Day 155 - Body clock reassignment in Buenos Aires

There are some things that you take for granted in this diverse world of ours. The sun comes up in the morning. You have breakfast, lunch then dinner. Then you go to bed. Except in Buenos Aires.

We found an apartment four days after we arrived. It was real shame to leave our pokey, cheaply renovated, situated-on-top-of-a-nightclub-that-didn't-close-until-6am hostel-pretending-to-be-a-BnB, but we dealt with it and moved on. We're resilient like that.

We both agreed that the apartment was a steal. It's a big, white open plan apartment that wouldn't look out of place in some Hollywood film, such as Basic Instinct or maybe even Flesh Gordon 6. It was also remarkably good value, as it happens to be located on the border between San Telmo and La Boca, the latter being one of the most notorious neighbourhoods (or barrios) in BA.

The truth is though that it really isn't that dangerous. San Telmo reminds me a bit of Newtown in Sydney. There are a few dodgy characters hanging around, but really nothing to be all that worried about. The history of it is that the citys' oldest barrio used to be home to the city's elite, until various epidemics sent them packing in the 19th century. Ownership then passed to newly arrived poor immigrant families, until it's recent resurgence. As a result, San Telmo has a certain run-down charm to it. It's main street, Defensa, is crowded with overpriced antique shops, similarly-priced designer boutiques and the odd quaint little bars.

It's a nice place to stay, with the benefit of being full of extraordinarily low-priced butchers, greengrocers and supermarkets. Hell, even the corner shops can sell you a freshly cut sirloin for the extortionate price of around AU$4 a kilo.

However, whilst a great place to hang, there's more to Buenos Aires than a single barrio. Which brings me to my first point.

Rach and I have become accustomed to waltzing into a city, quickly establishing the things to see and places to go and being out of there within a week, happy we've got what we came for. Buenos Aires is different.

It's a big place; a very vibrant city. We started our exploration in Palermo - which is a bit like the BA version of Paddington - and there it soon became clear how much there is to get through. Never mind the bars, cafes, restaurants and boutiques you can see, it's the ones hidden behind unmarked doors that you're really looking for.

I remember when I first came back to live in Sydney. I remember the day I came to the conclusion that Sydney was a city that takes at least a year to become acquainted with. Well, BA is the same.

But what makes it especially strange is the hours people keep. The phrase "city that never sleeps" gets banded about all too easily. I've been out in New York at ungodly hours and seen eveything positively closed. Try finding a restaurant open in Mexico City late on a Sunday evening. Realistically, there is nowhere you'd want to be drinking in Sydney after normal closing time. BA, however, turns things on it's head.

I'd read about BA's odd hours, but I didn't believe it. Until I saw it. You can be in a restaurant after midnight and catch people still coming in for dinner. Bars simply don't start to hum until after 1am. Nobody even bothers trying to get to a club before 3am.

It really does take some getting used to. The first few times, we headed out for a late dinner (steak, of course. You kind of feel you have to to begin with) and a bottle of red wine, and next thing you know it's 1am and you're ready for bed.

It's not easy. I'm not even sure I like it yet. I've always been a "safe-and-sound-back-home-before-the-sun-comes-up" kind of guy". As Lily Allen said, being out after sunrise just doesn't feel right.

However, we've slowly got increasingly (though not completely) used to it and discovered that the key lies in making two changes to the way you live.

First secret is; siesta. Now, if there is a practice I would like to bring back with me, it's the concept of getting your head down for three hours every afternoon. Sublime.

The second is a change of pace. The pace here seems a little slower. Sydney, in comparison, seems to embody a "lets race out and do everything as quickly as possible" philosophy. BA is more of a "what's the rush?" place.

No doubt, it would get annoying if you lived here for a while. However, in the here and now, where we don't need to be anywhere or do anything according to a schedule, I kind of like it.

