading back. They all had university the next day, so it was late enough...

Uruguay- Punta del Este

The following day we were up early to a town called Punta del Este. A beach destination that locals, Argentinians and Brazilians flock to for their holidays. It wasn’t crowded as it wasn’t quite summer weather. Although, as the day went on, it got warmer and warmer until we decided to have a beer sitting on the grass by the beach. We walked the route the tourist information gave us – passing the main tourist street, the boardwalks by the beaches, the harbour to see some sea lions hanging out by the fish market, and heading down what felt like the King’s road with Valentino, Gucci, Prada and all of the other high end shops you could think of. Touristy! You could see down the beach all off the resorts lined up, but the beaches empty, not quite yet in season.




Punta del Este harbour




Uruguay coast

Uruguay – Montevideo

We jumped back on a bus that evening headed to Montevideo and Mariana kindly had dinner waiting for us. The next day we had a lazy day, sorting out blogs, doing some much needed research for the rest of our trip and just relaxing! We cooked pizzas for them that night and packed up our stuff, ready to hit the road again the next day.

Our bus left for Paraguay at 1pm. It was a fancy bus (and so it should be for that price!), and we were given snacks, dinner and more snacks…oh not to forget the surprise whiskcola. But Luke’s initial request for vegan was ignored despite the guy reassuring us when we booked our tickets that was an option, when he got vegetarian.

We had two border crossings, one from Uruguay to Argentina at 8pm, and the other from Argentina to Paraguay at 5am. It was exhausting, and we both had trouble sleeping but the countryside views were beautiful, almost reminding me of the British countryside. Little lambs and calves were wandering the fields, we passed so many streams and fields of lavender. It was stunning. The night air was cool as we made our second border crossing…hinting at even warmer weather to come. I made a friend at the border, a frog who I ushered into the bushes to avoid being trampled by the people stretching their legs from the bus.

Paraguay – Asuncion

We arrived in Asuncion around 12, a little later than expected due to political rallies going on down the streets, building up traffic. We found a cheap place a few blocks from the main drag, and were happy to find a clean, big, quiet room. This was after realising we were probably not in the best area, but then again, with a man dressed in a rag drunkenly shouting down the street, and another man with a bleeding hand, bent over with his head in a plastic box…who was to say this wasn’t a neighbourhood with a sense of community??

We had a few lazy days in this town, sleeping in and watching TV. But we ventured out everyday to hit the museums. One was closed for renovation, the naval museum seemed to not exist anymore, two other museums seemed to close early…but we eventually managed to get into a few. The most interesting being the old railway station where an old carriage stood at the platform for you to go inside, the old steamer at the end and old ticket stalls, machinery and other odd bits lying around for you to peruse.




Paraguay presidential palace




Train bar

It was a difficult city to find any veggie food let alone vegan, but after a cheese-less pizza on our first night, we managed to find a buffet at the back of a supermarket that did some veggies.




All aboard

 

It was nice to be back in a place which had a bit more grit. It wasn’t as modern, and actually one of the poorest countries in South America…quite a change after Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. But I think I prefer that rustic appeal rather than wandering around a modern city.

Paraguay – Aregua

One day we decided to head to Aregua, a town mentioned in the guide book as being a little quaint colonial town. When we got to the terminal in Asuncion, we spotted two little boys, one sleeping in the pavement and the other walking up and down in ragged, dirty clothes. Grabbing some fruit from the sellers, we loaded them up. It was definitely showing that this place wasn’t like the last few cities we had been to! We jumped on a bus outside the main terminal and the guy we paid said it was going to be 2 hours, the bus driver arguing and saying 45 minutes…that’s quite a big difference!!

It ended up taking just over an hour as we took a side road through a village to drop off a few people. The town was pretty unremarkable. The cobbled streets mention by the Lonely Planet turned out to be just dusty red brick roads, lined with stalls gearing up to Christmas with their massive Nativities and blow up Father Christmas appearing everywhere.

We walked a kilometre to the lake, having to pay 1000 (13p) to walk through and look at the lake. As we were given two receipts, Luke mentioned that it’s probably not going to go towards much more than the receipt paper and the guy being paid to stand there. Probably true!




Aregua lake beach

 

The lake lapped onto dusty red sandy banks, with parasols lining the small empty beach. We took a short stroll around the park, watching some kids play football in some giant puddles from the previous night and headed back to the main street to pick up a bus for Asuncion.

Paraguay - Asuncion

We jumped on the first one we saw, but after an hour passing, we were keeping an eye out for the bus terminal in Asuncion. We waited another 15 minutes, then before we knew it we were nearly on this bus for 2 hours, realising we were headed back up the same road. Despite being reassured by a passenger who had gotten off by this point that the bus went to the terminal, another two ladies informed us it didn’t go there at all and was on the way to Aregua…AGAIN!

A little shocked that the bus driver hadn’t even mentioned that we were about to head back again, we got off and we were quickly told bus numbers by locals for getting back to the centre.

Did I mention how hot it has been??? Like blistering hot. Too hot! It was about 35 degrees, with a hot breeze! We were exhausted just from walking around in the heat for 10 minutes, and were melting away.

We stayed one more night before heading off on a bus to Ciudad del Este. It was the town next to Iguazu falls on the Paraguayan side. Apparently nobody on this bus had discovered headphones and were all competing to blast out some horrific music with too many trumpets from their phones. It was like being sat in between a mariachi band and some kids let loose in the brass section of the orchestra. Joy! Two guys even eyeballed Luke from their seats after he kindly asked them to turn their music down just a little.

We were told to get off by the bus driver about 4km from the bus terminal in Este so that we could get to the Brazilian border. We were told it was a ten minute walk, and then told the same thing by a taxi driver. But as ten minutes passed in the blistering heat, we were then told by someone else it was half an hour from there!!

We jumped on a local bus and finally made it to the border. It was time for a fizzy. We tried to use the rest of our Paraguayan money- the small change. But apparently the lady didn’t want her own currency, asking for bigger coins! She didn’t like small change, and supposedly nobody else around the town did either. After downing our mini cokes, we made it to the border, hoping from shady spot to shady spot. The border was nice and simple, and we walked over the ‘don’t walk over this’ friendship bridge. Apparently it was dangerous, but nobody, even the guidebook could explain why. It was hassle free and no problem at all. The most dangerous thing I could see were the low railings on the sides of the bridge, easy for a little accident prone me to trip over the uneven pavement and have my heavy bag take me over the edge…but I survived! Paraguay done!