Hey everyone
Just a quick update from a tiny internet cafe just off the beach.
We are now in Canoa a little beach resort off the pacific coast of Ecuador. It took a while to get here from Quito; an overnight bus ride with reina del camino which should have taken 8 hours but took 6.5 (it was quite scary), a little tuk tuk ride to the bay, a boat ride across the bay at 5.30am and then a taxi ride along a dark coast road. Nothing was open when we arrived so we hung outside the hotel, got some brekky and then got into our rooms at 7am. The weather was actually stormy when we arrived and we spent the day finding our bearings. The hotel we checked into was nice but didn´t really have any atmosphere so we moved down the beach to hostel Bambu. Check out the website and you can see why we love it here.
http://www.hotelbambuecuador.com/
Canoa is tiny (without even an ATM) and we have been spending our days on the beach, trying surfing (very very hard) or on a body board (much much easier). Sunset tends to find us at the hostel for happy hour cocktails watching the sun go down over the sea. We love it here and it feels like a perfect way to end our time in South America.
Becuase it is so relaxing we have decided to stay here for an extra few days and have no fixed plans except we need to get to Lima for our flights at the end of next week.
Love to everyone in the UK
Nina and Glenn xxx
Friday, 15 January 2010
Saturday, 9 January 2010
The middle of the world....
Hey everyone
We hope that people in the UK are all OK and aren´t suffering too much from the weather. We have seen the satellite pictures and it looks pretty cold!
We arrived safely in Ecuador and are staying in a nice hostel called Chicago Hostel with a roof terrace and brekky for a $1. Everything feels cheap here - you can get a 3 course meal (albeit basic) for under $2 in local restaurants and we paid $3 for ours at a nice veggie one. The weather is pretty changeable but is generally warm, cool wind, and sunny so much more pleasant than Buenos aires. Quito is much higher than Buenos aires so we both felt a little tired yesterday but are suffering no real ill effects luckily.
Today we went on an organised tour which guided us through the old city, up to a mirador (with a statue of a pregnant Virgin Mary) and up to the ófficial´and unofficial centre of the world museum and monument. It is the first ´touristy´organised tour we have done for a while but it was good value and the tour guide was good. Nina made Glenn take some lame photos with her at the ´centre of the world´monuments, and we will post them up on the next blog.
When we talk about the ´middle of the world´, it is the equator line which goes through Quito and where some French, spanish and Ecuadorian scientists designated the official equator line in the mid 18th century. There is an official monument and also a museum where they demonstrate water going round down the sink one way in the North, another way in the South and straight down on the equator line (correolis effect etc).
Tomorrow we are getting driven up a volcano (Cotopaxi) and then are going to whizz down on mountain bikes. It looks really good fun and not as dangerous as Bolivia! Around Quito is known as the avenue of the volcanoes and we put a link below to the one we are going up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotopaxi
Tomorrow evening we are getting an overnight bus to Canoa, a lovely little beach town, where we might try surfing depending on the weather and conditions. We plan to stay for 3 days before heading on, as we are working our way down the coast to Lima for our flights at the end of this trip. But if we love it, we might stay longer!
We will upload pictures as and when we can but because we are going off the beaten track there may be a delay to transmissions.
We hope the weather clears up in the UK and people are taking care of themselves.
Nina and Glenn xx
We hope that people in the UK are all OK and aren´t suffering too much from the weather. We have seen the satellite pictures and it looks pretty cold!
We arrived safely in Ecuador and are staying in a nice hostel called Chicago Hostel with a roof terrace and brekky for a $1. Everything feels cheap here - you can get a 3 course meal (albeit basic) for under $2 in local restaurants and we paid $3 for ours at a nice veggie one. The weather is pretty changeable but is generally warm, cool wind, and sunny so much more pleasant than Buenos aires. Quito is much higher than Buenos aires so we both felt a little tired yesterday but are suffering no real ill effects luckily.
Today we went on an organised tour which guided us through the old city, up to a mirador (with a statue of a pregnant Virgin Mary) and up to the ófficial´and unofficial centre of the world museum and monument. It is the first ´touristy´organised tour we have done for a while but it was good value and the tour guide was good. Nina made Glenn take some lame photos with her at the ´centre of the world´monuments, and we will post them up on the next blog.
