The Amazing Race

where was Phil Keogan when we needed him...

7 days, 4 countries, almost 10,000 kilometres; all in buses and for less than NZ$300 per person. It sounded impossible, many believe it was a crazy proposition - more trouble then it would be worth. But we did it, and what an experience it proved to be.

It all started on the Sunday I arrived back in Mar del Plata with Dad. Ryan gave me some great news: the following week we were to have off as the security imposed for the Summit of the Americas was going to make work and home life impossible. The idea of touring the North of Argentina was floated over the following days and we got out the tourist map once to find the lay of the land. Our good mate Roberto joked about Lake Titicaca, everyone thought he'd just had a bit too much vino tinto. I left with Dad for Buenos Aires on the Tuesday morning, leaving Kerbs to sort out a bus ticket to somewhere in the North for Friday night. I figured I'd find time to do some internet research about places to see before we left.

I arrived home from Buenos Aires at 3.30am Friday morning. Ryan woke me up at 7am - what are we doing about travelling? I was feeling a bit drowsy but explained my ideas and asked if he'd bought the tickets. "Ahh, I think they only run on Saturdays and I wasn't sure where you wanted to go..." I wasn't all that surprised, got up at 11am and went down to the bus station with a wad of cash to do business. The buses did run to the North on Fridays, but they left at 1am so I got two tickets for the next one which was 8am the following day.

Seeing as I had a bit of time up my sleeve (I decided going back to work the afternoon was off the cards) I had a quick look at an internet cafe for some more info. I got a bit sidetracked dreaming about taking a cruise in the Galapagos but tracked down a few leads before my time ran out; basicall a few hostels and tourism websites. Bus tickets bought, links saved to gmail, TRIP OFFICIALLY PLANNED.

The voyage didn't start well. We hadn't even left the city limits before the bus broke down. We were both reading our books so we take much notice, but after an hour of not moving we figured something really was up. Another bus pulled up, things were transferred and we were back on our way within 2 hours.

We got to BsAs, made the transfer to the bus to Tucuman and finally felt like we were making progress. We were a little concerned that we couldn't take our assigned seats. When we got on an old woman had set up camp in Ryan's seat so thinking that the buses are never full we just found a few free seats near the front. About two hours later a couple got on and approached our seats with argentine protest mania burning in their eyes. We retired peacefully and kindly asked the woman in our places to pack up and ship on back to the seat next to her husband.

The rest of this leg was fairly commonplace, reading, eating chocolate and trying to sleep. We arrived in Tucuman more or less on schedule. The weather was rainy and grey, hardly the diaphonous forty degree heat we had been told to expect. My first response was 'lets try and keep moving north, it's a lazy Sunday and there'll be nothing to do.' We asked all the bus companies if they had anything that ran to Bolivia, not exactly sure exactly the city or town we were shooting for. They all said no, or that their buses had already gone. After a minimum of procrastination we bought the only ticket available to the border with Bolivia that left at five the following morning.

Tucuman turned out to be about as exciting as trying to get a drivers licence in Buenos Aires. The streets were home to more dogs than humans and even they were sleeping. All the tours from the hostel had already gone so we were left to enjoy the city for the next twelve hours. Highlights were a bird that had a plastic bag attached to its legs like a sail and the Kerby sing-along to a BeeGees live DVD in the local pub. Admittedly the beer went down a treat and after finding twenty pesos in the pool hall (actually more like a rundown Time Zone with two small, uneven pool tables) we were able to splash out on some icecream and two entries to the town's most exciting attraction - the room where the independence from Spain was signed.

That night during the two hours when the power went out at the hostel we asked one of the staff about the best route to Lake Titicaca. He gave us a rundown from the little he knew of the trip then casually enquired how long we were planning to do it in. After recommending three weeks minimum, better two months, he was shocked that we put aside four days! It was even questionable considering the state the the roads and politics whether we could make it. Unphased I persuaded Kerbs it was worth a crack and we made it to bed by midnight to get four hours kip before the next leg.

