Sat on my bag,
In a dusty station, waiting
For a bus that never comes,
Watching time drag,
And twiddling my thumbs.
Patience, you are a stranger,
What other virtues, have I lost
In the West?
Do I court danger, with my machines,
GPS and texts.
The cost of now, now. now,
Is time and thought.
Immediacy has no future,
I have been bought.
Thursday 30 September 2010
What I Miss About England
My friends and family.
Baked Beans.
Radio 2.
Radio 4.
English Breakfast.
Proper Tea.
Baths.
Cheddar cheese.
Pubs.
Ale.
Open fires in The Winter.
Pies.
Bicuits.
Freshly mown grass in the summer.
The Lake District (when it isn't raining.)
Talking about the Premiership (although with Liverpool's performance this season maybe not!)
Egham.
Pilling.
Ice cold, fresh milk.
Hot, reliable showers.
Good museums.
The British sense of humour!
Most of this list is food!!!
Baked Beans.
Radio 2.
Radio 4.
English Breakfast.
Proper Tea.
Baths.
Cheddar cheese.
Pubs.
Ale.
Open fires in The Winter.
Pies.
Bicuits.
Freshly mown grass in the summer.
The Lake District (when it isn't raining.)
Talking about the Premiership (although with Liverpool's performance this season maybe not!)
Egham.
Pilling.
Ice cold, fresh milk.
Hot, reliable showers.
Good museums.
The British sense of humour!
Most of this list is food!!!
A Long Bus Journey
On Monday we undertook our first mammoth bus journey, from Buenos Aires to Tafi del Valle. The length, about 1000 miles. The time. About 20 hours. It was the first of many bus jorneys we will take across the continent, and had good, bad and ugly points.
The Good - Seeing a gaucho galloping on horseback across an open plain, or eagles soaring overhead. About 15 hours in something began to loom on the horizon, like an immense black shadow; the Andes. As we approached, they grew bigger and bigger until suddenly we were winding slowly up a precipitous road through sub tropical forest, with every bend bringing treacherous drops, and spectacular views.
The Bad - At times the scenery on the drive from BA to the mountains became so repetitive it felt like I was trapped in a ´50s cartoon like The Flintstones. It seemed we weren´t making any progress, and I´m amazed the driver stayed awake.
But, the worst thing about the journey was the haunting amount of roadside crosses, placed in memory of those who have died on these routes. As we approached the Andes, we passed these crosses more often. The number is staggering, over the years probably amounting to the number of casualties in a small war, and it is a stark reminder of the perils of daily travel in these parts, and the sheer power of the mountains.
The Ugly - The depressing amount of litter strewn by the side of the road near some settlements; plastic bags hanging off cacti, coke bottles everywhere, permanently tainting the landscape.
All in all though, the good far outweighed the bad, and it was an exhilerating journey. Hopefully the first of many.
The Good - Seeing a gaucho galloping on horseback across an open plain, or eagles soaring overhead. About 15 hours in something began to loom on the horizon, like an immense black shadow; the Andes. As we approached, they grew bigger and bigger until suddenly we were winding slowly up a precipitous road through sub tropical forest, with every bend bringing treacherous drops, and spectacular views.
The Bad - At times the scenery on the drive from BA to the mountains became so repetitive it felt like I was trapped in a ´50s cartoon like The Flintstones. It seemed we weren´t making any progress, and I´m amazed the driver stayed awake.
But, the worst thing about the journey was the haunting amount of roadside crosses, placed in memory of those who have died on these routes. As we approached the Andes, we passed these crosses more often. The number is staggering, over the years probably amounting to the number of casualties in a small war, and it is a stark reminder of the perils of daily travel in these parts, and the sheer power of the mountains.
The Ugly - The depressing amount of litter strewn by the side of the road near some settlements; plastic bags hanging off cacti, coke bottles everywhere, permanently tainting the landscape.
All in all though, the good far outweighed the bad, and it was an exhilerating journey. Hopefully the first of many.
The Best Laid Plans...
We are now in the North West of Argentina, in a small village called Tafi Del Valle. It is a barren and dry, yet starkly beautiful place in the Andean foothills. I´m still not sure whether it´s hot or cold (even Tash has sunburn, but jumpers are a necessity?)Nonetheless it is an amazing place. I have tried local beer (I knew Argentinians had made a name for themselves in the world of wine, but I was unaware they made ale! And good ale, too!), a local dish called locro, which can best be described as innards soup, and made Tash nearly vomit everywhere. We have climbed our first mountain, and we have been attacked by birds for straying too close to their nest. All this and we had no intention of ever coming here. How did this happen?
