Argentinean Steak

I have been on the vegetarian diet for quiet some time - first in India and Asia because it was the safest bet to avoid food poisoning or basically nothing else was offered, then in Cusco because there was a general agreement that our cook should cook only vegetarian. All in all our cook did not too much enjoy the situation because she does not know how to cook veg food and I felt like being a rabbit...So the closer we were getting to Argentina the more I was convinced that we should be looking for the real Argentinian steak. For the time being even Rita converted to carnivorous practices.

We started already on the Brazilian side of the border of Iguazu falls where I proudly announced that this is already it - we have found the real steak. My bro and to my surprise Rita rejected my claims and said that this is still not it. I could understand Greg´s opinion but I felt kind of uneasy about my vegeterian wife´s claims about the steak. The blame went to the strawberry caipirinha which both of them were drinking while I was tasting the local beer. Perhaps something was wrong with it.

Further on my way to discover the real steak we moved to Argentina. After the Posadas (San Ignacio) where we did not find anything close to a steak we took another night this time across the northern Argentina to Salta - we ended up there on Sunday and Argentina is generally closed on Sundays. Except some restaurants it is hard to find anything open and the streets look like a giant vacuum cleaner from space sucked in all the people. Only stray dogs hang around.

Once we got there of course pretty quickly we got hungry - so in the evening we have found the most fancy restaurant from Lonely Planet. It took us quite some time to get there but the steak was FANTASTIC. I have never tasted something better. Around 6 cm high, and the size of almost three quarters of my head it tasted heavenly. Together with Argentinian wine and excellent service I did admit that the previous one was not so great. I have never eaten in my life such a big chunk of meat...I also finally learned how a real medium steak should look like...Everyone including Rita eat one of his own steaks...

The next day we went to a more local place again with great wines but our steaks did not match the ones from the previous day...feeling like pigs after almost a week of eating huge steaks at 11pm (since in Argentina the dinner is served starting at 10pm - before that most of the restaurants are not even open) we decided to move on.

This is more or less what we can say about Salta - the city as such is pretty lame but has very many beautiful places around it - we did not have that much time so we only know it from the stories of my brother. But all in all our one year trip is also a culinary trip - we have been eating everywhere whatever local thing there was to it (including marinated cows tongue in Buenos Aires) and sometimes it is better than travelling itself...especially that the food is really cheap in most of the places but still excellent.

So feeling like pigs we set off to Chile - into the middle of Atacama desert and Greg set off for excursions around Salta...this is where we split with him and Malgo...we are heading back to Cusco to our kids...

Iguazu Waterfalls

Having spent a couple of more days than we could actually afford in the mining hills of Brazil we decided to speed up our journey and sat on an overnight bus to Sao Paulo, from where we sat almost immediately on another night ride to the Argentine-Paraguay-Brazil border.

We arrived in the morning like papermashees to Foz do Iguazu, the Brazilian border town. After a warm welcome in our guesthouse by our host who seemed to step out from one of Pedro Almodovar's movies we headed to visit the Iguazu waterfalls. Luckily we passed by the bird park right next to the entrance of the national park and encountered the most lovely creatures of the sky we have ever imagined. There were parrots in all possible striking colors, some of which greeted us with a big 'hola' or 'ciao'. Than there were toucans, with their huge colorful beaks not at all afraid of humans, moreover sitting quite close to us every once in a while pinching us. And we saw butterflies from the jungle with hummingbirds flying around us, turtles chilling right next to crocodiles and other curious creatures of the Amazon.

