Asunción, Paraguay

We arrived in Asunción on Thursday morning. I read in our Lonely Planet that Paraguay is actually the poorest country in South America after Bolivia. Although this is hard to tell when you walk past the opulent colonial buildings of downtown Asunción, it is easy to see while driving through the countryside - there are chickens roaming free everywhere. Perhaps this sounds like an odd comment, but during these travels I have come to find that in poorer countries farm animals appear to live much better lives than in affluent countries, which is something that I find more than a little ironic. Just as when we traveled through Uruguay, I am surprised to find how much I like it here. Paraguay is very green and covered with palm trees, which kind of reminds me of Bali. The earth is a dusty red, which kind of reminds me of the Outback. It is beautiful, yet so few tourists ever come here. I guess that´s why I like it as well.

We only stayed in Asunción for two days and besides walking around we also visited a museum commemorating the Stroessner dictatorship and saw the movie The Descendants at the mall. But we spent most of our time enjoying Paraguay´s amazing cuisine.

We first came upon it in the small town of Coronel Bogado, also known as the Capital de Chipa. Chipa is a type of bread made with manioc flower, eggs and cheese. Our bus from Montevideo made a quick stop in Coronel Bogado on the way to Asunción. A local lady come on board with a straw basket, covered with a white blanket - inside, she had hidden fresh, warm chipa. We were dying to buy some but didn´t have any Paraguayan money yet, but an older Paraguayan gentleman bought two pieces for us. I can´t even begin to tell you about this chipa. It has an actual crispy crust (our friends can attest that South Americans appear to prefer their bread soft) and on the inside is a lovely yellow filling - something between the inside of a French baguette and cookie dough. The bread is sprinkled with just a few fennel seeds to give it that extra flavor. It´s the best bread I´ve had in 7 months.



In Asunción, then, we would usually hang around the Plaza de los Héroes to sample local street food, which was really good and very cheap. We would usually start off with a slice of potato tortilla and a slice of sopa paraguaya, which is cornbread with cheese and onion. Then we would get churros for dessert. You might know churros, which is basically fried sweet dough, but in Paraguay they like to stuff their churros with dulce de leche.





To round off the meal, we would get a pitcher of tereré, which is iced maté. Maté is very common in Argentina, more so in Uruguay, but in Paraguay it is an obsession. I can best describe maté as grassy green tea. When you order maté, you will receive one cup, to share, stuffed to the brim with what looks like dried grass cut up into little pieces. You will also receive a metal straw to suck the maté, since they don´t bother to deal with tea bags in these parts. In Argentina and Uruguay you will see loads of people carrying such a cup and straw in one hand and a thermos with hot water in the other - sipping maté all day. But in Paraguay it is almost always warm and sunny (yet another reason to love it here), so here the people drink iced maté. Instead of a thermos with hot water, then, you will get a pitcher with water, ice and crushed yuyos (medicinal herbs), which gives your maté extra flavor. Some say it is an acquired taste, but I loved it immediately.





For snacks we would buy fruit, like these grapes - the biggest grapes I have ever seen.



To summ up: Paraguay is great! The weather is nice, the people are friendly, the food is amazing, there are hardly any tourists and it is cheap. I might stay longer than I had planned.

If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!

Montevideo, Uruguay

I like Uruguay, but I find it increasingly difficult to explain why, yet I feel so at home here. Uruguay has but a mere handful of major tourist attractions, namely the capital Montevideo, the beaches on the Atlantic coast and the UNESCO World Heritage town of Colonia del Sacramento - the rest is cowboy country. It has, however, no deserts, no glaciers, no significant national parks or notable wildlife. I like it though. It is a small and easily managed place. Life moves at a slow pace. The people are friendly, helpful and genuinely interested in us. The food is great and every street smells like a perfectly executed barbecue (I might be a vegetarian without an interest in ever eating meat again, but that smell is pretty amazing). Montevideo is the nation´s capital and houses 1.3 million people, although it is hard to tell on the street - it is always quiet and there never seems to be a moment when all the shops are open, for there are always a few that are closed. It makes me wonder where everybody is, but you don´t hear me complain. For tourists there are a lot of museums to visit, considering how small the Ciudad Vieja (´Old City´) is. We´re not the museum-visiting kind, though, so we brought a city map and took ourselves on a little walking tour.

