Buenos Aires with a Banana Called Darwin

It has been an epic adventure but it was time to say goodbye to the western side of South America.    Argentina to the east is the last country on my world adventure and what a better place to begin that adventure than in Buenos Aires itself.

Arriving from Lima Peru by plane my first impressions of Buenos Aires were that it was way different to all the other South American countries I had been to.  Walking around the city, I could have been in any other major city around the world.  The people were modern, very ethnically diverse and the city itself was like a slightly run down version of any large European city.  To my pleasure I also found that the prices of everything there reflected those you would find in a first world country.

My first three nights here saw me transitioning from one hostel to another because of a weird system they have of prebooking and prepaying for everything.   I was not used to this and hence got caught out as my rooms were systematically booked out from under me.  But the upside of this was that I found my way into a very nice and very sociable hostel called The Milhouse.  

In the Milhouse I immediately made a group of friends with whom I began to see the sites.  Together we did a tour of La Boca, a suburb famous for the soccer ground where Diego Maradonna first played.  It was also very famous for a little known Latin dance called the tango.  We also did a tour of the cities street art hotspots where I discovered a hidden interest I have in this kind of stuff. 

To give you a little idea of what I saw:  Street art around Buenos Aires is not viewed as graffiti or vandalism.  It is actually publically accepted as art and is usually performed by actual artists, many with commercial interests.  People commission these artists to paint their premises and the local council allows them to paint select areas upon request.  A few days before I arrived, a graffiti art festival was held where artists, some musicians and the general public all came together to party and paint a whole city block.  Pretty cool.  This is a concept quite foreign to me being from Australia.

 A bit of stencil art in La Boca

 This bit of stencil art is about 4m tall

These polar bears are mighty impressive.  they are about 4 to 5m high and look like a Disney water colour painting

A cool rocket ship....

Two of my fellow graffiti art tourists, Tess from Australia and Mike from Ireland, hatched a plan to go and visit Uruguay for a few days the following morning.  To me this seemed like a good idea since Uruguay is only a quick one hour ferry ride across the bay from Buenos Aires.  So the decision was made and we were off.  We travelled to Uruguay to escape the expense on Buenos Aires and were expecting to find a pretty poor and backwards country.  What we found was a very modern one that ended up being the most expensive in South America....  This is why you should research what you are doing before you do it people.  Seriously.  Apparently Uruguay is the Switzerland of South America.  How about that..... 

Settling in Montevideo, the countries capital, we made the collective decision just to have a bunch of fun and stuff the expense.  The country itself is really pretty but mind numbingly quite.  Nothing much seems to really happen here except for in the peak of the tourist season, which was not now.  We did manage to find some pretty good nightlife though and took full advantage of this.  One of the nights we found ourselves at a party being held in an abandoned supermarket.  Playing were some local live bands making use of a variety of weird props and instruments.  Some were seriously entertaining and dressed using costumes the like you wouldn´t expect to see this side of Berlin. 

But it wasn´t the parties we wanted though, it was the beaches.   Now I think it is time for me to lay down some wisdom to all the Aussies around there travelling the world looking for nice beaches.   Simply don´t, you will be disappointed.  Australians are very hard to impress when it comes to beaches and it is basically because our beaches are some of the best in the world.  FACT.  All others try, but just don´t really cut it.  So go find other amusements. 

Handstand competition in the beach. Pick the winner....

The standard leaping dude pose.  One day I´ll give a backflip.....

We did however find some amazing food in Uruguay.  At the beach we forayed into a local greasy diner to try a local speciality called a Chovita.  This Frankenstein’s baby is basically a Uruguayan burger on some serious steroids.  See the photos, enough said.  Afterwards we decided it was time to get our barbeque on.  Donning my barbeque face, it was time to make some meat sweat.  The hostel we were staying at had a massive wood fired parilla on the roof top terrace which was going to get some serious using.  Noticing our intentions and a crazy look in my eyes, the local staff tentatively enquired if we knew what the hell I was doing.  Taking the opportunity to delve deep into Uruguayan culture I graciously stepped aside and watched them demonstrate their way of the barbeque.  The force was strong with these ones and with five blokes there directing the show, I learnt off the “Asado King” (asado meaning barbeque in Spanish) how to barbeque the hell out of my meat Uruguayan style.  Wickedly awesome!

