Boca Juniors

Boca Crowd

Boca Juniors played a second leg of the Libertad Cup against Bolivar, a team from Bolivia. If the another match in the competition being played at the same time ended in a win, with a win themselves Boca would go through to the next round. During the first leg in Bolivia Boca fans got out of hand and there were violent clashes. As a punishment they couldn't play the second leg at their home ground. So on Thursday night with a group from the hostel, I made my way to River Plate's stadium in another area of Buenos Aires. I bought a blue and yellow Boca scarf, as I wrapped it around my neck I felt a sudden change, I felt the need to riot and eat beef. Fortunately I shook of the feelings and enjoyed the night.
We arrived at the stadium early, we were able to watch the stadium slowly fill. We watched the Boca brass band arrive and fans scale the back wall of the stadium, so they could dance. From the outset the fans were loud and boisterous, my scarf left me no choice but to join in. The kick off was 9.20, with a selection of Maradona's goals being played on a giant screen in the final minutes before the whistle blew. Dotted around the stadium were Maradona flags and banners, he is a God here.
Boca looked the stronger side from the outset, their players towered over the Bolivians. It was the difference you notice when Liverpool dominate Everton, it almost didn't seem fair.


Excited fans

The first goal for Boca came as I was watching a popcorn seller thinking, "um should I?" I learned my lesson and for the rest of the match watched the pitch. Thankfully I saw all of the following 6 goals. Yes that's right, Boca won 7-0. It was completely one sided, Palacio even wasted a few chances. The crowd sang for the full 90 minutes, drowning out the 20 travelling Bolivian fans. Quite the experience for my first match in South America, of course now I have to see a game in Brazil, but maybe I won't take my Boca scarf.


