Personal
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Our trip up to Bolivia was long but interesting. We started off taking an overnight bus from Salta up to La Quiaca (both of which are in Argentina). We arrived at about 7am, at which point we carried our luggage across into Bolivia and had our passports stamped. We were then in La Quiaca's sister town of Villazon, on the Bolivian side of the border. We were prepared for it being a little quiet, so we headed to what seemed to be the town's only hotel and asked for a room for the day: our train northwards to Uyuni only…
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On our first trip outwards from Salta, heading north to the Quebrada Humahuaca – we were curious to see a group of people walking south towards the city. They had backup vehicles and even a police escort, but we didn't think more of it than that. On the way back down we saw the same group, much further along, as well as other groups of pilgrims on bicycles. Pretty much the same thing happened when we headed south from Salta to Cafayate and then back: we saw several groups, some on foot, some on bikes, even some on horses, heading…
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Our second side-trip from Salta (the first being the one up to Tilcara) was more southwards: we headed 200km along the amazing Route 68 to visit the town of Cafayate. Cafayate is well known for its winemaking, especially from the local Torrontés grape that only grows at altitude. It also has some of the most incredible scenery we've seen on this trip. On the way down to Cafayate the weather was really windy, and the closer we got, the windier it became. This meant we didn't get to see all the wonders of Route 68. We did stop at the…
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We thought the Cuestra de Lipán and the Salines Grandes were the best that this side of Salta had to offer: they were pretty spectacular, after all. We decided to visit the Pucará de Tilcara – a re-built, 12th century, pre-Incan settlement – and a village called Humahuaca thinking they'd be easy, gentle visits for our last day in the Tilcara region. We enjoyed the Pucará: it was interesting enough, although as we've been to Machu Picchu on this trip it was always going to be "just OK". Many of the buildings had been rebuilt using traditional methods: Inside you…
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Since the last post, we took a daytime bus – lasting about 4 hours – from Tucumán up to Salta. This was actually quite nice, although at one point we sped past a traffic accident where I happened to look down into a burnt out car and saw the remains of the driver still in it. (Luckily I was the only one in the family who noticed this.) I admit it shook me quite a bit, especially as I get the feeling that such accidents aren't all that rare, here. And given the fact we were due to rent a…
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I wasn't expecting very much from either Córdoba or Tucumán. They were originally just waypoints on the path to Salta and beyond. This is pretty much exactly what Córdoba ended up being: it's a big, fairly unexceptional (in our view, anyway) city. For sure there are things we might have visited that would have improved our view of it, but we decided not to spend an excessive amount of time trying to discover another side of Córdoba: we focused more on the kids' schoolwork and recharging our batteries after the more hectic days in Rio and Iguassu. On our first…
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We've been in Argentina for most of the week, especially if you count our stay in Iguassu (where we stayed in Brazil but ended up spending most of our time in Argentina). It's probably a good time to reflect on some experiences between the two countries, before things blur even further. I enjoyed Brazil, but certainly felt we were more at risk there than in Argentina. This feeling might have been driven by horror stories friends (and the media) reported, but still – it was tangible, and I don't believe at all misplaced. Luckily nothing bad happened, but the feeling…
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Our last stop in Brazil ended up being one of the trip's highlights, so far: we arrived in Iguassu on Sunday night, and stayed in a hotel on the Brazilian side of the famous Falls. (We were sure we'd asked the travel agent to book a hotel on the Argentinian side, but then it's our fault we didn't check the itinerary.) We only had one day to visit the Falls – many people take 2 days to visit both Brazilian and Argentinian sides, for comparison – and as the Argentinian side is more extensive and varied, we decided to head…
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The weather wasn't great during our first few days in Paraty, but at least we were dry after the thorough soaking we received in Sao Paolo. We used the time to do a few "non-beach" tourist activities, such as renting a boat to take us around the coast, walking in the jungle and visiting a cachaça distillery. The old town of Paraty is really nice, too: The place we were staying in – the Resort Croce del Sud – was really special. It had been built by an Italian named Luca, who had previously built a boat he was living…
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Apparently Brazil has very few extended bouts of cold, wet weather – even in their winter, which is, of course, right now – but one of them started just before our arrival. Sao Paolo had just gone 40 or so days without rain, and so many people welcomed it. Fair enough. From our side, we were hoping for better weather to discover Sao Paolo, but in the end we spent more time than expected catching up on work and schoolwork. Our Airbnb was very central – just a block from the famous Paulista Avenue. There are many, many pizzerias and…