The plush ‘express’ ferry had classic airplane/bus style seating. It was packed. It was only an hour to Buenos Aires and we were disembarking before we knew it. We were entering country Number 3 on our 4th day of the trip. I had researched a centrally located hotel which lay between the ferry terminal and the long distance bus station. Once we had our bearings, it didn’t take long to find the Hotel Central Cordoba and we checked into a small but comfortable en suite room for two nights. I wouldn’t say the bathroom was small but you had to step into the shower to get to the toilet! When the friendly male receptionist processed our passports he had joked about the ‘Malvinas’ (Falkland Islands).

It was overcast and getting dark, but we went walkabout to find the central bus station. It was huge. So large that we never found the ticket offices but did end up in some mezzanine level that was supposedly off limits to passengers.

On the way back we stopped in at a pizza restaurant. I went for the (large) ‘House special’ pizza and Trev went for the small. The waiter raised his eyebrows and intimated ‘are you sure?’ stretching out his arms to suggest the size of the large. As a pizza muncher of totally unreasonable amounts (on one all-you-can-eat Pizza Hut lunchtime offers, I consumed 20 pieces) I was not fazed and tucked into the bowl of olives and snacks while waiting. When it arrived it was both huge and adorned with a variety of dressings including large slices of ham, anchovies, sliced boiled eggs and a pile of olives. It was a war of attrition. I had to hand Trev a piece to help me finish! I had certainly bitten off more than I could chew, but I chewed most of it.

I had enjoyed our brief stay in Uruguay and would like to return to see the rest of the country, but it also felt good to be in Buenos Aires, ready to explore the capital of Argentina tomorrow.

Roadkill: 1 dog

Wednesday March 20th

Argentina background

The CIA Website says “In 1816, the United Provinces of the Rio Plata declared their independence from Spain. After Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay went their separate ways, the area that remained became Argentina. The country's population and culture were heavily shaped by immigrants from throughout Europe, with Italy and Spain providing the largest percentage of newcomers from 1860 to 1930. Up until about the mid-20th century, much of Argentina's history was dominated by periods of internal political conflict between Federalists and Unitarians and between civilian and military factions. After World War II, an era of Peronist populism and direct and indirect military interference in subsequent governments was followed by a military junta that took power in 1976. Democracy returned in 1983 after a failed bid to seize the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) by force, and has persisted despite numerous challenges, the most formidable of which was a severe economic crisis in 2001-02 that led to violent public protests and the successive resignations of several presidents.” “Argentina continues to assert its claims to the UK-administered Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), South Georgia, and the South Sandwich Islands in its constitution, forcibly occupying the Falklands in 1982, but in 1995 agreed to no longer seek settlement by force; UK continues to reject Argentine requests for sovereignty talks.

Argentina is the 8th largest country in world about a third of the size of the USA. Its highest point Cerro Aconcagua 6,960 m (located in the province of Mendoza) is also the highest point in South America. It’s 42.6 million population is 92% Roman Catholic with an average annual income of $18,500 but 30% are supposedly below the poverty level. Argentina benefits from rich natural resources, a highly literate population, an export-oriented agricultural sector, and a diversified industrial base. Its agricultural products include: sunflower seeds, lemons, soybeans, grapes, corn, tobacco, peanuts, tea, wheat; livestock. It’s major industries include: food processing, motor vehicles, consumer durables, textiles, chemicals and petrochemicals, printing, metallurgy and steel.

We had a full day to explore the capital and I had a few highlights I wanted to see. Settled in 1536 by Pedro de Mendoza, a rich and adventurous Spaniard that financed his own expedition but soon departed. It was repopulated in 1580 and for the next 196 years, was just a backwater and smugglers paradise to avoid Spanish taxes. By 1776, it was 20,000 strong and decreed by Spain as the capital of a new territory. It became the capital of Argentina in 1880. It made its money from agricultural exports which financed the public works and opulent French style mansions. The present day capital (pop 2.8) has about a third of the entire country’s population if you include the surrounding areas (13m).

Just down the road from our hotel was the leafy Plaza San Martin with an equestrian statue of Jose de San Martin.(1862). Off the plaza was the 120m high Edificio Kavanagh. Built in 1935 it was once South America’s tallest building. Below the plaza stood the official Malvinas memorial with elaborately dressed guards and an eternal flame to those who fell in the Falklands/Malvinas War of 1982

We wandered through the busy streets to Avenida 9 de Julio which is said to be the “widest street in the world”. There are up to 16 lanes of traffic at its widest. This morning during rush hour, every lane seemed to be gridlocked. The central strip was parkland. We walked down the centre as traffic was filtered from traffic light to traffic light.

