V for Volcano

As the thick mist enveloping the Volcano refused to disappear, a frosty gust of wind battered us with renewed vigour. The Sun's pathetic attempt to rise was thwarted by a battalion of thunder clouds. The clock struck 6a.m. A tremor of terror ran down our spines. The hardest was yet to come...

Hola Chicos,

Our border crossing to Chile from Argentina was a fruity one. We had a stop on the bus at Agricultural Control (glorified farmers) in Chile. The sniffer dogs gave our bags a thorough going-over before deciding that Ed's stash clearly had some illicit goods. This is the second time this has happened to Ed since he left the UK. If he never makes it home he wishes you all a long and prosperous life. We are still unsure whether it was Ed's dirty washing or his scented shower-gel that attracted the dogs so much. I think we can assume it was the former.

An early wake-up awaited us on Monday morning as we had the intention of climbing a 2,800m, active volcano in Pucon. The sun hadn't yet broken through the shroud of mist which was cloying to the volcano when it dawned (bazinga!) on us that we were horribly under-equipped and poorly-dressed for such an expedition. As hinted at in the prologue, due to "a battalion of thunder clouds" we were forced to abandon our quest and advised to come back the next day.

Volcano Villarrica

We had more luck with our second attempt. We wrapped up with several layers and prepared for an Arctic ascent. We were presented with the option of walking for an extra hour or cutting off the first 400 metres of the climb on a chairlift. You can probably guess which option we took.

Sunrise half-way up the Volcano

The first half of our ascent was a relatively steep hike up rocky and stoney slopes. The best was yet to come. After a couple hours we were told to take a break and unleash our crampons (snow claws for the feet) and unsheathe our ice picks which were bordering on the barbaric. We felt awesome. Suddenly we realised - to our joy and to the others' dismay - that we were kitted out with equipment which could be lethal if it fell into the wrong hands (namely our own hands). We could see the dread in the eyes of our fellow adventurers. I don't think we let go of our ice picks for the rest of the climb, until we had them forcibly severed and surgically-removed from our grasps when we had descended to the bottom.

Walking with the crampons was a euphoric experience and we felt so powerful being able to scale a vertical wall of ice.

We reached the top in 3h30m, an hour faster than the average time. That sort of thing just happens to people like us. It was only when we had reached the top that we remembered we had left the One Ring back at the hostel. Thank God Frodo and Sam never made the same mistake. (Middle) Earth could be a very different place. At the top we had a clear view of the crater and the smoke rising out of it. The sulphur tickled our nostrils. To the East we had the highest volcano in the Andes, to the South we had the most active. The volcano we had just summited is called Villarrica, it is the second most active in Chile. Its last eruption was in 1984 where it destroyed the local ski resort, and the one prior to that was in 1971. The eruption in 1971 left 50cm of ash in Bariloche, an 11 hour bus ride away. We like to live on the edge. 

The Crater

At the peak (please note the ice pick)

The most exciting bit of the peak was when our guide chucked a rock off the side of the volcano and we watched it careering down the glacier, sometimes bouncing as high as 10 metres in the air. It looked absolutely lethal and we then understood why we needed our crash helmets.

The shenanigans had only just begun. Normally when descending a mountain the walk down is tiring on the knees and this is when blisters begin to erupt (bazinga?). This was no issue for us, as Mother Gravity was bountiful. We were told to slide down the glacier on our bums, using our ice picks as as brakes and paddles. This has to be up there with one of the most adrenaline-inducing things we have done this trip. 

Once we were back on the rocks of the mountain we could slide down the rocks on our feet, making for a very quick and easy descent. 

After unanimously declaring ourselves the undisputed winners of the ascent and descent, we made our way back to Pucon to enjoy some well-earned beers on a terrace with views of the volcano we had just conquered.

