Hot Tamales (and They're Red Hot) // 21st Apr 2005

Hi all

Once again my attempts at a short email have failed miserably. For those lacking time, rest assured that I am alive and well, writing this time from Argentina, possibly the best country on the continent.

I'm nearing the end of the South American leg of my world tour. One week from now my little rucksack and I will be whizzing over the Pacific Ocean to get to Easter Island, home of the giant heads (and apparently just about nothing else). It's one of the most isolated places on earth.

Before that, I need to get to Santiago in Chile. Which shouldn't be too hard; it's just a ten hour bus ride from here. Since the last email I've been moving around a fair bit, covering several thousand miles overland. I left Bolivia and entered Argentina a couple of weeks ago, and hae taken a wiggly route around the country.

For every other country I've been to so far I've had preconceptions. Sure, they've been mostly wrong, but that's what preconceptions are about. In Brazil, obviously, you've got tanned people playing volleyball on the beach in Rio under the watchful eye of Cristo Redentor, and gang members being shot to pieces in the slums - but still looking damn cool. Then of course the Amazon's tropical and rainforesty. Bolivia's full of poverty, desolation and llamas. Peru's got the old guerilla crisises all the time, plus big tourist pulls like Macchu Picchu. But what's Argentina got? Maradonna's 'Hand of God' and large steaks were all I could come up with. But it's been consistantly recommended to me by other travellers, so I thought I'd give it a shot. And now I've arrived, I wish I could spend a lot more time here.

Frankly, Argentina is fantastic. The people are friendly; in the larger cities a great deal of them speak fluent English (with strange not-quite-American accents); the roads are excellent; the buses are extremely comfortable; the women are the prettiest I've seen so far and the steaks are to die for (especially if you're a cow). It may be more expensive than Bolivia and Peru, but it's worth it. Every shower so far has been hot, a vast improvement on the ineffective buzzing electric 'heaters' perched on the shower heads with worryingly exposed wires in the colder parts of Bolivia.

Having seen all there was to see in Uyuni, I caught the night train to the Bolivian/Argentinian border. Getting out of Bolivia and into Argentina was refreshingly easy - no piles of confusingly-written paperwork like most other South American country - and a whopping 90-day tourist visa. I got onto a six-hour bus with three other solo travellers from the train. By the time we checked into a hotel in Salta, we were a group of seven from all over the world.

There's a song called 'They're Red Hot', all about hot tamales by Robert Johnson. For ages I've been asking the question 'What are these tomales of which you sing, Robert?'. Unfortunately he can't answer, being dead and all. On my first day in Argentina I was lucky enough to be able to sample a tomale. They're a hot snack, filled with meat and something else, wrapped in a banana leaf and rather delicious; nothing like the red pointed tomatoes I've been mistakenly calling tamales for so long.

In Salta I got to try my first Argentinian steak. The meat was tender and succulent, juicy and delicious, and accompanied by chorizo suausages and lots of red wine, another of Argentina's specialties. Two people at the table ate and drank significantly more than anyone else - guess which gringo was one of them.

They've got a real thing in South America with putting statues of Jesus on hills - There's a hill in our city... What you need there is a statue of Jesus, mate... Bam, there he is. Salta didn't fail in this department, boasting a two-ton metal Jesus. It was impressive in Rio; the sheer scale of the statue and the hill it is on were breathtaking, and the statue itself is really quite aesthetically pleasing. The whole thing's an engineering masterpiece and a true symbol of devotion. You can see it from all over Rio. But when the statues are too small to be recognisable from a distance (not too uncommon), or just ugly (ie Cochabamba), it fails to impress. I've seen countless white Jesus-shaped specks on hills since I've been in the hilly parts of South America (Bolivia, Peru, Argentina), each less impressive than the last. Salta's Jesus was amazingly underwhelming, although the ride in the cable car to get up there and the views from the top were a nice way to spend an afternoon.

Salta itself seemed like a nice enough town. However, I only spent two days there before moving on. Fantastically, the people here are obsessive mate tea drinkers. It's not uncommon to see someone walking around with flask under one arm, wooden tea cup in the other, drinking out of a silver straw. You can get mate tea cups in a variety of different styles. While at the Sunday market I couldn't resist buying a mate tea cup made out of a cow's foot, complete with hoof and hair. It's so kitsch it's cool.

After Salta, I travelled to Iguazu Falls with an Israeli guy, Elad, and his father, Abba (yes, I sung 'Waterloo' when introduced). South America is full of Israelis. It's almost a rite-of-passage to travel once you've done your three years of military service in Israel. Being cheap, South America is one of the most popular places to go. Many places have twigged onto this, and it's not uncommon to get to a restaurant and find the entire menu is in Hebrew. Somehow Israelis always know the best places to eat, sleep and party - I think there's a Hebrew website with live updating. If an Israeli traveller recommends a restaurant, it's guaranteed to be good. Elad and Abba had been travelling around South America chasing cuisine; their entire journey so far had revolved around food. Sod the tourist attractions, is there a good restaurant?! Consequently they were fantastic people to travel with.

My plan had been to head from Salta to Iguazu by cutting through Paraguay. I wanted to do this for two reasons: the first reason is that Paraguay is reportedly the most corrupt country outside Africa, which would be great to have stamped in the old passport, and the second reason is that by cutting through Paraguay the journey takes just ten hours. However, due to its high Arab presence it would have been unsuitable to travel through with Israelis, so we took a 27-hour bus ride around Paraguay. It wasn't as gruelling as you'd think; the seats were comfortable and the movies mediocre (as opposed to the usual kill-me-now standard). At one point the bus-host (like an air hostess, but on a bus, and male) started handing out numbered cards and plugging his microphone in. You guessed it: bingo. Looking around the bus, it turned out that practically everyone else was of the age that if they were English they'd be heading off to Blackpool once a year with SAGA holidays. They went crazy for the bingo - laughing every time the host made a bad joke, shouting out guesses for numbers, and generally having the time of their lives. I think they were a little annoyed when I got full house and won the bottle of wine. After that point the journey flew by; most people were too polite to accept a glass and I was forced into drinking it all myself.

