Buenos Aires Weeks 10, 11, 12 & 13:

We arrived in Buenos Aires just when a thunder storm struck the city! One side of the sky was black with thunder and lightening and the other side was clear blue sun shine! Brilliant! They have quite a few storms here, which is a good thing as it clears the air. The weather seems to build up and up until one day you can not stand it and then it rains for about an hour and everything is good again.

We arrived at our host family´s house (Felix and Luz) in record time. The taxi driver (in fact everyone) had no regard to the road rules. If there is a lane, you don't drive anywhere near it, you drive where there is a space, so if there are about 4 lanes on the road, you will have about 7. We would not want to take our driving test here anyway, absolute madness! 

We quickly found our way around the city (well, Will found his way around, three weeks in and I still have not got a clue where I am. It could have something to do with the fact that I seem to have got the dog poo spotter job and Will has got the navigator job!). Walking around the city on a week day is a bit like walking down Oxford Street on a Saturday. The weekend´s here are nice and quiet.

Buenos Aires is probably one of the friendliest city´s we have come across. Everyone willing to talk and help you out. It seems like the thing to do is to finish work, go home, have a sleep and then go out at about 12 midnight! We still can not get used to eating very late (9.30-10pm). We mostly go out after and have a Malbec before bed at a couple of our favourite coffee shops we have got to know well.

We joined our volunteer work and started on the Thursday. L.I.F.E is an organisation that helps kids from about 3-12 yrs that live in the slums of Buenos Aires (Vills´s). They help them by setting up after school support so that they have somewhere to go after school, stopping them get into trouble and drugs. They have activities like Maths, English, Spanish and basic colouring in (I was best at that!) We also take along hoops, skipping ropes and footballs, so a lot of skipping for Will! Wednesday´s is birthday party day and Saturdays is cooking lesson day. We much preferred the school support. A bit selfishly we enjoyed doing this as it made us feel very good. The slums (Villas) are sometimes very shocking, so coming in and making the kids happy felt like we were trying to achieve something. One day, we were playing outside with the kids and a little boy about 4 years old was kicking the wall looking very shy and not joining in. We coaxed him with a hoop!! After about half an hour, he was running around laughing and running to his mum after we were chasing him etc. The smile on his mums face made our day!! I'm hoping you can understand how that made us feel. The whole point of L.I.F.E is to try and give hope to the kids that might think that there is none. There had been a couple of children that have grown up and managed to get a degree and leave, so it does work.  We shall add a page about LIFE like we did ARCAS very soon.

Places we went to see in Buenos Aires:

Felix and his group playing the drums

Recoleta Cemetery where Eva Peron (Evita) is buried

Eva Peron's Tomb

Juan and Eva Peron

We went to an arms museum.  Only to find out that it had weapons instead.  I was very disappointed!

Us with Felix out on the town.

Caminito street La Bocca.  We sat and had some wine while the locals were dancing Tango.

Before

After

The Japanese gardens.

El Ateneo Book store in Buenos Aires. This amazing bookstore used to be a theatre.



On the 10th December (Jo's birthday), we took a trip to Uruguay to Colonia. It was a good day and was nice to get out of the city for a change. We walked around the old town and hired a couple of golf road buggies. It absolutely hammered it down with thunder and lightening! We got soaked, although had an absolute blast at the same time. Luckily, although the road buggy did not come back in one peace, we did not have to pay any extra!!! Ooops!

The old light house in Colonia, Uruguay

A very creepy statue in the church

Arrr me hearties, we went to a pirate museum

Week 7, 8 & 9: Rio and Iguazu

Finally we have an internet connection that doesn`t keep logging me off all the time.  A lot has happened in the last three weeks, so lets get started.

Rio de Janerio

Our stay in Rio was a bitter sweet one.  Our hotel was right on the Ipanema beach, we only had a couple of rainy days in the whole two weeks and we had a chance for the first time to sit back and relax. We didn`t see any crime and so far no dodgy payments on my card. On the flip side, there was a bit of a pretentious feel to it, which at times was a little uncomfortable.  After the first 5 days, the hotel locked us out of our room as they wanted us to pay for the first 5 days.  If it hadn`t been for expecting some important post we would have moved hotel there and then!  Anyway, we had a lot of good times and it is well worth a vist (We would recommend only a week or a few days).  Here are some of our highlights:

After the first day of being lazy and trying out the hotel bar on the beach front, we decided we should go and see something.  I really wish I had my camera with me!  We went for a wonder down the sea front and came across a lot of commotion.  Two groups of men, all of which were only wearing speedos, were having an argument in the road.  There must of been at least twenty of them.  The police turned up with large guns, one of which fired a shot in the air to break them up.  Not sure what the police thought they might be packing in their speedos, but it doesn`t bear thinking about.  I liked the idea they were fighting over a volley ball.  The rest of the day was fairly average until our taxi back crashed into a parked car trying to avoid someone else.  No one was hurt at all, but if you see a yellow taxi with a big black scrape down it, have a thought for the person who would have come back to a black car with a big yellow scrape down it.  Welcome to Rio!

The other moment I missed with the camera was a whole load of students dressed up for halloween, if i`d been giving out prizes, 1st prize would have gone to Ayrton Senna.

So here are a few of the sights we did actually have a camera for!

Christ the Redeemer - We went up to the Christ the Redeemer in the rack-and-pinnion which at some points is very steep.  We were a bit dissapointed to find an esculator and some lifts high up in the mountain!

There is a small chapel under the statue and just outside some candels that you can light.  Not real candels, but if you put a coin in the machine they`ll light up!

Centro - We wanted to go and see the cathedral in the centre, this is the building we would like Dev to comment on. The inside is much better than the outside!

Below: The lagre cone shaped Cathedral

We also went for a wonder around the Natural History museum.  In short, it said the Portuguese arrived, settled and didn`t treat the locals very well.  We didn´t take very good pictures here and Jo got a little bored!

Sugar Loaf - A hill that looks like a Sugar loaf, the area was also used for farming sugar cane.  Another good view, well worth the visit.

Us at the beach!

Iguazu Falls

 Wow, this is a must for any trip to south America.  We stayed on the Argentina side in the Shereton over looking the falls.  We landed on the Brazil side and got a taxi over the boarder. We loved it here so much we decided to stay an extra night!

Crossing the boarder to Argentina



Not sure how, but the hotel seemed to think we had just got hitched.  So half an hour after checking in a bottle of bubberly and cakes arrived! Yay!

The falls were amazing! Some of them were so huge that the spray drenched you if you went anywhere near them, it was like having a lovely cold shower. 

Our hotel was situated inside the park so we only had to pay once. The walks to the falls were not far at all. They had hundreds of different types of butterflies that just landed on you at every opportunity. Other wildlife such as lizards, racoons and birds were also seen roaming around the park. 

On the days that we did not walk around the falls we just ate a huge breakfast and lazed around the pool area and of course taking advantage of the hydro therapy aqua spa!

On our last night we decided to have a last hydro spa. We got a final special moment when we went out by the pool and saw loads of bats flying round in circles drinking out of the swimmng pool. This was the icing on the cake! We will uploaded a video of them soon.