¿Hablas Español? (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

My first stop in South America was Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, and a vibrant, busy city of almost 10 million people (if you include the outlying suburbs). I spent nine days in total in Buenos Aires, quite a long time to spend in one place on a trip like this, but I'd signed up to do a five day Spanish language course whilst in the city so took advantage of the opportunity to base myself in one place and really get to know the city. After over two months in Africa, it took a few days to adapt to being in a large city with a more western feel (many people compare it to Paris), a change of language, and to get used to using an underground train system again!

My hostel was in the San Telmo district of Buenos Aires, one of the oldest districts in the city and home to a number of narrow cobbled streets and many antique shops. Once my language course started, I had a daily commute to get used to of a 30 minute subway ride (a shock to the system after three months without commuting!). The Buenos Aires subte system is rather creaky with trains often covered in graffitti, but it generally ran very smoothly and every journey was punctuated by a mixture of busking musicians and people hawking goods to commuters, making for an interesting journey every morning. 

San Telmo district

I'd spent two years of my time at university learning Spanish alongside my main degree, but eight years later found that much of my knowledge had evaporated - the lesson surely being that I should go on more holidays in Spain! Undettered, I'd completed a 10 week evening class back in London during the summer to try and refresh my skills, and then followed this up with four hours of lessons every morning for five days in Buenos Aires. The quality of the teaching was very good and I was soon growing in confidence with my language skills. Of course, it really helps being in a Spanish city where you are constantly surrounded by the Spanish language in shops and restaurants, on street signs, and in the free newspapers on the tube, and I now feel much more confident about using the local language over the next few months. 

My first full day in Buenos Aires was spent wandering around the centre of the city, taking in some of the main sights including the Casa Rosada (home of the president), the Congreso Nacional, the Catedral Metropolitana, and Plaza de Mayo, the main central square. Once my Spanish lessons had begun, I was busy during the mornings but able to use the afternoons to visit some of the other districts of the city, including the trendy Palermo district with its array of boutique clothes shops, and the docklands area of Puerto Madero, where much like parts of London's former docks, old wharves and wharehouses had been converted in to upmarket restaurants and bars.

The 67m Obelisco which sits at a major junction in Buenos Aires

Falkands war veterans protesting in the main square

Avenida de 9 de Julio - a 16 lane avenue claimed to be the widest in the world

Eva Peron captured on the side of a block of flats

While in Buenos Aires, I also took the opportunity to hop across the Rio de la Plata for a day trip to Uruguay and the pretty coastal town of Colonia de Sacramento. The old town of Colonia is a UNESCO world heritage site, originally established by the Portugese in the seventeenth century as a smuggling port to rival the Spanish base of Buenos Aires, and contains a charming array of cobbled streets, small museums and cafes and restaurants spilling out on to the road. After a walk around the old town and a climb up the lighthouse, I found a small restaurant in which to while away the rest of the afternoon before my boat back to Buenos Aires.

Colonia del Sacramento

Colonia del Sacramento

Other highlights from my time in Buenos Aires included a visit to the Boca Juniors football stadium (La Bombonera), a wander around the Recoleta cemetery (final resting place of Eva Peron) and a fantastic dinner of a huge piece of Argentinian steak washed down with a few glasses of Argentinian Malbec - yum! My trip to see a pulsating game of Argentinian football is covered in a separate blog.

I also took in some of the cultural highlights of the city, thanks to two nights out arranged by my language school. The first was to Bomba de Tiempo, an evening of drumming, dancing and local beer enjoyed by a huge crowd of both locals and tourists. This video gives a better idea of what it involves. Another cultural highlight was a visit to an open-air theatre in the park for a musical performance about Argentina's battle for independence from Spain and the process of forming the independent nation once that independence had been secured (it was better than that sounds!). Although it was entirelty in Spanish, the language lessons were beginning to kick in and I managed to follow the majority of the play and learn something about Argentinian history along the way.

at La Bombonera

Recoleta Cemetery

Yummy steak

El Superclasico (Mar del Plata, Argentina)

Regular readers of this blog who are not football fans will have to indulge me on this occassion as this blog is somewhat football heavy (sorry!). After arriving in Argentina last week, yesterday I attended a match between Boca Juniors and River Plate, two big footballing rivals in Buenos Aires...

