From steak to fried chicken

Our last few days in Argentina were spent mooching around our hostel in Salta. The Wedding Singer, Blood Diamond and Die Hard 4.0 were all watched – along with daily doses of Friends – the internet was surfed and sleep-ins were enjoyed. All great ways to bide our time until Wednesday, when the train from the Bolivian/Argentinian border ran to our next destination: Tupiza.

I'm embarrassed to say that we did so little in Salta, that I almost wasn't even going to mention it on the blog. We rationalised our laziness by telling ourselves we were resting up before we embarked on a gruelling four-day, three-night 4WD circuit of the Bolivian 'outback'. The drizzly, overcast weather also made for the perfect excuse for our excess couchsitting – yes, our blog title is becoming more and more redundant by the day.

We did, on occasion, make it out of our hostel. There was a walk around the pretty city centre, a trip to a museum where you can look at the three dead bodies from the Inca times that were preserved perfectly in ice in some nearby mountains, and a trip up a cable car to enjoy some views of the city we were too lazy to explore.

The couch in Salta was also where we met English couple Hannah and Richard. Once we had determined they were normal, we quickly recruited them to do the 4WD tour with us in Bolivia – they were going to go to Chile and do it from there, but we had read that the best place to do it was from Tupiza in Bolivia. Most travellers do it from Uyuni, but with over 80 dodgy companies offering tours with crap food and drunk drivers, we wanted to go with an exxier-but-reputable company from Tupiza.

After an overnight bus, some stamps at immigration, a stop at an ATM, an eight-and-a-half-hour wait at the train station and a three-hour train ride, we had gone from the steak-devouring nation of Argentina to the fried-chicken-loving land of Bolivia.

The best thing about Bolivia? The prices. In Tupiza, we stayed in our own private room with en suite and cable TV for $AU5 each, we enjoyed fried chicken and chips for $AU2.20 and ate a three-course lunch for a mere $AU2.80 each – when they told us the price, all we could do was laugh!

We were only in Tupiza for one day before we began our 4WD tour, we spent that day living it up – an empanada for 20 cents here, jelly and cream for 50c there – and quickly fell in love with the Paris Hilton-esque lifestyle we could afford in Bolivia.

COMING UP: Stay tuned for our awesome four-day tour through the Bolivian desert and salt flats...

How we rolled in Mendoza...

How we got there...
For 100 pesos ($AUD38) we caught an overnight bus from Cordoba. Considering our recent luck with buses, it's unsurprising that our bus broke down in the middle of the night and we were shuffled onto another bus that was flagged down from the side of the road.

Where we stayed...
We scored big time with Hostel Empedrado, for an unheard of 35 pesos each a night (that's $AU25 all together), we got our own private room with cable TV. As our photographic evidence clearly shows, Craig was a tad excited by the 70 plus channels, and dragging him away from his 'Mendoza position' – laying on the bed with one hand behind his head, the other holding the remote control – proved to be a difficult task over our six-day stay. The place was also clean, had two kitchens and snail-slow-but-free internet.

Who we rolled with...

We ran into Stephanie and Mark, from Canada and England respectively, out the front of a wine-tour office in the town's centre. Once they found out that we were living it up in hostel luxury for the same price as their dorm beds at the local HI Hostel, they hotfooted it over to Hostel Empedrado.

What we ate...

Steak, steak and more steak. OK, that's not entirely true, sausages and ribs also made regular guest appearances on our plates. The highlight of our trip was when Mark and Steph suggested we fire up the hostel's parilla on our final night. With Mark being fluent in Spanish, we managed to secure the best cuts of meat, and, with Craig and Mark almost wetting themselves with excitement, we slow-cooked the steaks and ribs to perfection.

What we did...

On the few occasions I managed to drag Craig away from his daily fix of Friends, Two and a Half Men and The King of Queens, we went white-water rafting, did a winery tour and chilled in the massive local park.

