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Around the World

April 2017 - January 2018
A 282-day adventure by Simon Read more
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  • Simon and BlakeAround the World
    Day 18

    Florianopolis

    April 20, 2017 in Brazil ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    Having now experienced long distance, overnight bus travel in Brazil we have learnt the following:

    1. All buses come with at least one crazy old Portuguese lady.

    2. There is a reason why the seats behind the reserved over 60's seats are free (refer to point 1).

    3. Sleeping on overnight sleeper buses is difficult (for me, Simon will sleep anywhere).

    But we survived the 6 hour bus journey to São Paulo and then the 12 hour bus journey to Florianopolis where we will stay for the next few days. Another beach town however there are some nice hikes and city spots to visit.

    The forecast for today was rain so we did what any Brit would do and put on jeans and a rain coat and headed to the bus station. Typically when we got off the bus in town the sun came out and we looked like the daft overdressed tourists sweating profusely!

    We carried on though and pottered around the centre, visiting the historic market (Mercado Publico) and a very pretty museum, Museu Historico de Santa Catarina, which was formerly the colonial governor's palace.

    We then headed to the iconic bridge of Florianopolis which is undergoing some serious repairs so didn't quite live up to our expectations.

    Fingers crossed the sun will be out again tomorrow so we can find a nearby beach where Simon can give surfing a go!    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeAround the World
    Day 20

    Day 2 & 3 - Florianopolis

    April 22, 2017 in Brazil ⋅ 🌙 19 °C

    Our second day in Florianopolis was dry but still pretty overcast so we took the ferry boat across the lake to a little fishing village. We visited a little waterfall and then mooched around the village before hopping back on the boat. There are lots of small villages along the lake, some of which have no access by road, so the boat acts as a taxi for the locals.

    The day before we had spotted this pretty yummy looking coffee bar so we decided to treat ourselves. They were a treat as these coffees were like no coffees you have ever had before. Simon chose a latte, but it was no ordinary latte. For starters it came in a giant wine glass on which Nutella was thickly spread around the glass. It also came with a side of another giant blob of Nutella on the end of a long spoon! I opted for the coffee milkshake which was made up of coffee, milk, ice cream and chocolate sauce. They were both a taste sensation! And needless to say we felt a bit sick afterwards but they were totally worth it.

    Then just as we thought our day couldn't get any better we made another amazing discovery. Let me set the scene a little bit for you first. Supermarkets in Brazil are rubbish! They are quite small, don't really have much in them and the limited fruit and veg they do have is a bit manky. And don't even get Simon started on the meat. It looks disgusting, smells worse and more often than not can be found accompanied by flies. You can therefore imagine our delight when we stumbled upon a decent supermarket that actually half resembled a supermarket back home. The shelves were full of things you would actually want to buy and there was a plethora of fresh fruit and vegetables. There was also mince and fresh chicken breasts (not frozen like every other supermarket). We actually felt like kids at Christmas discovering a stocking full of presents at the end of our beds!

    Today we awoke to sunshine streaming through the windows and Simon waking me up for a change, excited to go to the beach. We went to a beach called Mole beach (pronounced in the Austin Powers way). What Brazil lacks in supermarkets, it sure makes up for in beaches.    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeAround the World
    Day 22

    Day 4 - Florianopolis

    April 24, 2017 in Brazil ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    We decided to stay an extra night in Florianopolis so that we didn't waste a beautifully sunny day travelling. We visited Joaquina beach which is famous for sand boarding. After a day of sunbathing we headed to the dunes to rent boards and give sand boarding a go. We hired a board which you sit down on and then another one which is more like a snowboard. It was really fun but climbing back up the dunes afterwards was exhausting so we were pooped after an hour. We missed the last bus back from the beach so we decided to walk back to our hostel. The walk was flat and it's nice and cool when the sun goes down so it was a really nice walk and only about 4km.

    In the evening we decided to treat ourselves to dinner out. We went to a very yummy Greek place which was very reasonably priced and had Greek salad and souvlaki which was delicious!