We saw some pretty old buildings...


Calle Juan Carlos Gómez

Some pretty leafy plazas...


Plaza Constitución

And some pretty fancy statues...


Rambla Bretaña

By the way: notice the wind in those palm trees. It´s like a fall storm has fallen upon Uruguay and it´s actually quite cold here at the moment.

There was really only one thing that we wanted to do in Montevideo and that is to eat noquis. Noquis is how the people in Uruguay spell gnocchi, which is, of course, the famous Italian dish of potato dumplings. It´s a tradition in Uruguay to eat noquis on the 29th of every month. Traditionally, at the end of the month, noquis was all the people could afford to eat. These days, people everywhere in Uruguay eat noquis on the 29th - for old times´ sake, I assume. You´ve got to love a people who turn an economic necessity into a monthly food fest. Sadly, though, we leave Uruguay tomorrow (on the 28th!) and won´t be able to participate in this wonderful tradition.



To compensate, Jochem has made me noquis every single day that we have been in Uruguay. Yesterday he prepared a particularly impressive number when he mixed butter with cream and chili - YUM!



It saddens me to say, then, that Montevideo is the only place thus far during this world trip that I have actually been afraid. This afternoon, during our walking tour (while following the walking tour´s instructions - I´m not one of those fools who aimlessly wanders off the beaten track!), I noticed that a couple of boys (hardly teenagers, really) had started following us into a quiet side street. This made me suspicious because of a story that Klaus (our new friend from Germany whom we met on the Navimag ferry and who is also travelling through South America) had told us, namely that he was also walking through the Ciudad Vieja, alone, and was suddenly attacked by a bunch of youngsters who stole his very expensive camera. I quickly gave my engagement ring and passport to Jochem for him to hide in his money belt, but I noticed that they were getting closer. I think there were about 3 or 4. I was starting to panic a little bit because I knew that we needed to get back to the main street but in order to get there we needed to walk through yet another little side street with those boys right behind us. Two older gentlemen had already warned us to keep walking and, basically, not look so lost with our map in the open (I told you that the people in Uruguay are friendly). I put the map in my purse and started walking pretty fast towards the road, where Jochem thought we would be safer, because it was busier than in those small streets. It took a kind of crazy crossing during rush hour on a 6-lane road before they gave up and we quickly walked back to our hostel just as the rain really started to come down. It makes me sad to leave my beloved Uruguay on such a sour note, but on the other hand it is a reminder that we´ll be travelling to poorer countries now and should probably be a little bit more careful.

Anyhow, most of our time in Montevideo was spent inside at our hostel Posada al Sur.



One of the reasons why we spent so much time inside is that it´s surprisingly cold and rainy here now. Another reason is that this hostel is one of the nicest places we´ve ever stayed at and that it´s therefore no punishment to stay inside. The main reason, however, is that we simply preferred it that way and I want to elaborate on that, because after nearly 7 months I think that I have finally come to accept my travelling ways, meaning that, sometimes, I prefer to do absolutely nothing. This might seem obvious to you, but you would not believe the amount of anxiety, guilt and stress I had to overcome concerning this particular issue, for who gives up everything to travel across the world to do... nothing? Yet, this is how I spent most of my time in Montevideo:



I have finally reached a stage where I at least TRY not to worry that this is somehow, to put it mildly, a huge waste of my time and money (ergo: crazy!), for I have come to realize that travelling is not the same thing as going on vacation (again, this might seem obvious to you). Sightseeing for 3 weeks is one thing, but when you´re away from home for almost a year, it´s very different. You try sightseeing every single day for 9 months and see how much you like it. Sometimes you just need to wear some baggy pants, put on some Top Chef and eat from a bowl on the couch. Of course, this ´hominess´ is exactly what you, the wild and free backpacker, do not have and should not want to have, since you gave up your home to be this wild and free backpacker, but that is exactly why sometimes you crave it with such intensity that you kind of start to play house in a hostel. At least, I do.