The magic scarf

A little excitement

I only spent a few days in Cordoba, I was really disappointed with the city. It is a lot larger than I had expected, with only a few nice buildings that where overshadowed by large billboards and the neon of fast food restaurants. I also seemed to be staying at the "International Smokers Hostel". I´ve never stayed anywhere that allowed smoking EVERYWHERE, I mean in the dorm rooms, in the kitchen, bathroom, everywhere stunk. They also advertised hot water 24/7, but neglected to mention there is no water for most of the day. I booked my bus ticket for Buenos Aires and hit the road. The journey was 11 hours, so I had a light breakfast and thought I´d probably be able to eat on the bus, yes I've become a better traveller, I can actually eat while moving. They served breakfast on the bus at 8am, we had been travelling for half an hour. I started to notice how hungry I was at around 2pm, thinking "um lunch is kind of late", but this is Argentina. Three o´clock rolled by and my stomach had stopped growling but still no food. Six o´clock and we pulled into Buenos Aires´ huge bus terminal and I was REALLY hungry. The bus station is not the best introduction to the city as it's surrounded by a kind of shanty town, children rummaging through bins, buildings that look war torn, packs of dogs. Just around the corner from this is the deluxe apartments of the rich, I guess it´s like a lot of cities.
My hostel is right in the centre of the city and yes difficult to find. I arrived at reception half starved (okay being a little dramatic now) I checked in and had a quick look around. I was shown to my dorm, only to bump into Chris. Chris and I have been bumping into each other since Peru. I caught up with him again on the World´s Most Dangerous Road, then at the Salt Flats, we ended up on the same bus to La Serena, Chile and shared a taxi from the bus station. I said goodbye not expecting to see him again. That is until I practically walked into him on the street in Santiago! I also met him in Mendoza, so you can understand how I now just expect to see him. Chris (from London, Canada) is also going on to Iguassu Falls and Brazil. We chatted for a while and then I excused myself to go and eat, it was 8pm by then.
I needed some cash so I went to the local ATM. It was the type were you swipe your card to enter and there are some 4 or so machines in one brightly lit room. A couple entered behind me, I noticed they didn´t swipe in so straight away I was weary of them. I put my card in the machine and here they display your name before you enter any details. I tried to enter my pin but the screen was frozen. I took out the card and tried again, I was still keeping an eye on the couple behind me. The man came over and offered "help", by taking my card out the machine and putting it back in again. As soon as he did this I took the card out and tried another machine. Again the man came towards the machine I was using and tried to "help". He said something about all the machines being the same all over the city. There was another customer in the room the whole time, she seemed to be having the same trouble.
The second ATM froze on me and I gave up, but as I walked away I noticed how quickly the man and his female companion rushed to my ATM, they seemed to have a bunch of white plastic cards. I did my whole English being ridiculously polite routine, "eh, excuse me," they where shielding the machine. "Excuse me, eh that´s my name on the screen". They obviously realised although incredibly polite I was not going to back down. The woman moved away from the machine and the man allowed me to press cancel. It took a dozen or so tries, but eventually the screen went back to the welcome screen you´d expect to see.
I wandered away, really uncertainly. But when I looked back I noticed they were "helping" the other woman in the room. Luckily I spotted a policeman across the street, I ran across and in Spanish gibberish I explained the problem. A plain clothes guy came out of nowhere and all of a sudden I was being ushered back across the road with a plains clothes officer with a hand on a gun! It was like I was in an episode of NYPD Blue, but in Buenos Aires.
The two policeman stopped the couple from leaving the bank, they were pleading they were completely innocent. All of a sudden I was surrounded by about 10 undercover officers. It was kind of funny, they were all wearing football shirts.
At this point I noticed a man and his son by the side of the bank. In Spanish they asked me what had happened, I started to tell them, but realising they looked like tourists asked if they spoke English. They did, I complimented the father (Ricardo) on his Spanish. He accepted and told he was born in Buenos Aires. In my defence he had a really strong New York accent.
Ricardo and his son Rick became my interpreters for the evening. I was asked to point out the machines I'd used in the bank. To do this I had to walk past the suspects. They both pleaded with me, "por favor, por favor, senorita". I felt really bad, but I was ushered over to the ATM´s. The office didn´t find a card reader on the machine, but the couple had a selection of plastic cards belonging to other people.
I waited back outside on the street with my new friends Ricardo and Rick. The suspects were handcuffed and driven away in a police car. Finally a second police car arrived and drove us to the police station. Ricardo was happy no one knew him, we looked like criminals in the back. The police station was tiny, but really busy. Most of the people stood around looked like criminals, but many were the undercover officers I´d met earlier.
We waited for the statement to be taken, my stomach rumbling. Rick showed me his photo´s of the Iguassu Falls (Helen it looks amazing!) and we chatted about my travels and their holiday. Eventually we were called into a tiny office and I gave a statement. Thankfully Ricardo translated everything, until he got a little confused at one point and "translated" what I said in English.
I think both Ricardo and his son enjoyed being in a police station, it added something they didn´t expect from their holiday!
After the statement was taken, by this time around 10.30pm, we were left to make our own way across the city. I was really grateful to Ricardo and Rick, they escorted me back to my hostel and said goodnight.
Back in my dorm room I relayed what had happened to Chris (he was worried something had happened as I´d been gone so long), and managed to eat about half a bag of crisps before the receptionist knocked on our dorm door. Apparently there was a police officer downstairs, he wanted to escort me to an ATM, to see whether any money had been taken. Ricardo had explained to me earlier the ATM machines are made in Venezuela and Mexico. The criminals follow the machines and can remotely control them. The couple were from Venezuela and the man had prior convictions for extortion.
After I checked my account (everything is fine), the officer who by the way I towered over, escorted me to what I can only describe as a milk float, bubble, police car. He hit the, eh electric and we were being overtaken by pedestrians. I was taken back to the same police station and asked to take a seat! I checked a clock in the station, it was nearly midnight.
Eventually they took a photocopy of my bank mini statement and asked me to sign a second statement to say no money was missing. Thankfully this time I got a lift back to the hostel, I chatted with the tiny officer while we inched our way across town.
By then I was too tired to eat and just collapsed into bed. Not the first night I expected in Buenos Aires, but I feel very lucky that nothing really bad happened. I've checked my account again this morning and plan to keep a close watch on any activity. But I think the couple were just trying their luck.
This afternoon I´m taking a tourist bus tour of the city, hopefully no police stations on route.

