The Food Saga: The Drinks

In the Andes, espe­cially in Bolivia, mate de coca was a great option. It is basi­cally a tea of coca leaves: as the Boli­vians say, “la hoja de coca no es droga” (Coke leaf is not a drug). Maybe not a drug, but it is sup­posed to help with soroche, alti­tude sick­ness. I’m a big tea drinker, espe­cially of green tea, and I did like the taste of the beverage.

The Food Saga: The Sweets

Lati­nos appar­ently have a sweet tooth: there were panaderías (bak­ery) just about anywhere!

The Food Saga: The Feast Era

The first Argen­tin­ian city we went to was Ushuaia, in Tierra Del Fuego. Because of its geo­graph­i­cal loca­tion — it is the South­ern­most city in the world, stuck at the tip of the Amer­i­cas, right in front of Antarc­tica — food was quite expen­sive. We ended up cook­ing in hos­tels a lot through­out all Patag­o­nia for the same rea­son. But once back to civ­i­liza­tion, in Buenos Aires, we truly got to enjoy the gastronomy.

The Best & The Worst

We both loved our trip in Cen­tral and South Amer­ica. And now that we are home again in Canada, we thought about it: what were the best places, the best cities that we saw… and what were the worst experiences?

Hello Frozen Hell...

Hello frozen hell… we are fly­ing back to Canada.

Cataratas del Iguazú (Argentinian Side)

On our way back to Argentina, we couldn´t miss the great­est water­falls in South Amer­ica: Iguazú.

The falls are located between Argentina and Brazil. The national parks have a total of 275 falls (!), some over 80 meters tall! Basi­cally, just when you think you took the per­fect pic­ture, there is another bet­ter water­falls just around the corner.

Crossing To Uruguay

Not yet tired of Buenos Aires, its huge steaks and great nigtlife, we nonethe­less decided to travel fur­ther, to Uruguay, a coun­try we had never been to. Mon­te­v­ideo was sup­posed to be a great cap­i­tal, small and safe enough to be trav­eled eas­ily, yet very nice to visit.

Argentinidad

I find Argentina´s national psy­che fas­ci­nat­ing. Of course, as an out­sider, it is dif­fi­cult to define, pre­ten­tious even. But as a for­mer Euro­pean, I feel a con­nex­ion with this coun­try. Argen­tini­ans like to eat (late), drink (good wines), smoke, dance, lis­ten to music, talk and hang out in groups, seem to value their fam­ily, and love kids.

An Argentinian Coin Story

Every­where there are signs: “¡no hay mon­eda, no insista!” (we do not have change, don´t insist). So instead of receiv­ing, let´s say, 25 cents for change, you will get a bub­ble gum or a candy. Great. But we still don´t have change.

Buenos Aires By Night

We arrived late the first night and we fig­ured we would have to starve until the next day, because noth­ing would be open. Yeah, right… We found an hos­tel in the micro­cen­tro, right by Avenida 9 De Julio (the widest street in the world!) and we barely had to walk ten meters before see­ing bars, food, book­stores, cafés… What a sight!