I´m also trying to overcome my preconceived ideas about what I, the traveller, should be doing (it´s a true testament to how much I value Lonely Planet publications that I think every thing they print is something I should be doing - should being the operative word). Do you want to hear the truth of it? I am simply not interested in art, or theater, or film, or music, or tango, or in going to bars, or in going to clubs. If I may, I would kind of like to spend the last few months of this world trip guilt-free doing nothing more than walking around, eating good food, reading the occasional book, looking at wedding websites, and going on wildlife excursions. And FIY: no, I do NOT like black coffee and I never have and probably never will. I like my coffee with a jug of warm full fat milk and some sugar. And just so you know: I´m going to stop drinking red wine too. I like white wine (preferably sauvignon blanc), rosé and sparkly wine.

In case you were in doubt, well yes, that was my internal monologue.

On to the next thing then, which would be a 20+ hour bus ride to Asunción, the capital of Paraguay. We had initially planned to travel up the coast of southern Brazil, but we had forgotton about this little thing called Semana Santa, which basically means that since it´s Easter, everything is full (don´t you know?). Plus, whereas in Argentina there appears to be a bus leaving about every 5 minutes, in Uruguay busses leave only once a week. I guess that would be the downside of this otherwise beautifully tranquil society (adolescent muggers aside). We didn´t think it would be smart to stay in Uruguay for another 2 weeks just so that we could see the beaches of Brazil, so now we´re taking an earlier bus straight to Paraguay and we hope to explore Brazil from there. Sadly, it also means that I will be leaving Uruguay after less than a week. It´s really hard sometimes, you know, travelling? Nah, just kidding - it is AWESOME!

If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!

Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

Buquebus Ferry Terminal

On Thursday morning we took a taxi to the Buquebus Ferry Terminal and boarded a ferry to Uruguay. Even though we had opted for the cheaper slow ferry, it only took us 3 hours to reach Colonia del Sacramento. As we were moving across the Río de la Plata it felt like an actual, physical, weight fell off my shoulders. Colonia is a very small town of just 22,700 inhabitants and the interesting part of town, the UNESCO World Heritage Barrio Histórico, is even smaller. We only stayed there for 2 days and there is really not too much that I can say about it. Colonia is just about the cutest little town you have ever seen. It was founded by the Portuguese in 1680 as a smugglers port, but fell into Spanish hands in 1762. The Barrio Histórico is a maze of winding, cobblestoned streets, ruins, historic homes, leafy plazas and quiet restaurants tucked away underneath piles of flowering plants. It oozes tranquility. Every moment of the day feels like it is siesta. There is always jazz playing somewhere. It is unbelievably pretty. It is the perfect place to linger over a bottle of wine. So that´s what we did. The difference between Colonia and Buenos Aires could not have been bigger.


Paseo de San Gabriel


Bastión de San Miguel


Calle de los Suspiros


Convento de San Francisco and Faro (Lighthouse)


overlooking the Río de la Plata from the Lighthouse


Puerto Viejo (Old Port)


Iglesia Matriz


Plaza de Armas


El Drugstore

If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Buenos Aires is a city that I expected to love and wanted to like, but now that I'm here, I don't love it and I don't like it - not one bit.

I already told you that Buenos Aires is big, but what makes it worse, is that it's incredibly difficult to get around town. Trains don't go where I need them to go, nor does the Subte (Buenos Aires' subway system). You practically need a degree in Cryptology to understand the city's intricate bus system. Taxis are expensive. No matter where you're going or what time of day it is, it always seems like rush hour. Porteños (Buenos Aires' inhabitants) are dangerous, if not downright crazy, drivers, so it's best not to bike or walk anywhere. You are constantly surrounded by car horns and exhaust fumes. The city is dirty - there is dog poop everywhere and trash never seems to be picked up, instead decaying in the city's heat and humidity after the cartoneros (Buenos Aires' 'garbage recycles', which is a euphemism for the homeless) have scoured through it. Porteños are not the nicest of people at first glance - they're often rude and appear to think very highly of themselves (and very lowly of you).