Mendoza

I think I´m in love with Argentina, yes I know it´s a little fast and we don´t know each other well, but I feel very at home here on the tree lined streets of Mendoza. Maybe because it looks European, maybe because they have great shops, but maybe it´s something a little deeper. We do have our differences, Argentina likes it´s meat, okay this is a complete understatement. Arriving at hostel Damajuana, on Tuesday I was offered a ticket to a BBQ, I asked will there be anything other than meat? The reply, yes chicken. Umm anything other than "chicken", um we could cook you a sweet potato.
All great loves have there difficulties, taking the ham off a tuna sandwich isn´t brilliant, but I´ve learned it is possible. Waiting for restaurants to open at 10pm at night isn´t easy on my digestion, but I think I can change.
Watching the Argentina vs Chile match in a bar last night I found myself cheering for Argentina (no I haven´t forgotten the hand of God incident), but after all being British I feel responsible for Argentina´s hate for Chile. Apparently Chile allowed British troops access to Argentina during the Falklands. What can you say, we get everywhere.
I may find it frustrating that everything shuts between 1 and 5pm, but I can learn to take naps. And hey if you say you are going to be somewhere at a set time, why not be late? Really what does it matter? It´s only time.
Yes I think I could quite easily stay here. But then there´s a sun lounger somewhere on a white stretch of Brazilian beach with my name on it. Maybe another time Argentina.

The streets of Mendoza.

Mr Frostick the tagline is sooo true....

Santiago

Santiago Street



Quinta Normal Park

Rockin´Santiago

On Sunday myself and two English girls Vicky and Clare, I met at the hostel went to the VL07 music festival in Santiago. We headed over late afternoon and were pleasantly surprised to find a racecourse with 3 stages and plenty of space. Being use to British festivals, where there is never any breathing space it felt kind of odd to be able to wander around. It was also strange to see two huge inflatable beer cans yet very little beer on sale. The queues to all the food and drink stands were huge. It was odd as they obviously had some idea of the number of people to expect but seemed ill prepared. And get this, they DIDN´T put up the prices!
After being squashed in line for 20 minutes Clare and I managed to make our way to the front of the queue (they really don´t know the etiquette of queuing here), the only beverage left was some sort of energy drink. The guy serving behind the bar was crouched on the floor with 3 security guards around him. I´m sure if he had stood up he may have been able to serve people a little faster, but he was apparently terrified of being killed by thirsty teeny boppers.

Vicky and Clare
The only band on the line up we recognised was Keane. None of us are big fans of Keane, but decided we should stay to see them play, they were the headliners taking the stage after midnight. We began sipping our energy drinks.
Although I didn´t know any other bands, they were apparently the best of Latino Rock. Some were pretty good although it´s difficult to get into the music when you don´t understand the lyrics. That is until Attaque 77 do a punk cover of ABBA´s "Give me, give me, give me"! Yes there is a reason no one has done this before, but it did give us a laugh.

Attaque 77 rockin´ABBA.
Finally Keane took to the stage. I always think the lead singer Tom Chaplin is an odd front man. He has an amazing voice, but he seems uncomfortable taking the lead. I always think he´d be better standing still and singing rather than "trying" to bounce about the stage. It´s kind of like Razorlight, it just looks rehearsed. Anyway we soon realised Keane´s songs sound very alike when heard back to back. We´d tried to guess the songs but without much luck. It was strange to hear English voices on stage and Chilean voices singing along. Tom Chaplin was very cheesy, at one point he shouted "Sing from the bottom of your hearts, the choir of Santiago", after we´d picked ourselves off the floor from laughing so hard, we sang along.