'Ice Ice Baby' - Patagonia

Hola Chicos,

We left behind the mild autumn weather of Buenos Aires and headed south into the bracing cold of El Calafate. The principal point of interest here is the gargantuan ice lolly that is the Perito Moreno Glacier. Our flight landed in El Calafate and was greeted with rapturous applause and whoops of delight from the passengers. Bizzzzare - were they really that surprised that we had arrived safely and that our coffin-with-wings had remained airborne for 3 hours rather than turning into a fiery ball of death? El Calafate reminded us more of a ski resort than anything else. The houses were all built like ski chalets, made of wooden logs and with a lovely cosy feel - unfortunately it was lacking any snow.

Although we were feeling extremely wearied by our measly 3 hours sleep in the last 48 hours, we headed out for a hearty meal of red-meat. Ed, in the interest of being adventurous, bravely ordered the Patagonian lamb. His verdict, having gnawed through tendons and what looked liked wings, is that if you like lamb and not llama, then don't splash out on this particular platter. We try not to waste any time when arriving in a new place so, as soon as we'd finished our lunch, we headed off to to Lago Argentino in order to try and see some Flamingos. We were thoroughly unsuccessful in our first, and last attempt at birdwatching this trip.

At the unreasonably early hour of 8am we headed off to Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, 80km from the town. The Perito Moreno Glacier is one of the few in the world that is still considered to be 'stable', most other glaciers are receding faster than a 40 year old man's hairline. The enormity of the glacier was the thing that first struck us during our boat ride to the ice. Although we were 300m away, the sheer height of the ice (equivalent to a 37 storey building) made us feel like we were a lot closer. The different hues of blues and whites, accentuated by the pristine air, were enchanting and made for an awesome spectacle.

The view from our boat

As we are boys we love some facts and figures and we thought we would share some of these with you. The glacier is 30km long, 5 km wide and over 60m high. It advances at around 2 metres a day which causes building sized icebergs to shear off the face of the ice and fall to the water below. This was definitely the highlight for us, witnessing the destruction of the glacier calving. Although we were over 500 metres away from the glacier on the walkways of the National Park, each time an iceberg fell it sounded like we were in the midst of a thunderstorm.

The Glacier calving

Our energy levels were sinking faster than the Titanic (bazinga!) so that evening we conjured up a cracking culinary concoction which we describe as Dinner™. In El Calafate we discovered the secret ingredient which creates a masterpiece out of an otherwise ordinary pasta and tomato sauce; frankfurter sausages. We like to think of ourselves as the back-packing world's answer to Jamie Oliver - the Naked Chef - with the emphasis certainly not on the word 'Chef'.

With the one tourist attraction in El Calafate 'calved off' we headed off to Bariloche, an idyllic town in Patagonia which supposedly possesses some quality hiking. We cannot confirm this as we actually ended up doing little-to-no hiking.

Our trip to Bariloche is the longest bus journey we will have to endure this trip, a hefty 28 hours. Bariloche is 1,400km North of El Calafate. No prizes for guessing which direction we ventured in for four hours.... South East. The Argentinians, for all their noble traits, have the infuriating habit of getting from Point A to Point B via Points Q, R and F. In that order. We will never fully understand the Argentinian people so it is probably best to just leave them to it. They have, however, been warm and wonderful hosts to us over the past 2 weeks.

We left our hostel on our first morning in Bariloche with the intention of doing some hiking. This plan evaporated very rapidly after we found a picturesque beach where we spent the whole afternoon skimming stones and dancing and singing to music with our newfound moves from South America. 

Another languidly lazy day the next day where our only activity of note was eating some tasty fried chicken with one of Ben's friends from back in Cordoba.

On our last day in Bariloche we cycled the ironically named Circuito Chico (Eng. trans. Small Circuit), a total of 33km. It was an enthralling ride with some gorgeous view points along the way. Some of the hills along the ride were pretty testing but we are pretty confident in our fitness for the Inca Trail in less than a month's time! 

We are currently in Chile with the intention of climbing a volcano tomorrow. Next blog instalment will be up in a few days - eruptions, lava and magma permitting.

