The Plastic Backpackers - Uruguay & Buenos Aires

Yet, another night bus drove us to Buenos Aires...Where we had originally thought of staying, however the idea of staying just one night with the skies weeping the way they were, decisions were made to catch the ferry straight to Colonia del Sacramento, in Uruguay.

The Buquebus station was overflowing, (we should have suspected something....) and so the Plastic Backpackers, on a roll now, could only get tickets in first class on the slow boat. Oh, well.

Was super impressed...The entrance of the boat looked like we'd walked into a hotel, complete with plants and lifts. There was a games room, and duty-free shopping.

We really should have suspected something....With Uruguay being such a short distance from Argentina, it being Easter weekend, therefore looooooong...We had real troubles finding accomodation...Our first night we spent in a 4 star hotel, complete with jacuzzi in the bath, and a two pools...Let me tell you we made the most of it!!!

Colonia is such pretty little colonial town, with tiny little cobbled streets, old fashioned light posts...It was first colonised by the Portuguese who wanted to spy on the activities across the water of the Spaniards!!! So a lot of the signs, and menus are not only in English and Spanish, but Portugesh!!! (No Susie, I did not try out my one and only Portuguese phrase ;o)

We did our own little self guided tour of the old town, which was fun, stopping in at a few museums, and eating lunch in the plaza...That evening we spent some time in a cheese shop laughing with the ladies there, and bought dinner; Cheese, olives and nuts....Accompanied by bread, a bottle of wine and some Cat Stevens on the sound system back at Hostel de los Poetas...Fabulous evening.

The next day, we hopped on a couple of buses, zipped through Montevideo, the capital, right to the other side of the country, to Punta del Diablo - Devil's Point. All this took us less that 12 hours, including waiting for our second bus...Small country huh?!

Punta del Diablo...How do you describe it other than a conglomeration of tiny beach shacks...Some with electricity, some without, however all perching on a piece of land, subjected to the elements...The atmosphere is one of relaxation...Not much is important other that what you are doing right now...It was gorgeous.

Our little shack was one of those without electricity...Our landlady, Mirva although a little eccentric, was lovely....

Our first night...Daniel woke up in a fit of coughing due to the shack being too warm and stuffy, so I opened up the window at the end of the bed, just a tad...The next day, looking for my sunglasses, I realise that my bag where we had all of our documents, (passports, tickets, etc, my credit and key cards, Ecuadorian Id) had vanished...And so our time at this beach side paradise started with a few hours spent at the police station reporting the stolen bag.

Well, at this point I'd like to say how lovely the policeman was who was there...It took us quite a long time to get everything sorted simply because not only did he make all the phone calls to cancel the cards, and alert the necessary people that our passports had been stolen, he wrote down all of the events, forms and the rest, manually....Not one computer in sight.

What a step back in time....

From there, seeing as we were meant to be flying out in 5 days time, we thought it better to change the flights because the closest Swedish Embassy was in Buenos Aires, and the lovely people at the Swedish consulate told Daniel that they would need at least a week to Fedex him a new passport...That was after they told him he could wait 3 months for them to isssue one from Sweden!!!!

A very stunned afternoon at the beach....

The next day, after just getting out of bed...We were summoned to the police station because the bag had been found, in the water at a nearby beach....The person who stole it must have been super disappointed as there was only $70, ohterwise they stole a gold chain of Daniel's...Everything else was still there...And very very wet...

I was happy to see that the Rough Guide for Sth America a friend had lent me was back, so picked it up and the amount of water that book held almost literally flooded the small police station...Oops.

REALLY enjoyed the beach that afternoon!!!!

We tried to change our tickets back to our original departure date, to no avail, so decided an extra week in Buenos Aires was in order.

Day4 it rained all day, so we spent most of it in the shack playing backgammon, and reading...

Day 5 under pouring rain, we caught the bus back to Montevideo.

Montevideo was a fabulous city...Very modern, and some very interesting architecture....We just had a ball walking around, and enjoying a 'Medio medio' at the old fishmarkets, now converted into a zillion restaurants.

A medio medio, is a mix of slightly sweet white wine, and champagne....Quite refreshing on the palate.

Then back to Colonia, from where we had to catch the ferry back into Argentina...on our first visit here we had wanted to make the journey to Fray Bentos, a little town approx 200km from Colonia and visit the meat extracting plant...Thought that as we had some extra time up our sleeve we would rent a car and make the journey.

Boy, did the rain and wind follow us that day, and the wind....However the elements weren't the only things to brave in our Uruguayan equivalent of a Festiva - The Potholes!! At some points the road looked more like foul grey Swiss cheese, than a long flat expanse of tar. Slalom driving was in order...That was of course when there were patches of tar to drive on....Not even 200km away from a major tourist town, the tar gives in to dirt.

Finally arriving into Fray Bentos, we make our way to the meat plant...However with the rain, they are not doing tours of the plant...Only the museum is open, and the one and only restaurant in sight is closed - It's way past lunchtime...