Chavita baby!

So, basically, a Uruguayan barbeque goes a little like this.  Everyone (man women and child) is budgeted 500g of steak each which is cooked in one piece (not cut up into individual steaks).  The cutting is done afterwards.  The barbeque is always done by the men and they all take turns in poking the fire, because it is a primal thing.  The group collective sits around the fire and drinks a bunch of beer while singing songs and occasionally dancing.  Some tapas are brought out and everyone gets to munch along while the steaks slowly sear.  The steaks here take a long time to cook and hence a fair bit of beer is drunk.  When all is done, the women bring out some salady stuff that they have prepared elsewhere and everyone sits down to an epic meal.  So based on my experience, I love these guys!  Plus they fed me free beer during the lesson.  I really LOVE these guys! 

But unfortunately I did had to leave at some point.  This was hard to do because after the barbeque, I was right in with the locals who all seemed ridiculously friendly.  But waiting back in Buenos Aires for me were my two friends from Australia, Sam and Dave.  So it was a quick ferry ride back to meet up with them.

This is where everything becomes a little blurry.  Back in Buenos Aires, Sam, Dave, two of their travelling companions Julie and Emily and I all had a massive time touring and seeing the sites.  Now when I say touring, I generally mean mucking around and being retarded.  One night we travelled to a music club called La Bomba where we rocked out to a Latin American drumming troop with some one thousand other people.  Another day we went rollerblading around the local parklands where we learnt Sam is the world´s most retarded blader.  This was funny stuff for us but serious stuff for good old competitive Sam.  And finally for Dave´s last night in South America we did a pub crawl.  Well wasn´t that just the craziest night ever!

Group photo with the boys

Rocking out with the drumming troop

Dave had an ideal that he could balance a beer on his head without spilling a drop in the middle of our resturant.  Worked well....

Our best steak meal ever. Might have ended up being a gay pub, but hell their steak rocked. Seriously good! The place was called Dada.

Roller blading Californian style.  It was all the rage in Buenos Aires.  Shirt off and jeans on...

Double stacker leap frog.  Worked well....

The night began with the best of starts.  Immediately as we left our hostel we saw a local walking down the road carrying a giant blow up banana.  Sam and I knowing we had to have it asked the girls “how you ask to buy a guys giant banana in Spanish?”  As they debated the proper language the guy slowly kept on walking away.  Seizing the moment, Sam and I dashed off after him and I in my worst Spanish yelled something to the effect of “quanto questa para del plantain!?”  He replied “10 pesos” (roughly $2.50).  Sold!  And then we had a banana.  Jumping into two taxis with a few extra girls from our hostel we had a race to the starting point of the pub crawl.  I can´t remember exactly who won......

At the pub, we named the banana Darwin and set about smashing down an hours worth of free beer and pizza.  Well wasn´t Darwin a bit of a chick magnet.  Everyone wanted a piece of the action.....  Dave who had been joking the whole trip about a made up set of Japanese twins who had been following him around found himself face to face with an actual Asian duo from Melbourne Australia.  Their names were Tiffany and Veronica (or something like that) but we named them Kiki and Sumi after Dave´s imaginary girls.  And that is how they remained for the night.  I´m not too sure if they realised our interest in them or even if we were calling them by other names, but hey......

 Dave absolutely stoked about meeting Kiki and Sumi.  Sam is pretty over the moon too.

So with a giant banana, a more than a few beers under our belts and a massive amount of people following us we kinda got retarded. The banana became a tool of mass abuse as many, many, MANY people found themselves being randomly “bammed”in the face with it as we raged. It didn´t take long for all to realise this Aussie crew was nuts and that we were here to party better than the rest. This is what we did, and I am not ashamed of that. Bystanders were getting hit with the banana, people were getting leapfrogged, thrown on our shoulders, carried off and a whole heap of other stuff you shouldn´t know mum J.

Triple stacker with Darwin and a local girl called April.

