As its Christmas and New Year holiday and (nearly) everyone is on holidays, I thought it essential that I also take a break from the only job that I have for the next few months and have a rest from writing the blog. Though as we’re now on a 20 hour bus journey I thought I’d kill the time by updating the blog and it’ll keep me quiet so Leah will be happy too.
After we left Iguacu Falls we had planned on spending Christmas and New Years in two separate places as over a week in one place can be a bit much. We had read in “the book” that Rosario was Argentina’s “Second City” so we decided to spend a few days there for Christmas and then after Christmas we would make our way to Buenos Aires for New Years. The journey to Rosario from Iguacu was going to be a mammoth one and as we had time we decided that we’d stop off in a little place called Posadas for a few days before getting to Rosario.
Posadas was a little town on the banks of the Rio Paraguay river with the town of Encarnacion in Paraguay on the other side, so it offered us the opportunity to get over to Paraguay for the day and for us to get another stamp in the passport. Our hostel was a really small one with a totally chilled out vibe and a small swimming pool a few steps outside of our bedroom to cool down in. We were greeted with 37 degree temperatures and over 90% humidity, so our first day was spent sweating and getting in and out of the pool to cool down. We met a girl in our hostel who had been over to Paraguay the previous day and had got there with very little hassle and it only took her an hour. So we decided that the following day (Monday) would be a good day to get over to visit Paraguay.
We got up and caught the local bus and duly got out with all the other locals at the border to be confronted with a queue like no other. Now we Brits are known for our love of queuing but I think the Argies love it just as much! There must have been over 500 people queuing to get into Paraguay, with a queue of cars going back as far as the eye can see. After 30mins queuing where we moved about 30ft we decided that enough was enough and we would take one of the several offers that we had from taxi drivers and any lad that had a car with some space in it to take us across the border faster than we would be in standing in the queue.
We agreed that sitting in some locals clapped out Peugeot was the least preferable option so we took a taxi driver up on the option of taking us across. After 10 mins we had got through the Argentina and Paraguay borders and were entering the town of Encarnacion. We found out from the taxi that we’d decided to cross the border on the first day of the Christmas holidays and the busiest shopping day of the year! Argentines go shopping in Paraguay because the Peso is worth more in Paraguay and the town has the biggest market I have ever seen, selling all manner of junk. Think of Rheola Market on steroids, covering an area about 30 football pitches and you’ll be not too far off.
We had a walk around the town and found out that along with Posadas they are set to lose a good proportion of the town due to the level of water in the Rio Paraguay rising due to global warming. After a tour of the town and experiencing the bus station we made our way back to Posadas. The bus when we got on was empty and apart from us another few tourists we had the bus pretty much to ourselves.. However, the bus stopped in the shopping market and about a million people got on the bus, all with bags of shopping full of kids toys, clothes and the usual Christmas shit. One chap even had a flat screen telly! He was the envy of all the bus.
I’ve now realised that something has to go wrong every time that we travel by bus, if it’s not us missing a bus or us getting on the wrong bus it’s something. This bus journey was no different, we expected the bus to stop at the Paraguay border for us to all get our passport stamped on the way out of the country so we could enter Argentina without any hassles but it didn’t, it sailed straight through without a care for the world and we ended up going straight to Argentina. We got to the border control and expected that we would have to go all the way back and get our passports stamped to enter. However, the guy just waved us on without a concern and stamped our passports. So we’re currently in a state of limbo, we both have our passport stamped but the chap didn’t add us on to his little computer but I’m sure we’ll soon find out if there’s a problem when we go to fly to Bolivia on the 12th of January! Fingers crossed there won’t be.
The only thing that is worth writing about Posadas is the food! We went to a restaurant not far from our hostel which was offering an all you can eat Assado (BBQ) for 50 pesos, that’s about £8! We were both hungry and they kept bringing out fillet and sirloin steak, chicken, pork and Chorizo until we could eat no more! Sadly, I’ve not found a steak the size of my face…
After 3 days in Posadas we left to go to Rosario, our home for Christmas. We got to the hostel and were offered the “suite” for an extra few quid a night, after a few nights in a dorm with 4 other strangers we were looking forward to our own bedroom but this place was more a boutique hotel, the room has it all, air conditioning, own bathroom and even a table and chairs! Now, this doesn’t sound like much but we were over the moon after bunk beds and shared bathrooms! (BTW: Leah has successfully slept on the bottom bunk at two of our recent hostels)
The heat hadn’t been suppressed but we were starting to adapt to the heat and on the morning of Christmas eve it was a little bit cloudy so we decided that as I hadn’t ridden a bike for the entire time we had been away, Leah thought that we better had or if I didn’t, then I may go crazy. We’d also heard that as Rosario was as flat as a pancake it would be a good way to see the city. So we hired bikes and set off to find a beach that we’d heard about a few miles away. En route, one of the many hundred street dogs decided that he wanted to follow us and we somehow recruited this mutt for the next 3 miles. Not content with just following us he also decided that he should look after us and fended us from any other dog attacks. I repaid the favour by promising him some of my sandwich when we got back. Though, on the way back he decided that two runners coming the other way maybe more fun and ran after them. I have to say that it was great to get back on two wheels even though they did have shopping baskets on the front and even though she’s sat next to me and will read this before it gets upload I was very proud of Leah’s cycling efforts, her first for many years! I can see her in Lycra when we get home…
As it was our first Christmas away from home, we knew it would be a bit different to the usual of overeating turkey dinners, chocolate, mince pie’s, getting as pissed as parrots on Christmas Eve, working in between Christmas and New Year and then getting stressed about where we’re going to go for New Years eve.