Walking to the bus at 4am through the backstreets was a little concerning. Despite the fact that it was a Sunday night - Monday morning there was a remarkable number of people pouring out of nightclubs. We arrived at the bus stop without being mugged and waited. And waited. Nervously. The bus arrived half an hour late but how relieved we were to get on it. Passing Salta, Jujuy, the houses were getting smaller, more sparse and the traffic disappearing. The scenery for the whole morning was typical of the Argentine interior. Flat, brown and covered in soy - YAWN. As we approached Bolivia though things began to change. It was as if Argentina ended and a great Bolivian wilderness began as the hills ascended into a blank misty sky.

Mid-afternoon and we arrived in Salvador Massa - la frontera. Everyone seemed to be saying that we just walk towards the forest and cross the border on foot. Definitely a new experience. With no 'Welcome to Bolivia' signs, main roads or barbed wire in sight we jumped in a cab and told us just to get us there. The border crossing turned out to be quite a way, and despite our light luggage and relative abundance of time we were happy to pay a few pesos instead of trying to weave through the dirty streets. At the border, the Argentine officials looked long and hard at my passport which had recently been stamped in Ezeiza by the official I paid the overstaying fine to. Eventually they decided I wasn't any trouble and moved us on. While waiting in line we watched Bolivian after Bolivian turn up without the correct documentation and plead to be allowed to pass back in their own country.

The biggest surprise came when we actually crossed the border. We looked left, right, ahead, behind - no immigration office, no military police, no lines. Just hoardes of people selling pirated goods. Feeling a little uneasy about not having a stamp, we asked the Argentine officials what we were supposed to do. The response 'no pasa nada, just go!' The prospect of searching for more bureaucracy didn't exactly excite us so we just took off towards the bus station. The buses companies were seeking us rather than the other way round and we happily parted with a bit of our tinny aluminium Bolivian currency in return for the next ticket. Thirteen Argentine pesos (seven NZ dollars) for an overnight passage - we're thinking Bolivia's going to be fun. We took a seat and ordered a hamburger with plenty of vegetables and some juices to eat during the wait. When we heard the price the hamburger turned into two, plus a pack of cream crackers, a bottle of watter, more batteries, Coca-Cola playing cards, a luggage padlock and some new headphones. Unaware of the time difference we jumped on the bus at the assigned time. Thankfully we were comfortable as it was we waited almost an hour and a half until we disembarked.

Oh my God I like it a lot!

Ryan's impression of Igazu

Day 1:
started at 1am Sunday 18th of September. I was ready, packed with all the summer clothes and also home-baked cookies (thanks Elliott!). I was put in charge of control order if things got out of hand at the back of the bus, a role which I had previous done on the Uruguay trip. The children were so amped; I didn’t get to sleep until 3am, after a silent version of ‘Meet the Fockers’ (technical fault). Before I crashed, I did play part in the kids being excited as it did bring out the big kid in me. I was smiling until the point where I crashed. I had no idea what was in store, to me I was going to the Iguaçu Falls, but I found out our first stop was Temaiken, a wildlife park/zoo situated on the out-skirts of Buenos Aires. But first BREAKFAST!!! We stopped somewhere in Buenos Aires (trust me its big) at a McDonalds for coffee, toasted sandwiches and juice, courtesy of the school. Finally arriving to Temaiken, after 5 hours of sleep and a shot of caffeine, the children seemed like they had a full nights sleep and eager to tackle the day, on the other hand I felt like I was hit by a train, mainly due to tiredness. But ‘wrapping on some sunnies’, a few slaps in the face to wake myself up couldn’t fix, but it was worth it. Temaiken would have to be the best zoo that I have visited, everything kept to a wildlife theme, right down to the rubbish bins. Tigers, Meekats, Flamingos, Monkeys, Bats, Hippos, and an Aquarium were all available to see, followed at the end by a Cine 360°, a 340 person capacity dome where the video is seen from all sides, giving different angles and not missing any action. We had our lunch there as well, and just like every park the food is expensive. But I didn’t need to panic, as the school fitted the bill and I had 2 hamburgers and salad. There had been a lot of walking and I noticed the kids were tiring. Ryan sensed relief. So we ended our day at Temaiken after quickly purchasing merchandise, and gathering back at the bus. Our first overnight stop was Concordia, in the province of Entre Rios. The hotel name is still very vague in the mind, so vague now I’ve forgotten. We made it at a reasonable hour of 8:30pm and dining at the hotel, which was pretty average but hey it’s a feed. We were dining by 9:30pm. At this point I was looking forward to a early night for our big traveling day tomorrow, but the ‘nightmares’ had other plans, so I didn’t get to bed until 1:30 am, and we were up by 7:30. If this was going to be the case every night, I was going to turn into Mr. Nasty. I managed to catch 5 victims, with 2 facing the worse kind of punishment…sleeping in the same room as the teachers. But the worst is Yeti, keep reading…