Banana love

 I was repeatedly asked by security and the organisers not to throw Emily around.  Claro, understood fellas, hehe.

 The banana rocked hard!

 It was a bit of a poser too

The night ended at some ridiculous hour like 6am in the morning and as we travelled home in the daylight we realised that Darwin had been lost to us. At least the legend lives on in our hearts.

Has anyone seen my banana.  This was the last photo we have.

The next morning, poor old Dave had to catch his flight back to Australia at 10am.  That would have hurt!  Sam remained in Buenos Aires with me until the next day when he too had to fly home to Tasmania.  Now it is me on my own some again with just three weeks left before I go the way of my friends and return home.  So time to make those three weeks count!  So have a good one boys and I´m sure we will meet again.  I´m off to Iguacu Falls.     

Salkantay to Machu Picchu

Well my Machu Picchu adventure began with what I thought to be a run of the mill tour booking through my hostel of choice, Loki Cusco.  I made a booking for myself, Sam, his mate from Tassie Dave and Toni.  In total our tour group comprised of 13 people.   There was a group of 5 Dutch (Tim, Guy, Patricia, Maudeline and Mara), Two Danish girls (Julie and Charlotte), another Aussie guy called Tom and a 2m tall German, Henry. 

The tour was to trek the Salkantay pass up to Machu Picchu.  In total we were looking at 5 days of hiking through some pretty rugged terrain camping out most nights.  We were allowed a 5kg baggage allocation each, to be carried for us by a group of mules.  Anything additional had to be carried on ourselves each day.

The setup was simple, but in fine old Peruvian form, simple is still too hard.  Things began to break down immediately.  Our group of 13 soon became 21 as our “exclusive booking” turned out to be a lumping of a few different tour groups.  Not too happy with this development we opted to separate from the others to retain our original booking size but with only one guide to run the entire 21 person group, this became a non event in the end.

So the first day began.  First up was a truck ride with some locals to the start point of our trek.  It was authentic to say the least.... Arriving at the start of the trek we were immediately off the truck and on our way to the first day’s target of some 13km hiking.  It didn´t take long for us to realise our guide was a bit of a lazy bugger.  He didn´t really afford us much in the way of commentary and when he left us with the directions “just keep walking for two hours until you reach the green house” I knew things were going to get interesting.  And they did!  Six green houses scattered around one hell of a hill, awesome.

The truck to the start of our travels

The setup

Break time
 
We eventually made our way to the greenest of green houses to find our porters setting up our tents and two cooks preparing food.  Lucky for us, it ended up that the guide had been syphoning money from the food allocation we had and as a result we received measly portions that had us diving into our rations to get our fill.  What a helpful bloke!  For those who know me even in the slightest, this didn´t sit well and I was starting to think down the mutiny path!

The green house.....

The view from our campsite

As it turned out, our meals over the next couple of days were all on the light side.  This had me and a few others resorting to eating the food of those who didn´t have an appetite or simply didn´t want what was on offer.  Pretty ordinary when we were promised “ample amounts”.  Mutiny it was going to be!

Adversity is a good driver for bonding though and it didn´t take us very long as a group to really click.  The circumstances only helped to speed up this happening.    

Day two was the hardest trekking day with a distance of 23km to be covered.  It was this day that we ascended to 4600m, the peak of the Salkantay pass.  The first 4 hours were steep, rocky and pretty much all straight up hill.  Coupled with the affects of the altitude it was fairly hard work.  The banter amongst the group was awesome though and we made a pretty good time of it.

 The mountain pass on up

Smashing it

 One hell of a good idea.  Triple Stacker!

 

 One exemplary mountain man, claiming this peak

These are rock offering at the peak.  These are made from the stones of people carried here from their home towns.  They are offered to mountains which are considered gods to the Incas.  Salkantay mountain is considered a god of fertility and is regarded in the highest importantance.  This is because as the snow from its enormous peak melts it brings fertility to the land.  That is a very simplified version of what I was told which was not rated for the general viewing public.  Something to do with male reproductive analogies n all.....

