our return to argentina
so we left chile for argentina just after breakfast on sunday july 26th. we expected to arrive in salta at around 6pm with tom and dad finalising plans to go for what else but steak ! unfortunately the bus journey over the andes took alot longer than expected. our final journey in altitude thankfully !! no more journeys watching your crisp bags expand until near explosion or face creams burst all over your bag !! it was almost mid night before we sat down to dinner. cathy choose sensible for the hour it was and had a nice pasta dish, i unable to eat with tiredness choose nothing, tom determined ordered steak and dad made a mistake ... dad decided it was too late to have steak especially as we had told him how huge argentinian steaks are so instead he choose pizza. this choice was made simply because he thought it would be a small sensible pizza that he could digest easily before going to sleep ... oh how wrong could he be ... how we laughed when this family size pizza landed on the table. after about 2 slices he threw in the towel and asked for it to be boxed and us travellers enjoyed it for lunch the next day ...
we stayed 2 nights in salta. it really is a beautiful city. we had been there on our first visit to argentina a month back but were too tired after bariloche and mendoza to really appreciate it. this time we stayed in a much nicer part & really immersed ourselves in the whole ambience. cathy and myself even sampled the local hairdressers while the boys enjoyed pints of beer in the afternoon sunshine. we also decided to walk the 1070 steps up to the view point of the city again just so my dad got to walk off that pizza !! on our second night we went for dinner again and this time all indulged in steak. it is just simply the tastiest steak in this world .... so for us this was steak number one, for tom 2 nights 2 steaks !!
from salta to buenos aires
so the following day we were off to the bright lights of buenos aires. this was a long bus journey, 22 hours. luckily for us all it was extremely comfortable and we all managed to sleep well that night. of course the very next day cathy was turning 16 so to entertain ourselves on the bus we had a bag of presents for cathy. there was about 12 or so small gifts in the bag which we gave her every half an hour, the last of these was a piece of paper with the booking confirmation of the claridge boutique 5 star hotel in buenos aires where we were bringing her for 2 nights. one of these nights was for her birthday and of course the 2nd night was the last night of cathys world trip.
cathy turns 16
when we arrived to our hotel which was located downtown buenos aires we quickly dumped our bags and hit the shops. it only took us about 5 minutes to decide it was best to separate the boys from the girls ! so we browsed the galleries and shops of a very busy florida street for many hours before meeting up again & resting our feet in starbucks. we then agreed we should stick to the plan of boys together, girls together for the next couple of hours. while cathy & myself tried to squeeze in every shop possible we discovered the boys had gave up on the shopping and once again were to be found supping pints, this time in the hotel bar.
cathy & myself had a bedroom next door to gaga and tom. so we again went our seperate ways to get ready for the big night of celebrations for cathys birthday. when dad and tom were ready and they walked into our room they couldn´t believe their eyes. so bad was the mess of clothes and make up everywhere tom ran to phone to ring reception to say the room had been ransacked, not funny right !!!!! they couldn´t believe their eyes, it was hillarious ... i walked in then to peek at their room and seriously it looked like nobody had even checked into it !!!
so for dinner that night we all dressed up and with the addition of some funky ties and flowers we looked like we were out celebrating oh and of course the clowns hats for the two clowns ! we choose the area of puerto madero to eat. it is so like albert dock n liverpool, recycled docks facing the river where you can find first line shops and restaurants and the most modern buildings. the restaurant was just lovely and the staff were great fun too. after dinner much to the delight of cathy they brought her a cake with a candle and more importantly free champagne for us all. we ate and drank until we were fit to burst before retiring to our 5 star luxury for the night.
