Life's a beach in Brazil! Santa Catarina - Brazil

The border crossing into Brazil was a big one for us - it marked the final stamp in our America Latina adventure. We can't believe it is the last of 18 countries in 18 months!

Brazil not only brings with it a new culture, but a new lingo. We've since realised that Portugese is nothing like Spanish - whatever people may tell you! People may well understand Spanish when you speak but you probably won't get much of what's coming back.

Still, not to worry, the Brazil plan is just to hug the tropical coast all the way up from Floranopolis, through Parana, past Sao Paulo (stopping at islands on the way), through to Rio and up to the state of Bahia - all sun, sea and surfin'! Sure we'll pick up some of the lingo along the way!

The border crossing took 24 hours, 5 busses, dinner in the not so pretty Porto Alegre and we arrived in Ilha (island) de Santa Catarina in time for sunrise the next morning. Santa Catarina is a provence but also the island which is often confusingly refered to by tourists as just Floranopolis, infact this is the islands capital. From here you can get the bus to anyone of the islands beautiful beaches - all 42 of them!

Excited to finally be on the island home to some of Brazils most famous surf and surfers, we caught the bus to the east where we were promised long beaches and the best waves. Again, being Jan it was hard to come by accomadation on the beach, so after an unlucky stop at Joaquina ('the' beach) we headed back inland a couple of km's to stay on the lake - Lagoa da Conceicao. Here we found a gem of a campsite.

After some bargain hunting, I bought my first short board - made in Brazil like everything here! At least the walk back up to Joaquina beach, road cutting through the sanddunes, was pretty good for keeping fit in the 30 degree heat (though there were good busses that take you from beach-to-beach). I soon found out that surfing on a short board was a whole new game. I had thought about this but I hadn't fully appreciated just how tricky it is to get on up. I don't hail coordination as one of my strongest attributes, and I would say riding a shortboard is all about just that! Longboards are like boats in comparison. Luckily after a couple of days and almost giving up hope, on route to the beach I stopped for a chat with a guardian angel of surfing in the form of Chilean Francisco. Somehow Francisco must have realised that his words of wisdom weren't helping all so much and turned up at the beach. After a couple of hours of hurling me down huge waves, some good banter and a splattering of bruises, I was - kind of - riding some waves, had mastered the duck dive and felt pretty happy. I owed Fransisco a fruit smoothy on the beach after that - what a lovely guy. Since then, i'd love to say the progress has been as rapido, but lets just say I'm having fun trying!

The east side of the island was also home to countless other beautiful beaches, especially Praia Mole (listed in the lonely planet as the gay beach). It was a stunning stretch of ocean, relaxed but not as good for people watching as you might expect. Praia Barra de Logoa on the otherhand had a party vibe, with awesome Ciaparinha bars on wheels working the beaches and little bars playing out Samba and Cumbia! We jumped in the car with our fellow campers, Celeste & Alex and spent a great afternoon at the beach drinking Fernet & Coke (Argentinians!) from the ice box and chatting spanglish.

Campsite Lagoa de Conceicao was full of lovely Brazilian and Argentinian people and when it rained (which it did every day, heavily) there wasn't much more to do than whip up a caparinha (in the big group cup!), cook up a Charrasco (bbq) with new friends and be merry...  

Punta del Diablo - Uruguay

I'd simply describe Diablo as like a huge festival on the beach. Bohemian and creative, things seemed to go on 24\7 in Diablo. Evening circus shows on the beach, random jam seasons in peoples front gardens, tango on the streets, impromtue house parties, food stalls with tons of yummy treats, and camping out made it feel like we were at a festival.
 

Jumping off the bus and straight into the main street, we spotted a hostel right away with some girls pitching a tent out front. Quick to see the opportunity, we asked if we could do the same and got ourselves a lovely little place to stay 2-mins from the beach. Admitedly, not condusive to a good nights sleep but it was cool to be in the hussle and bustle for a couple of days. We ended up meeting lots of people from Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay on their Jan vacations (people more our ages, rather than the OAPs of del Este!)

The first night we shared some freshly cooked Paella, watched the sunset and sang along to an impromtue guitar jam in the little bar down on the beach. Traditionally a fishing village, we were able to whip up some pretty delicious seafood concoctions of our own whilst in Diablo.