The last time I updated the blog we were getting ready to go out on Christmas Eve. Now, Christmas Eve is usually about going out catching up with people that you don’t see from one year to the next and them asking you what you’ve been up to and what they’ve been up to. (Usually this is not very much) however we could guarantee that this Christmas eve we wouldn’t be seeing anyone that we knew (Though, if my old man was there I’m sure he’d meet someone that he knew!) The hostel staff had been less than helpful and generally any information we were told should be total discounted, they couldn’t even be bothered to organise anything at the hostel for Christmas day and preferred to be miserable in work instead. They did explain though that Christmas was celebrated at midnight on Christmas eve and after opening their presents everyone went out so there would be little point in going out early.
We knew that for Christmas day we would be with one of the guys that we did the Inca trail with, but we also met up with an English couple who also thought that something would be going on in the hostel so hadn’t thought about sorting something out. Anyway our little of gang of 5 had a few drinks in the hostel and made our way to the club that we had been told about that would open at midnight. So we left the hostel to be confronted with the streets of Rosario resembling something out of 28 days later. Not a single person could be found on the streets, as we walked towards the area where this club was, we found ourselves to be under fire from people living in the high rise flats setting fireworks off. I’ve never been to Baghdad and don’t intend to go either but I can imagine this was not too dissimilar. With no sign of anyone on the street or this club being open then we decided that we’d try to find a bar serving drinks, we continued to walk the streets much like Joseph, Mary and the 3 wise men following a star in the distance, however this star was in the window of a restaurant. We walked up to the door to see if they’d let us in and a crying woman came running out and started kissing me and wishing me merry Christmas. I thought bloody hell she’s a bit forward and Leah’s behind me! Anyway, she did the same with all of us and so did her husband but I offered him my hand rather than accepting a kiss from a bearded bloke. Anyway they let us in and brought us drinks. As we sat there, like at home people were opening their presents, getting jumpers, pants and even DVD players! It just so happened to be a Greek restaurant and after opening their presents, they all got up and started dancing around the restaurant, Stavros Flatley had nothing on these lot but the Ouzo was flowing so everyone was happy.
We left the bar to get to the club about 2:30 and the streets were slightly different to a few hours ago, with people everywhere which made finding the club a lot easier! We duly got in the queue only for a bouncer to come up to me to tell me that flip flops weren’t allowed, after a quick check we noticed that everyone is wearing flip flops so I turn around and reason with him but he’s not having any of my welsh bouncer banter, so I lead the walk and turn around and march off. He obviously saw the error of his ways and came running after us to tell us that as we’ve come all the way from Wales then he’d let us in. We get in the club just after 3 and the place is empty! However, within 30mins it’s full of people, sadly for us we were the oldest in the club by at least 10 years, a rule that Leah now applies to girls and guessing their age:
“If their hair is down to their arse, then they’re not old enough to be in a nightclub”
I’ve mentioned that there are loads of street dogs in Argentina and this club was full of them, something that Leah found hilarious especially one hairy ass dog who was walking around the top floor of the nightclub like he owned the place!
We got up on Christmas Day to our cards from our parents and presents from Lynne and Roger – thank you very much! And Skyped home to see everyone with their new presents and getting ready to face the snow, we then we set off for the beach for the day! After a couple of hours of chilling out on the beach we went back to the hostel to get our Assado on the go, the 3 of us all had jobs to do. Mine was to get the BBQ going, however after 30mins of trying it was clear that it wasn’t going to happen. I blame the lack of fire lighters, but I did manage to get a few coals red hot but there wasn’t enough to get the rest of the coals burning.
However Juan (one of the guys working at the hostel), came and took all the glory and got the coals burning quiet quickly, smart arse! Once all the coals were white hot we got the steaks and Chorizo cooking (Leah had no faith in my Assado lighting abilities and decided that she’d better cook the chicken in the oven!) 3 hours after we first set out to get things going we sat down to eat our Christmas dinner.
How does it look compared to yours?
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