Football is huge in Argentina, particularly in Buenos Aires, a city said to have the highest concentration of football clubs of any city in the world. 14 of the 20 teams in the top division are based in the city, and such is the status of Boca and River that 70% of Argentinians support either of the two teams, making the fixture between the two sides, known as El Superclasico, something of a national event.

As with many footballing rivalries, the Boca-River relationship has a long and interesting history. Both teams began life in the early twentieth century in the working class docklands area of Buenos Aires (known as La Boca) before River Plate chose to move to the wealthier suburbs (a la Arsenal's move from Woolwich to North London perhaps) in the 1930s. Therefore although both clubs have supporters of all social classes, Boca are traditionally seen as a working class team, with River Plate more a team of the middle and upper classes. As a result River Plate are known as 'Los Millionarios', while they refer to their rivals from Boca as "Porqueros" (pigs), an insult supposedly derived from the smell of Boca's Bombonera stadium on the banks of the Rio de la Plata.

River fans taunted Boca with a giant inflatable pig at their last game in October

It's currently pre-season here in Argentina, so I would not be able to attend a league game at Boca's iconic La Bombonera stadium here in Buenos Aires (which I'm hoping to visit for a tour later this week). However, on arriving in Buenos Aires on Wednesday, I discovered that Boca Juniors and River Plate were playing a few hours drive down the coast in the resort of Mar del Plata, as one of a series of pre-season fixtures in which the top Argentine teams play against each other across the country.

Boca Juniors 'La Bombonera' stadium

At first I was hesistant about attending - the tickets weren't cheap, the match was a five hour drive away, and it was only a pre-season friendly after all. However, the Observer had once picked this match as the number one sporting thing to do before you die so it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. Not only that, but as a history undergraduate I'd written an essay about machismo and Argentine football and so the chance to see a live match several years after reading all about the role of football in Argentine society was more than tempting. Also, from what I'd read about the rivalry between the two teams, the idea of a 'friendly' match would be one that both supporters and players would struggle to understand, and so it proved!

As the match was taking place at a beach resort, the tour company I'd booked to go to the match with arranged for us to have some time at the beach during the day, so although the match wasn't kicking off until 10.10pm local time (yes really!), we were picked up at 6.45am to begin the long drive to Mar del Plata. Once there, we spent a few hours on the beach and had a dip in the Atlantic Ocean, before it was time to head to the stadium.

We got to Mar del Plata's Estadio Jose Maria Minella a good couple of hours before kick-off to enable us to soak up the atmosphere and find a good place to stand. Our tickets were in the Boca end of the stadium in the standing section behind one of the goals. As a group of around 20 tourists we stuck out like a sore thumb (despite our purchases of Boca replica shirts and scarfs) and so our guide (two Argentinians, one a Boca fan and one a River fan) worked hard to find the right spot for us, which in practice meant being close to a couple of riot police in case of any problems and well away from the centre of the stand where the hardcore fans would be congregating! The matches between these sides do have something of a reputation for violent clashes between the fans so it was good to be with some locals who could look out for us.

Estadio Jose Maria Minella

In early for a good (safe) spot

From well before kick-off, the noise grew steadily as both sets of fans began chanting and singing, largely oblivious to some youth football matches being played out on the pitch as a precursor to the main event. At matches in the UK, most of the pre-match build up tends to revolve around a few pints in the local pub, but here most of the fans were in place well before kick-off. Then with about 15 minutes to go until kick-off, the centre of the stand behind the goal was cleared, and a procession of the most hardcore fans entered the stand and proceeded down the steps, carrying huge yellow and blue flags, umbrellas and a variety of banners, all accompanied by a band of drummers and percussionists hammering out a rhythm that would lead the singing for the next two hours.