    Today we are making our way to Iguazu Falls which will be our final stop in Brazil before we cross over into Argentina.    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeAround the World
    Day 24

    Foz do Iguaçu

    April 26, 2017 in Brazil ⋅ 🌙 13 °C

    What was meant to be a 14 1/2 hour coach journey, turned into 17 hours and a bus swap due to technical difficulties. However with 2 very numb bottoms we made it to Foz do Iguacu.

    After staying in 6 bed dorms for the last 2 weeks we decided to treat ourselves to a private room with an en-suite. Our room comes with a pool view (it's literally outside the door). And who said hosteling wasn't glamorous?!

    Around 4pm we decided to head to the Tres Fronteiras (Three Borders) where you can see the rivers that separate Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. Each of the three borders have erected an obelisk painted in the national colours of their country. The lady at the hostel advised us that it was great to see at sunset however just as the sun was setting some big grey clouds decided to move in and spoil the show. By staying for the underwhelming sunset, we also missed the last bus home and as the alternative of, in Simon's words, "walking through the ghetto for an hour" wasn't very appealing, we had to pay for a taxi which was a bit annoying.

    In the evening we ventured out to the supermarket to pick up some bits for dinner. We didn't think it was possible but we found an even better supermarket than the last one! Unfortunately, despite access to a vast variety of exotic goods, we still managed to cook ourselves a very tasteless dinner of rice, vegetables and eggs. To quote Simon again, "I could have vomited on my plate and eaten it and it would have tasted better".

    We then spent the rest of the evening watching a huge storm unfold. Quite possibly the loudest thunder we have ever heard right on top of us with flashes of lightening that lit up the entire sky.

    Today was the day we were really looking forward to and the reason why we came here, Iguazu Falls. It was pretty overcast in the morning but the sun was due to come out in the afternoon, so to kill some time we decided to visit a Buddhist Temple which has 120 giant statues, It was a bit random but free so we decided to give it a go. At the very least we enjoyed imitating the statues.

    As promised, the sun came out and we headed to the falls. There is a scenic 1.5 km walk that you take to towards whats they call the Devils Throat. From the moment we stepped onto the walkway the views were breathtaking. At 80m high (not quite the 60km wide like i tried to tell my Dad) and the largest in the world, they really are incredible and like nothing we have ever seen before. The closer we got to the Devils Throat the wetter we became and after putting on our raincoats we ventured across the walkways, right into the middle of the falls. We were soaked!

    Only around 20% of the falls sit on the Brazilian side so tomorrow we are crossing the border to Argentina to view the falls from the other side.    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeAround the World
    Day 27

    Puerto Iguazú

    April 29, 2017 in Argentina ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    Chau Brazil, Ola Argentina!

    Our first border crossing went much smoother than we expected. We had to get a bus to the border and stop with Brazilian customs to get our passport and visa stamped. We then had to wait for the next bus to take us across to Argentina who amazingly stopped and waited for us while we went through customs there!

    After the last 3 months of working with Brazilian reals we now have to get our head around Argentine pesos. My mental arithmetic is certainly improving.

    We arrived at our hostel around 1:30pm which was too late to do the falls so we popped out to grab some lunch and had a quiet afternoon at the hostel trying to work out our route through Argentina. In the evening we went to this cute little cafe called Lemongrass for some dinner which was super cheap and pretty delicious.

    We then got up early the next day and headed to the falls again. The Argentinian side of the falls is a lot bigger than the Brazilian side. There are 3 main trails that we walked around. The first one took us to a spot where you can look down on the Devils Throat (where we had been in Brazil) and then we walked around another trail which took you along the top of the main falls before stopping for a bit of lunch. We decided to eat inside as the park is full of coaties, which are the fluffier, misleadingly cute equivalent of British seagulls. Their main goal in life is to steal your food by any means possible. They can also carry rabies so we wanted to stay as far away from them as possible!