Bellies groaning we enter the museum, which although the door is open, seems very shut...We are the only tourists...The museum is ours.

This plant, during the world wars, was a major source of 'Oxo' the meat extract sent to the soldiers fighting on the fronts...Much of the beef and manufacturing from the Oxo products actually occurred there in Uruguay, with two cargo ships leaving weekly en route for Europe.

Another point of interest is that the factory was the first ever place in the whole of Uruguay to use electricity. Two years after electricity was invented the first lightbulb illuminated the plant - This was 3 years before, Montevideo, the capital, had electricity...AND believe it or not, they still have the original lightbulb there on display!!!

We also went to see the administrative area of the plant, which has been left as it was used...Not one chair or desk has been rearranged....Even the old accounting ledgers are still in place...A rather eery visit....Especially seeing the markings in the floor of an employee who worked at the plant for over 40 years - He sat in the same place, and had a habit of shuffling his feet back and forth....Definitely left his mark.

Then back over the 'roads' to Colonia and onto the ferry to Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires- What a marvellous city!!!! Probably a great thing my credit card had been cancelled, as I could have gone a little wild!!!

We hopped off the ferry and decided to sit in one of the main parks and decide where to stay...And nearly had Daniel's bag stolen.

Beware of South american-looking people asking you where you can change money. Thankfully nothing was taken, but it definitely shook us up a little, especially so close after our last encounter!

We found a great little hostel in San Telmo - Hostel TanTelmo. Great staff, great location if any of you are in town!!!

So what do you do in BA...? Visit Eva Peron's grave in Recoleta Cemetary, (where many of Argentina's elite are now buried - very interesting), Casa Rosada (known for the 'Don't Cry for me Argentina scene in the movie,) tango lessons, shop, check out La Bonbonera or Boca stadium, (the team Maradona debued and played for), take in some of the colourful streets of La Boca and of course go to the biggest game in South America: Boca vs. River Plate!!!

Basically, have an absolute blast!!! We wandered around...Walking kilometres!!

After our extra week, and a huge dent in the budget, it was finally time to go....End of this holiday...Time to plan the next one!!

The Plastic Backpackers - Salta & Mendoza

So I left you all in Potosi...

After a fantastic, if not at times, a little scary day spent in the mines, Daniel and I found ourselves on yet another night bus to take us to the border between Bolivia and Argentina...

I can tell you now that one of my pet hates is getting off a bus, where people have been snorting and snoring all night, before sunrise and being pounced upon by 10-12 vulture-like bus tour operators....Even worse is when they follow you down the street when you have given up saying you're not interested, and have now decided to ignore their constant screeching about what times the next busses leave - And all of this before 6am...

I can also tell you the border town of Villazon, Bolivia, has absolutely nothing happening at that time or at any other time of the day, for that matter...However we did find a tiny hovel, owned by a very lovely couple, who made us coffee and bread, while we slowly got our brains into first gear.

We then took the short walk to the bridge that made the border...Got out of Bolivia, just after 6am, only to have to wait to get into Argentina - Border didn't open until 7am...Gave me a great opportunity to get beaten at backgammon a few times, and for the both of us to meet a Hugh Grant lookalike, who gave us some great tips on doing Mendoza, Argentina's wine region...
All in all, it's not so bad waiting at borders, if you're going to get advice on how to best sample the wines of a country.

Finally after 20hrs of travel time, we arrived in Salta. Decided it was a good idea to break the trip up and stayed there 24hrs. Salta is a lovely little town, and had we stayed here a little longer, we probably would have made it to the vineyards here too, but hey....Can't have everything.

This is also the place where Daniel decided it was a fabulous idea to leave his keycard in an ATM...And to realise he'd done so half an hour later. Wouldn't have been so bad, if both of us hadn't been starving....However dinner was postponed and calls to brothers partying in Spain, (long story, too long for the blog,) and brothers sleeping in Sweden were made, cards cancelled and two bottles of red promptly consumed...

Funny how us girls are absolutely fantastic at spotting things...Inbetween, losing the card, organising our bus down to Mendoza, doing some quick sightseeing, I spotted my first souvenir!!! An Oliva (Argentinian Bag Designer) handbag...Ladies it is just gorgeous and it was just begging to be taken home by moi!

Before we knew it we were back at the bus station, to travel down to Mendoza....

Now is when I should explain 'The Plastic Backpackers'...The term came up in Chile when Katerina told us we were not real backpackers as we had unassumingly booked a bus to the north with reclining seats and the price included snacks...Apparently this was luxury travel....

Well, Katerina, if you thought that was luxury... After not having slept properly for almost 72hrs, I was happy to pay a little extra on another overnight journey...We travelled first class from Salta to Mendoza...Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that bus travel could be so comfortable, and hilarious.
You could almost fit another half a person in your leather seat...You had a blanket that covered you from head to toe when you were lying horizontally to sleep...The food was not so bad and included wine, AND (this was the best part,) you get to play Bingo with the rest of the passengers!!! Daniel was very upset, when he lost with just one number to go. Poor baby!