Day 2:
An early rise of 7:00 am for breakfast and I thought it was very average, little toasted bread, coffee and juice. I miss those big NZ brekkies! Still haven’t adjusted to the Argentine breakfast. We checked out by 8:30 for a tour of Concordia, but since I thought I was a teacher on this trip, but not a history teacher, I didn’t take much notice of the tour guide. But what she said was a little history how the town of Concordia was set up…blah blah blah the usual stuff. Then we went to visit Castillo San Carlos (St Carlos’s castle), which were the ruins of a French-style castle. It was the home of a French name (not sure why he came) built in 1888. It looks across the Uruguay River and into Uruguay. A lot of the guts of the castle has been taken out or destroyed and a few holes here and there, but just a nice little piece of history. Then we took a drive north for an hour to the Salta Grande dam, in-between Argentina and Uruguay. We firs had a video presentation on dams and electricity which looked very similar from the one I had seen in Karapiro. And then we took a trip across the dam to Uruguay. I was in Uruguay again, but this time for only 5 minutes, and then we turned back. I believe it was the widest dam, from memory, in South America. Itaipu is the biggest dam. So once we dropped the tour guide off, it was time to do a lot more traveling as our next stop was 7-8 hours away. By this time, it was well past lunchtime and we hadn’t stopped for lunch yet. We found a reasonable place as we were basically in the middle of nowhere, but the time was 3 o’clock. Ryan was not impressed but hey this is the outback of Argentina. So we chowed down and once began our trip. We arrived in the town of Yapeyu by 5, to the birth home of the Liberator of South America, Jose de San Martin. Well the ruins of his birth home. They now have built a large building enclosing it, so no more damage can occur. In the museum there are also the ashes of his parents. Jose de San Martin left Yapeyu to study in Spain, where his parents originally came from. Once completing his studies, he went back to his adopted home land. Since his father was involved in helping the natives, Jose wanted to help Argentina. He held ranks in the national army, all the way to the top. He helped the liberation of Argentina, Chile and Peru. He later left to live in France and eventually died there in 1828?? His body now remains in Buenos Aires. Then after that display we went to the Yapeyu regiment, which also holds the regional army museum. It surprised me how much the kids were playing and touching the equipment, like they were toys. Most of it was as old as NZ! And they were playing with it like toys, couldn’t believe it. They then had a demonstration on how they dressed their horses before battle, how the soldiers dressed for battle and then allowed the kids to jump on a horse. Some of the girls screamed when the horse only moved its leg to scratch itself. To the show they put on a video featuring the freedom of Argentina, the battles and how they celebrate San Martin’s success. Even by Monday night, I have already got a lot out of this trip, and we hadn’t reached the falls yet!! By now it was 6:00pm, another 6 hours and we arrived in Posadas, just in the province of ‘Los Misiones’. We dined in the hotel at 12:30, with a chicken ‘n’ cream meal followed by ice-cream. Again we had some naughty kids and I didn’t get to sleep until 3 am. Only 6 hours the 1st night, Ryan was demanding more sleep, not to sure I could carry on this way.