Last Tango in Buenos Aires

Hola Chicos,

We survived an epic 22 hour bus journey down south from Iguazu to Buenos Aires. We went from Argentina to Argentina via Paraguay for no discernible reason other than to pick up a team of cleaning ladies clad in garish pink. ¿Qué pasa?

Unsurprisingly after our Herculean bus journey we were feeling as right as rain....acid rain. After swiftly succumbing to the allure of the taxi rank we were treated to a hair-raising ride along the widest road in the world, Avenida 9 de Julio, a total of 18 lanes. The purpose of the lanes was unclear as the Argentinian drivers disregard every single road law under the sun. Buenos Aires appears to be a haven for all those who fail their driving theory (you know who you are).

We headed out for a taste-bud-busting supper of steak stuffed with mozzarella, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes and ham and a gargantuan portion of chips. This meal conquers the rainbow chicken we ate in Rio (see 'Rio de Janeiro' entry). We were taken to this restaurant by our Australian roommates Martyn and Taylor. We have asked permission to use their names in this blog as they were two larger than life characters that we could not fail to mention. They were two of the most interesting and amusing roommates we have met on our travels. There was not a moment of boredom while we were around them, their humour was truly shocking yet hysterical at the same time. We wish them luck for their travels (and spending the rest of their lives together...happily ever after)

After our dinner out with the Australians we went out on a pub-club crawl laid on by our hostel. We were taken to some bars with the most amazing settings and views out over the city. Unfortunately, as mentioned in the Cordoba entries, night life in Argentina doesn't start until about 2:30 in the morning so the first few bars we went to were a little quiet. Towards the end of the evening things definitely spiced up and we ended up having a great night.

A sound that we will never forget from our time in Buenos Aires is the phrase "cambiocambiocambiocambio... me pay sooooooo good!" (eng. trans. "My dear travellers, would you care to exchange a spot of money, whether that be in US Dollars, Brazilian Reals or European Euros.") shouted by men standing along the street. This is the infamous black currency market. Some people may be aware that Argentina suffers from terrible inflation (around 25% p.a.), which means that often banks are offering exchange rates worse than the real rate. It is impossible to walk 5 metres without being approached by a dodgy looking man trying to entice you in with his tasty rates.

We have adapted very well to the Argentinian way of life, lying in until 11am and staying up until the early hours of the morning. So, after an equally late wake up we made our way to the Plaza de Mayo in the centre of BA to witness something truly astounding. While Ben was in Cordoba he mentioned in the blog about the Dirty War between 1976-1983. During these years many women, while imprisoned in clandestine detention centres, gave birth to children who were then taken away and given to families in the military. Every Thursday at 15:30 Las Madres de La Plaza de Mayo (more commonly known in English as 'The Mothers of the Disappeared') hold a march in the Plaza calling for the government to help locate the missing/stolen children (now aged 30+). In total the Madres have already located 256 missing children. It was quite something to witness extremely frail women so passionate in their march.

Las Madres de La Plaza de Mayo

A white headscarf, symbolic of Las Madres and their struggle.

Another aspect of the Plaza de Mayo which was astounding to us is just how raw the issue of the Falklands War is in Argentina. There is a constant encampment of veterans in the Plaza, not officially recognised as veterans and therefore receiving no governmental support or pension. We also could not help but notice that every single map we have seen in Argentina has the Falklands labelled as Las Malvinas (ARG). Not only is this wrong, it is also extremely petty. Forgive and forget?

It was definitely wise to keep very quiet about The Falklands while we were in Buenos Aires. We decided, in order to gain a fuller picture of Argentina's history we would visit the Museo del Bicentenario located right next to the Plaza. Ever since the early 19th Century Argentina has been a country torn by war and military dictatorships. It is no surprise that there are some deep rooted problems in Argentina.

Timeline mural of the Falklands War.