Well, as I have mentioned in other posts, we are not restricted by time, and at the moment the South of Argentina, where we intended to go, is ridiculously cold. So we decided to come to the North West, where it is ridiculously cold. Or hot. I don´t know. Nonetheless, my months of meticulous research has gone out of the window! However, the change to our plans has not in any way depressed or deterred me. In a way, it makes the whole trip seem more exciting, more of an adventure. I am reminded of the words of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries;
"The trip was decided...and it never erred from the basic principle laid down in that moment - improvisation."
So, waiting for the South to warm up, we are wandering aimlessly, the road ahead snaking slowly towards Bolivia. The next stop is Cafayate, one of Argentina´s premier wine regions, and there is a festival there on Monday, which promises much dancing, drinking and merrymaking. And after that...who knows?
Well, as I have mentioned in other posts, we are not restricted by time, and at the moment the South of Argentina, where we intended to go, is ridiculously cold. So we decided to come to the North West, where it is ridiculously cold. Or hot. I don´t know. Nonetheless, my months of meticulous research has gone out of the window! However, the change to our plans has not in any way depressed or deterred me. In a way, it makes the whole trip seem more exciting, more of an adventure. I am reminded of the words of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries;
"The trip was decided...and it never erred from the basic principle laid down in that moment - improvisation."
So, waiting for the South to warm up, we are wandering aimlessly, the road ahead snaking slowly towards Bolivia. The next stop is Cafayate, one of Argentina´s premier wine regions, and there is a festival there on Monday, which promises much dancing, drinking and merrymaking. And after that...who knows?
Sunday 26 September 2010
The Free Circulation Of Scandal And Noise - A Week In Uruguay.
Hello. I´m writing this from Buenos Aires. It is a hot, Sunday afternoon, and we´re waiting for our train tomorrow morning. We arrived back here on Friday morning, from the tiny country across the Rio De La Plata, sandwiched between it´s two massive neighbours, Brazil and Argentina. That country is Uruguay, and what a great place it is.
Getting there was a bit of a fiasco. We took a ferry across the river (50 miles wide at this point! Hardly a river!) but at the check in, the X-ray of my bag looked suspicious. First, my walking pole looked like some sort of sharp pointy weapon. I explained what it was, but they wanted me to send my bag through again. The second time, something even more suspicious appeared on the security guard´s screen. It looked like a gun. I explained I wasn´t carrying a gun, but the x-ray looked so much like a gun, I wasn´t convinced myself! Had I gone Jason Bourne on the Argentinians? An unkowing super spy?
So began the humiliating process of unpacking everything in my bag, whilst the guards chuckled away. They thought the fact I had a head torch, a tent and a tiny frying pan was hilarious. Eventually they were satisfied, and I was allowed on the boat. Amazing that a hipflask and a pack of malaria tablets can look like a Colt .45!
As the ferry rocked slowly across the murky waters, the excitement of entering a new country began. We finally arrived in Colonia del Sacremento. As we walked to the hostel I noticed something...blissful silence. After the 24 hour noisy metropolis of Buenos Aires, Colonia was a welcome break.
We wandered around Colonia´s old quarter, a big draw for tourists. But, although some places get swamped by visitors and so lose what it was that made people want to go there, Colonia has retained it´s charm. Historically it was an old smuggler´s port and thorn in the side of Spanish owned Buenos Aires, and the cobbled streets and old colonial ruins bring the history alive. But, I´m a historian, so I like that kind of thing! I don´t want to bore my audience, however, so I´ll move on.
We spent the rest of our first day in Uruguay relaxing by the seafront, watching the spectacular sunset as house martins swirled above the water and people chattered at nearby cafes. On our second night in Colonia, which was a Saturday and much busier, people actually applauded the sunset, which was a bit bizarre. I wanted to point out that this kind of thing happens every day, but didn´t want to spoil their fun.
So, after two days of small-town relaxation and recuperation, we took a bus to Uruguay´s capital, Montevideo, a city that cannot avoid being compared with it´s riverside rival, Buenos Aires.
Montevideo is smaller, cleaner and more picturesque than Buenos Aires. At some points you can see the sea (or river apparently) on 3 sides. But for some reason, I didn´t like it as much. I still had a great time, discovering the works of Uruguays premier artist Torres Garcia, or strolling along Pocitos beach, and leafing through dusty books in one of the city´s many bookstores (Uruguayans seem to be incredibly well read).