Day 3:
We got the breakfast call at 7:30 so only after 4 and a half hour sleep, you could imagine how excited I was to receive it. But I had to pack quickly again, ate a bit of brekky and off again as we had another busy day of sights and traveling. Our first stop for this day was at San Ignacio, at the ruins of a Jesuit town. Just a little bit of history – As the Spanish wanted to conquer South America, priests of the Jesus Company set up 30 towns/settlements in Argentina, Brazil & Paraguay with the aim to protect the natives. We only visited one town, which is named ‘San Ignacio Mini’. This town was one of the lucky ones to resist siege in the 17th Century, but most of the town was destroyed by the Paraguayans in 1817. It’s amazing how these people lived; the town in San Ignacio held 40,000 people until the Jesuits left. We were shown through an average museum first, including a layout of the whole town as if it was complete. Then we went to the real deal, of what was left of it today. Earlier that day it was decided I would be the trip photographer, as I was the only ‘teacher’ that had a digital camera. But Stella kept me informed in English… God bless her! We spent most of the morning there and had lunch in a local restaurant. One thing I loved about traveling with these kids was they didn’t eat a lot, so there were plenty of left-overs on their plates and I finished them off, I think I ate a solid kilo of bread-crumbed weiner schnitzel, it was so good. After we then hit the road, and had time for a nap. But basically in the middle of nowhere we stopped on the side of the road about 2 hours away from the border. I was unsure what was going on and had no idea what we were about to do. We started walking up this dirt track and I later found out that we were going to a Guarani village. The Guaranis are one of the native people of Argentina. When I arrived there, it was like one of those World Vision ads. The kids played games with the locals … well some of them, they kept complaining ‘It’s too hot’, excuses excuses. But by now, the Earth had turned into a reddish colour and everything is stained with this colour, it’s incredible! We were there for 2 hours, looking around the school and dining hall, and we had a little ceremony raising the Argentinean flag. It was nice! Then we headed north towards the frontier to Foz du Iguaçu, on the Brazil side. We finally reached the border, but spent 3 hours in migrations, it felt more like 5 minutes I was that destroyed. But luckily our hotel was 10 minutes away; I was relieved to get there. So after we settled in, again rooming with my good friend Yeti and all you can eat dinner, we hit the sack as we had 2 days of national parks around the falls tomorrow. Can’t wait, and luckily I was able to get an early night, needed to catch up on a few Z’s.