When we talk about the ´middle of the world´, it is the equator line which goes through Quito and where some French, spanish and Ecuadorian scientists designated the official equator line in the mid 18th century. There is an official monument and also a museum where they demonstrate water going round down the sink one way in the North, another way in the South and straight down on the equator line (correolis effect etc).
Tomorrow we are getting driven up a volcano (Cotopaxi) and then are going to whizz down on mountain bikes. It looks really good fun and not as dangerous as Bolivia! Around Quito is known as the avenue of the volcanoes and we put a link below to the one we are going up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotopaxi
Tomorrow evening we are getting an overnight bus to Canoa, a lovely little beach town, where we might try surfing depending on the weather and conditions. We plan to stay for 3 days before heading on, as we are working our way down the coast to Lima for our flights at the end of this trip. But if we love it, we might stay longer!
We will upload pictures as and when we can but because we are going off the beaten track there may be a delay to transmissions.
We hope the weather clears up in the UK and people are taking care of themselves.
Nina and Glenn xx
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Bye Bye Argentina...
Tonight is our last night in Buenos Aires as we fly to Ecuador tomorrow. We celebrated or commiserated by having a bottle of red wine (both) with fish (Nina) and Bife de Lomo (enormous steak, Glenn) and then some good desserts at a local restaurant filled with people and very cheap. This pretty much sums up our time in Buenos aires, lots of good and cheap food, red wine, and good fun.
So highlights from our time in BA in no particular order...
1) Tango night at La Viruta with our Irish friends (Emma and Eric) where the lessons were particularly painful (specifically for Glenn) but the evening session where the locals take to the dance floor was pretty special.
2) Food overall. Mostly with the excellent parrillas (wood fired BBQ grills) but especially for our experience at the experimental, modern restaurant called la vineria de gualtierio in San Telmo. The chef trained at El Bulli in Barcelona under Ferran Adria and this restaurant has the same concept.. but at south american not European prices. (Think Heston Blumenthal, liquid nitrogen dishes but totally delish). We did a 14 course tasting menu which included many different wines, so it was like a fantastic wine tour alongside top food.
http://www.lavineriadegualteriobolivar.com/menu.html
3) Boca Juniors stadium. We missed the football because of the xmas break (oh dear, said Nina) but we took a walk to the Barrio to the football stadium and soaked up the atmosphere. We particularly liked the third tier , 45 degree terracing.
4) Relaxing at the Hippodrome (race course) and betting on a horse race solely due to the name of the horse which was called Miss Dolly Dolly. Unfortunately it came 6th out of 9...
5) Night life was fantastic and one our fave memories was spending 5 or 6 hours in a club watching (and dancing to) videos of Oasis, beatles and stereophonics to name a few and getting back to the hostel in time for the free brekky at 8pm on Sunday morning. Sober of course...
6) Dakar rally on 1 Jan. For those of you who are blissfully clueless about this event it is a car and motorbike rally across different countries and we saw the Chile Argentina stage. So lots of cars and motorbikes through central Buenos aires with c 50K people watching and cheering. Unusual way to spend New years day!
7) Day trip to Colonia del sacramento in Uruguay on a slow boat across the rio del plata (think day trip across the channel to calais). Very relaxed and pretty place (UNESCO listed) and a nice break from the big city.
8) Wandering around the city enjoying the sights, people, shopping, ambience, gardens and weirdness (e.g. office workers ripping up their diaries and throwing them off the top floor on New years eve) etc. One random thing to do is go to the cemetery in Recoleta which is basically rich Argentinians displaying their relative importance in the manner of Egyptian pyramids, the bigger and more ostentatious the crypt the more important and rich the family was. Slightly odd but not as odd as the tourists who thought it was tasteful to take pictures of the coffins visible through the mesh doors!
Overall a top place and we could have spent a lot more time here, and written a much longer blog about our time here. Plus Argentina are joining the tri nations rugby in 2 years time. (comment by glenn...).
Love to everyone and Happy 2010. Hope the weather in the UK isnt as bad as it says on the BBC website.Hopefully, it will make you all feel better to know that it is really warm here!
Nina and Glenn xx
Thursday, 31 December 2009
Happy New Year from Buenos Aires
We just wanted to wish everyone a happy new year from Buenos Aires. We are attending a party in the hostel tonight with free drink and food until Midnight, then a DJ and bar, and then we will take the rest of the night as it comes.
Last night we did some tango and Glenn was actually persuaded to take a class - but more on that in the next post.