It was also interesting to note the subtle differences between Uruguay and Argentina. Urugayans are more humble and easy going, and drink comical amounts of mate. Litres of the stuff. Mate is basically the bitter herbal tea they drink here, in a little gourd called a bombilla. It is as common in Argentina as our delicious milky tea in England. But everywhere in Uruguay people have a thermos under one arm, and their bombilla in one hand. How they do anything is beyond me? Waiters in restaurants will be drinking it as they serve you, footballers being interviewed post-match will be sucking away at the metal straw they use to drain every last drop out of their bombilla. Even TV presenters had it!
A Uruguayan bloke I met in Colonia had recommended the national dish, Chivito, to me. So, once in Montevideo, I had to try it. I was expecting meat, obviously, but something classy, a delicate balance of flavours, perhaps. What I was presented with can only be described as a heart attack on a plate. It made a full English look like the new diet for health obsessed women. Steak, ham, cheese, egg, olives(?) and a single peiece of greasy, sorrowful lettuce stuffed between two slices of bread, accompanied with a mountain of chips. Of course, I ate it all. And then had another one two days later. When in Montevideo...
It is a shame that we won´t be in Montevideo in February, which is Carnaval season, because apparently here they throw a party that rival´s Rio´s. Urugayan´s definitely love their live music. In Colonia we were treated to a big brass band right outside our hostel, as well as a cool guitar playing singer called Donatto in a restaurant inexplicably called El Drugstore. And we went to Montevideo´s Festival of Percussion, which was the biggest anticlimax ever. Expecting heavy Latin beats, we were subject to a group of pretentious "musicians" banging their instruments one note at a time. It sounded like a zoo had been let loose in a recording studio. One guy gave a standing ovation, everyone else looked like they were trying hard not to cry.
We got some sense of the Uruguayan party spirit in the Carnaval museum, where costumes and masks are on display. The influences come from Africa, with tribal drumbeats, Venetian comedy of arts, with various masks and characters, and indigenous Latin American cultures, with Pachamama (Mother Earth) making an appearance. It is a triumph of multiculturalism, and in the English translation Carnaval was amusingly described as "the free circulation of scandal and noise," which sounds fun to me! I hope we are somewhere equally as exciting and vibrant when Carnaval season arrives.
We were going to go to the Eastern beaches of Uruguay, which are apparently wild, remote, and starkly beautiful. But, many travellers told us it was cold. Very cold. So, not fancying camping in a climate similar to a December in Blackpool, we are back here in BA.
Getting there was a bit of a fiasco. We took a ferry across the river (50 miles wide at this point! Hardly a river!) but at the check in, the X-ray of my bag looked suspicious. First, my walking pole looked like some sort of sharp pointy weapon. I explained what it was, but they wanted me to send my bag through again. The second time, something even more suspicious appeared on the security guard´s screen. It looked like a gun. I explained I wasn´t carrying a gun, but the x-ray looked so much like a gun, I wasn´t convinced myself! Had I gone Jason Bourne on the Argentinians? An unkowing super spy?
So began the humiliating process of unpacking everything in my bag, whilst the guards chuckled away. They thought the fact I had a head torch, a tent and a tiny frying pan was hilarious. Eventually they were satisfied, and I was allowed on the boat. Amazing that a hipflask and a pack of malaria tablets can look like a Colt .45!
As the ferry rocked slowly across the murky waters, the excitement of entering a new country began. We finally arrived in Colonia del Sacremento. As we walked to the hostel I noticed something...blissful silence. After the 24 hour noisy metropolis of Buenos Aires, Colonia was a welcome break.
We wandered around Colonia´s old quarter, a big draw for tourists. But, although some places get swamped by visitors and so lose what it was that made people want to go there, Colonia has retained it´s charm. Historically it was an old smuggler´s port and thorn in the side of Spanish owned Buenos Aires, and the cobbled streets and old colonial ruins bring the history alive. But, I´m a historian, so I like that kind of thing! I don´t want to bore my audience, however, so I´ll move on.
We spent the rest of our first day in Uruguay relaxing by the seafront, watching the spectacular sunset as house martins swirled above the water and people chattered at nearby cafes. On our second night in Colonia, which was a Saturday and much busier, people actually applauded the sunset, which was a bit bizarre. I wanted to point out that this kind of thing happens every day, but didn´t want to spoil their fun.
So, after two days of small-town relaxation and recuperation, we took a bus to Uruguay´s capital, Montevideo, a city that cannot avoid being compared with it´s riverside rival, Buenos Aires.