The city has two distinct faces: beautiful and ugly; rich and poor; happy and depressing. In one neighborhood I would feel uncomfortable and underdressed amongst the well-dressed and fashionable Porteños, while in another neighborhood I was afraid to wear my engagement ring for fear of being mugged in broad daylight. One moment you are walking in the cutest little side street, and the next you find yourself on a busy and ugly avenue.

This city tires me, wears me down, drains me, turns my mood sour and makes me sad. After the beauty and tranquility of empty Patagonia it is just too much.

It took us almost three days to find our bearings. When we did, we decided that we simply didn't have the energy to go sightseeing very much. Usually, we enjoy taking a free walking tour, but the idea of voluntarily going downtown was too much for me to bear (we had been there already on our second day in Buenos Aires to buy our boat tickets to Uruguay and I had no desire to return to that madness). Instead we tried to embrace the city's duality by visiting two very different neighborhoods.

First, we went to La Boca, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city, which was built by working-class Italian immigrants from Genoa. We came to see its famous Caminito, a small street lined with colorful buildings. This was the only place in town I've seen that was not covered in trash and dog poop, but it did have a lot of touristy bars, restaurants and shops. Our guidebook warns not to wander outside of this little touristy area, so after we had walked through the Caminito, we went straight back.





Our next stop was Recoleta, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city, which is strewn with grand apartment buildings, expensive designer shops and hip restaurants. We came here to see the famous Cementerio de la Recoleta. This cemetery is like a city in itself, a city of death. The country's elite rest here in elaborate stone and marble structures fancier than some of the city's houses. Here we also saw Evita's grave.





The contrast between the two neighborhoods could not have been bigger and there is beauty in this duality.

Most of the time, however, we stayed in Palermo, which is the neighborhood where our hostel is. Palermo is small, has tree-lined streets, quiet parks and an abundance of nice cafés, tea houses and restaurants. This is where we spent most of our time - drinking coffee and visiting as many Asian restaurants as we could find.







My favorite thing about Buenos Aires, however, were the many paseoperros (professional dog walkers) in Palermo.



Needless to say, I won't be sad to leave this town tomorrow. I can't wait to go to Uruguay!

If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!

Argentinian Patagonia

We are getting ready to go to Buenos Aires. Did you know that while Santiago has almost 5 million inhabitants, and New York about 8 million, Buenos Aires houses a staggering number of 13 million people? I didn´t. I just read it in our guidebook. At 4 PM we will board yet another night bus that should deliver us to this cosmopolitan metropolis tomorrow morning. I wish I had brought my high heels.



Meanwhile, we have been enjoying an intermezzo between desolate Tierra del Fuego and overflowing Buenos Aires: Argentinian Patagonia on the Atlantic coast. We have been staying in Puerto Madryn - a small coastal town conveniently situated between Ushuaia and Buenos Aires. We found a small, family-run hostel that we mostly had to ourselves. But there was another reason we decided to come here. Puerto Madryn lies exactly between two nature reserves: Reserva Faunística Península Valdés and Punta Tombo.

We visited Punta Tombo first. We did this by rental car, because the idea of spending another day on a full tour bus with a group of other tourists didn´t appeal to us very much. We rented a small, red Volkswagen and drove ourselves to the nature reserve. Punta Tombo has the largest penguin colony outside of Antartica. Between September and April thousands of Magellanic penguins breed here. When we arrived, the majority of the colony had already left the nature reserve in favor of the Atlantic ocean, but there were still many penguins to spot. The great thing about this nature reserve is that you walk through the colony and can get really close to the penguins. And penguins are just so cute - it´s hard not to cuddle them when they walk up to you and tilt their head, as if to figure you out. The weather was also working in our favor so we had an amazing day.