Telling the time and eating food

To top off our epic journey from Florianopolis to Cordoba, it turns out that Cordoba was a bit of a dud. We got out of there after two nights – really pretty town, but boring.

That's not to say that our visit to Cordoba was entirely uneventful. For starters, it will always be remembered as the place that I found my Winner. Sick to death of having to constantly ask Craig for the time – and being interrogated as to why I wanted to know every time I asked – it was high time I scored a watch of my own. For a mere 8 pesos ($3.05), I became the proud owner of a second-hand digital watch – brand: Winner.

It's ugly but reliable, cheap but priceless – and it's all mine!



The second momentous occasion served up by Cordoba was an all-you-can-eat buffet. It's the biggest buffet in Argentina, and, for 26 pesos ($AUD9.90) it didn't disappoint. There's a parilla (barbecue) where they serve up freshly-grilled steaks and ribs, a pasta counter where they cook your choice of pasta and sauce on the spot, Asian dishes and salads galore and desserts ranging from cakes to ice-cream to pancakes.

NOTE: The following sentence is proudly brought to you by Captain Obvious...

We totally smashed the buffet.

When bad things happen to good people

They say that fortune favours the brave, but sometimes fortune just leaves you stuck on a metal bench in the middle of nowhere...

After the success of our impromptu journey from Ilha Grande to Florianopolis, I was convinced that I was now a hard·core traveller extraordinaire – Rick Steves, eat your heart out! No journey was too difficult, no backpack was too heavy, no delicacy was inedible and no bargain was unhaggle·able. So when we were told that the bus fare from Florianopolis to Rosario was gonna set us back a whopping 250 reais each, I laughed in the face of the ticket office lady (er, not literally) and set about finding a cheaper way to get to the Argentinian town.

I came up with the following genius plan: Catch a bus to the border town of Uruguaiana for 100 reais each, somehow get across to the Argentinian town of Paso dos de Libres (to get across the border with our normal ticket was going to cost an extra 40 reais each), then, once we were in Argentina, where the buses are cheaper, catch a bus to Rosario. Savvy, huh?

We arrived in Uruguaiana without a hitch at 3am in the morning and managed to convince our driver to take us to the border crossing for free. We got stamped out of Brazil and into Argentina, and then, after waiting at the border crossing until daylight, we caught a taxi to the bus terminal.

With my evil plan almost fulfilled, we set about getting the best price to Rosario. The first company didn't have any seats left, bummer. Oh, and neither did the second, or the third. Turns out, it was Easter bloody Monday, and everyone in Argentina seemed to be making their way to Rosario. By now, it was 6am and we had been on the move for 23 hours. We were tired, we were grumpy and we just wanted to get to Rosario, dammit!

OK, so Rosario was out of the picture. Where exactly could we go? There was one bus heading to Cordoba (which was actually on our original itinerary) with three seats left, but it wasn't leaving intil 11pm that night. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we weren't gonna go to Rosario, and that the dingy, dusty bus station in Paso dos de Libres was to be our home for the next 18 hours.

Friends and long·time readers will remember that we crashed our van in France and lived in a carpark for five days... this was worse. We took it in turns sleeping on a hard metal bench while the other kept an eye on our backpacks, we only had 10 measly pesos on us, and survived by sharing one bowl of pasta for the entire day and night. We entertained ourselves with a game of scrabble (a la the van) and by sitting and staring, followed by more sitting and staring.

Eventually, 50 hours after we left the pousada in Florianopolis, we made it to Cordoba – and an actual bed – and decided that next time, instead of trying to be all tricky and cool, we'd just pay the bloody 250 reais!

Rainbows, waterfalls and butterflies...

...all we need now is Funshine Bear and we have the perfect setting for a sequel to 1987's The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland.

For a 5 peso bus ride and a 60 peso admission charge (only 7 pesos if you are from Argentina or a neighbouring country!), we got to spend a day in Argentina's own slice of paradise – Iguazu National Park.