Montevideo is smaller, cleaner and more picturesque than Buenos Aires. At some points you can see the sea (or river apparently) on 3 sides. But for some reason, I didn´t like it as much. I still had a great time, discovering the works of Uruguays premier artist Torres Garcia, or strolling along Pocitos beach, and leafing through dusty books in one of the city´s many bookstores (Uruguayans seem to be incredibly well read).
It was also interesting to note the subtle differences between Uruguay and Argentina. Urugayans are more humble and easy going, and drink comical amounts of mate. Litres of the stuff. Mate is basically the bitter herbal tea they drink here, in a little gourd called a bombilla. It is as common in Argentina as our delicious milky tea in England. But everywhere in Uruguay people have a thermos under one arm, and their bombilla in one hand. How they do anything is beyond me? Waiters in restaurants will be drinking it as they serve you, footballers being interviewed post-match will be sucking away at the metal straw they use to drain every last drop out of their bombilla. Even TV presenters had it!
A Uruguayan bloke I met in Colonia had recommended the national dish, Chivito, to me. So, once in Montevideo, I had to try it. I was expecting meat, obviously, but something classy, a delicate balance of flavours, perhaps. What I was presented with can only be described as a heart attack on a plate. It made a full English look like the new diet for health obsessed women. Steak, ham, cheese, egg, olives(?) and a single peiece of greasy, sorrowful lettuce stuffed between two slices of bread, accompanied with a mountain of chips. Of course, I ate it all. And then had another one two days later. When in Montevideo...
It is a shame that we won´t be in Montevideo in February, which is Carnaval season, because apparently here they throw a party that rival´s Rio´s. Urugayan´s definitely love their live music. In Colonia we were treated to a big brass band right outside our hostel, as well as a cool guitar playing singer called Donatto in a restaurant inexplicably called El Drugstore. And we went to Montevideo´s Festival of Percussion, which was the biggest anticlimax ever. Expecting heavy Latin beats, we were subject to a group of pretentious "musicians" banging their instruments one note at a time. It sounded like a zoo had been let loose in a recording studio. One guy gave a standing ovation, everyone else looked like they were trying hard not to cry.
We got some sense of the Uruguayan party spirit in the Carnaval museum, where costumes and masks are on display. The influences come from Africa, with tribal drumbeats, Venetian comedy of arts, with various masks and characters, and indigenous Latin American cultures, with Pachamama (Mother Earth) making an appearance. It is a triumph of multiculturalism, and in the English translation Carnaval was amusingly described as "the free circulation of scandal and noise," which sounds fun to me! I hope we are somewhere equally as exciting and vibrant when Carnaval season arrives.
We were going to go to the Eastern beaches of Uruguay, which are apparently wild, remote, and starkly beautiful. But, many travellers told us it was cold. Very cold. So, not fancying camping in a climate similar to a December in Blackpool, we are back here in BA.
Friday 17 September 2010
Buenos Aires
Hello! My first blog post on our tour of South America is coming to you from Colonia del Sacremento, in Uruguay. From here, on the horizon, across the enormous mouth of the Rio de la Plata, you can see the skyline of Buenos Aires. It looks like a distant, floating city, and it was our first destination. Now we have put some distance between ourselves and that sprawling, manic metropolis, I thought I´d write about it.
We arrived last Saturday at midday, in a dazed blur of jet-lagged excitement and nerves. We took the local bus from the airport to the city centre, which took two hours. It felt dreamlike as we meandered through the dust filled streets, our bus gliding past other cars and missing them by mere inches. I still couldn´t believe after two years of saving up, we were finally here. When we arrived at our hostel, my body was screaming, "Lie down!" but my head would not let me. We had to explore the city. And what a city Buenos Aires is.
Buenos Aires is a chaotic, loud, dirty, brilliant place. It looks like a run down, beaten up Paris, like it´s been slapped around a bit. Stunning colonial architecture is dotted amongst crumbling tenements and cracked pavements. But Buenos Aires is not about aesthetics, it is about ambience and atmosphere, and that atmosphere oozes class, chaos and fun. Immaculately dressed women chatter in 19th century malls that put our drab, sterile behemoths like Bluewater to shame. Sparrows chirp in the Plaza de Mayo as bank employees march through the street, chanting and letting off booming explosives. People sit outside the cafés on the Plaza Dorrego, watching the world go by over a delicious café con crema" The smell of caramelized nuts mingles with the stench of fumes from the seemingly innumerable yellow and black taxis, buzzing about like bees. It is manic, it is mental, it is awesome.
As I said, BA is a city reminiscent of Paris, but it does not have the arrogance of Paris. It has the sophistication, but not the snobbery. And it definitely, absolutely has better food.