The hardcore Boca fans enter the stand

This process was repeated at the opposite end of the stadium by the River Plate fans, and the noise ratcheted up several more levels as both sets of fans jumped up and down and sang. Already this was unlike any atmosphere I'd experienced at an English ground (no jokes about White Hart Lane please), and it was impossible not to join in, so we did our best to sing along, even though all the songs were in Spanish. What amazed me compared to English football was that every man, woman and child were singing their lungs out, jumping up and down, and clapping, not just at this point, but throughout the entire match creating an intense, noisy, almost carnival atmosphere, with the game itself sometimes feeling like a secondary consideration.

The players come out to start the match as a flare is let off in the River end

The packed stand just before kick off

Finally 10.10pm rolled around and the game kicked off. Boca Juniors started brightly and nearly went ahead early on, only for their star striker Leandro Paredes to have a shot well saved by the River keeper, and a follow-up shot blocked by some last ditch defending. From then on River grew in to the game and slowly took control of the match, helped by a few questionable refereeing decisions in their favour (or maybe I just got caught up in the moment of being a Boca fan for the day!). The game was anything but friendly, with a series of crunching tackles from both sides raising the intensity of the occasion throughout the first half. The largely homegrown Argentine players were technically strong, displaying a good first touch, however, with nearly all the top Argentinian players (such as Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero, Angel Di Maria and Carlos Tevez) based in Europe these days, the game was rather scrappy with neither side able to deliver an end product in the first half.

With the Boca Juniors fans, complete with a Boca scarf

The second half saw more of the same, until a moment of quality arrived with an accurate cross from the left being powerfully headed home by the River striker Ramiro Funes Mori in the 68th minute. Cue a stunned silence in the Boca fans around us, albeit one that lasted only a matter of seconds before the singing started up again, if anything louder than before, as they attempted to rouse their team towards a response. Unfortunately, for Boca, the goal only strengthened River Plate's grip on the game, and after hitting the woodwork twice, River sealed victory when Mori broke clear and unleashed an unstoppable shot past the Boca keeper.

 

Funes Mori celebrates scoring for River Plate

What followed was even more impressive, as the Boca fans, with their team 2-0 down with only minutes to play, began to sing even louder. In English football, fans would be leaving in droves at this point, eager to beat the traffic or unable to bear any more of their team's poor performance. But the Boca fans redoubled their singing efforts and the noise grew even louder. It was almost as if the Boca fans, having seen their team beaten on the pitch, had to make sure they could at least claim a victory over their rival River Plate fans at the other end of the stadium by outsinging them at the last.

So a comfortable win for River in the end, but an incredible experience for me personally that will live long in the memory. I'm not sure live football in England will ever be quite the same for me again after seeing the level of passion, noise and intensity created by both sets of fans for what was essentially a fairly meaningless friendly. As well as a game of football to enjoy, this was a fascinating insight into Argentine culture and society, which was well worth the long trip to Mar del Plata.

(With thanks to the following two articles for some of the background information - http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/timvickery/2012/10/river_plate_v_boca_juniors_-_w.html  and http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/oct/30/superclasico-boca-juniors-river-plate-argentina)

South African road trip (Cape Town to East London)

After our wonderful time exploring Cape Town, Boxing Day saw us heading off us east across South Africa. Rachel had finished her stint at the University of Cape Town and was heading to the Eastern Cape to begin her PhD fieldwork, while I had to be in Johannesburg by mid January for my flight to South America, giving us almost three weeks to explore the southern coast of South Africa. So we loaded up Rachel’s small car with our bags and headed east. I wasn’t insured to drive the car so could sit back and enjoy being driven around for the next few weeks!

Our first stop was Oudtshoorn, a town 400km east of Cape Town, famous for its ostrich farms. Despite 40 degree heat we combined a mountain bike ride with a visit to the Cango Caves (an extensive network of caves in the mountains above Oudtshoorn) and a visit to an ostrich farm. At the farm we were given a guided tour and the opportunity to feed ostriches, stand on ostrich eggs and even ride a blindfolded ostrich (something we declined!).

40 degrees in the shade!