    After lunch we walked along a lower trail around the falls as we booked ourselves into the boat trip that takes you right into the waterfall. The boat trip was amazing! We got completely soaked but it was so much fun! Simon has some cracking go pro footage.

    All in all another fantastic day out seeing the spellbinding falls. The sheer size, power and noise the water makes is hard to put into words. There are also rainbows at every turn which is lush!

    After the long day at the falls we popped to the supermarket to get some quick and easy food for dinner and discovered cheap Argentinian wine! We were joined by a number of other people staying in the hostel and before we knew it, one bottle turned into 3! I am feeling very smug as by some miracle I am feeling fresh. Simon Thatcher however is struggling today and has put himself back to bed in a hammock as we had to check out of our room. As you can imagine, he is also particularly excited about our 16 hour coach journey to Buenos Aires later. The words "I don't think we should go to Mendoza as I am never drinking wine again" have crossed his lips on a couple of occasions this morning already.    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeAround the World
    Day 29

    Buenos Aires

    May 1, 2017 in Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Our coach to Buenos Aires was luxurious in comparison to our Brazilian coach travel. The seats are double the size, you get given a pillow and a blanket, as well as a hot (well warm) dinner, breakfast and snacks. You can also watch movies, the majority are in Spanish but you can watch them all the same.

    After arriving in Buenos Aires we grabbed an uber to our airbnb apartment. It's nice to have some space to ourselves after spending the last month in hostels.

    Like England, Argentina also have a bank holiday on the first Monday in May, National Worker Day. This holiday is taken very seriously and therefore pretty much everywhere shuts for the day, even many restaurants and cafes. Because of this, Buenos Aires was a ghost town! It was very strange.

    On the Monday we did a free walking tour of the Recoleta area. Our guide Juan Cruz was very knowledgeable and we learnt a lot about the city. When walking around the city it is hard not to notice the varied architecture. You can find Parisian style mansions next to ugly 70's tower blocks, next to neo-gothic buildings. Our tour finished outside the Recoleta cemetery. This is where famous Argentinians are laid to rest in large, ornate mausoleums. It is like a small city for the dead with rows and rows of little churches. It was fascinating and eerie all at the same time and nothing like we have ever experienced before.

    In the evening we went to see La Bomba de Tiempo, a 17 piece improvisational drum group which were amazing! In addition to the drums they have shakers, maracas and at one point a trumpet.    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeAround the World
    1
    Day 30

    Day 2 & 3 - Buenos Aires

    May 2, 2017 in Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    In an attempt to make it a little easier for us to communicate with the locals we booked ourselves on to a 3 hour Spanish crash course. Our lesson didn't start until 2:30pm so we had a lazy morning before heading to our lesson. Our Spanish teacher Macarena (like the song) was lovely. Simon left the class with some basic Spanish however all I left with was a headache. It was definitely worth it, if only for the numbers as now we have a rough idea of how much money we need to hand over without just handing over notes until they tell us to stop!

    The next morning we joined a tour of La Boca. La Boca is a bright and colourful neighbourhood and one of the first areas that housed the huge number of immigrants that entered Argentina via its port between 1880 and 1930. These immigrants arrived with nothing so to make money they got jobs in the busy port and on the railroads. They then built their homes from discarded materials from the shipyard and railway and painted them in this mismatch of colours using leftover paint. The tour taught us a lot about the history of the area and Argentina. The most harrowing story was of the disappeared which was still happening only a couple of years before we were born. The military government at the time kidnapped anyone that was thought to be a socialist / left wing / intellectuals and tortured them using electricity. When deemed of no further use they gave them large doses of sedatives and threw them out the back of military planes over the river. Because the bodies were never found, the government managed to get away with this for a very long time.