One of the major landmarks on the Avenue is the Teatro Colon. Started in 1880 and finished in 1908, the Colon Theatre is a gorgeous world class faculty for opera, ballet and classical music. It was the Southern hemisphere’s largest theatre until the Sydney Opera house was built in 1973. Newly renovated in 2010 it is an extraordinary testimony to the country’s former wealth. Behind the classical façade, the opulent foyer is decorated with 3 kinds of marble brought from Europe, a Parisian stained glass dome in the roof and a Venetian tiled mosaic floor. The perfectly preserved auditorium is French baroque style from the chandelier in the ceiling to the French gilded lights and red velvet curtains. It is apparently almost perfect acoustically, due to the horseshoe shape and a mix of marble and soft fabrics and an immense stage 35m deep. We splashed out on a guided tour of the building with a well-spoken Argentinian woman for an enjoyable and informative 50 minute exploration of the complex. It must have been the ‘in place’ for the aristocracy when first opened in the early Twentieth Century. Recommended.

Next to the theatre was a massive digital screen showing the new Argentinian Pope doing religious stuff in Rome. He had only been chosen a week ago and the capital was awash in pictures of him. Back on the Avenue at a junction, there was a 67m tall obelisk (1936) commemorating the 400th anniversary of the city’s founding. There was also a building with a massive outline of Eva Peron on the side which must have been illuminated at night.

We cut through the streets to the Playa de Mayo. This broad open plaza is both the historic heart of the city, and its centre of power since it is surrounded by some of the city’s most important public buildings principally the Cabildo, the Cathedral Metropolitana, the central bank and the Casa Rosada.

The stark white washed Cabildo is a mid 18th century town hall where the movement for independence from Spain was planned. Nearby stood the city’s main cathedral, the baroque Cathedral Metropolitana (1807) which contains the tomb of General Jose de San Martin, Argentina’s most revered hero. The tomb in a side chapel had a pair of costumed armed guards at the entrance. Next door, the Banco de la Nacion (1939) stood as an imposing grey monolith topped by a 50m marble dome testimony to the financial power of Buenos Aires.

The central part of the plaza had the Piramide de Mayo, a small obelisk in centre to mark BA’s independence from Spain. It is now the focus for most protests and there were anti Malvinas people, symbolic crosses and graves in the grass and banners hanging off railings. The plaza had tall metal fences strung across it to block off people if the needed arose.

The unmistakable salmon pink façade of the Casa Rosada took up an entire side of the Playa. These are the offices of the La Presidenta, Christina Kirchner. It is not the Presidential home (say like 10 Downing Street) but where her staff work. You could walk in for a look at the building. We heard explosions – fireworks and saw special riot police with helmets and shields lined up by a van. There was a protest in the road next to the Casa Rosada about the state of Argentinian economy. Leaflets were thrown up in the air. Behind long banners, there were people on drums keeping up a rhythm over which someone yelled through a loudspeaker. The police kept their distance and let them get it out of their system.

From the Playa, we caught the underground metro to the leafy district of Palermo. This looked like a prosperous and attractive suburb just a few stations away from the Centre. Walking through part of the Municipal Botanical gardens established in 1902, its different areas of trees and plants represented various regions of Argentina.

We had come to see the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA). Sparkling inside its glass walls, this airy modern art museum is BA’s finest. It was opened in 2001 to house a permanent collection of Latin American art and as a fan of modern art, I thought it was excellent. Some great exhibits, well laid out and spacious. There was a wooden garden seat where the wooden slats had stretched themselves and seemed to melt down the walls. Recommended.

Walking out of Palermo into the district of Recoleta, we eventually found the Cementerio de la Recoleta – city of the dead. This cemetery holds the remains of the city’s elite: past presidents, military heroes, politicians and the rich and famous including Evita’s grave lying in the Duarte family mausoleum. Lined up along small streets are hundreds of old crypts and sarcophagi, each uniquely carved from marble, granite and concrete and decorated with stained glass, stone angels and religious icons. It is like a miniature city and Buenos Aires equivalent to Paris’s Pere-Lechaise cemetery.

It had been a packed day and the overcast weather finally broke as we explored the tombs. A heavy rainstorm descended and we caught a bus back to the hotel late in the afternoon. When the rain stopped, we walked a few blocks to the Galeria Pacificao which is a French style shopping centre from 1889 and boasts vaulted ceilings with 1954 paintings. It covers an entire city block.