Now, if you'll excuse me. It's time for my afternoon nap. I have a busy evening ahead of me. :)

Day 140 - A big trip from Tupiza to Salta to Buenos Aires

Big. Even the word itself bulges as it exits your mouth. It may not be long, but it sounds phatter than Barry White in a sumo suit.

The city we are in now - Buenos Aires - is big. However, everything has been big for a while now; all the way down from Tupiza. Big, big, big.

Tupiza, as you'll know was like Happy Stepford. Big smiles, big sun and big red wines with more body than a BBW meeting. We weren't far from the Argentine border and the influence was showing.

I never did see the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (then again, Sebastiaan and Yolande had never seen Star Wars, so I'm least to blame), but apparently they died near Tupiza (that's Butch and Sundance, not Sebastiaan and Yolande). They tried to rob a donkey stagecoach carrying money, only it wasn't. Like, dur. Doesn't really seem worthy of a film.

Tupiza is definitely cowboy country. We took a couple of small but very feisty stock horses out for a day. Most of the time, with trail horses, you spend all your time trying to get them to go. We spent most of our time trying to get them to stop. Mine refused to travel at any speed less than a giddy prance (yes, a prance!). Its quite important not to go too fast when you're traveling along train tracks, or so I'm told.

The area around Tupiza is what I imagined Mexico would be like. It's lots of sandstone canyons, windblown arches and dry river beds. Galloping down a river bank on the back of horse with a gallop that sounds like a misfiring machine gun is awesome. More fun than a bum full of smarties.

The Argentine border took a while to get across a few days later. We waited in line for an hour to get our bags checked - missing our bus to Salta in the process - only to have the customs man wave us through without a search when we said we were Australian. Why? Can't Australians be criminals too?

Seven hours later, in the dead of night, we crash landed in Salta at the best hostel so far; Hostel Inti Huasi. It's more friendly than Peruvian trying to sell you something, only without the nasty aftertaste.

It was here, in this small colonial town that we undertook the operation formerly named "First Steak in Argentina". You see, according to everyone, Argentina has the best beef in the world. Depending on exactly who you ask, it lies somewhere between what happened to Buddha when he went into the forest, and dying of a heart attack whilst bedding with the San Fransisco 49ers cheer squad. And they're not wrong.

Juicy. Succulent. And did I mention big? This is a country with more pastureland than it knows what to do with. Argentinian beef doesn't just melt in your mouth. It tickles your tonsils with crafty fingers, whispers sweet nothings into your ears and slides down your throat like a gravy over baked potatoes. But wait! There's more! Tasty red wines of bloody brilliant quality to accompany. And all for the bargain basement price of $9.99.

No. I'm serious.

The best steak? Awesome wine? Cheap as a box full of baby chickens? I think it was at that point I decided that Argentina and I, we might have a future together.

But we weren't there yet. Onto a big arse bus we went, reclined into our sofa-sized leather armchairs and sat out the 21 hours to make it to Argentina's capital federal.

And now, here we are. And it couldn't be more different from Bolivia if it tried. BA is like Paris, inhabited by Italians, who speak Spanish.

It's all cafes and boutiques and pavement eateries and bakeries and trattorias and Peugeots and Gothic architecture and honking horns and grand parks and people talking at each other using their hands.

Tomorrow, we start looking for an apartment. However, right now, I'm hungry. Hungry to bask in the glow of a dirty, beautiful, big city again. Especially one which looks as big and beautiful as BA does in the evening light.

Might have a big steak and a big red wine too. In fact, it could be a big night.


Photos from Tupiza are here

Day 133 – Into the wilds of Bolivia

It's truly surprising how many songs lend themselves nicely to llama-risation.

For example, there's Llama-Mia (sung to the tune of Abba's Mamma-mia), Llama Poo (sung to the tune of Abba's Waterloo), Walk Like a Llama (sung to the tune of The Bangles' Walk Like an Egyptian) and Llamas a la Playa (sung to the tune of Righeira's Vamos a la Playa).

And that's before we even touch on cross-species hits like You Can Call Me Alpaca (sung to the tune of Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al).