la cabrera
the next day following a big lie in we headed of to an area of buenos aires known as palermo. this is the young and hip part of the city. it is so vibrant and home to many fashion and decoration shops which they say set the trends of this city. but that was not the reason we set off for palermo, the reason was something much closer to a man´s heart, steak !! we were told more than once that there is a restaurant in palermo called ´la cabrera´ and it does the very best steak in the whole of argentina !! it took us 3 hours walking to get there which was fine as it was a nice relaxing day and we thought dinner about 5 would be perfect. but when we arrived we learned that la cabrera closed from 5 until 8.30 when it reopened until the early hours. in argentina people eat dinner much later than we do at home. you see they have a siesta during the day and then all the shops reopen until about 8 or 9pm at night so dinner for them is usually 10pm. anyway after a small discussion we thought we would wait. so when we finally sat down to order we had walked 3 hours and waited another 3 hours for this steak !! and oh my word was it amazing, to even try to describe to you the feast that was put down in front of us in this beautiful quirky little restaurant is not possible. it was just to die for ... what a way for cathy and dad to spend their last night eh !
the final day
so we woke up the next morning and the mood in camp tlc+g was not good. it was the end of dad´s 2nd visit out to us and the end of cathys adventure around the world after 10 and a half months. for those who dont know when we decided to go travelling for the year cathy asked could she come home a month early to go to the gaeltacht. basically this is where you go to the west of ireland for a few weeks to a region where the irish language is still spoken as a first language and you spend a few weeks here improving your language and taking part in all things involving the irish culture except drinking of course !!!! this sounded like a good idea at the time, our thinking was it would get cathy back into some sort of frame of mind for school but as the time approached it became increasingly difficult to both think and talk about the departure date. the week previous their was tears falling and there was even talk of cathy changing/cancelling her flight but in the end she boarded the flight to dublin with gaga. we said our goodbye with brave faces and as soon as they walked through the gates i just exploded into tears. i just couldn´t believe the 31st of july was upon us. tom & myself went back to the hotel & when i walked into the room where cathy and myself had previously created a female bomb site i burst out crying again because everything just looked wrong ! all that day tom & myself just couldn´t get our heads around it. 24/7 for 10 & a half months the 3 of us had been like three peas in a pod and now there was this missing pea .........
back to the rough
so the next day we set off to another part of the city, san telmo. this is where the origins of the city lie. narrow and cobblestone little streets, colonial buildings with wrought iron railings, lots of arists. art galleries and antiquarians. we booked into this hostel in a very old building and tried to settle in for what was meant to be 3 nights. even though we were meeting chris, a friend of ours from germany who we had met in santiago we were very restless. we couldn´t settle. we were i guess just missing cathy being around. everything seemed so quiet. we even talked about coming home early !! tom decided there and then to book back into a hotel after our second night here as he was blaming the downgrade from extreme comfort to the very basic of hostel conditions in addition to cathys absence for our gloomy form. he found a great deal online ... don´t worry cats it was only a 4 star !!! so not only did we go there but as it was our last night in buenos aires we also went back to la cabrera ... it was again the most amazing dining experience you could ever imagine. i think everyone should go to buenos aires even just for one night to have dinner here. the steak in argentina is amazing anyway so how can this be even more amazing, its crazy but its true. i am so glad we dont live here or we would seriously weigh about 20 stone each!!! anyway we were indulging so much that we didn´t realise we were actually eating for about 3 hours. there was a table of 5 men sitting next to us and after their meal they came over and said to us ´did you guys seriously eat those 2 steaks´ we were like ´sure didn´t leave a bit´ ... they were shocked and said they had 3 between 5 and had to take some home as they couldn´t finish it !! as good as a night as it was it didn´t end without tears, as soon as we starting talking about what cathy might be doing at home the tears were falling again !! cathy we miss you ...........
la boca & caminito
i forgot to mention that before we left san telmo we walked with chris to la boca to visit la bombonera. la boca is the area where maradona grew up and la bombonera is the home to the world famous football team, boca juniors. this area is a really rough part of town. i wasn´t so sure about this trip at all especially as chris had been there before and was chased by some local with a gun !! why he wanted to return with us i´ll never know !! anyway tom was determined, football is football at the end of the day and tom wanted to see this stadium more than he wanted to see the great wall of china !! we did a stadium tour & museum tour and tom really enjoyed it. he was just fascintaed by every aspect of it while chris and i were more fascinated by the fact that the pitch sprinkler was a little robot !!