I could write an entire post about the food, but I´ll try and sum it up in a short paragraph. Carnivores will be in paradise here, and vegetarians will be cured! The steak melts in your mouth, the choripan (a chorizo hotdog) is ridiculously succulent, and it is all extremely good value. Eat a steak in Buenos Aires, and you´ll spit every other steak you have out! You will mourn our poor, tasteless British cows, who simply cannot compete. But it´s not all about the steak. The salads are good too...only joking, it is all about the steak! If anyone is coming to BA in the near future, I highly reccomend La Posada de 1820. It´s in the centre, and always full of locals.
Argentinian wine is also a treat for the palate and the wallet. 95% of the wine remains in Argentina - like the beef, Argentinians know a good thing when they see it, and they keep hold of it. So to fully experience the culinary delights, you have to come here.
I, James Bradley, man with two left feet and inventor of the world famous "drunken shuffle," tried to dance the Tango. It is hard. Harder than salsa. Harder than algebra. Harder than a drunk Glasweigan. You get the point. But Tango is also fun. Tash and I went to "La Catedral," a trendy old warehouse where everyone dresses casual, and tourists make fools out of themselves en masse. I am determined to learn the dance as our journey through Argentina continues, as watching those with expertise was a great experience. It is a seductive, sensual, complex dance with rules, but when two people who know what they´re doing Tango, it is truly beautiful.
Buenos Aires is, to conclude, an incredible place. Cosmopolitan but friendly. It is the biggest city I have ever visited, and one of the easiest to get to know. It is, no word of a lie, no exaggeration, one of the greatest cities in the world.
We arrived last Saturday at midday, in a dazed blur of jet-lagged excitement and nerves. We took the local bus from the airport to the city centre, which took two hours. It felt dreamlike as we meandered through the dust filled streets, our bus gliding past other cars and missing them by mere inches. I still couldn´t believe after two years of saving up, we were finally here. When we arrived at our hostel, my body was screaming, "Lie down!" but my head would not let me. We had to explore the city. And what a city Buenos Aires is.
Buenos Aires is a chaotic, loud, dirty, brilliant place. It looks like a run down, beaten up Paris, like it´s been slapped around a bit. Stunning colonial architecture is dotted amongst crumbling tenements and cracked pavements. But Buenos Aires is not about aesthetics, it is about ambience and atmosphere, and that atmosphere oozes class, chaos and fun. Immaculately dressed women chatter in 19th century malls that put our drab, sterile behemoths like Bluewater to shame. Sparrows chirp in the Plaza de Mayo as bank employees march through the street, chanting and letting off booming explosives. People sit outside the cafés on the Plaza Dorrego, watching the world go by over a delicious café con crema" The smell of caramelized nuts mingles with the stench of fumes from the seemingly innumerable yellow and black taxis, buzzing about like bees. It is manic, it is mental, it is awesome.
As I said, BA is a city reminiscent of Paris, but it does not have the arrogance of Paris. It has the sophistication, but not the snobbery. And it definitely, absolutely has better food.
I could write an entire post about the food, but I´ll try and sum it up in a short paragraph. Carnivores will be in paradise here, and vegetarians will be cured! The steak melts in your mouth, the choripan (a chorizo hotdog) is ridiculously succulent, and it is all extremely good value. Eat a steak in Buenos Aires, and you´ll spit every other steak you have out! You will mourn our poor, tasteless British cows, who simply cannot compete. But it´s not all about the steak. The salads are good too...only joking, it is all about the steak! If anyone is coming to BA in the near future, I highly reccomend La Posada de 1820. It´s in the centre, and always full of locals.
Argentinian wine is also a treat for the palate and the wallet. 95% of the wine remains in Argentina - like the beef, Argentinians know a good thing when they see it, and they keep hold of it. So to fully experience the culinary delights, you have to come here.
I, James Bradley, man with two left feet and inventor of the world famous "drunken shuffle," tried to dance the Tango. It is hard. Harder than salsa. Harder than algebra. Harder than a drunk Glasweigan. You get the point. But Tango is also fun. Tash and I went to "La Catedral," a trendy old warehouse where everyone dresses casual, and tourists make fools out of themselves en masse. I am determined to learn the dance as our journey through Argentina continues, as watching those with expertise was a great experience. It is a seductive, sensual, complex dance with rules, but when two people who know what they´re doing Tango, it is truly beautiful.
Buenos Aires is, to conclude, an incredible place. Cosmopolitan but friendly. It is the biggest city I have ever visited, and one of the easiest to get to know. It is, no word of a lie, no exaggeration, one of the greatest cities in the world.
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