I think the real point here is that four days in a 4WD, traveling through some of Bolivia's most beautifully rugged and isolated terrain, is a long time. And the quality of your journey really does depend on who you share it with.

Most people choose to base themselves in the town of Uyuni when exploring the Salt Flats of Uyuni- it's the obvious choice. Although it's the cheapest way of doing it, there are one or two downsides to this option.

As Max (the all-knowing barman at Oliver's Travels in La Paz) explained; the problem is, Uyuni is a shithole. And because Uyuni is a shithole, the people who live in Uyuni, such as the guides who run the tours, tend to be somewhat unmotivated, uninterested, unscrupulous, unhappy and just plain drunk. Not really the most comforting ingredients for a great four day trip into a what is, for all intents and purposes, a huge and dangerous desert wasteland.

Instead, Max suggested, better to stay on the southbound train for another six hours and get off at the small town of Tupiza. Whilst we would probably pay more, we'd end up having a much better time, both in the Tupiza itself ('not a shithole') and on the tour.

Whilst he may look like Keith Richards' little brother, there can be no doubt Max is a wise, wise man. Tupiza is to Uyuni what Cameron Diaz is to the ugly guy out of the Goonies.

It's one of those small towns where everybody seems to be terminally happy. The sun always seems to be shining. People seem to be stopping in the street and having conversations. It's like the Bolivian version of Stepford, but without the eerie feeling something strange is going on.

We spent the night at the Hotel La Torre. It's a fantastic place, which at one time would have been an amazing home for someone. Again, Stepford style, everyone there was super-friendly and ready to bleed a stone to help.

Within an hour of arriving, we'd booked our excursion into the wilderness with the hotel's tour company, La Torre Tours. The next morning, we met our travel partners. Not for the first time this trip, we found ourselves partnered with Dutch travel companions; this time Yolanda and Sebastiaan. Making up our group, was our (yet again) two incredibly friendly guide and cook, Juan Carlos and his childhood friend/ lover/ girlfriend/ wife/ ? (we never did find out), Espernaza.

So, off we set into the wild. I'd love to tell you about all the landscape we passed along the way, but the truth is it would take up pages and pages and pages. Every valley was completely different from the last, ranging from rugged spaghetti-western terrain to desolate desert landscape to green mountain tundra. The only consistent throughout was the llamas and vicuñas (wild llamas that look a but like gazelles) that could frequently be seen on the roadside It was beautiful and really brought home how diverse Bolivia really is.

Juan Carlos kept us informed along the way in kindly basic Spanish, enabling us all to add Spanish-practice to the list of tour benefits. Esperanza kept us well fed. And we did the rest.

I can't recall a four day period when I have laughed so much. The kilometers – all 1000 of them – fell to the wayside like confetti. Seb and Yolandi were awesome travel companions and I was genuinely disappointed when we had to part ways at the end.

Then, on the final day, we arrived at the Salt Flats of Uyuni. They really are quite a site. Salt, salt everywhere and not a sight of green. 12,000km2 of brilliant white nothingness, stretching as far as the eye can see, and interrupted only by small islands inhabited by 12m tall cacti.

Scaling one of the islands before breakfast that morning, Rachel pointed out that the rocks we were walking on looked a lot like coral. She was right. It is spooky to think that the whole place used to be a great sea, and the spot we were stood in was previously meters underwater.

The truth is; little is known about this place, officially the worlds' largest salt lake. However, one interesting side effect of the lack of vegetation is the lack of perspective. As a result, photographers flock to the Salar de Uyuni to take trick photos. We spent a good hour and a half mucking around and coming up with ideas for photos, only interrupting events with the occasional game of football in the empty expanses of the Flats.

We arrived back in our little town in Tupiza at around 7:30pm, after a marathon drive from Uyuni, happy, tired and sated.

Funnily enough, its one of the few times I've ever seen Rachel not ask for salt with her dinner.


You can find all the photos from the Salt Flats here