The hostels hammocks were perfect for whiling away the time and the beach for tanathons kept us busy. In Jan Diablo seemed to be all about relaxing, taking things as they come and enjoying whatever random event happens to be going on - so that's just what we did!



Punta del Este - Uruguay

Wax it, tan it, tone it and shake it at the beach is the mantra of Punta del Este! Known to be the playground to the rich and famous of South America, we were suprised to find that fellow Brits Ronnie Wood and Amy Winehouse were also in town. Sadly, we weren't invited to their private villa gig in the hills and we didn't get a glimpse of the celebs - apart from in the morning paper! Still, we shouldn't think that our choice accomadation Camping San Rafeal would be the favourite hang-out of Amy or Ron.


January is a month long holiday for most in this part of the world, and so prices for everything shoot through the roof so camping it was. It's Punta's main money making season and the beaches around Punta and La Barra (very cool neighbourhood at the other end of town) were full of the rich and very beautiful who own or rent houses that sit empty the rest of the year. A tax haven and rumoured to be a good place to put what might be considered dodgy money, you can imagine the type of villas on show. Bars are sponsored by Citi or HSBC, it's a bit wierd to be honest. Everyone looks amazing and it is exercise mad. Whether jogging, cycling, surfing - everyone is honing and toning that beach body. Hanging out at the beach we got chatting to one of these glam families from BA who were picture perfect and lovely with it.

 Back in Camping San Rafeal, things were not so ritzy but fab all the same. Arriving late in the day, the pineforest campsite was packed and we ended up pitching up on solid ground amongst the motor-homers. This actually turned out to be a blessing, our neighbours were old-timers who had spent Jan in San Rafeal for around the last 20 years! Not only were these people amazingly friendly but they could not do enough for us. Maybe they felt sorry for us in our tiny tent, whilst they had virtual homes on wheels (some even had gardens with flower beds and a lawn). Our Brazilian neighbours insisted on setting us up with a table, complete with table cloth and umbrella. Whilst Ronnie (not Wood!) and his family from Montevideo insisted we borrow his prized bikes to get around town. The next evening a team of people came from across the way to set us up lighting, when it rained we were invited in to the old couples place next door, the next day we had bbq offerings, Luis even drove us to the bus station on departure (was he a F1 driver, a wine specialist, a space cadet? After a wine or two, B'sA's Luis had some good chat!). We can honestly say that we have never been so touched by the kindness and generosity of people that had been complete strangers - an inspiration to us all. We ended up making alot of trips to the bakers for thank-you gifts!
So, equipped with wheels courtesy of Ronnie and onl a 5-minute cycle from glam La Barra, we were free to explore Punta. On a rainy day - it rained a lot - we cycled about 15kms around the point to check out the swanky yacht club where we saw these huge sealions playing and hanging out.

On a beautiful sunny day we cycled 10kms up coast and found a beautiful stretch of deserted golden sand to top up the tans. Luckily this paradise had a little shack selling yummy sarnies and cold drinks, perfect for making a holiday rum!


Another day we hung out at the beaches of La Barra, including Bikini Beach and mingled with the 'beautiful people'. It has to be one of the best people watching places in the world. I sat there cringing as the boys next to us tried to chat up some modelesque girls with some really bad lines. You can understand why Punta del Este is so popular though, it is just mile upon mile of absolutely perfect beaches and ocean.

We thought Punta was going to be all-night parties for us, but it ended up being quite the opposite. There wasn't any flyer action or even Ibiza-esque beach bars open into the night to encourage us to go raving. Maybe all the nightime mischief goes on in the villas or maybe we were just too relaxed to go looking for a fiesta. In the end, it was the people at the camp that made Punta so memorable. We left feeling very relaxed, tanned and healthy and with some great memories of new friends made.

Buenos Aires Te Amo - Argentina

It took only 3 weeks and I am in love. We set up home in the old arty barrio of San Telmo, once affluent (before some nasty fever cleared the neighbourhood), swanky now resides in designer-clad Recoleta and Palermo instead. But crumbling San Telmo is a special place, with it's antique parades, coffee shop corners, cobbled streets and Sunday Feria (quite possibly my favourite place in the world). With Linda and Tony with us, we sure worked our way around BA's culinary offerings and did all the things a good tourist should do and discovered lots of jems that were not in the guide book.