In the meantime we wish all our friends and family a Happy New Year!
Saturday, 26 December 2009
Photos from Iguazu.... no 1.
Again, so not sure how these will come out but the comments should be self-explanatory;1) Gargantan del diablo with a rainbow which looked spectacular on the day.
2) Nina by the Diablo very very wet from the spray and the noise was incredible.
3) Glenn on one of the walkways which showed part of the immense size of the falls - they are about 4km across in total.
4) Nina and Glenn in front of the falls.
5) Picture of the falls
Happy Christmas 2009 from Villa Gesell, Argentina
Happy Christmas 2009 to everyone back in the UK (and Australia...).
So we are spending Christmas in a lovely beach resort called Villa Gesell but before we go on about the beach, we will update you on the Iguazu falls.
First a little rant about the bus company that took us from Mendoza to Buenos aires and then onto Iguazu and then back to BA. Andesmar seemed OK but we had a number of problems - really late buses with no explanation, bags getting wet (along with all the clothes inside), bags getting baked, no veggie food despite repeated confirmations it would be OK, repeated showings of the same crappy DVD on the bus as they had only bought one with them (believe me '2 fast 2 furious' does not get better on the 2nd or 3rd viewing), stops for 5 minutes which were actually for an hour etc etc. Rant over.
BUT it was all worth it to see the Iguazu falls - to quote ourselves in a much repeated word - AMAZING. We got there at about 9am and spent the day in the national park. There were lots of walks which gave you different views of the falls but the best ones were probably the close ups of the gargantan del diablo which seems from the walkway as though there is a hole in the world and everything is collapsing into it. We spent a good part of the day just looking and being overcome with awe. Oh, and we got pretty we as well as you can see from the pictures we will put up. Its difficult to convey it in words or pictures (although we can try) but here is a you tube clip from the Planet Earth DVD we have been wearing out for the last 6 months (skip to 6 minutes 19 seconds which shows the Iguazu falls). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dRFDwqYeqs&feature=PlayList&p=A92D9B0A76531EBA&index=8
The next day we went back for the morning which is the first time we have gone back to see anything twice. From the falls we could see Paraguay and Brazil across the borders and could probably have gone to the Brazilian side of the falls but it would have been a bit tight for time and we were very happy with the Argentine side! The climate was very tropical so we had to apply lots of sun cream and deet (anti insect spray) but despite this got burnt a little bit and bitten a lot...
After coming back from Iguazu we spent 2 days in Buenos aires at a really nice hostel called Portal del sur. The best part was the rooftop bar which also had a ping pong table where Nina got some practice in for Laura and Rich's garage in Melbourne. We spent one evening in a BA institution called Guerrin which is a famous pizza place. There were lots of signed pictures of Maradonna wearing Guerrnin T-shirts so he is obviously a fan. For anyone who has been to Katz Deli in New York this is the Argentine equivalent.
But on the 23rd we came down to Villa Gesell, a mere 5 hours compared to our previous 18 hour trips to Iguazu. We travelled with company Grupo Plaza who turned up on time and delivered what they promised and all in all a comfortable ride. When we arrived we were greeted with two smiling faces - our host Martha and her little girl who spoke better English than we do Spanish. We had one of those conversations where Nina is speaking broken Spanish to an 11 year old girl who is speaking very good English and Glenn is looking at his feet in shame saying Gracias and Por Favor.
Since we arrived we have spent the day either on the balcony of our lovely room, by the pool, on the beach (20 metres from the hotel) or in the small town. Glenn wants us to mention that we spent part of christmas eve going round the shops buying a new top for Nina - or what he calls ''being dragged round for hours". Note from Nina: first shopping we have done, and replacing a top that has disintegrated and it was only about an hour...
We are enjoying going for runs and walks along the beach and the atlantic surf whilst trying to avoid the worst of the sun (and not always succeeding). Whils there is a nice amount of people in the resort, it is far from heaving, which apparently happens in January and February so we came at the right time. It is almost all Argentine tourists and everyone we speak to seems quite chuffed that we are visiting Villa Gesell, rather than Mar del Plata down the coast which we think is borderline Benidorm.
Christmas day was really nice as we managed to speak to a lot of people back home, although the phone line wasn't perfect. Our lovely hosts laid on a nice breakfast including a christmas loaf to which we helped ourselves unashamedly. We wish to document that we went for a 20 minute slow jog along the beach to offset the enormous of food we ate that day. After time by the pool and the beach, where we had our special Mendoza wine, we went to a really nice restaurant called Casa de Antonia for lots of lovely food and (more) wine.