Located on the border of Argentina and Brazil, the Iguazu Falls are currently on their way to nabbing a spot on the New7Wonders of Nature list. And hiking through the jungle, stopping to take in the spectacular views, and taking a dip to escape the extreme humidity is a whole lot more fun than going to work, that's for sure!

The falls themselves were pretty damn amazing. The biggest, Devil's Throat, is loud, angry and powerful – and there are so many tourists around, we did well to get a couple of pics without random elbows, hats and bum bags protruding into our shot. It was also the site of my dramatic bee sting (because I have the uncanny ability to make the smallest events dramatic), which left me with a swollen leg and a wound that was leaking fluid for days (I exaggerate not).

The rest of the park is full of pretty-yet-less-impressive falls, butterflys galore and overpriced kiosks (20 pesos for a salad roll – tell him he's dreamin'!).

A day spent chasing waterfalls... TLC will not be impressed!

The glamorous – the flossy, flossy

Fergie may be sipping champagne up in the sky, but we've been sipping Coke and watching DVDs down on the road.

Introducing ' super cama', the first class of the Argentinian long-haul buses. Seats convert into flat beds, meals and drinks are served and DVDs are played. It's so much fun, we didn't want to get off after our 18-hour trip from Buenos Aires to Puerto Iguazu. Best of all, it's only marginally dearer than a normal, run-of-the-mill coach, meaning we can squeeze a little luxury into our hostel-dwelling, backpack-hauling, bread-eating existence.

Fergie, eat your heart out!

Holy cow!

Read and drool, people – read and drool...

The line-up for a table was spilling onto the street when we arrived for our first taste of Argentina's world-famous steak. Somehow, despite not having a reservation, we managed to nab an outside table for two.

'The restaurant recommends sharing a meal between two,' it said at the bottom of the menu in fine italic print. 'Pfft,' scoffed Craig. 'I'm not sharing with anyone!'

We ordered a bottle of wine, a steak each and a side of chips.

Then, after a good half an hour, it arrived. The hugest, most gimongous, giganticast steak I have ever laid eyes on in my life, surrounded by a myriad of sauces, and it was plonked straight down in front of Craig. When mine came out, and it wasn't much smaller, all we could do was laugh... and eat.

Our mission: to eat meat. Outcome: successful.

There were people waiting for a table who offered to help Craig out with his, obviously not believing it was humanly possible for one man to eat such a large hunk of steak, but he was having none of it. He was going to eat the entire thing, even if it took him all night.

While I struggled to eat all my tender juicy steaks, covered in bacon strips, Craig ploughed on, stopping only to comment on how 'awesome' his was.

Not one to be beaten (especially when it comes to challenges of the eating kind), much to the shock, horror and admiration of the waiting diners, Craig did eat his entire steak.

And boy, was it good.

Steak, tango and an eccentric 60-something

Sunshine, blue skies and one super-cool city. It took us over 32 hours in transit (walk, bus, plane, plane, taxi) to get there, but boy was it worth it.

We had no idea what to expect of Buenos Aires (or the entire South American continent for that matter!), but what we found was a clean, vibrant city that was begging to be explored.

Short on pay-a-fortune-to-look-at-something-for-five-minutes attractions, our days were filled with pounding the pavements – our feet blistered from Havaiana shock – exploring the different suburbs that make up the Argentinian capital.

We devoured cheap choripans (chorizo sandwiches) like we hadn't tasted red meat for a year (which isn't far from the truth, thanks England) and ate ice-cream in the park in the city, watched people tango on the streets and admired the multi-coloured buildings in rough La Boca, ate succulent, gigantuous steaks in Palermo, naively walked to dodgy and dangerous Retiro to buy bus tickets and explored the eerily beautiful Recoleta cemetery.

Oh, and I almost forgot – Dereck! The crazy old dude that was living in our hostel, who took us to an old Catholic church at midnight to watch locals and people from around the world tango. While Dereck turned out to be a total weirdo, the actual experience was one to remember.

Gracias, Buenos Aires. Gracias.