After the pass the snow and rain set in and we quickly made a dash for the lower reaches of the mountain and our lunch break.  With more awesome instructions to follow off the guide, “stop at the house with the tin roof”, we soon found ourselves wet and totally lost as we searched some 10 or more houses which all had tin roofs.  Eventually sheltering in a house with some bloke cooking by a fire, we refused to move.  Luckily, as it turned out that this guy was another of our cooks and we had stumbled into the right “house with a tin roof”.  Lucky for everyone I would have to say because I was not moving and I was going to eat whatever it was he had!

After a few more hours of trekking, the end of the day came as a relief.  We set up camp in a small village fringing on the jungle.  Hanging our clothes out to dry, we all stretched out and had a few beers to relax.

The amount of waterfalls coming off the snow capped mountains was just the most amazing thing ever.  The only thing that dwarfed them was the shear size of the mountains!

Later that night in our small tent, as I slept jammed from one corner to the other, I felt someone messing around with the front zipper.  Thinking it was Toni trying to get out and go to the toilet in the pitch darkness I moved my feet out of the way.  Soon enough the messing around stopped and I was back to sleep.  Not more than 5 minutes later, again it began.  Thinking this was now Toni coming back I was patient but when it kept on going I came out with “Toni, what the hell are you doing!”  Reaching across though I felt Toni beside me!  FARK, someone was stealing our stuff!  Jumping to attention I raced out the tent to find Toni´s bag outside and no one there.  I quickly dashed around the campsite before I realised I couldn´t see anything in the darkness.  I returned to the tent to find I had caught the thieves before they could lift anything of ours.  Checking the other tents they all appeared intact.  I decided to wake everyone to let them know what was happening though as a matter of prudency.  All were grateful, including the Spanish speaking contingent, who copped some pretty ordinary Spanish at 1pm in the morning.  There was only one tent that I could not rouse, the one with the two Danish girls Julie and Charlotte. 

The next morning we woke to hear Charlotte crying.  She had had everything stolen including her clothes, camera, passport, cash, everything!  What bastards!

Our guide was already on the spot looking bemused.  I told him my story in total only for him to retort with “are you sure you didn´t put the bag outside your tent yourself?”.  !!! This prompted a big “are you a F@cking idiot!” from me.  I was being robbed you dick!  The questions became more and more ridiculous as it seemed impossible from his end that we could have been robbed!  We must have done this ourselves was the Peruvian consensus.  With me being the patient understanding person I am, I promptly began to lose my compunction. With a few aptly chosen words, heads were straightened out and the locals started to at least pretend to do stuff.  We were in a town of 10 families, someone knew who did this.  Friggin useless Peruvians!

Soon enough, the girls were introduced to the village leader, their stories were taken and they were driven off to the nearest police station where some more Peruvian incompetence could be dragged into the fray, just in a more formalised manner. 

After this debacle a noticeable rift had formed between the guide staff and us.  This did not stop us from continuing though and we trekked an additional 5 hours or so through some pretty spectacular jungle landscapes.  The group amused itself as the guide settled to walking on his lonesome.  At about midday we had lunch at a little town of some name that eludes me.  After lunch Toni ran a little yoga session on a grassy patch to limber us all up after 3 days of walking.  Loose and a little calmer, we were soon piled into a little bus and driven to the town of Santa Terresa.  We were not too sure why we were driven this leg.  In our opinion we could have easily walked it making the whole experience a little more authentic.  Explanations were pretty scarce to this extent as well.

In Santa Terresa we camped at a little campground on the outskirts of town.  Here we were met by Julie and Charlotte who had just been at the local police station.  Apparently the police wanted to search all of our bags for their goods!  The idiocy of these people was ridiculous.  Considering we were carrying all we had and were all struggling to get under the 5kg imposed weight limit of the trek, where the hell could one or even two of us fit another 2 backpacks worth of goods!  It was here were more questions were posed by the guide.  All were along the lines of “you just lost the stuff yourself didn´t you”.  Dude was going to cop an ass whooping, and I was going to give it, that was all I had to say!  But before anything could happen, the police man decided all of a sudden the bags didn´t need to be searched and he was on his way..... 