That evening, when we asked the friendly receptionist where we might get a steak, he indicated there was a local café just two blocks away. We feasted on large steaks, chips and red wine and concluded that Buenos Aires was rather like Paris. The locals seem to assume that they are living in the best (whatever its faults) city in South America. Despite its size, it was a very walk able city. We had just chosen a few highlights today, but I’m sure I could have spent another couple of days here exploring other sights. It’s a city I’ll return to in the future.

Thursday March 21st

Walking to the bus station through the crowds, we saw undercover police searching stalls for pirated goods. It had rained all night and large puddles filled the road. The main bus station in Buenos Aires is enormous and it was a long walk to find the ticket counters. Every bus company has a separate counter and it is a case of looking at the signs on the glass to find your destination. We were headed for Antonio del Areco and a bus left at 9.30am. As we left the city, we could see the endless stationary traffic on the motorways heading into the city.

Beyond the suburbs of Buenos Aires we entered lush farmlands. It was only a 115km journey and we were there in about an hour. The Lonely Persons Guide called Antonio del Areco (pop 23000) “one of the prettiest towns in the pampas”. I suppose it was. We had come here because dating from the early 18th century, it was supposedly the symbolic centre of Argentina’s diminishing ‘gaucho’ (cowboy) culture and “preserves a great deal of criollo and gaucho traditions including artisans producing silverwork and saddlery” (Brandt guides).

But our impression of this sleepy town of quiet streets and peaceful atmosphere was that there was no evidence of cowboy culture whatsoever. Walking from the bus station on the outskirts past a few blocks lined with orange trees, we came across a plaza filled with palms and plane trees but every shop seemed to be closed for a three or four hour siesta. The only evidence of life were some people setting up stalls for some find of festival or evening event and a line of people outside a restaurant. Other than that most of the streets were deserted apart from the occasional school kids on bikes. It was the biggest anti-climax of the trip.

While we waited for our 2.20pm bus to Rosario, we sat on a grassy bank and ate a picnic washed down with ice cold beer. Two horses grazed nearby. It was the closest to cowboys we got in this place.

A five hour bus journey on Highway 9 took us northwest to Rosario. We pulled in around 8pm. It was just an overnight stop en route to Resistencia. The actual downtown area was by the river, 20 blocks from the bus station but with nothing specific to see, there didn’t seem much point in leaving the bus station area where there were numerous hotels.

Unfortunately most were grubby affairs and we seemed to find one of the worst. At the Hotel Gran Comfort (they should be done under the Trades Description Act) a narrow corridor took us to a glass door where we waited for a receptionist to buzz us in. We got a small cramped room with a sticky worn bedroom carpet and a small window that opened onto a tiny darkened courtyard with a tree growing there – it felt as if the hotel had been built around this tree. It was the worst hotel we stayed at on the trip. Avoid.

We comforted ourselves by the fact we only had about 12 hours to kill and found a pizza restaurant around the corner where we shared a house special and a couple of ice cold beers. I think this was the high point of today!

Friday March 22nd

The important river port of Rosario (pop 1.2m) is famous as the birthplace of the Argentine flag, ‘Che’ Guevara and the golden boy of world football Lionel Messi. Che Guevara’s home is now private home which can’t be visited.

We were booked on a 10.30am bus to Resistencia and after a modest breakfast at the hotel, we left our packs and walked 10 blocks towards downtown and back again. It seemed a big university town with lots of students. There were plazas and tree lined streets but nothing of any urgency to see. I’m sure there is more to this city, but we wanted to push on.

For the first section of the 11 hours on Highway 11 we would spend on the bus today, we sat at the front of the empty bus to Santa Fe. This gave us a good view over the straight road and flat rural landscape of grazing cattle and horses. Movies played on the overhead TV screens. A female hostess provided us with a complimentary breakfast and eventually lunch. From Santa Fe, we were back in our booked seats reading. We did spy green parrots making huge communal nests on telegraph poles. The day passed slowly reading books or staring out of the window. Another snack, and after a brief stop at Reconquista, the arrival of a couple with a screaming kid.

768 kilometres after leaving Rosario, we rolled into the dark Resistencia bus station around 9.45pm. It was miles outside the centre with no hotels nearby and we had no option but to get a taxi downtown. I had picked a possible hotel called the Bariloche which turned out to be a decent spacious room.