Before returning to Puerto Madryn we decided to make a quick stop in Gaiman, a small town in rural Patagonia. Many Welsh people settled in Gaiman, so driving into town is quite a shock, since everything looks so European. We came here to visit one of the many famous Welsh tea houses for unlimited tea and pastries. We arrived quite annoyed with each other, for we had just had that classic argument about how Jochem can´t drive a car, and how I can´t read a map (I believe that we called it even in the end). However, when we entered the tea house, we were so overwhelmed by the Alice-in-Wonderland-ness of it all that we couldn´t help but giggle. Here we were: sweaty, wearing hiking boots and carrying a Lonely Planet, in a world where everyone was dressed in their finest, sipping tea elegantly, while being served by old ladies in black-and-white costumes. It was surreal. We stuffed ourselves with English tea and fatty, sugary pastries until we almost burst and then took the leftovers home. Needless to say, we didn´t need dinner after that.





The next day we drove our rental car to Reserva Faunística Península Valdés. There are many places to visit on this peninsula, all teeming with wildlife, but we drove straight to Punta Norte because this is where orcas are sometimes spotted. We have seen a lot of aquatic wildlife already, but orcas are difficult to find. The nice lady who welcomed us at the entrance to the peninsula warned us that the orca season was almost over, that they´re difficult to see, that there was a north wind today that would make it virtually impossible. But we are nothing if not stubborn so we went to Punta Norte anyway. We planted ourselves in the sand near a group of sea lions and waited. Tour bus after tour bus came and left and we continued to wait while scanning the ocean. Orcas hunt during high tide, which, in this case, could mean anytime between 2 and 8 PM. We waited for 2 hours when we finally saw them: a group of elusive, wild orcas swimming close to shore! We followed them until they disappeared behind another bay. We waited for 2 more hours, hoping that they would come back to hunt the sea lions, but they didn´t. That was a shame, but on the other hand, I didn´t have to see an innocent sea lion puppy being eaten either. So we drove to Caleta Valdés to admire the fat elephant seals sleeping on the beach and then we went home. It was a great day!





Our time in Argentina is almost over. Stay tuned for tales of Buenos Aires!

If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!

Chilean Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego

A lot has happened since the last time I wrote. Jochem and I are quickly finding out just how BIG South America really is. There are so many things to see, so many things to do, and so many places worthy of a visit that we´ve been rushing through it, which is not the best way to do it, I admit. We´ve only seen a very small fraction of the huge area that encompasses Patagonia, but already we´ve seen so much and done so much that it´s sometimes difficult to remember. But let´s start at the beginning.

After a few hours delay, we finally boarded our Navimag ferry on Friday afternoon, which took us from Puerto Montt in the Lakes District to Puerto Natales in Patagonia in 3 nights and 4 days. On board we found out that we had been extremely lucky in the assignment of our bed bunks - while most of our fellow budget travellers, who also couldn´t afford or didn´t wish to pay for a private hut, had to sleep in the hallway next to the toilets, we had our own little corner next to a wall. This meant that it was just the two of us in that corner and that we had a window! Usually, only first class passengers get a window, so we were very pleased. Life on board was kind of dull, but it did encourage us to crawl onto a couch with a cup of tea and a good book. We were constantly surrounded by the most amazing scenery, including fjords and glaciers.


Chile´s fjords


Iceberg Glacier

On Monday evening it was time to get off the boat. The first thing that we noticed about Puerto Natales was how cold it was. Luckily, we quickly found accommodation downtown.


about to get off the ferry and onto very cold Puerto Natales

The next day we had to switch to another hostel because the hostel of our first choice had been booked up. After we made the move, we took some time to explore Puerto Natales, which was surprisingly nice. It´s a really small town in the midst of the giant that is Patagonia and it had everything that I wanted at that moment - cute houses in pastel colors, a beautiful port overlooking the glacial valley, real coffee served with just the right amount of full fat milk, a vegetarian restaurant and an authentic Italian restaurant with a real pizza oven. HALLELUJAH!!!


Puerto Natales


enjoying a cup of coffee at El Living

There´s a lot to do in the area, but we decided on two things. On Wednesday we went horseback riding with gauchos on top of Mirador Dorotea, a big hill just outside Puerto Natales overlooking the glacial valley. Jochem and I are really enjoying horseback riding. I used to do it all the time as a kid - I even took lessons and participated in competitions, until I fell off a horse and was afraid to get back up. Jochem hadn´t ridden a single horse until this trip, but he´s actually really good at it and I´m also finding that I´m getting better and better each time. We hope to take horseback riding lessons when we get home. We share many passions together - food, travel, hiking, and it´s great to find a new one to add to the list. I had a good connection with my horse and the views were amazing.