This was the point were a bunch of us decided enough was enough.  We were doing whatever the hell we wanted and screw the lies being put to us.  So we headed off to the local hot springs for a long deserved dip/shower.  In the spring we got up to a few shenanigans in the usual Aussie sorta way.  We introduced the Dutch and Danish to the art of pool canon balling.  This was all to the delight of the locals who basically left the pool to us in fear of being involved inadvertently in our mischief.  Overstaying the curfew imposed by the guide we had a few beers and did our thing.  On the way home we stopped the bus and bought two bottles of rum, some coke and a few nibblies.  Tonight was going to be a big one around the campfire.  It wasn´t long before we were back at the camp and off our faces impersonating, as best as we could, a bunch of drunken yobbos.  Toni burnt the German guy Henry´s walking stick on the fire along with anything else she could get her mischievous hands on.  She then stole a rum bottle and skulled as much as she could before passing out in the long grass.  The night was spectacular and kicked on well into the morning before we called it quits.  Probably not a usual occurrence for a 5 day serious trek, but hey we were finding it pretty easy going and we felt like the group needed a bit of unwinding after all that had happened.

 Poolside triple stacker.  Take that Germans!  Way better than your group photo attempts!

 Group Photo

And if our guide knew how to take a photo this would have had all the girls standing on our shoulders!

Canonball!

Old Sammy boy snuck on off with one of the Danish girls that night and as a result kicked his mate Dave out of the tent.  Maybe he was trying to make her feel better about having her stuff stolen......  Dave, a little stuck for a place to sleep asked Sam at least for his sleeping bag and mattress, only to have the tent zipper promptly openned and both thrown at his head.  Pretty funny from an onlookers stand point I thought until it ended up Dave had to fit into our tent too!  That was cosy, especially since Toni was off her face and basically starfishing in the middle of us two.  Saweeet!

So hung over and sleep deprived, we were up at six in the morning and reminded that today we had to carry all our bags and not just our day packs because the horsemen had finished their leg.  Cool.  So with some 15kg´s of baggage on, we trekked for about 5 hours in the blearing sun along a dusty road.  Hmmm, drinking the night before didn´t seem like the wisest of options during this period of time.  But we did it and made it to lunch.  After lunch we made another 3 hours progress to the Machu Picchu gate way town of Aguas Calientes. 

Hung over as hell

In Aguas Calientes we were put up in a hostel where we could have a warm shower and clean ourselves!  Ahhhhhhh it was almost spiritual.  Soon it was to the bar for some more beers and a spot of food.  A little later we were brought together for dinner where we were given a bit of a rubbish spiel from our guide before being presented our Machu Picchu entry passes and our return train tickets.  Oh my god, the number of mistakes on each was ridiculous.  Names, passport numbers, ages and even sexes were messed up on nearly all of them!  We were told this wasn´t a problem and that the guide would meet us at the gate of Machu Picchu to ensure all ran smoothly.  Rigggggghhhhht.  The next event to happen was the handing out of the tour review cards......super saweeet J  All the group took great pleasure in reading what I had wrote as I had no intention of holding back.  This done, we were off.  No one wanted to hang around any longer.

It was a 4am start the next morning as we made our way down to the first of two check points up to Machu Picchu.  We were the first to arrive at the gate and even with our dodgey paperwork and Charlotte´s lack of passport we all managed to get through.  Deciding to set a cracking pace, Dave, Sam, Tom and myself pushed for the mountain top.  In the end, I was first to Machu Picchu for that day closely followed by the others.  The pace was a cracking 34 minutes, well ahead of the rest of the field!  Taking line honours we then waited another 45 minutes for the gates to open in order to be the first admitted.  It was high fives all around as we dashed to get some photos of Machu Picchu with no one in them. 

Machu Picchu in the mist.

As expected, there was no guide to be seen after we entered.  So making the collective decision of “stuff him” we all set off to explore.  It was about 45 minutes later when the guide found us.  He was a little annoyed that no one waited for him!  Not getting the hint, he set about trying to start the tour.  Before all this though, he came out with the revelation that he had been reading the groups reviews and was really hurt by what we had written.  Awkward.....  But Dave, Sam,  Toni and me couldn´t give a crap.  I actually got a photo of the moment where he broke the news because I thought it was memorable!