Day 4:
After another early wake-up call, by now I was used to it; I felt I got hardly any sleep. Yeti’s snoring is unbelievable, it compares to the snoring of Pa except in the same room not down the passage way. It’s incredible, even so I also had earplugs in but I could still hear him. Breakfast was just like dinner, help yourself, and we were off by 9:00am, back to the native lands of Argentina, where we started by a tour of a Guarani village, but this was one that was made based on tourism, but the people were real and did live there. These people speak Guarani before Spanish and they are not very confident people, so as you could imagine this little Guarani guy was all nervous, saying ‘tambien’ every second word (means ‘also’). Also it didn’t help that the kids were laughing at him all the time, poor bugger! As we walked through the jungle, we tried some bread and mate that were prepared for us, demonstrations of the traps built by the Guarani and at the end we were able to buy items from them. The kids loved the weapons that were made and thought it was a good idea to shot everyone, what a pain in the ass. Then we headed to our first national park visit, the Argentinean side! It was quite funny as we walked in there were people from off the side of the street let in to selling things similar to what I had seen at the Guarani village. We then had to get on a train to take us to the walks of the park. And of course kids being kids in closed areas they become more uncontrollable so it was a good mission to get on board. We finally got off and you could tell all the trouble of fundraising and saving, they were getting anxious. But we still had 600 metres of footpath built on the river! The tour guide told us that the river was only 1m deep, so don’t think about jumping in. We finally reach it! The Devils Throat! And then the cameras came out from everywhere, everyone taking photos, and I went a little crazy. It was amazing at the top of the falls, the water coming back up and spraying us. Luckily we didn’t get to wet. We stayed there for about 1 hour and then we headed to the food court for lunch, and to hear the words ‘tenedor libre’ which is all you can eat, I can’t complain how I was eating now. Once everyone had eaten and were waiting for me to finish, the tour guide took us on the great picture taking walks that look into the falls, great opportunity to take some photos again. The walk ended with a platform basically right under the waterfall, you should have seen all the kids. They just bolted once they were in the clear and got absolutely wet, I wasn’t so keen to hope back on the bus all wet. But me being the big kid I am, I went there for a photo, as you do! We headed off to walk a few more tracks so we could hope on the last train that left at 5:45pm and the children were shattered (YES!). So by 6 we were on the bus ready to cross back into Argentina and spent the last little bit of the day relaxing in the hotel. The hotel recreational programme had organized a video for the children, which occupied most of them. I used that time to sit down and watch some T.V on the only English Channel, which they ran a whole lot of mini-series programmes, I didn’t care. We dined again in the hotel as restaurants were a distance away and I got to taste my first caiperina, most common Brazilian drink, bloody nice as well. This was at 12:30am, so it put me to sleep just nicely.

Day 5:
It was a good start to the day; we got a wake up call at 8:30am, what a difference an hour and a half makes. But there was a lot of anticipation leading up to this day since the fundraising began. It was the day we headed under the falls!!! Well near the bottom anyway. We left the hotel at 9am en route to the Iguaçu National Park, in Brazil this time. We made our way to the park, again with a tour guide with a brief explanation of what we were going to do for the day. Then she put on the recorded version afterwards and it had in English!! God bless. It made life a lot easier. So after all 3 explanations (Spanish and Portuguese) we arrived at the first bus stop. It was just 2 buildings that seemed in the middle of nowhere. Thought this was a bit strange! But I found out this was where the ‘safari’ starts, meh no problem. So we jumped on the buggy cars with trailers with the park staff and gave us an explanation, in Portuguese, all about the jungle, native people and the protected trees. I don’t think the kids paid attention, I mean in another language. But Portuguese is not too hard to listen too, sounds funny though. When they had subtitles in Portuguese on the telly I found it not to hard to read and understand. Then we got off to this wooden track leading in towards the jungle, good memory of New Zealand forests. This track lead us to a waterfall, where some kids and Yeti, thought it would be a good idea to wash up before the boat ride. But we could stay for long, although the students wanted to, we had an appointment! We make it to this barge with 1000’s of lifejackets and boats, we were here. We were spilt into 2 boats, Yeti in one boat and Guillermo, Stella and myself in the other boat (Stella=headmistress; Guillermo = head of sports). The safari was s ride up the river towards the waterfall, and the rapids were great, throwing the ones up front from our seats, loved it. The kids, you could only imagine, some have never experienced something like this, some were nearly crying! And ther it was the foot of the falls, a set of falls closer to the Devil’s Throat. The amount of water was unbelievable, and then the view from the front of the boat all you could see up 20 metres was a shit load of water and then blue sky. Something I will never forget. That was the best 40 minutes, the highlight of the trip. So we left the safari buzzing as we took off in the same carts that bought us there. We then had to wait for the park bus to take us just down the road. We stopped with the huge big pink house on one side and the beginning on tracks on the other. I was disappointed when I found out we weren’t stopping for lunch there, I was bloody hungry. But the tracks gave us a good opportunity for some more photos. There was platforms set-up to go out into the open, and get absolutely wet, which again I did, how couldn’t I?? I tried to take photos there but it was a waste of time. Also looking over the platforms and just seeing white was truly amazing. We also had another platform and I thought it would be a great photo opportunity but so did all the boys and we got drenched from top to toe. We then took the elevator to the top as we had descended a fair way. After hopping off the elevator, we were greeted up the top by the furry little creatures that we saw in the Argentinean national park. The main problem with them is they can smell the food that was bought and were trying to bother the children for some food. Girls were screaming throwing their bags of chips at them, and the boys wanted to kick them. We then walked to the middle of the park where there was a main bus stop that took us back to the entrance of the park. We meet the original bus there and finally went to our restaurant where we were booked, and again it was all you can eat, except this time the meat was bought to you, now that’s what I call service. The kids once again were interested in something else. This time what the people on the streets were selling like watches, sunglasses, socks and jewelry. By this time it was 3pm Thursday and only had 1 more day left of the trip. So this afternoon was a lazy afternoon that had been planned, so we took it into our best interests to go for a swim. I started up the shoulder-ride war where Matias and I won everything, basically throwing these poor little kids. So that tired me out and needed a caiperiña to refresh and there’s nothing like a caiperiña beside the pool, awesome. The hotel happened to have a bingo night, so the kids quickly after dinner rushed over there while we teachers decided to dine. But the students were useless didn’t win anything. I actually went to bed earlier again exhausted from the lack of sleep again and with the hope of getting some sleep before Yeti came in, unfortunately I didn’t!