Hard to believe, but yes the tiny figures are the members of Keane

Festival and Birthday Wishes

In a couple of hours a group of us from the hostel are heading over to a music festival. We won tickets at the BBQ (at the hostel) on Friday night, it looks like a good lineup. The only Western band are Keane, but it should be interesting to hear some Latino Rock! Still enjoying Santiago, but I´ve decided to move on to Mendoza (Argentina) on Tuesday. I´ve decided against travelling further south, as winter is approaching and I don´t want to be stranded when I´m on a pretty tight schedule. I´ve decided to make my way through Argentina (probably Mendoza, Cordoba, Buenos Aires, Iguazu) to Brazil. But I´ve enjoyed having such a relaxing week here in Santiago. Well not much else to report at the moment.
Happy Birthday Clare, hope you have a great day!
x

Santiago

Santiago has me in it´s hold. Other travellers may not like it (the ones I´ve met at least), but to me it´s a wonderful city. It´s autumn here, so the leaves are changing, yet it is still very warm, around 75 degrees. Everything is bathed in a lovely warm light.
There is a real mix of architecture in the city, the downtown area looks like any other Western city, whereas the prettier barrios are filled with odd buildings, brightly coloured on tree lined streets and cafes spilling out onto the street. There are many museums and galleries, but I can´t say that´s why I like it so much. So why am I so taken with Santiago? Well I think in part I was in need of some familiar surroundings after almost three months of travelling, I´m also staying at a really nice hostel where I´ve made a lot of friends. Santiago feels like a very safe city, don´t worry Mum I´m still "on guard", it has a great metro system, but it´s also enjoyable on foot. Another reason I´m very happy here is because of Dado, the hostel´s resident dog. He has his own sofa, with a message asking guests not to feed him as he´s getting fat.
I took some photo´s today but I´m having trouble accessing them from this computer, so for now you can have a look at Dado. He´s getting rather sick of me stroking him, he looks as if to say "oh god it´s her again"....

Star Gazing

Last night I went on an organised tour of a public observatory in Vicuña, an hour from La Serena. I don´t know very much about astronomy, but I love to look up and gaze at a clear night sky, even if I don´t know what I´m looking at. There are no clearer skies than here in Northern Chile, that is why all the international observatories are located in this area.
With the naked eye it was possible to see the Milky Way and our guide pointed out the Southern Cross, that can only be seen in the Southern Hemisphere. We could also see Magellan´s cloud´s (two small galaxies), and then we had a look through the telescope. It has a 12 inch lens and it was possible to see Saturn and a Nebula. We also gazed at star clusters. It really was a great night, I´ll remember to look up more often.

San Pedro, Northern Chile

Typical street in San Pedro



San Pedro´s Church




Main Plaza, San Pedro


I spent the last few days in the desert town of San Pedro. It was great to be somewhere warm after the nightly freezing temperatures of Bolivia. San Pedro is very much geared towards tourists. There are plenty of things to do in the surrounding landscape and the town has plenty of bars and restuarants.
I signed up for sandboarding, basically snowboarding but down sand dunes. It was a night excursion billed as Lunar Sandboarding. We took pick ups out of town and parked by a huge sand dune. I met a nice English girl, Jo neither of us had snow or sand boarded before so we decided to stick together. Unfortunately I discovered I must be REALLY allergic to dust. As soon as we began climbling the sand dune I started coughing, it was really horrible as the sand was flying everywhere. By the time I reached the top of the sand dune I was sick and felt like I was going to have to call it a night.
After about 20 minutes of watching the others sandboard I started to feel better. I really wanted to try boarding, so I discovered I´m a "goofy" (something to do with leading with my left) I strapped on a board and began to slide, very, very slowly down the hill. I discovered you need to wax the board first, this really made a difference and the second time I was a lot faster and somewhat out of control!
I´m covered in bruises from were I fell in the sand, but it didn´t hurt at all at the time.
I spent the rest of my time in San Pedro relaxing, thinking I could get use to a desert climate.

16 Hour Bus Ride

Yes it´s the longest yet and I survived! I even managed to eat on board, well I had a fruit salad but it´s a start. After my torturous journey from La Paz to Uyuni, I decided to pay extra for my ticket from San Pedro to La Serena. But there was really no need, the roads here in Chile are the same as English roads. For the first two hours of the journey I ended up with first class to myself! But thankfully other passengers joined me later on.
At 11pm, the waiter came around (I kid you not) and made up my bed for me, I then had to clamber on it so he could put a cover over me. I have never felt quite so silly, I think he knew as I kept giggling with embarrassment.