We had two little roof top apartments at the top of funky Ostinatto - a great hostel but with a self-bought alcohol ban that got us into trouble! Christmas day itself was spent supping champagne or 'contraban' as we ended up calling it, opening little gifts and tucking into an Asado, as only good Argentinians would! Being a family day, the whole city was in lock down but we did invite ourselves to PAX's bar for a beer and to say hi to Franziska who was working. Christmas Eve however was seen in with a roof top party and fireworks and poppers being unleashed from every balcony and roof top in sight. We'd never seen anything like it, it was so lovely to look out over the roof tops of the city and see in Christmas day with such a bang (excuse the pun)! Linda went to town with Christmas morning, wrapping sweet little gifts, popping open the bubbles and she even bought a mini Christmas tree and pud from home. Drinking from our 50's champagne glasses bought at San Telmo market, we were a little tipsy on the 'pink' before 10am! Pete cooked up a storm on the grill and we caught some sunshine on the roof top. January being sweltering, it took some will power not to run back into the aircon. Derek on the other hand, the resident roof top tortoise, was a dedictaed sunbather.

New Years Eve was again a family occassion, no wild parties thrown like in London or NYC. It was actually hard to find a restuarant that was going to be open and that didn't quadruple its prices. Again, Linda and Tony came up trumps with an old-school Argentinian canteen type restuarant near Avenida Julio. It was a set menu where you could select your starter, main and pud. It was only after the lovely waitress cleared our starter plates and asked if we wanted anymore, did we realise it was pretty much 'all you could eat'... and drink. I think I probably got a bit over excited with the icecream sundee desert, I only ate one but by normal sized standards, it was probably 4! We saw in the new year toasting a glass of cider (don't ask!) and champagne to follow. Pan Dulce (sweet bread) is the traditional toasting accompaniment, and so we had to eat more pudding!!! We left feeling pretty full and pretty happy. We set off home to join the party on the roof at the hostel for a couple of rums and a dance. 1st of Jan was spent the usual way, as it is world over, recovering from the night before. BA was hosting the start of the Dakar Rally - BA to Chile - so we joined the rest of the families down near the Obilisco to catch some of the action.

We packed so much in to our time in BA, that I couldn't possibly write about it all. You'll have to wait until we are home and I go on, and on, and on, about how much I want to live in BA. In all seriousness, with an apartment in San  Telmo setting you back a tenth of a flat in London, we're thinking Winters in BA might not be such a bad idea!

If we were asked to recommend the top things to do in BA to a friend we would say you shouldn't miss the following:
GraffitiMundo - BA has such a unique street art scene, walls (any wall!) are your canvas. After wondering who was behind this beautiful art that we constantly photographed, we took this brilliant tour to find out more!
Evita Museum - You can't understand BA until you know about Eva Peron. Madonna is still a contencious topic.
Day at the races - Palermo race track, join the cheering crowds down by the track and make a bet. The polo season had just finished, so that'll have to wait until the next trip!
Tigre - Only an hour from BA on the train (and only 0.30$) Tigre feels a million miles away. We took a beautiful boat trip through the delta and had lunch at one of the old rowing club houses.
Bomba del Tiempo - The most amazing percussion group. They play at an outdoor venue that feels a bit like the Trumen Brewary in East London, and it's absolutely packed with people dancing to the beat. It felt like we were at a mini festival, plastic beer cups in hand and finding a spot to dance. We met up with Franziska and friends and also Andrea, an Argentinian girl we knew from Columbia - small continent!
San Telmo Ferria - I went 4 times to this Sunday market. Yes 4! You could never tire of it, its just full of so many cool and beautiful things. I actually couldn't be happier than wondering along Avenida Defensa and through the plazas on market day. Full of street performers and tango dancing, it's just so happy. I also made some Christmas purchases of some 1950's French frames which I am going to get lenses put into when I am home, some handpainted signs for our house (where ever that is!), the mini Tango shoes for Linda were adorable and some unique old original ads I got for Pete for Christmas (from 50's Pan American Airlines 'fabulouso' ad to Toddy hot cholocate which we'd lived off in Patagonia). There's a pattern emerging, this market is stuck in the 50's and it's brilliant.
Club 69 - The Christmas party was wild, the only night club we frequented in BA with Franziska and co, this camp show is one of a kind. We had a fab night.
Shopping - The shopping is brilliant in BA. I found a favourite shop, Rhapsodia, a beautiful boho shop with everything made in Argentina. I even bought a little white number for a certain future wedding!
Tango lessons - I am excited, I actually can dance. Having convinced myself I have 2 right feet (me and arobics, no no no!) I found that I could tango, sort of. Joining in the tango lessons run at the hostel, I learnt the basics of tango. Unfortunately Pete had decided a siesta time was more important, so I was left to learn this lovers dance with a random, and not entirely beautiful man from Belgium. But seeing as I picked him up at the bar one minute before the class, it was very very nice of him to be my partner at all. Learning a bit of tango definately gave me appreciation for the incredible dancers you see all over BA.
Parque Ecologica - Down near the docks, the park is set next to the Rio Plata and was perfect for my morning runs. With distance marked running tracks and maps, I wish London had one. One time I did manage to go 'off course' and got encouraged along by another runner, this guy ran for Argentina and I ended up running 8 miles that morning... whilst trying to speak espanol!
La Boca - Home to Boca Juniours, La Boca is the dock area also famed for it's colourful houses that migrant workers painted with the leftovers from the boat yards. To be honest, nice to see but way too touristy. We all thought it was a bit of a wierd place, still quite poor, still on the edge of BA but with lots of tacky tourist offerings.