It was late on a Friday night and the streets were packed with Argentinian youths drinking, chatting, hanging around or eating at cafes. There was also quite a heavy police presence at least just walking around keeping an eye on things. We explored the central grid of streets to see what eating places were available and eventually settled on a corner eatery. Sat outside the restaurant on the street while a couple of musicians played inside, we munched on a bowl of peanuts washed down by ice cold beer in a bucket, waiting for our hamburgers and garlic chips feeling that we had made some real distance today. Resistencia felt like a proper Argentinian town

Saturday March 23rd

The provincial capital of Resistencia (403,000 pop) is perched on the edge of the wilderness of the Chaco region. A joint project between the local council and various arts organisations has led to the placement of over 500 sculptures in city streets and parks free for everyone to see. The delightful Plaza 25 de Mayo marks the city centre. It is a riot of tall palms and palo borracho trees along with the usual equestrian statue of San Martin.

We spent an enjoyable two hours just pottering around the streets of the self-named ‘City of Sculptures’. We found numerous sculptures either on the pavements, in the plazas or on the dividing strip between roads. It was Resistencia’s angle to get tourists to visit and it was working in a low key way. When I had been working out a route to get us from Buenos Aires to Paraguay, the guidebooks didn’t really promote anything in-between. But Resistencia seemed rather unique in having so many sculptures. We enjoyed the relaxed ambience of the town. It was a nice place to stay and we felt that we had made the right decision.

Picking up our packs, we walked back to the Plaza 25 de Mayo and eventually caught a bus back to the bus station. My original route had been to push on to Ascuncion, the capital of Paraguay further north, but we were two days ahead of our schedule so I proposed a side trip eastwards to see the Jesuit ruins just south of the Paraguay border.

To get there we caught a 1pm bus to Posadas five hours and about 400km away. The vegetation gradually turned from grazing lands to lush greenery and jungle type outcrops. At Posadas bus station, we quickly changed buses and did one final hour of 63km to San Ignacio. The bus station lay outside town on the Highway 12 which we had followed from Resistencia.

We walked into the sleepy town of 6300 people up a hill to the main strip and then asked for directions for our proposed hotel which ironically lay down a orange dirt track route just off the main highway less than a kilometre from the bus station. La Toscana Hotel, run by a friendly Italian couple was a real find. Almost like a ranch house, the room was clean and spacious. There was a swimming pool, gardens and peace. Recommended.

Returning to the centre, we found a supermarket for cold beers, wine and snacks and sat in a park watching people hanging out on a Saturday night. Back in the hotel we watched ‘Forrest Gump’ and ‘Shaun of the Dead’ movies in Spanish on TV. Not something you do every day.

Sunday March 24th

San Ignacio Mini, the best preserved of the Argentine missions is the central attraction of the small pleasant town of San Ignacio. First founded in 1610 in Brazil but abandoned after repeated attacks by slavers, the mission was established at its present site in 1696 and lasted until the Jesuits were expelled in 1768. With 4300 Gurani (the indigenous tribe) people at its peak (1731) and spread over 14 hectares, it was run by only two priests. Latin, Spanish and Guarani were taught in school. 40,000 head of cattle grazed in surrounding land. Yerba mate, cotton, maize and tobacco were cultivated. The ruins rediscovered in 1897 were restored around World War Two and now cover 6 hectares. They are an official UNESCO World Heritage Site.

After an enjoyable breakfast of fresh croissants and coffee at the hotel, we walked back into town and along a street around the ruins to the main entrance. The souvenir stalls hadn’t even got going at 9am on a Sunday morning. Starting at the Interpretation centre the trail passed first between rows of Gurani houses before arriving at the plaza, on one side of which is the enormous and dramatic red sandstone church (1724). The 1 metre thick walls of attractive red-brown stone were originally white. Impressive in its dimensions, it was the focal point of the settlement.

The ruins were impressive for the quantity of carved ornamentation still visible and the amount of restoration done as a great example of ‘Guarani Baroque’. No roofs remain but living quarters have been re-erected. There were various speaking interactive panels providing information around the site. We spent a couple of hours pottering around the ruins, poking around the walls, enjoying the pre-tour group ambience of a virtually deserted site.

Site done. Picking up our packs from the hotel, we walked to the bus station and a bus for Posadas arrived within 10 minutes. An hour later, we arrived and within five minutes were aboard a bus for the border crossing to Encarnacion in Paraguay. It took less than 5 minutes to be processed at the Argentinian immigration and by the Paraguayan officials. Yet again, no visa was needed to enter.

My first impressions of Argentina (5 nights worth) were of a prosperous and comfortable country. It is well organised and the bus network is excellent. It is a vast country and we only tackled one part which was the flat grasslands area. There are so many different areas and sceneries to see and I looked forward to returning for another visit. We experienced no ‘anti-British/Falklands War’ sentiment whatsoever.