Views from first class.

No Confusion in Bolivia

Yes it was cold in Bolivia

It´s the only way to explain the hat.

More Photographs from the Salar de Uyuni

Photographs from Salar de Uyuni

Salt Flats



Me and the gang on the last day.

Luxury Travel

On Saturday night I took my first night bus. I have avoided them thus far, because they are not always safe and it often means arriving in a new place at some ungodly hour. So I decided I´d take my first night bus in Bolivia. Yeah I know, but it was actually a tourist bus running between La Paz and Uyuni. Uyuni is the starting point for all excursions into the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia´s giant Salt Flats.
The bus left La Paz at 9pm, it was the nicest bus I´ve travelled on, with plenty of tv´s, a toilet and drinks and food were served. Although of course I declined the latter, knowing it would only make me travel sick.
I settled into my reclining seat and thought, "um this is pretty good". Until about 2am it was a relaxed journey, I didn´t sleep but then it´s hard to when you are travelling through a new country. The bus went through a number of drug check points, all without hassle. I was starting to drift off when the whole bus began to shake violently. I thought, this stretch of road is bumpy. I tried to settle back into my pillow and snuggled into my complimentary blanket, but the problem with luxury travel in Bolivia is no matter how many pillows you have, you can´t avoid the fact there is no road between La Paz and Uyuni!
A "luxury" bus can´t handle the all terrain road, so for the next 5 hours we jolted in our seats at every large rock encountered. Amazingly I didn´t feel sick (I didn´t even need to use the old E.T neck extension trick), that is until I used the toilet. I was knocked from one side of the cubicle to the next, trying to find the toilet seat was the main problem. Of course when I returned to my seat I felt sick, I actually sat with the driver for a bit, until he sent me back to my seat. I thought we must have reached the end of the journey, oh no it was time to serve breakfast!
Eventually we arrived in Uyuni, looking like earthquake victims. I was met by a lady, I expected the tour was to begin soon. She led me to a small tourist shop and then told me to sleep. Yes sleep. I said actually I´m okay, it was 7.30am. But she kept on insisting, so in the end I reluctantly lay down on the one sofa, unfortunately it was in the shop window. I was awoken a few hours later by some tourists wanted to book an excursion with me.
Eventually after getting an exit stamp for Bolivia, I was collected by my guide Alexandro in a 4 x 4. We collected the rest of the group from another shop in Uyuni. There were about 30 tourists waiting to be collected, typically the 4 x 4 I was in was filled with Polish tourists, no offence Barbara, but they were not a very friendly bunch. I made an effort introducing myself but was met with a wall of indifference. So instead I chatted with Alexandro, well I should say he spoke with a strong Bolivian accent and I nodded a great deal, partly because of the bumpy road.
Luckily from lunchtime onwards I met some very friendly people, who I ended up spending most of my time with.
Driving out of Uyuni, we arrived at the Salt Flats within 40 minutes. It´s an incredible otherworldly place. The whiteness is so bright it´s impossible to see anything without sunglasses. I took a lot of photographs but had no way of knowing if they were any good or not, as I couldn't´t see anything on the display. On our first day we visited a hotel made of salt, everything inside is made of salt, including all the furniture. From there we travelled onto an island in the middle of the salt flats covered in cacti, were we had lunch.
The whole three day experience was great, the landscape of the Salar de Uyuni is amazing, at times it was hard to believe I was in such a poor country. With such natural beauty, Bolivia is a country of much contrast.
I´m now in San Pedro, a desert town in Northern Chile. It´s very beautiful and it feels a little like a film set, with all the adobe buildings and sand dunes. It´s lovely and warm in the day and cool enough at night for jeans. Perfect weather as far as I´m concerned.
Unfortunately there is no broadband available in San Pedro (something about being in the middle of the desert), so adding photographs is difficult at the moment.