In first class there were five of us...One German, and Italian, a Dane, Daniel and myself...Well, once we hit the open road, the German promptly poured himself a whiskey, and insisted we all join him - It would help us all sleep!

The movie that evening happened to be the latest Rocky....Seeing as I hadn't seen the first many, it wasn't the movie I was laughing at, but the Italian and the German, who were cheering at the happy moments arms and legs in the air (this can be done when your seat reclines all the way back), booing at the bad guys, were waving their arms in the air when the music came on. Needless to say it wasn't the movie that was the comedy.

Just outside of Salta the bus, along with a few kilometres worth of cars behind us were stopped on the highway due to a demonstration of somesort...Fires, dancing, drums...It lasted approximately half an hour, before we were rolling again...With me almost missing the bus, I was so intent on what was going on...

Finally arrived with a decent night's sleep, to a very, very, very wet Mendoza....We were driven with the Danish girl to one place...But the Plastic Backpackers preferred having a private bathroom, so decided to walk to another hotel. By the time we made it there, we looked worse than drowned rats.

However, after a hot shower, we headed off to the Museo de Area Fundacional....Our main reason for going was to see the Incan mummy found on the slopes of Aconcagua, (Sth America's highest mountain). How disappointing....They only had a photo.

The museum made up for it though, as they did have an olive oil tasting which was amazing!!! Found out about Prensa, Frantoio, Arauco, and Manzanilla, oils which are named after different olive varieties...With exception of the first which is a blend of the other three....Very yummy - Couldn't help ourselves, had to buy a couple...One which would make its way back to Sweden.

So here we were in Mendoza, heart of the wine country of Argentina....Plastic Backpacking fever hit us again, and instead of doing a bicycle tour of the vineyards, we chose a few exclusive vineyards to see over the space of two days, hired a driver and organised lunch on day one in a place serving typical food, and on day two in a French restaurant....It's a difficult life.

La Rural, Familia Zuccardi, Carmelo Patti, Achaval Ferrer: All the vineyards were amazing, as all of them included a tour of the vineyard and an explanation on how their wines are made...Fermentation time, el sombrero, new versus old processes, and the famous oak barrels...Most of them are from France. Apparently French oak is definitely the best to age wine in...Needless to say a few bottles were bought....A few bottles were sampled...

One of the vineyards which caught our attention was Carmelo Patti...Wines simply bearing their maker's name...And so they should be considering he makes the wine himself from A to Z: From manually selecting the grapes, to emptying and cleaning the vats, to checking each corked bottle for oxydisation, to sticking the labels on the bottles, to putting them in boxes ready for shipment...For 9-10 months of the year there is only him and another man working in his little winery...Three more people are employed when it comes to harvesting time...

That's wine made with a lot of love...


The Mendoza region is best for growing Malbec, which comes from a translation of French meaning 'bad mouth' - It was a grape variety which did not grow well in France...Hence the name. Boy did we drink a lot of it. By the end of our two days, I was feeling extremely knowledgeable - Almost expert material; Give me the grapes and the machinery and I'll make it for you!!!!

Our time in Mendoza was clouded though - Quite literally....Mendoza usually gets 200 millimetres of rain per year...During our 5 days there, they received half of that, which is quite unheard of, and a worry for the wine makers....Too much water in the soil, means watery tasteless grapes...Not good for vino.

While in Mendoza we also went to a tango evening...A dinner and dance affair...No, not us dancing - Professionals. It was just sumptious. The restaurant was located in an old wine cellar, and vamped up. The dancers glided throughout the restaurant, while we were sampling a scrumptious plato para picar.

We also decided that a few days hiking to the base camp of Aconcagua were in order...However our dreams were quickly swept away when we went to book our nights in the geo dome - It had been snowing and the geo dome was closed...We could do it ourselves, but would have had to buy a heap of equipment that either both or one of us already had...Just not in Argentina...So we decided on a one day tour instead, to get a decent view of the mountain.


There isn't much to say about the actual tour....Out of the 11hours of the tour, we spent approx 8 of those on the bus...Not brilliant. However we did see Aconcagua...With a lecture:
We were told that part of the tour was a 1.5-2 hour hike within the national park...Well, when we arrived at the park road, we were met by big cement trucks who were doing road works, and so we could not get to the start of the trekking path....


We all jumped out of the bus about 200m away from the trucks, to take our photos...I pretended not to hear the guide telling other people in the group that we could only go a distance of 100m from the bus for our photos...Dreadful view of the mountain as there was a hill infront of it. So, Daniel, Tom, (Austrian guy) and I walked to the top of the hill to get better photos...I kid you not, the top of the hill was a further 100m...Boy did we get into trouble when we got back....Rebels!!!!


Funny part was everyone, in the bus telling us that we had done the right thing.

The Mighty Aconcagua....And us.

After five days...It was time for us to move on...Direction Buenos Aires, to catch the Buquebus across to Uruguay....


Time for another blog....
More pictures available on: http://www.ringo.com/profile/alex_corcoran2000.html