    When in Argentina do as the Argentines do and something they do with passion is the tango. We opted for a lesson, dinner and show at The Ventana Tango Show in San Telmo. My inability to move my arms and legs independently meant that my attempt to tango was a cross between a thunderbird and a baby giraffe learning to walk. Si said it was like dragging around a scarecrow. I think Lord of the Dance here is just being mean for adding that into the blog post. Even our tango instructor laughed hysterically at my inability to relax and let Simon lead me! Needless to say I won't be giving up the day job. It was however one of the funniest hours of my life. Simon, despite dreading doing the lesson also really enjoyed himself although his joyous cries of "perfecto" were met by more laughs from our instructor.

    Our tango lesson was followed by a yummy three course dinner. To start I had a tomato and mozzarella salad, followed by steak and ice cream. Simon opted for the empanadas, steak and a traditional Argentine custard dish. The steak was divine! This was accompanied of course by some Argentinian malbec.

    The show was a mixture of tango, singing, a crazy man on a ukulele type instrument that had 10 strings and another crazy man that danced whilst spinning ropes at a ridiculous speed that hit the floor at precise times interacting with his tap like dancing. It was a lot of fun and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeAround the World
    Day 32

    Day 4 - Buenos Aires

    May 4, 2017 in Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    Our last day in Buenos Aires before catching an overnight bus to Mendoza.

    The people who own the airbnb apartment that we have been staying in kindly let us stay until the evening so that we didn't have to carry our bags around with us all day. This was great and meant that we gained an extra day of sightseeing.

    We packed our bags in the morning and despite neither of us having very much stuff it's amazing how much we had managed to spread around the entire apartment!

    We then went to visit a beautiful Bookshop called La Ateneo that is inside a former theatre. It has been voted one of the most beautiful bookshops in the world and I can certainly vouch for that.

    In the afternoon we joined another free walking tour of the Retiro district of the city. Here we saw the congress building, the presidential pink house, the obelisk and many more examples of the city's mixed architecture. We also learnt about Eva Peron, a former First Lady who died of cancer at the age of 33. Despite dying so young she achieved a lot, including championing women's suffrage. The famous song Don't Cry for me Argentina is written about her and the speech she gave to the city before she died. Her grave is also in the Recoleta cemetery which we fortunately managed to stumble across during our visit. At the end of our tour which finished outside of the pink house, our tour guide Fernando said that if we liked military ceremony's we should stick around as at 6pm every day they take down the Argentinian flag which flys outside the presidential palace. As it was only 10 minutes away we decided to wait. Now being British and having seen the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace I was expecting something exciting. What we got instead was a guy in militarily uniform who causally walked across to the flag pole and attempted to lower the flag. He couldn't get it to work so he wondered back to the palace and returned 5 minutes later with his mate. The two of them tugged on the ropes a bit and hit the side of the pole but with no success gave up and left. We also decided to give up at this point and caught the subte (the subway) back to our apartment.

    One thing I would also like to comment on about our stay in Buenos Aires is the Mosquitos. The Mosquitos here are on steroids! The were all over the news as Buenos Aires has had an invasion of the evil critters (that still bite you through your clothes) from Patagonia as the city is still unusually warm for this time of year. We will definitely be leaving with more than our fair share of bites!    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeAround the World
    2
    Day 33

    Mendoza

    May 5, 2017 in Argentina ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    When buying our coach ticket to Mendoza we managed to get ourselves a suite for less money than than the semi cama or cama. A suite is a bit like business class on a plane so we actually got to sleep horizontally which was a real treat. They also served wine which is always a bonus. We could certainly get used to travelling in a suite!

    The journey to Mendoza took around 13 hours, arriving around 10:30am. We opted for another Airbnb, this time staying with a lovely lady called Val and her 2 cats Buffy and Mancini. There was also another lady called Lisa from Denmark staying as well as Ursula from Canada.

    After a quick shower we headed out for a wander and to find some lunch (a must do when arriving in any new place before someone gets the hanger). We walked around the Plaza Independecia which is a pretty park in the middle of the city centre before settling on a lunch of empanadas and calzone. This was washed down with some delicious gelato. I opted for white chocolate and pistachio and Simon had dulce de leche (a delicious caramel sauce that South Americans are obsessed with) and cookies and cream.