Our next stop was Tsitsikamma National Park, a lush green forested area further along the coast, where we stayed at a hostel near the mouth of the imposingly titled Storms River. Here we visited Monkey Land, which as the name suggests is home to a vast array of primates, both native to Africa and from elsewhere in the world.

Ring-tailed lemurs

The following day we went for a fantastic walk around the mouth of Storms River. The river mouth is traversed by two suspension footbridges which allow you to get really close to the water where the river flows out into the Indian Ocean. We then walked further along the coast following the first part of the Otter Trail (a multi-day walking trail) to a spectacular waterfall which came down over the cliffs to a plunge pool just metres from the sea.

Storms River mouth

Fancy panoramic shot

See if you can spot me in this photo!

Doing my Peter Andre impression

We then headed further inland to spend a night at the Addo Elephant Park, a game reserve which as the name suggests is home to over 500 elephants, along with an array of other wildlife. Unlike other game reserves I’d visited elsewhere in Africa, here we were able to drive ourselves through the park – quite an experience in a small car when most others were in large 4wds. As a big fan of warthogs, Rachel was particularly excited to see a mummy warthog with three babies on our drive, while we also saw hartebeest, kudu, waterbuck, zebras and a male lion lazing in the grass. That evening we went on a more formal evening game drive in a 4wd drive vehicle, on which we were able to get very close to some elephants, some of which nearly interrupted our sunset drink stop as they ambled past towards their water hole.

Warthog mother and babies

The next morning, as we drove out of the elephant park, we suddenly found ourselves even closer to an elephant when we encountered a large adult elephant on the road ahead of us. Rather than doing a panicy u-turn we decided it would be safer to sit tight and let the elephant walk past us, which it promptly did passing only a foot or two away from our tiny car! Unfortunately we were both too terrified to get a picture, but it was quite an experience.

Elephants square up at Addo

For New Year’s Eve we headed further inland again to the picturesque village of Hogsback in the Amathole Mountains. After spending New Year’s Eve in the hostel bar playing cards with some fellow travellers, we then spent a further two days in Hogsback walking in the mountains, where walking trails took us through deep undergrowth to a number of spectacular waterfalls.

Drying off our boots after a walk in Hogsback

Time for another waterfall swim

Our next stop was back on the coast at the village of Cinsta, just outside the town of East London, where South Africa’s ‘Wild Coast’ begins. It was good to be back by the sea again, with more opportunities for swimming in the sea and walking along the long, empty beaches of the Wild Coast. I took the opportunity to try a new activity by signing up for a three hour surfing lesson, which proved to be a fun, but very tiring activity. I was not exactly surfing like a pro by the end, but I did manage to stand up a few times, although I did fall off far more often!

The final stop of our road trip took us further along the Wild Coast and in to the former Transkei area (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transkei). Getting to our accomodation here proved something of a challenge, as the Bulungula lodge where we would be staying could only be reached by public transport with a three hour drive down a gravel road. ‘Public transport’, it turned out, meant cramming 14 people (and all their shopping!) in to the back of a ‘bakkie’ – a Toyota vehicle used extensively in South Africa as a means of public transport. Rachel had assured me that the place would be staying would be worth the journey, as she’d been several times before and it was one of her favourite places in the world. As I squeezed my six foot frame in to the back corner of the vehicle and on to the rudimentary seat and sat waiting for a whole hour before the bakkie even set off, I was growing sceptical that Bulungula could be quite so special. The next three hours were perhaps the least enjoyable (and certainly the least comfortable!) of my trip so far as the bakkie bounced down the gravel road and the Xhosa ladies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xhosa_people) around us speculated loudly (in Xhosa) about whether we were married or not!

The bakkie

When we finally arrived at our destination, I was delighted to find that we had reached a beautiful river mouth where the Bulungula lodge sits. Unlike most accommodation in this part of the world, the lodge exists as part of the Xhosa community, having been set up several years ago to attempt to create a new model of sustainable tourism that works with local communities in rural South Africa rather than in isolation from them (http://www.bulungula.com/). The scenery was stunning and the lodge had a brilliant chilled-out atmosphere, with home-cooked Xhosa food made onsite every day and a fire pit to sit round in the evening, where we were often accompanied by local children showing us their drumming skills. We stayed in ‘rondavels’ (traditional Xhosa houses) which were so close to the sea that we could hear the waves crashing against the shore and could swim in the sea twice every day.  