MAMBA - Like in the rest of BA, the modern art museum wasn't run of the mill, it was really impressive. There was no 'hmmm, line on a blank canvas... interesting' art. Loved it.

Tango at Tortoni - The oldest cafe in Buenos Aires, Tortoni on Avenida de Mayo is something of an institution. Some would say avoid it as it is too touristy, but being a lover of cafes, I was keen to go see it. In doing so, I discovered their small little theatre at the back and this is how we ended up watching a tango show all together on our last night together in BA. The music was beautiful and the dancing very showy, it was a smooth operation but we loved it. Especially me and Linda, we even got the CD! Eek! It was a brilliant end to our time in BA, one last tango and all that!

Seeing as a lot of our time in BA revolved around food, I feel I should talk about all the incredible meals that Tony and Linda treated us too (those hotpants might need to retire for a while!) but we just had too many to even start. With 15 days together in BA, that'd make 30 amazing meals out. On a couple of occasions, we had old travelling buddies to join us too which was lovely. We had a lot of steak of course but the restuarant scene in BA is vast so all meals were different, all delicious. With restuarants not really getting going until 10pm, a siesta became the norm. As Tony said, it shows you are sympathetic with the culture, a perfect excuse. I was head of breakfasts, being cheif fruit chopper and juice squeezer. Whilst Linda got up hours before me, to buy the fruit. With so many bakeries on every street in BA, it was hard not to get into the crossant 'media luna' (half moon) craze too.

Leaving BA and the parents was sad, we had been utterly spoilt and life was soon to return to tents, the bus and cooking!!! Still, we had a lovely time with Linda and Tony, found a city loved and were heading beach-bound on the ferry to Uruguay. As they say in BA as a response to everything... Dale (Lets do it/cool!)

Road trip to Estancia Harberton, Ushuaia

With our fine friends from the Beaver state - Oregon, USA, we rented a car and set out on a 100km drive down the coast from Ushuaia to Estancia Harberton. This farm was established in 1886, when the British missionary pioneer Thomas Bridges (1842-1898) resigned from the Anglican mission at Ushuaia, and was given 20,000 hectares of farm land at the very tip of Tiarra Del Fuego. 

The estancia was named after Harberton, Devon, the home of Thomas wife, Mary Ann Varder (1842-1922). Bridges was the author of a dictionary of the Yamana or Yaghan language, and their son Lucas Bridges (1874-1949) wrote 'The Uttermost Part of the Earth'' about his boyhood, the Yamana, and the family's adventures in getting the dictionary published in Europe.