from la boca we then visited another truly rough part of the city, caminito. this area is where all the building are made of corrugated iron and sprayed in very bright happy colours. it is a tourist attraction but you cannot venture from the one tourist street in the area. you can however enjoy some tango dancing too.
buenos aires to iguazu
so a week later we left the city and we took a night bus to puerto iguazu. this was 18 hours up to the north of the country. we spent 2 nights here and of course took in the spectacular iguazu falls. it was breathtaking. i never imagined a sight like it. there is a very well designed series of walkways that bring you through wonderful nature and then all of a sudden you can hear the roar of the falls like thunder and then the falls are exposed and your jaw just drops. you just stand there not beleiving what your are looking at is real. the sheer force of the water falling is actaully frightening too !
so as our time in argentina drew to a close we had one final thing to do yesterday before crossing into brazil, we had to visit this very unusual river crossing. the river forms a T shape. where we went to was the top middle part of the T and we were in argentina. looking out on our right hand side of the T was paraguay and then to our left side was brazil. another beautiful moment as we looked upon three countries all at once.
this morning we took a bus across the border of argentina and brazil and are now in a town called foz de iguacu. we are trying to re adapt to these tropical temperatures after many months of braving the cold. from here we will travel to rio de janeiro where we plan to put our feet up for the next 4 weeks and mentally prepare for home ....
lots of good pic´s being prepared by tom, check out the link above, argentina part 2 X
so we left chile for argentina just after breakfast on sunday july 26th. we expected to arrive in salta at around 6pm with tom and dad finalising plans to go for what else but steak ! unfortunately the bus journey over the andes took alot longer than expected. our final journey in altitude thankfully !! no more journeys watching your crisp bags expand until near explosion or face creams burst all over your bag !! it was almost mid night before we sat down to dinner. cathy choose sensible for the hour it was and had a nice pasta dish, i unable to eat with tiredness choose nothing, tom determined ordered steak and dad made a mistake ... dad decided it was too late to have steak especially as we had told him how huge argentinian steaks are so instead he choose pizza. this choice was made simply because he thought it would be a small sensible pizza that he could digest easily before going to sleep ... oh how wrong could he be ... how we laughed when this family size pizza landed on the table. after about 2 slices he threw in the towel and asked for it to be boxed and us travellers enjoyed it for lunch the next day ...
we stayed 2 nights in salta. it really is a beautiful city. we had been there on our first visit to argentina a month back but were too tired after bariloche and mendoza to really appreciate it. this time we stayed in a much nicer part & really immersed ourselves in the whole ambience. cathy and myself even sampled the local hairdressers while the boys enjoyed pints of beer in the afternoon sunshine. we also decided to walk the 1070 steps up to the view point of the city again just so my dad got to walk off that pizza !! on our second night we went for dinner again and this time all indulged in steak. it is just simply the tastiest steak in this world .... so for us this was steak number one, for tom 2 nights 2 steaks !!
from salta to buenos aires
so the following day we were off to the bright lights of buenos aires. this was a long bus journey, 22 hours. luckily for us all it was extremely comfortable and we all managed to sleep well that night. of course the very next day cathy was turning 16 so to entertain ourselves on the bus we had a bag of presents for cathy. there was about 12 or so small gifts in the bag which we gave her every half an hour, the last of these was a piece of paper with the booking confirmation of the claridge boutique 5 star hotel in buenos aires where we were bringing her for 2 nights. one of these nights was for her birthday and of course the 2nd night was the last night of cathys world trip.