Day 6:
We woke up again at 8:30am, moving my zombie body to the breakfast table for our 1st and only adventure for the day, the Itaipu Lake, that I had mentioned before. It supplies electricity to 98% of Paraguay’s population and 25 % to Brazil’s. This thing was enormous, put Karapiro to shame. The tour guide for this trip basically put a video on and then asked if there were questions, pretty average. We could only get one view from the lookout building built for tourists. But by now we had crossed the Paraguayan border so we had crossed 3 borders in 1 week. So after a few photos, dropping off the tour guide and getting back into Brazil, we headed of to lunch at another tenedor libre, so you could imagine how well I ate on this trip, and you can tell why its not too bad to travel with the school. But I found Chinese food, I couldn’t believe it so I had a whole plate of that to chow down. Again the teachers were discussing what we should do and we decided that it was best if we just have another lazy afternoon as there were many tired people. So we relaxed in the hotel played a bit of mini-golf, swam and some tennis. For the night the hotel had organized a party which I must say was poorly attended with the majority hiding in each others rooms and causing trouble. I eventually got to sleep at 11:00 as we had to get up early in the morning to check out and be on the road.

Day 7:
An early rise for a long long trip back home no stops this time unlike our trip up where we had 2 stops. We had to wake at 6:30 am shower, brekky, packed our bags and checked out. The foyer of the hotel was just a cluster of luggage where the old people were nearly tripping over. I think some of them would be glad that we were leaving, there were a few old people I think that were probably looking for a bit of peace and quiet. We had to be on the road by 8:00 and I couldn’t believe that we did it, even when it was rainy. But the biggest worry was would I be able to get back into the country as my visa had expired on the 1st of September. There was luck in my favor as when I re-entered the country on the 11th of July I was given another 6 months by accident so I have a visa until the 11th of January. So celebrations all around, Ryan didn’t have to stay in Brazil he could return to Argentina. Now that obstacle was over, the next was a full 24 hour bus ride back to Mar del Plata. We watched Final Destiny 2, Shrek 2 and a photo cd of the hockey girls. This chapter will also include Day 8 as both days contain the same thing… TRAVELING! And it was one of the worst nights sleeping ever. I think I got 3 hours sleep max. We made it back to Mar del Plata at 10am to nervous and worrying parents to see how their kids survived and all I wanted to do was get home and sleep. And when I retold this story to Elliott, there was only 1 phrase that summed it up: OH MY GOD I LIKE IT A LOT!