El Cementerio de la Recoleta was the next target on our hit-list. The guidebook describes a tomb here as some of the hottest real estate on the market. It is clear why. Gravestones are not present here, instead there are huge tombs, some standing at least 20 feet tall, and memorials containing the bodies of the rich  and famous families of Argentina. The main attraction of this cemetery is that Eva Peron is buried here with her family the Duartes. Known affectionately as "Evita", this former First Lady of Argentina could be compared to Lady Di. As you can imagine it is quite a popular tomb to go to so it was very difficult to get a proper look. As it is a cemetery it still has the imperative creepy feel about it, yet it was like no graveyard we have been in before. Think Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons" meets Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein". A truly mesmerising mausoleum. We inquired whether our travel insurance would, in the event of our death or dismemberment, secure us a tomb. The answer was a resounding 'hey grrringo, no'.

That evening we met up with a mutual friend. He was extremely friendly and spoke outstanding English. He took us to Puerto Madero, a picturesque part of town next to the sea. He also took us to have a look at the Puente de la Mujer. This bridge is meant to look like a female tango dancer. We are yet to be convinced. The picture is below so if you work it out please let us know.

Our contact also took us out to this fantastic Palacio de la Pizza near our hostel. He was a great guide and it was amusing to hear the opinion of someone our own age about Buenos Aires. We really appreciated gaining a local's insight on Buenos Aires, especially on the integrity of the police where he expressed that he'd "rather trust the drug-dealers than the BA police... they don't do good things". He was not overly complimentary and highlighted a lot of problems with crime in the city. 

The last thing we needed to tick off from our guidebook was to see La Boca and to watch some tango. On Saturday we headed off to El Caminito in La Boca to the weekend market. La Boca used to be the main port of Buenos Aires until it was replaced by a more modern port. Since then La Boca has become quite a hot-spot for crime, especially due to the presence of the Boca Juniors football team. Just before getting out of the taxi, the driver growled "Cuidado" ("Be careful") and sped off, leaving us to fend for ourselves. Undeterred, (bravely or foolishly?) we carried on. What an awesome atmosphere and feel - a smorgasbord of multicoloured buildings and fascinating market stalls selling all sorts of weird and wonderful things immediately caught our attention. 

Our attempt at Tango

After a visit to the Boca Juniors football stadium we sat at a cafe for 45 minutes and enjoyed a mixture of tango and gaucho dancing. We definitely need to learn how to dance properly when we get back to England. Coming to Argentina has demonstrated just how poor the British are at dancing.

Our last evening was passed very enjoyably with another mutual contact we had in Buenos Aires. Our friend very generously took us out for some typical Argentinian food, an array of meats, pies and empanadas. She was extremely patient answering all our questions on the recent history of Argentina. We now have a pretty extensive knowledge of Argentina through the 20th Century. After returning to our hostel with our stomachs filled to the brim we settled down for our first night on our trip without a bedroom. We set up camp in the reception area and slept on sofas until 5am so we could head to the airport to catch our flight down to El Calafate to see the Perito Moreno Glacier. We have not been keen on catching internal flights within South America, but the prospect of a 45 hour coach journey did not appeal to our weary limbs.

Next instalment will be up in a couple days about our time in El Calafate and Bariloche.

Out of the fryin' pan and into the Falls.

Hola Chicos,

This entry is going to be predominantly pictures. Our journey from Curitiba passed without incident and we successfully crossed the border into Argentina. A Japanese companion of ours did not fare so well. Her whereabouts remain unknown.

We then encountered our biggest obstacle of our whole trip. A medieval shower. Tom, for all his supposed intelligence, managed to flood the bathroom not once, but twice. This led to our French room-mate describing the bathroom as a "f***ing piscine".

We began our tour of the Iguazu Falls on the Brazilian side which gave us a breathtaking overview of the National Park. If none of you have had the opportunity to visit the waterfalls, just imagine them like the shower in your bathroom. But bigger. And more of them. And more powerful. And with more visitors.