    As you don't get the best nights sleep on buses, we were pretty shattered so had a lazy evening and watched some of The Fall (our newest Netflix addiction).    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeAround the World
    Day 34

    Day 2 - Mendoza

    May 6, 2017 in Argentina ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    Waheey I finally get to write on 'our' blog. Today is (was) Blake's birthday. The big ole 31 or trinta y uno as we are now slowly starting to learn our numbers. We had no alarm set which was nice and were in no rush to get up.

    Now before we left we had a lovely dinner round Danny's and Libby gave me a birthday card from them which she asked me to smuggle in my bag until the big day. Luckily I some how managed to do just that. And even better, Libs left it open with no name on the back so if found it would look less suspicious. It also allowed me to scribble my name in nice and fresh whilst Blake had jumped in the shower. I don't think that this was noticed...

    We had bought some food the day before to make a picnic and headed off to the park Portones del Parque General San Martín for lunch. We arrived at the park and headed to the information centre to grab a map, we then chose to head towards the big lake in the middle for the feast. By feast I mean some posher bread than we were used to and some pâté with some cheap and cheerful crisps on the side. I know what you're all thinking, this guy knows how to treat a lady!! After we let the food go down we continued to walk around the park until we got to Eva Perons house. If you remember Eva featured in a previous post and was a pretty big deal in Argentina. We headed back to our Airbnb from the park as that afternoon we had booked to do a sunset horse ride with an Argentinian BBQ and Wine after.

    We were picked up in a mini bus and driven out in to the desert like area before entering a winery where the horses were kept. We scribbled down our details for the 'insurance' and were led outside to meet our new friends. These four legged friends seemed very tame and well behaved but we were told one important rule! Don't let your horse eat!! As soon as you do this he will take advantage of you by stopping when he wants to eat, the frequency of which will increase until your horse just won't move anymore! With this in mind we were helped onto our steed and off we went. Out the winery gate, across the road and onto the path leading up the foothills. I was about third in the line and between Blake and I was the slowest horse ever with a pretty terrified English lad on. He was told to hit his horse with the stick every 30 seconds so he would keep up but I'm pretty sure he was happy with that pace so Blake was about 200m behind most of the way up. As we got higher and the sun got lower the views started to get more and more breath taking. We finally made it to the highest peak of 1100m where we all lined up for a group shot.

    On the way down we were reordered so that the horses wouldn't kick each other on the way down. One horse in particular liked to kick most of the others but apparently mine was safe so we got lumbered behind him. It didn't matter for too long as the English lad from before whose hose was fast asleep before had woken up and decided to run down half the hill over taking most and plonking himself near the front much to the dismay of its rider who I'm sure was almost screaming as he ploughed passed us (another important rule, do not let the horses overtake at all costs as they may start fighting). The way back down was even more beautiful than the way up as we were facing in the direction that the sun was going down. With the cloud there were a lush mixture of reds and purples all over the horizon.

    Now on the way down Blake was behind me and I heard a loud 'oh no' and some laughing. If you remember the number one rule from earlier you can imagine my entertainment when I turned round to see Blakes horse tucking into some yummy grass with her yanking the reigns with one hand and tapping him on the arse with the other. I'm pretty sure he took no notice and only carried on when he wanted to! From then on it was a constant hilarious battle to make it to the end!

    We did finally make it to the end where we were greeted by some wonderful smelling MEAT on the BBQ!! I had been looking forward to this meal ever since we booked it. We had a mixture of sausages and about a quarter of a cow in various cuts and sizes accompanied by some delicious potato things and some salad which I obviously didn't touch. We also had help yourself red wine to wash it all down with :)

    After we finished eating our guide grabbed a guitar and played some songs which we all got involved in. The red wine by this point was helping us all ;) my particular favourite was hit me baby one more time by our Britney! After we had consumed as much as we could and sang all we could we headed home.    Read more

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