Awkward.  Spot the Aussie..... Boardies and a singlet.....

After his little rant, he put down some pretty rubbish facts and figures that had me and Dave losing our stuff.  I turned to Dave and said “stuff this guy, let’s bail and go get another guide!  I don´t want my Machu Picchu experience wrecked by this tard”.  So hatching a plan to keep the group in one spot by asking a barrage of stalling questions, Dave handed me his backpack and was off to the entry gate to find another guide.  Returning about 15 minutes later he ran up to the group saying “guys, I have a guide, he speaks great English, he has been doing this for 2 years solid and charges $40 for however many people you want”.  I replied with “Awesome lets bail and hire him!”  But Dave had thought of all and had him just waiting around the corner.  What a guy!  So spreading the word, the Aussie contingent and the Danes (Toni was there also but hey, she is American and worth less of a mention.....) decided to bail.  Leading the pack we just simply walked off to a better Machu Picchu experience.   The new guide´s name was Radar and he was absolutely brilliant.  He answered all our questions and really got us so involved in the whole experience.  We were so impressed with him that we actually tipped him the money we were supposed to have given our guide of 5 days. 

Our new guide Radar. 

Radar finished his tour at the base of Hyunapicchu, the smaller mountain overlooking Machu Picchu.  From here we said goodbye and headed off on a 45 minute vertical climb of the mountain.  Taking the opportunity to make some crazy photos we had everyone on the mountain talking about these Aussie guys.  Pretty cool.

The sun temple.  One of a few temples around Machu Picchu where they used the sun to predict the seasons etc.  The exactness of the construction and its measurements is amazing.
 

 View of Huynapicchu

 Group photo of the Aussies, Dutchies and Danish.

Triple stacker with Machu Picchu int he background.  That edge is straight down for a few hundred meters!

The top of Huynapicchu.  Machu Picchu is in the background.

The top was spectacular.  We stopped for some lunch and took in the views before slowly descended to explore more ruins.  Finding a pack of grazing llama grazing on some terracing we took the opportunity to get some memorable photos.  Problem.......Llama are set lose on Machu Picchu to cut the grass, and that is all they want to do.  A llama with it´s head down doesn´t take a good photo.  So egging Dave on (he really wanted a photo with the llamas) I convinced him to pull the llama´s neck hair in order to raise their heads so we got some excellent photos.  All it took was a little reassurance that llama won’t kick you or get violent, they were wusses.  This was a pretty made up fact, but it filled Dave with confidence.  He would have never done this otherwise considering how close he was to the edge of the terracing, beyond which was a 100 plus metre drop!  But nothing went wrong, making everything ok.  Although, one of the llama, thoroughly fed up with the treatment, did run off and buck at a random American tourist....  Even llama hate Americans haha.

Pyramid!

 Sexy llama

 Dave and his llama

Damn sexy llama

Walking around we took a few more photos, got in a bit more trouble for jumping on the terracing and had a local attendant basically lose his stuff at us for a host of things.  People are so uptight about their cultural heritage.

The boys, Dave, me and Sam.  Just about to be yelled at....

Nine hours later we were done.  It took us another hour or so to descended back to Aguas Calientes.  You can probably guess what we did when we arrived..... We went to the pub.  Buying a big feed as well we ate and drank until it was time to catch our train home.  Thoroughly exhausted we arrived in Cusco at 11pm that night and promptly flaked out.

What a trek and what a great adventure.  The next day we complained to the booking agent about the trip and about the guide.  They were pretty furious and actually called him into our hostel for a review.  I arrived on the scene to have the head tour agent reading our review cards and repeatedly asking “where is Andrew Couse!”  Sticking my head in I got my chance to confront our guide and tell him he was a nit.  At this point in time I didn´t care and with the example set, others chimed in setting a pretty convincing chorus.  But what is done is done though.  My story was told and for me despite the downfalls, we had an awesome group and hence the best ever experience.  We handled a bungled trip with some awesome banter.  We all made some pretty good friendships and completed the hardest route to Machu Picchu.  Not bad if I do say so.  And though the story tells of a poorly organised expedition, I think the photos show the fun had.