cathy turns 16
when we arrived to our hotel which was located downtown buenos aires we quickly dumped our bags and hit the shops. it only took us about 5 minutes to decide it was best to separate the boys from the girls ! so we browsed the galleries and shops of a very busy florida street for many hours before meeting up again & resting our feet in starbucks. we then agreed we should stick to the plan of boys together, girls together for the next couple of hours. while cathy & myself tried to squeeze in every shop possible we discovered the boys had gave up on the shopping and once again were to be found supping pints, this time in the hotel bar.
cathy & myself had a bedroom next door to gaga and tom. so we again went our seperate ways to get ready for the big night of celebrations for cathys birthday. when dad and tom were ready and they walked into our room they couldn´t believe their eyes. so bad was the mess of clothes and make up everywhere tom ran to phone to ring reception to say the room had been ransacked, not funny right !!!!! they couldn´t believe their eyes, it was hillarious ... i walked in then to peek at their room and seriously it looked like nobody had even checked into it !!!
so for dinner that night we all dressed up and with the addition of some funky ties and flowers we looked like we were out celebrating oh and of course the clowns hats for the two clowns ! we choose the area of puerto madero to eat. it is so like albert dock n liverpool, recycled docks facing the river where you can find first line shops and restaurants and the most modern buildings. the restaurant was just lovely and the staff were great fun too. after dinner much to the delight of cathy they brought her a cake with a candle and more importantly free champagne for us all. we ate and drank until we were fit to burst before retiring to our 5 star luxury for the night.
la cabrera
the next day following a big lie in we headed of to an area of buenos aires known as palermo. this is the young and hip part of the city. it is so vibrant and home to many fashion and decoration shops which they say set the trends of this city. but that was not the reason we set off for palermo, the reason was something much closer to a man´s heart, steak !! we were told more than once that there is a restaurant in palermo called ´la cabrera´ and it does the very best steak in the whole of argentina !! it took us 3 hours walking to get there which was fine as it was a nice relaxing day and we thought dinner about 5 would be perfect. but when we arrived we learned that la cabrera closed from 5 until 8.30 when it reopened until the early hours. in argentina people eat dinner much later than we do at home. you see they have a siesta during the day and then all the shops reopen until about 8 or 9pm at night so dinner for them is usually 10pm. anyway after a small discussion we thought we would wait. so when we finally sat down to order we had walked 3 hours and waited another 3 hours for this steak !! and oh my word was it amazing, to even try to describe to you the feast that was put down in front of us in this beautiful quirky little restaurant is not possible. it was just to die for ... what a way for cathy and dad to spend their last night eh !
the final day
so we woke up the next morning and the mood in camp tlc+g was not good. it was the end of dad´s 2nd visit out to us and the end of cathys adventure around the world after 10 and a half months. for those who dont know when we decided to go travelling for the year cathy asked could she come home a month early to go to the gaeltacht. basically this is where you go to the west of ireland for a few weeks to a region where the irish language is still spoken as a first language and you spend a few weeks here improving your language and taking part in all things involving the irish culture except drinking of course !!!! this sounded like a good idea at the time, our thinking was it would get cathy back into some sort of frame of mind for school but as the time approached it became increasingly difficult to both think and talk about the departure date. the week previous their was tears falling and there was even talk of cathy changing/cancelling her flight but in the end she boarded the flight to dublin with gaga. we said our goodbye with brave faces and as soon as they walked through the gates i just exploded into tears. i just couldn´t believe the 31st of july was upon us. tom & myself went back to the hotel & when i walked into the room where cathy and myself had previously created a female bomb site i burst out crying again because everything just looked wrong ! all that day tom & myself just couldn´t get our heads around it. 24/7 for 10 & a half months the 3 of us had been like three peas in a pod and now there was this missing pea .........