We are spending another couple of days here before we return to BA for new year. Happy Christmas and New Year to everyone!
Nina and Glenn xx
So we are spending Christmas in a lovely beach resort called Villa Gesell but before we go on about the beach, we will update you on the Iguazu falls.
First a little rant about the bus company that took us from Mendoza to Buenos aires and then onto Iguazu and then back to BA. Andesmar seemed OK but we had a number of problems - really late buses with no explanation, bags getting wet (along with all the clothes inside), bags getting baked, no veggie food despite repeated confirmations it would be OK, repeated showings of the same crappy DVD on the bus as they had only bought one with them (believe me '2 fast 2 furious' does not get better on the 2nd or 3rd viewing), stops for 5 minutes which were actually for an hour etc etc. Rant over.
BUT it was all worth it to see the Iguazu falls - to quote ourselves in a much repeated word - AMAZING. We got there at about 9am and spent the day in the national park. There were lots of walks which gave you different views of the falls but the best ones were probably the close ups of the gargantan del diablo which seems from the walkway as though there is a hole in the world and everything is collapsing into it. We spent a good part of the day just looking and being overcome with awe. Oh, and we got pretty we as well as you can see from the pictures we will put up. Its difficult to convey it in words or pictures (although we can try) but here is a you tube clip from the Planet Earth DVD we have been wearing out for the last 6 months (skip to 6 minutes 19 seconds which shows the Iguazu falls). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dRFDwqYeqs&feature=PlayList&p=A92D9B0A76531EBA&index=8
The next day we went back for the morning which is the first time we have gone back to see anything twice. From the falls we could see Paraguay and Brazil across the borders and could probably have gone to the Brazilian side of the falls but it would have been a bit tight for time and we were very happy with the Argentine side! The climate was very tropical so we had to apply lots of sun cream and deet (anti insect spray) but despite this got burnt a little bit and bitten a lot...
After coming back from Iguazu we spent 2 days in Buenos aires at a really nice hostel called Portal del sur. The best part was the rooftop bar which also had a ping pong table where Nina got some practice in for Laura and Rich's garage in Melbourne. We spent one evening in a BA institution called Guerrin which is a famous pizza place. There were lots of signed pictures of Maradonna wearing Guerrnin T-shirts so he is obviously a fan. For anyone who has been to Katz Deli in New York this is the Argentine equivalent.
But on the 23rd we came down to Villa Gesell, a mere 5 hours compared to our previous 18 hour trips to Iguazu. We travelled with company Grupo Plaza who turned up on time and delivered what they promised and all in all a comfortable ride. When we arrived we were greeted with two smiling faces - our host Martha and her little girl who spoke better English than we do Spanish. We had one of those conversations where Nina is speaking broken Spanish to an 11 year old girl who is speaking very good English and Glenn is looking at his feet in shame saying Gracias and Por Favor.
Since we arrived we have spent the day either on the balcony of our lovely room, by the pool, on the beach (20 metres from the hotel) or in the small town. Glenn wants us to mention that we spent part of christmas eve going round the shops buying a new top for Nina - or what he calls ''being dragged round for hours". Note from Nina: first shopping we have done, and replacing a top that has disintegrated and it was only about an hour...
We are enjoying going for runs and walks along the beach and the atlantic surf whilst trying to avoid the worst of the sun (and not always succeeding). Whils there is a nice amount of people in the resort, it is far from heaving, which apparently happens in January and February so we came at the right time. It is almost all Argentine tourists and everyone we speak to seems quite chuffed that we are visiting Villa Gesell, rather than Mar del Plata down the coast which we think is borderline Benidorm.
Christmas day was really nice as we managed to speak to a lot of people back home, although the phone line wasn't perfect. Our lovely hosts laid on a nice breakfast including a christmas loaf to which we helped ourselves unashamedly. We wish to document that we went for a 20 minute slow jog along the beach to offset the enormous of food we ate that day. After time by the pool and the beach, where we had our special Mendoza wine, we went to a really nice restaurant called Casa de Antonia for lots of lovely food and (more) wine.
We are spending another couple of days here before we return to BA for new year. Happy Christmas and New Year to everyone!
Nina and Glenn xx
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)