Mirador Dorotea


Mirador Dorotea

The next day we went on one of those cookie-cutter one-day bus trips to Torres del Paine National Park. Having come all the way to Puerto Natales we didn´t want to miss it, but we didn´t feel like preparing for one of the many epic multi-day hiking trips either, plus: we felt that we didn´t have the time and had to keep moving. This was ideal then. We actually saw a lot, including the famous ´torres,´ a waterfall, ice bergs and the Grey Glacier. There was also a lot of wildlife to spot. We saw guanacos (a type of llama related to the camel, which is an animal typical of Patagonia), Patagonian ostriches, a fox and an Andean condor - the biggest bird in the world. All day we were surrounded by the grand and majestic outdoors of Patagonia. I guess I finally see what all the fuss is about!


Torres del Paine National Park


in front of the torres (´towers´) that gave Torrel del Paine National Park its name

The next day already we left Puerto Natales, got on a bus and 12 hours later we arrived in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world in the area of Tierra del Fuego in Argentina. We had left Chile at last (it only took us 40 days)! Ushuaia is advertised everywhere as being the end of the world, which, technically, is not exactly true. The road that brings you to Ushuaia keeps going into Tierro del Fuego National Park and south of Ushuaia lies an island called Isla Navarino, which belongs to Chile, where there is a small settlement of 2500 people at Puerto Williams. But it does feel like the end of the world, even though the city itself is much bigger than Puerto Natales. While Puerto Natales is small and cosy and filled to the brim with adventurers, here there are a lot of young backpackers partying their days and nights away - not exactly my scene, or maybe it´s just our hostel that we´ve been unlucky with this time. The food remains great, though. While Chilean Patagonia has a lot of German immigrants, Argentina has a lot of Italian ones, which explains the way the Argentinians speak Spanish, but also accounts for a lot of Italian restaurants. There is nothing that this girl loves more than a plate of homemade Italian food, and with the Argentinians, who seems to love nothing more than a piece of dead cow, this works out perfectly!


Ushuaia

Only a small part of Tierra del Fuego National Park is actually open to the public, and since we were blessed with some amazing weather (which we heard is uncommon for the region), we decided on a boat trip through the Beagle Channel instead. This turned out to be the best choice, for we enjoyed the many charms of the Beagle Channel while being able to see some more amazing wildlife, including cormorants, albatrosses, penguins, an elephant seal, sea lions, fur seals and, miraculously, whales.


Beagle Channel


Beagle Channel


Beagle Channel

I can only imagine what kind of wildlife Antarctica has to offer when I can see this kind of wildlife right outside Ushuaia. And imagination it will remain, because although we were tempted to go for the last-minute 3900 US dollar per person offer, we eventually decided against it. We decided that since we still have 3 more months to go in this world trip, and need to start building our life from scratch when we get home, and have student debts to pay off come January 2013, and want to get married and want to keep travelling, that maybe going for this offer was not the best idea.


Ushuaia

Instead, we bought outrageously expensive bus tickets from Ushuaia to Puerto Madryn. To be fair, we had been warned and we do get driven around for more than 1500 kilometers (the fact that we will then still be in Patagonia should give you an indication of what I´m talking about when I say ¨South America is really BIG¨). The bus leaves tomorrow morning at 5 AM and arrives in Río Gallegos at 5 PM. After a 3-hour wait we board bus # 2 that will take 16 hours to drive to Puerto Madryn, where we will arrive at 1 PM the next day. I know what you´re thinking - that´s crazy talk! And, indeed, this gruelling 32-hour bus ride makes our longest bus ride thus far (from Alice Springs to Adelaide in 21 hours) look like child´s play. Flying is not an option, unfortunately, because it´s even more expensive than the bus. We´re still rushing because now we kind of want to get out of Argentina quickly and head for some of the cheaper countries on the continent. But we didn´t want to miss Puerto Madryn - it´s just the right season to spot penguins and, if we´re really, very lucky, ORCAS!

If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!