Iguazu Falls straddles the Argentinian/Brazillian border. Consequently there are national parks on either side which are major tourist attractions and draw in crowds of retired Americans who pay through the nose for nasty fake 'artisan' products and t-shirts stating where the've been. We took two days to visit the falls; the first day from the Brazilian side and the second from the Argentinian side. On our day trip to Brazil (yes, a day trip to Brazil), gained us four fresh stamps each in our passports. The Brazillian national park itself is so unlike the Brazil I have so far encountered: everything was eerily brand new and efficiently run. A bit too much like Jurassic Park for my liking. Unfortunately its popularity with garishly loud retired American tourists sporting t-shirts with slogans such as 'God's Army' meant that you're never able to get a photo without a pair of white sneakers peeping in the corner, or escape loud, obvious comments ('Gee, Bob, isn't it big?' 'It sure is Betty. Makes Niagra Falls look like a little puddle.' Much laughter).

Iguazu Falls are apparently the world's most stunning waterfalls, although let's face it - the brochure's hardly going to say otherwise. The falls themselves are, I have to admit, quite impressive. Lots of water, and it's all going down. Yes, that's a waterfall alright. And yes, it's pretty big. The best view came from the Argentinian side, where the viewing platform is right beside the top of the biggest fall. Reassuringly, the walkway to the platform is close to an all-too-noticably destroyed wlakway, apparently the victim of a flood in 1992. We managed to wind up a guy whose job it is to stand on a ladder and take photos of tourists in front of the falls by standing on his ladder and taking pictures of us in front of the falls.

More happened in Iguazu besides what I've written. But if I wrote everything I did and saw, I'd never get round to doing or seeing anything else. After my two days of Iguazuing, I bode farewell to Elad and Abba and got onto a full cama bus to Buenos Aires. 'Full cama' basically means that the seat reclines to be bed-like, while your legs are taken care of by a foot support. Just like a big Lazy-Boy sofa, or first class on a big plane. It was so comfortable that I didn't want to get off, even after having spent sixteen hours on the bus. But Buenos Aires beckoned with its non-stop party lifestyle.

Buenos Aires itself is a fantastic city. The people dress smartly (and look European), the place is clean, the cars are European, the cafés are plentiful and a great deal of people speak fluent English, the stuff is cheap - what more could you want?

I arrived early in the morning and made my way to a hostel that I'd been recommended, turning down countless free taxis to other hostels because I'd heard that the homely atmosphere in this place was so nice. After about fifteen minutes feining interest in my taxi driver's relentless pointing out of everything in sight (including the meanial items such as launderettes), we pulled up to the place. Avoiding the mild drizzle as best I could, I was fortunate enough to spot someone coming out of the building as I was going in, and perform a crafty drizzle-dodging dash from the cab into the front door. I put my bag down and introduced myself to the guy in the living room, asking about vacancies. After an embarressed silence, the reality set in that I was indeed in someone's house. He explained that he sometimes has friends to stay but it is actually his home. Fortunately I still had the business card of another hostel in my pocket, so apologised, and hailed another taxi.

The new place lured me in with its card offering a 24 hour breakfast; no need to drag a hungover body out of bed in the early hours just to get a little grub first thing. I can't see why all hostels don't have this policy. Unfortunately the company in the hostel wasn't that great, and after a couple of days of moronic conversation I found myself losing the inspiration even to keep my diary properly. My poor electric guitar hasn't seen light since it entered Argentina; I've just been too busy, or in the case of Buenos Aires, uninspired. The problem with being stuck in a hostel with a bad crowd is that there's always the possibility of the crowd changing for the better at some point in the near future, and the task of checking out and finding another hostel seems huge when you're already established; there's no real incentive to move. However, I don't think I'll make the same mistake again - it's surprisingly isolating having no one to converse with properly.

While I was in Buenos Aires, I spent a lot of time partying, sleeping, shopping for leather jackets (none actually bought) and generally walking around. Plus a lot of time was spent reading in cafés, as is the same with every new place. Everything's so cheap. Not as cheap as Bolivia, but you can get stuff you actually want as opposed to a bunch of dried llama foetuses (burnt for good luck) and bowler hats. Had I saved buying a new pair of boots to Buenos Aires, I would have been done in five minutes instead of La Paz's five hours. I was so tempted to blow the budget on CDs, finding just about every album I've ever wanted (real, official legitimate copies) for about three pounds each. But I didn't.

In Argentina they party late. If you attempted to leave the hostel before 2am (as I foolishly did the first night), the receptionist thinks you were mad. Everything gets started at around 3am, and it's not uncommon to come home long after the sun is up. I was in Buenos Aires for just under a week. Apart from catching a football match in a large stadium (where the crowd went crazy), catching a few movies and partying lots, there wasn't much I actually did. On the last day I was there, with my bus ticket out in my pocket, I found the bohemian area I should have stayed in all along, the Argentinian equivalent of Notting Hill. How I kicked myself. At least now I know for next time.

Which brings me pretty much up to date. Last night I boarded the bus to Cordoba, where I am now. It seems like a nice city; not only does it apparently boast the prettiest women in Argentina, but also is the university town to be in. I'll be spending two or three days here before heading across to my final South American stop, Santiago. From there it's Easter Island, Tahiti, and New Zealand - all in the space of a few weeks - before I settle in Australia for a while.

I'll keep you updated...

Ollie