Argentina

Well we are now in Rio de Janiero. Covered an awful lot of ground since my last E so hear goes.

I think that I left off back at Santiago after our trip up north Chile with Mark. Leah & I then went down to the Argentinian lake district for a few days. We went to Bariloche, a town about 1000km south of Santiago. It is famous for a number of things

1) lakes - really pretty with many many old swiss style wooden houses. The las

kes reminded me a little of the Queenstown area but there were many more of them.

2) Chocolate - really famous for chocolate, they have these big supermarkets that sell nothing but chocolates in all shapes & sizes. And the real deal - none of this watered down Cadburys stuff. We tried some - the budget version of course & it was great.

3) Skiing - Argentines premier ski resort. Not a patch on Queenstown but not bad for all that.

4) Nazi´s - supposed to be the place that the Germans fled to after WW2. Well I did not see old Adolf in a wheel chair so maybe not. The area had a real German feel though with all these wooden houses

Anyway it was a great place to visit. We got our usual cheap accom & explored around catching most of the sights. Including Hotel Llau Llau an old hotel built at the head of the lake. talk about 1930´s opulence - it was just fantastic. Chandeliers made of deers antlers, leather seats, views to die for, but the tarrif. We won´t talk about that.

Then on south to a hippy town called El Bolson. We had a really relaxing time there. Caught a craft market - one of the best we have struck and also visited an organic farm. In Argentina I hear you say. The land of the pampas & vast herds of walking Big Macs. Well it is true. Not a big place but they did do things organically, including blackberries which we consumed at a great rate of knots. I knew my Galatea blackberry prickles would come in use one day. Leah also had a tango lesson at a local Restaurant where some people were putting on a tango show. Very good but I don´t think that L will be strutting her stuff back in NZ.

Then it was back to Santiago, a few days to say good bye to Mark¨& then off to Sao Paulo. A little sad to say bye to Mark - who knows when we will see him next.

Sao Paulo is a huge hige city. 17 million & I can believe it. vast poverty which we saw a little of on the way in on the bus from the airport. Shacks (& that is complimentary) alongside this fetid river. You could see toilet waste going in at one point & people washing at another. No power, hot beyond belief so how do they survive? Huts were made from corr iron, straw, palm fronds - anything they could get their hands on I guess. I shudder for the kids. What sort of future awaits them?

Anyway we had two days there, explored some of the safer places in the centre & were glad to be off to the Iguassu Falls. Safer is a little relative I guess. Everywhere you walk you are tripping over people who are sleeping on the pavements. Including quite young kids. And this is in the Centro so what is it like in the poorer sections.

The Falls were fantastic. We saw them from both sides - Brazillian where you could get up nearly underneath the main stream & then the Argentinian where you got views from all points ie at the top, middle section & at the base. The Falls are on the Iguassu river which is a tributary of the Parana. And yet the Iguassu is huge (2.5kmwide). So how big must the Parana be. The mind boggles. We got pretty wet from the spray which is part of the experience. Its hard to describe the sight of this water crashing over the cliff. In a couple of places the river is channeled so you gert these huge cataracts - the noise is mind blowing & the feeling of power is ... well you just have to see it. We boated onto an island directly under the falls & got spectacular views there as well.

Well after that it was on a bus & off to the Pantanal an area the size of the Low Countries near the paraguay border. We stayed at Campo Grande & got a tour to the jungle from there. Tour wasn´tgreat. Very amateurish, everything had to be push started (including an old Ferguson tractor which I swear was the same as ours in Galatea). Still we did horseback riding in the swamps & marshes. That was good until we passed a dead horse. How did it die, we asked. Bitten by a frog mouthed snake was the reply. Well that got us thinking. Then another horse carcase. Another snake victim. Then a sheep which was pretty sick, with vultures floating around it. Another snake bite? Well yes. So by this time we were riding with our arms above our heads & standing in the saddles. And we then had to do a walk in the same sort of area. I can tell you we walked very close to our guide & made sure he had cleared the way. But we saw lots - capabaras, alligators, howler monkeys, vultures, macaws, toucans, lots of ants & the usual swarms of mossies, deer, small wild dogs, agoutis, hawks, small eagles, jabiru storks, frogs & the like. It was much better than the Amazon. Went fishing but caught nothing. And tried to survive the heat (tremendous) & humidity (unbelievable). We also saw a life & death struggle between a 3 ft tree snake & a fairly large frog. I put money on the frog to get away but after 3 hours it became a meal. What a fight. the frog tried everything - twisting, jumping, blowing itself up, pulling, croaking for help, but the snake just hung in there & gradually wore it down. Nature at its most basic & we have it on video. So a good time if a little rustic.

Back to Campo Grande & from there we took a 30 hour overnight bus ride to Belo Horizonte & a small gold mining town called Ouro Preto. What a trip. Saw two truck smashes on the way, one in which a whole truck load of grain was spread all over the road, the other coal was everywhere. Bus was pretty basic so I got no sleep & was tired tired by the time we hit OP. Also had a bit of the bad tummy (drinking water with ice in Campo Grande - bad mistake) so that didn´t help. But OP was a place out of a 17th C time warp. All the streets were cobblestoned, the houses were as they were 250 years ago & they had all these fabulous churches & museums. We spent a lot of time visting these places & saw colonial art & sculpture at its very best. One church had over 400 kg of gold on its decorations. Went into an old gold mine - what a claustraphobic experience which was bought & mined by ´´free negroes. I couldn´t believe that they got only 15grm of gold for every tonne of rock. Also visited the Minerals Museum where they have probably the best collection of mineral samples in the world. It was superb & really well presented which helped. What also helped was that we tagged on behind a tour in which the guide spoke in english. Now hows that for a bit of kiwi you know what.

I am sorry but I am going to have to sign off here. I am being kicked off this computer so the rewst of OP & Rio will be for the next Installment.

Suffice to say we are both fine (the runs excepted of course) & enjoying things.