back to the rough
so the next day we set off to another part of the city, san telmo. this is where the origins of the city lie. narrow and cobblestone little streets, colonial buildings with wrought iron railings, lots of arists. art galleries and antiquarians. we booked into this hostel in a very old building and tried to settle in for what was meant to be 3 nights. even though we were meeting chris, a friend of ours from germany who we had met in santiago we were very restless. we couldn´t settle. we were i guess just missing cathy being around. everything seemed so quiet. we even talked about coming home early !! tom decided there and then to book back into a hotel after our second night here as he was blaming the downgrade from extreme comfort to the very basic of hostel conditions in addition to cathys absence for our gloomy form. he found a great deal online ... don´t worry cats it was only a 4 star !!! so not only did we go there but as it was our last night in buenos aires we also went back to la cabrera ... it was again the most amazing dining experience you could ever imagine. i think everyone should go to buenos aires even just for one night to have dinner here. the steak in argentina is amazing anyway so how can this be even more amazing, its crazy but its true. i am so glad we dont live here or we would seriously weigh about 20 stone each!!! anyway we were indulging so much that we didn´t realise we were actually eating for about 3 hours. there was a table of 5 men sitting next to us and after their meal they came over and said to us ´did you guys seriously eat those 2 steaks´ we were like ´sure didn´t leave a bit´ ... they were shocked and said they had 3 between 5 and had to take some home as they couldn´t finish it !! as good as a night as it was it didn´t end without tears, as soon as we starting talking about what cathy might be doing at home the tears were falling again !! cathy we miss you ...........
la boca & caminito
i forgot to mention that before we left san telmo we walked with chris to la boca to visit la bombonera. la boca is the area where maradona grew up and la bombonera is the home to the world famous football team, boca juniors. this area is a really rough part of town. i wasn´t so sure about this trip at all especially as chris had been there before and was chased by some local with a gun !! why he wanted to return with us i´ll never know !! anyway tom was determined, football is football at the end of the day and tom wanted to see this stadium more than he wanted to see the great wall of china !! we did a stadium tour & museum tour and tom really enjoyed it. he was just fascintaed by every aspect of it while chris and i were more fascinated by the fact that the pitch sprinkler was a little robot !!
from la boca we then visited another truly rough part of the city, caminito. this area is where all the building are made of corrugated iron and sprayed in very bright happy colours. it is a tourist attraction but you cannot venture from the one tourist street in the area. you can however enjoy some tango dancing too.
buenos aires to iguazu
so a week later we left the city and we took a night bus to puerto iguazu. this was 18 hours up to the north of the country. we spent 2 nights here and of course took in the spectacular iguazu falls. it was breathtaking. i never imagined a sight like it. there is a very well designed series of walkways that bring you through wonderful nature and then all of a sudden you can hear the roar of the falls like thunder and then the falls are exposed and your jaw just drops. you just stand there not beleiving what your are looking at is real. the sheer force of the water falling is actaully frightening too !
so as our time in argentina drew to a close we had one final thing to do yesterday before crossing into brazil, we had to visit this very unusual river crossing. the river forms a T shape. where we went to was the top middle part of the T and we were in argentina. looking out on our right hand side of the T was paraguay and then to our left side was brazil. another beautiful moment as we looked upon three countries all at once.
this morning we took a bus across the border of argentina and brazil and are now in a town called foz de iguacu. we are trying to re adapt to these tropical temperatures after many months of braving the cold. from here we will travel to rio de janeiro where we plan to put our feet up for the next 4 weeks and mentally prepare for home ....
lots of good pic´s being prepared by tom, check out the link above, argentina part 2 X
2 comments:
tlc, excellent blog and pics again i especially loved the waterfall sequence some great shots there! well done who ever was behind the lens. Cathy thanks for sharing your trip with us and if Carlsberg did transion years!!!!
enjoy the rest of your trip t&l and we will see ye soon, lots of love fitzy and kara xoxo
Hey fitz and kara,
Thanks for your ever presence on our site and comments once again! theres been a fair few carlsberg moments this year for me thats for sure!!
see yas in avoca soon after we get home - this ones on me ;) all the best tom and lynn x
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