The Wild Coast at Bulungula

Sunrise at Bulungula

We also took part in a few activities while we were there including a fishing lesson from a local fisherman and an afternoon of horse riding around the local community. I had barely riden a horse before so was slightly nervous as I stepped up on to my horse, but by the end of the afternoon I was galloping along the beach on my horse! Rachel put my ‘galloping’ in to perspective by charging off down the beach at around twice the speed of my horse, but I didn’t do too bad for a beginner. We also stopped at the local ‘sheebeen’ (a pub/shop) where I was able to try the interesting taste of ‘African beer’, a brew made from maize and sold in 1 litre cartons for less than 50p!

Me on a horse - aagh!

A tasty brew...

...which is served in an old tin can!

After four fantastic days it was time to leave and head back to the nearby town with another long journey in a bakkie. Fortunately we were able to bag the front seats this time so the ride was marginally more comfortable, even if we did have to get up at 5am to ensure the best seats!

The very final leg of my travels in South Africa then saw Rachel take me to the community where she had worked back in 2006 when she first came to South Africa. This gave me an opportunity to meet the Xhosa family she had become a second daughter to during her time here. Meeting Nokopiwe (Rachel’s colleague from that time) and the four generations of her family that she lives with in the village of Niqeleni was a humbling experience and we had great fun playing with the youngest children in the family for a few hours with some toys we had brought them.

The contrast with the affluence and development in Cape Town where I had begun my journey four weeks ago was huge, reflecting the fact that South Africa has the second highest level of inequality in the world. The village of Niqeleni and the surrounding parts of the former Transkei we had visited continue to face serious problems with high unemployment, poor infrastructure and health problems including high rates of HIV and high infant mortality from basic illnesses like diahorrea.

Equally shocking to me has been the high death toll on South African roads that we have heard all about on the news during our time here and which has been at the forefront of our minds as we drive on South African roads. An estimated 1300 South Africans were killed on the roads over the festive period, a quite astonishing figure that is beginning to cause some real soul searching here (particularly with the death of Burry Stander, a popular South African Olympic mountain bike rider, among that number - http://mg.co.za/article/2013-01-08-standers-death-the-fruit-of-a-poisoned-society). So I should say a massive thank you to Rachel, mainly for organising such as awesome road trip, but also for driving us safely along South Africa’s rather treacherous roads for the last few weeks.

And so this brings me to the end of my travels in Africa which started back in Nairobi at the end of October, over ten weeks ago. I’ve had  a fantastic time throughout my travels in a continent I’d never visited before and will take a way lots of happy memories as well as (I hope) a greater understanding and awareness of the many challenges continuing to face the continent.

On Wednesday I fly to Buenos Aires to begin the South American leg of my journey where I have three and a half months to explore Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Brazil. I will be back in South Africa in May for a few weeks, but for now it’s goodbye to Africa and hola to South America!

The Mother City (Cape Town, South Africa)

Looking out over Cape Town

After three weeks travelling across Botswana and Namibia, the city of Cape Town was a welcome sight as it neared in to view as the truck headed down the N7 motorway. This meant a break from sleeping in tents, an end to long days on the road and, of course, being reunited with Rachel again and the beginning of our month together in South Africa over Christmas and New Year.

Once I said my goodbyes to my fellow travellers from the overland truck, there was some urgent business to attend to – the beard! After eight weeks without shaving it was starting to look a little wild and Rachel made it clear it had to go. So as you can see from the photos it was bye bye to my resplendent facial hair and hello again to plain old clean shaven Dan (can you tell I was a little sad to see it go?)

Before

After!