At the Devil's Throat

After a night in at our hostel meeting some of the fellow travellers (did you hear the one about the Swede, the Frenchman, the German and the Brit?), we made our way to the Argentinian side of the falls. Nothing could prepare us for the sight which scorched our retinas. The falls were like something out of Jurassic Park with the dinosaur's roles being played by the fat tourists (you can guess their nationality). We spent a whole day walking around the park being ambushed at every corner by racoons, and even worse, hundreds of butterflies. Quite beautiful at first but they became increasingly aggressive.

Beware of the Killer Racoons

 South America 2013

 At the Devil's Throat

We are currently in Buenos Aires and tomorrow morning we have a flight out to El Calafate in Patagonia. Will be blogging about Buenos Aires in the next few days.

From the sublime to the ridiculous

Hola Chicos,

We navigated our first colossal bus journey from Rio de Janeiro to Sao Paulo (6 hours) without any issues.

First impressions of Sao Paulo: big. The architecture lacked any thought or design and the sheer size of the city was overwhelming. After taking a taxi with the most clueless driver, who had to ask us for directions, we finally arrived at our hostel. After 6 hours of travelling we were feeling quite peckish and very lazy. We saw there was a pizzeria across the road and obliviously gandered in to a 5 star hotel, picked as one of the Official FIFA hotels for the 2014 World Cup. It was too late to turn back now and we had to order the most exorbitantly expensive pizzas - about 4 times our daily budget. We have been living off bread and water ever since.

Brazil is renowned for its football, so we decided to visit a football museum in Sao Paulo, built especially for the World Cup next year. The museum cost 32.5 million Reals (about the price of our dinner the night before). Wandering around the museum we began to understand just how passionate Brazilians are about their national game - to a nauseating extent. Superlatives flowed and upon mentioning Pele’s name the whole museum seemed to have a pleasurable moment.

Continuing in a footballing vein we were staying in a football-themed hostel – the imaginatively named Gol (English Translation: Goal). Let's start with hostel’s good points: it had four walls and a roof. There ends the good points. Due to the fact that this was a football hostel we were quite hopeful of being able to watch the Champions League quarterfinals. Apparently that was too much to ask. The staff also seemed to have no idea of when the World Cup in Brazil begins “dunno mate, some time in April”.  Definitely one of the highlights of this hostel was a loveable rogue from Latvia. Initially ordained as a Mormon priest (in Rotherham?!) he had found himself stuck in Brazil after a night out gone wrong….5 months earlier. 

The next day we decided to finally do a bit of sightseeing. We visited the Mercado Municipal where we tried a very hot chilli which had Ben in tears for 10 minutes. Next on our itinerary was the Edificio Italia, one of the tallest buildings in Sao Paulo (41 storeys). At the top we could look out over the whole of Sao Paulo. The city is simply gargantuan and skyscrapers, pylons and cars spread as far as the eye could see. As mentioned it is an incredibly ugly city, so we were more interested in watching an Englishman try to chat up the thickest girls we have ever seen. Strangely enough he went home with all four of them.

Curitiba was our next destination where we were going to stay with a friend. Our hostess was incredibly generous and patient with these 3 weary travellers. It was a great opportunity to catch up on some washing and sleep in a city much calmer than Sao Paulo or Rio. We went out for a pretty insane night at an Irish bar involving some twins and a wasted Italian girl. We also encountered our first "travesty" the Portuguese and Spanish word for a tranny. 

Next entry will be a lot of pictures from Iguazu Falls, some absolutely stunning views. 

Ain't no party like a favela party!

Hola Chicos,

When I last wrote my blog I was under the influence of 5 caipirinhas, I apologise for anything I may have written.