But the real attraction were the continent's biggest waterfalls, which we approached both from the Brazilian side and from Argentina. On the Brazilian side we took an independent trip in the form of a lazy walk to the Garganta del Diablo, which is basically an iron catwalk from the shore over the river right to the edge where the water bed breaks and the water crashes down to the abyss. To be precise a multiple crashes, as the falls cover a vast area on both the Brazil and Argentina side. Besides the unbelievable energy with which the water explodes when landing in the deep you experience the most perfect permanent rainbows over the water clouds. The noise is so strong you have to shout on top of your voice to make yourself heard and of course you need not to hope to survive the experience without getting absolutely and totally wet just from the water in the air around the falls. We happened to see the falls at the nicest part of the day just before sunset and concluded the long day with an excellent dinner and a couple of cairpirinas, this time with strawberries, not lime, jummmm!

The next morning we decided to accept the lead of out host to the Argentinean side to see the falls from a different perspective, which for me was even more mesmerizing than the other side. We spent almost the whole day walking zig-zag in the park approaching the river from different points and visiting various individual falls and devil's throat from the other side.

We hardly finished the tour when we headed to our next destination with a 5 hour bus ride to cut our journey to Salta a bit shorter. So we arrived at 10 pm to San Ignacio, right next to Pousadas, which are famous of the biggest Jesuit-Guarani missionary 'reducciones' in South America.

Buenos Aires

After a 14 hour flight from Frankfurt we arrived in Buenos Aires airport very much excited about arriving so far away from our home lands. From Thailand you can always make it overland to Europe - with South America there is an ocean to cross.

Buenos Aires international airport felt a bit like landing in Moscow at the Sheremietievo airport, or perhaps arraiving to Warsaw to the main railway station - anybody who has been to those places will know what I mean. Usually it does not bode well.

Anyway we decided to take the local bus to the hotel we booked through the internet - all went well since people in the capital of Argentina are extremely helpful. A guy on the bus helped us change to the metro line (95 years old metro line that does feel like it WOULD be 95 years old). It definitely feels that no special attention has been paid to keeping it in good shape. It is however a highly atmospheric ride hardly comparable to anything in Europe (except perhaps the old metro line in Budapest which is much better taken care of).

So we arrived in our hotel - it was the worst we have ever been to in our lives - it was kind of disgusting especially that we were paying 20 USD instead of the usual 5 USD which we paid in South East Asia for our hotels. For the price one would expect some kind of decency in the offer. This place was so bad that we decided to check in (it was already midnight when we arrived) and at once go out to eat to think of a strategy for the next days. The street in front of our hotel did not look much better - there was something in the air telling us that we might get into trouble any minute. So not too stretch our luck we went it to McDonald’s. The first one during our whole trip this year. Kind of safe bet at midnight. Obviously we decided to look for an alternative place to spend the next nights…

Since for the first time during our trip we arrived to a city without a guidebook, the next day we bought ourselves a TimeOut magazine…below the description of the street we have managed to book our hotel (Lavalle street) “It is every claustrophobe’s sweat-soaked nightmare…the mother lode of the mayhem is called Florida, the only completely pedestrian street in BA…However, amid the human statues, money changers you can still find traces of its refined past. Lavalle on the other hand makes Florida look chic and classy. It’s packed with blockbuster and B-movie cinemas, advertising hoardings and enough neon to power a nuclear sub”

As you can imagine when we arrived to such place the only thing in our mind was - why was my brother saying that Buenos Aires is so nice? Have we arrived to a different place? TimeOut quickly made it clear to us that we have managed to choose the worst place in Buenos Aires (perhaps apart from Boca district)…

From there on things started picking up. We have managed to find a very nice hostel and decided to enrol for a four day Spanish language crash course combined with induction to Buenos Aires…a very good choice…

We have also managed to find the charm of Buenos Aires - beautiful districts like San Telmo with its weekend markets, Palermo with its bohemian atmosphere and beautiful parks and plaza’s…and everywhere Tango and great places to eat or chill…after 6 months of rice diet, I have decided to change to jamon and Argentinian beef. …

All in all there is no question that Buenos Aires is a great city - where is perhaps a bit too much of pick pocketing and general feeling of insecurity but otherwise it lives up to its expectation…We have just managed to choose another place with demonstrations against the government and street fights with the police. :)