Having spent over a month in Brazil and struggled to understand as well as make ourselves understood, it was easy to elect the town of Puerto Iguazú (on the Argentinian side) rather than Foz de Iguaçu (on the Brazilian side) as a base to go and see the famous waterfalls. It was absolute heaven to be able to order food in restaurants and chat with people in general again - we'd been missing it! We also both enjoyed taking advantage of Argentina's finest culinary offerings, namely steak for Gary and red wine for me :)
On Wednesday we spent the day in Iguazú National Park to see the waterfalls, which were absolutely stunning. See for yourselves...
The next day, we thought we would 'go to Paraguay' just to feel special, because we don't know anybody who's ever been there. Therefore we took a bus from the local station (in Argentina) and crossed back into Brazil before entering Paraguay. The border town in Paraguay is called Cuidad del Este, not very much to see there but we can say we've been (how cool will we look at dinner parties in the future...). They don't stamp your passport when you're only going in for the day so we won't have the souvenir stamp we were after, but at least we can boast that we set foot in three countries in the space of an afternoon.
On Friday, we took a couple of flights and arrived in Santiago de Chile at about 10.30 pm ('late' for us Europeans. Over in Santiago, night life starts really late so at that time people are pretty much going out to have coffee and croissants.) Poor Gary wasn't feeling too peachy when we got there, and he blames it all on Buenos Aires airport, where we spent a couple of hours waiting for our connection (last time we went through B.A. airport, on our way to Lima/Quito, he'd also got ill).
Anyway, nothing too serious. The next day all was in order and we set off for a walk in the Chilean capital. We started in Bellavista (the area where we were staying), took the funicular railway up Cerro San Cristóbal and walked back down (it took about 30 minutes, and the road went through the lovely Parque Metropolitano, where families were having picnics and enjoying the Saturday afternoon sun. We also shared the road with runners, cyclists, and... a high school marching band. Go figure.)
(View of Santiago from the top of the hill - check out the huge mountains on the back!)At the bottom of the hill, we entered the neighbourhood of Providencia (wealthy residential roads, many bars and shops) where we found a veggie restaurant and had an excellent lunch. In the evening, we tried to adapt to the local culture and went out for a drink at 10.30pm, and had dinner about one hour later. It's quite nice, but going out so late means you sleep in the next day and don't get to do very much. Mind you, the city was a bit dead on Sunday (we have found it to be that way in most South American countries, where people are very religious and really respect the Sunday resting day rule so nearly all the shops are closed).
Yesterday, we did a day trip to Valparaíso, a port town about an hour and a half away from Santiago. I have to admit, I wasn't overly impressed - having read it is a Unesco World Heritage site, I had expected it to be more attractive. The attraction of the town consists in a succession of hills (which top you get up to using prehistoric looking funicular railways - that bit was fun), on top of which the houses painted all sorts of bright colours. Maybe I am a bit spoilt (especially after Santa Teresa in Rio, which was a bit like that) but I didn't think they looked all that stunning. One interesting thing we saw was the Museo al Cielo Abierto ('open air museum'), which is a collection of murals on the exterior of buildings, painted by a dozen famous Chilean artists. Pity some of them were covered in graffiti, but the concept was a nice one.
On the plus side, we found a great restaurant for lunch (alright, I know, all I ever go on about is food). It's called El Bar Inglés, and was first opened by an Englishman in the early 1900s. From the outside, you can't even tell it's a place doing business (old yellow paint, walls kind of falling off). The inside is all 'Old (fallen) Empire grandeur': high ceilings, dirty old mirrors, oak wook panels and tobacco-stained walls. However there was a definite charm about the place, and the food and service were nice (very 'silver service', which we look down upon it nowadays in the hopitality business, but I thought it fitted the atmosphere and the place). And to top it all off, it was cheap. I just loved how it seemed like we'd stepped into another century. If you ever visit Valparaíso, make sure you go there for lunch!Today, we went and visited the Concha y Toro winery. You may know it, it's a very famous brand of Chilean wine, which includes Casillera del Diablo. We found all about the legend of the Diablo (devil) presumably inhabiting the caves where the wine is kept, but the most enjoyable bit of the tour was, of course, the tasting.
(not much left by the end of it...)We are now waiting to board an overnight bus to Puerto Montt (12 hours south of Santiago), where we should arrive tomorrow morning. It has been a while (since Peru, in fact) so I am pleased to say we are going to dust off our trekking boots and go walking in Patagonia (which we should reach sometime next week).
C.
No comments:
Post a Comment