As you may remember, I mentioned that we were going out for a night in Lapa. This is a part of the city in the North renowned for its night life. As it was a Friday night and also Easter weekend, everybody was out in force. Therefore we found it very difficult to find a club with space as we arrived very late. We did, however, stumble across Two Door Cinema Club performing live, we stood outside the fencing of the concert singing and dancing along. Filled with enthusiasm Tom, Ed and I decided to give an impromptu "Best of English Music" concert to our friends from the hostel, Adele, One Direction and Robbie Williams featured prominently. Tom was quickly surrounded by some Canadian girls who were convinced he looked like Edward Cullen. Ed has also been telling everybody that he is featuring in the next series of Downton Abbey, I have been telling everybody that my house is Downton Abbey. 

Undeterred by our failure to get into a club we caught a van to a party we had heard about. On Friday nights, these vans turn into parties-on-wheels, therefore I felt the necessity to dance along to Don't Cha by the PussyCat Dolls, then proceed to rap. I am informed that my performance was a sight to behold.

We found ourselves standing outside a heavily graffite-d concrete wall, it looked more like Shawshank Penitentiary than a party. A Portuguese friend from our hostel made the comment "Guys (turns white as a sheet, takes a sip of beer, steadies himself and continues) this fiesta looks a little bit too 'underground', even for me". However, as normally happens with 18-19 year old males, we were lured in by a blisteringly attractive girl.

Here are Tom and Ed's accounts of this night:

"Tom was less than keen to enter but with the assurance that we would jump in front of any bullets heading his way we slithered in like the gringos we were. Words cannot really describe the scene which greeted us; as our Portuguese friend had correctly predicted (see above), the event was well and truly 'subterranean'. Species of humans, the like of which we had never set eyes on, roamed around. Despite the authentic favela atmosphere - provided by the eardrum-rupturing funk and eye-watering fumes - it did not take long for us to feel gravely out-of-place. After attracting some admiring glances, we decided enough was enough and went to leave. Our escape was delayed somewhat by having to prise Ben out of the arms of a buxom Brasileira but we eventually returned to our hostel with our limbs intact.

On Saturday we were meant to head off to Buzios. However, beautiful weather in Rio and the idea of a 4 hour bus journey put an end to that plan. I cannot explain how grateful I was that we stayed in Rio as the next two days were absolutely amazing. We met some very friendly Americans in our new hostel who we spent the night with. Prior to meeting them, we had thought that the term "An American Abroad" was synonymous with Ricky Gervais and Karl Pilkington's acclaimed show "An Idiot Abroad". How wrong we were. These American lads and lasses were fantastic company and showed a genuine interest in us and the Brazilian way-of-life. I really hope that some of our anti-American jokes and comments weren't taken too seriously. We bought a couple of beers and sat on Ipanema beach chatting away. Life does not get much better than this. On our walk back to our hostel from the beach, we were stopped by police as they had received a tip off that some tourists were smoking marijuana on the beach. Evidently it was not us. We were searched very thoroughly, some may argue too thoroughly, before being sent on our way. Just another bizarre event that has occurred to us in Rio.

On Easter Sunday we got up early to go to Copacabana beach to watch Usain Bolt attempt to break his 150m world record. A great atmosphere even though our view wasn't very good - the Olympics in Rio are going to be something very special. 

After baking in the sun waiting for the race we set up camp on Copacabana beach for the whole day. There were some of the best waves I have ever experienced, they towered over Ed and me when we went swimming. Definitely one of the most chilled days we've had so far this trip. Tom was burnt to a crisp.

After a very lazy morning on Monday we headed off to Sugar Loaf Mountain to watch the sunset. We were greeted with the most exceptional views over the bay of Copacabana and the rest of the city. It was a superb way to spend our last evening in Rio de Janeiro. We will definitely miss Rio very much (especially the caramel skinned and very beautiful girls) and have had the most amazing week here.

Ed and Tom 

Copacabana Beach 

Sunset over Cristo Redemptor

We arrived in Sao Paulo late last night. Sao Paulo is the biggest city in the Southern Hemisphere and we feel very small here. A completely different feel to Rio which we're not quite sure about yet. 

Until next time