Tommy Goodall (born 1933), is Thomas Bridges’s great-grandson, who still manages the estancia with his wife, American biologist Rae Natalie Prosser, with help from their daughter and her children. We we're taken on a tour of the estate by his grandson, also called Thomas (there is one in every generation), and it was a wonderful trip down memory lane, this place could have been a seaside house in Cornwall.

In fact the house itself was shipped as a wedding gift from Mary Ann Varder's family and was declared a national monument in 1999. They have a cute English tea room and little brick outbuildings, and an amazing garden planted with fruit trees and lupins. The huge sperm whale jaw used to create an arch over the garden gate is a reminder to the location of this outpost and the delicate wildlife both on the land and in the sea.

One of the surprise highlights of the trip, was a visit to the Museo Acatushún de Aves y Mamíferos Marinos Australes (Dolphin and Seabirds museum) just 500m from the main house. It is a working Museum/laboratory for the study of the basic biology of the marine mammals (mainly dolphins) and birds of the southern tip of South America. The result of over 34 years of scientific research by its founder, Natalie Goodall, the wife of Tommy Goodhall, the collection contains the skeletons of over 2700 marine mammals and 2300 birds.
All the skeletons have have come from animals found washed up and dead on the shores of Tiarra Del Fuego and Antarctica.

They are painstakingly stripped on their flesh in the 'BoneHouse', a brutally deathly house of bubbling blubber and bones. They are then catalogued and prepared by researchers from all over the world, who come here to intern and work with Natalie. They are sponsored by some big local oil players - Mobile and Total, but receive most of their income from donations. We spent an enlightening hour being show these amazing mammals by a super knowledgeable intern from Mar Del Plata. Check out the pics of the seals, they have four limbs just like humans, you wouldn't think the floppy tail of a seal contained two limbs!

Sailing the Beagle Channel - Argentina

The Beagle Channel separates Tierra del Fuego with the extreme south of South America and Chile. It's so named after HMS Beagle, the ship we brits sent to do a study of navigation channels to try and gain a trade advantage over the pesky Portuguese and Spaniards way back in 1826.

The Beagle was captained by FitzRoy who took Charles Darwin along for the ride - both now have islands down in Antarctica named after them and Fitz Roy also has a whole mountain up north to his name! When they reached the Beagle channel on 29 January 1833, he wrote "many glaciers beryl blue most beautiful contrasted with snow.''
From Ushuaia, that's exactly what we thought when we set sail out into the icey waters of the Beagle and embarked on a long voyage to H Island, the southern most tip of Argentina. H Island is one of many settlements used by the Yamana people for shelter and food over 10,000 years ago, today its a wildlife sanctuary and is a haven for Cormorants and Wild geese. Indeed we saw hundreds of nesting pairs with their new babies, surviving the brutal wind , powerful sun and ice cold snow.
Before H Island we were treated to a close encounter with a very large colony of seals, they lounge around on the rocks all day before going into the sea to gorge on shrimp and king crabs. We found out later that these amazing mammals go out to fish in the deep ocean trenches at the very edge of the continental plates, and can swim at depths of up to 2000m. Amazing.
This was Maudies first experience on a proper sail boat and she loved it as the mighty winds kicked in and pushed the vessel to a 30 degree angle with the water, I on the other hand was a little scared about falling in the ice cold Antarctic waters.... but put on my bravest face and stiffed my upper lip in homage of Cpt. Fitz Roy.
 

Views on Ushuaia - Argentina

Ushuaia, famed for being the gateway to Antarctica and southern most city in the world, was our base for exploring Tierra del Fuego. When the 120 kmph winds died down after the first day (the newspaper reassured us this was freak weather!) and the snow cleared, it was a pretty beautiful place to be. Ships and boats bobbing in the harbour and snowcapped mountains as far as the eye could see, Ushuaia is one of those places that grows on you. We stayed at a little hostel just outside of the city center, La Posta, meaning a place where Gauchos stopped to change their horses!

Between road and boat trips on the island, we spent rainy afternoons in Ushuaia's museums, soaked up the history in the town, strolled around the harbour and took a hike into the mountains for a pretty spectacular views over Cape Horn. Maybe one day we'll return for a trip the big voyage to Antarctica. Still, at just 1000km from the South Pole we got pretty close this time round, it certainly felt like it!