The next ten days or so were then spent exploring the fantastic city that is Cape Town and all that it has to offer. I was very much in my element as the city offers the twin attractions of lots of beaches to swim at and a large mountain to climb right on the city’s doorstep. My first full day in Cape Town was therefore spent scaling Table Mountain, the distinctive summit which towers over the city. It was a tough, hot scrabble through a gorge to the top, but very much worth it for the stunning views over the city which greet you at the top. There is the option of a cable car ride to the top, but where’s the fun it that?!

Cape Town view from the top of Table Mountain

That evening we also took in the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean from the top of Signal Hill, another fantastic lookout over the city and Table Bay, although this we drove up!

 After a relaxing Sunday taking in a food market at Hout Bay and a dip in the sea at Llandudno Beach,  I then took a trip to Robben Island to visit the former high security prison where Nelson Mandela had spent much of his 27 years in jail during the apartheid regime in South Africa. While the story of his incarceration and subsequent ‘walk to freedom’ is reasonably well known, it was incredibly powerful to be shown around the prison by one of his fellow political prisoners and to see the small cell where he was confined for so long. Looking back at Cape Town from the island also brought home the terrible isolation that must have been felt in being able to see such a beautiful city across the water, but not know if you would ever live to set foot in it again. The prison itself has been kept relatively unchanged with very few displays or exhibits, which adds to the power of the place.

The former political prisoner who showed us around Robben Island

Nelson Mandela's cell

View of Cape Town from Robben Island

Following another couple of days exploring Cape Town, we then headed out of the city to Franschoek, a charming town in the heart of the South African winelands. Although an ideal spot for relaxing, perhaps inevitably we still found plenty of time for adventure, including a walk in the hills above the valley and a mountain bike ride in sweltering heat to a nearby reservoir. We did though manage to squeeze in some wine tasting and a posh picnic so it wasn’t all hard work!

Walking near Franschoek

Let's off road!

Picnic lunch in a vineyard

Pretending to know something about wine tasting

After three nights in Franschoek, we headed back to Cape Town via a short detour to Hermanus, usually a great spot for spotting whales. Unfortunately we weren’t there at the right time of year, but we did take a wander along the sea front before taking a dramatic scenic drive along the coast.

Surprised by a big wave near Hermanus

Once back in Cape Town, we then had a great day at Newlands, Cape Town’s iconic cricket ground at the foot of Table Mountain. We hadn’t quite timed our period in Cape Town to coincide with a Test Match between South Africa and New Zealand, but we were able to attend a match between Cape Town’s Cape Cobras and Johannesburg’s Nashua Titans. Many of the big name Test players were away with the national squad, but the Cape Cobras secured a comfortable victory all the same. There were only around a hundred spectators in the ground (despite entry being free), but that did mean we were able to comfortably wander around the ground and on to the pitch at the intervals.

Newlands Cricket Ground, Cape Town

On Christmas Eve, we took a drive down to the Cape of Good Hope, often thought of as Africa’s most southerly point and the point where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet (in fact its Cape Aguillas on both counts - a headland slightly further east fact fans). The scenery along the headland was particularly dramatic, with huge waves crashing against the rocks below and a number of shipwrecks off the coast that had obviously missed the two lighthouses at Cape Point. We drove back along the stunning Chapmans Peak scenic drive which rewarded us with fantastic views of the coastline, before we stopped off for a sunset dip in the sea at Camps Bay, one of the most beautiful spots for a swim in Cape Town.

On the edge of Africa at the Cape of Good Hope

The road to Chapmans Peak

Hout Bay

Sunset swim

And so to Christmas Day, which was for me somewhat unusual as rather than the usual day with the family in cold, wet Kent, we were treated to a fantastic sunny day and were able to head to the beach! We earned our beach time with a strenuous early morning walk up Lions Head (another viewpoint over the city) before heading back to Camps Bay for a picnic and more swimming in the sea. The day was rounded off with a braai (South African barbeque) on which we cooked ostrich, steak and chicken, as well as devouring a large cheese board and lots of chocolate – yum!

Christmas Day at Lions Head

Festive sunbathing

Cheers!

The next morning we were up early to begin a road trip across South Africa – more about which in the next blog...!