Life in a year full of Saturdays

Monday, April 6, 2015

El Calafate - It's all about the view

El Calafate (Argentina)
06 - 09 April 2015

I was sitting in the Hardrock Café at Aeroparque Jorge Newberry in Buenos Aires gazing out over the runway watching the sky blue colours of a long line of Aerolineas planes launch themselves skyward over the city sprawl. Sitting here and waiting to head to El Calafate now felt like the real deal , it felt like the real starting point of our journey. Buenos Aires had been our base, our home and our welcoming post to both Argentina & South America but now he we were, standing on the precipice of our planned South American adventure. No rules, no itineraries, no schedules. It was go time. Inga & I sat for a while and ordered drinks. A moment later the waiter returned to our table and quite apologetically and sincerely said;

‘I’m sorry sir but the only red wine that we have is Malbec, is that suitable for you?’

Both Inga and I laughed out aloud. Now whether you want to believe in omens or not this occurrence typified the manner in which we were to travel for the next three months.

‘I’m sure I’ll be able to deal with that, thank you!’

Have passports - we're all set. Aeroparque Jorge Newberry - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Aeroparque Jorge Newberry - Buenos Aires - Argentina

A little later that afternoon as our Aerolines flight launched itself out over the Rio de la Plata and made the necessary right hand turn to start its journey south-west to El Calafate I felt that same sense of excitement that I had when I left Sydney. This was now the start of ‘our’ journey and the sense of freedom that came with that thought was powerful. Also personally, where we were now heading was a part of the world that for me had always carried such an air of mystery and it was within that mystery that I found my own sense of wonder. Patagonia, wild and rugged, expansive, desolate, remote and a world away from where my younger mind would try to imagine what that place on the map would look and feel like in reality. Now within 4hrs I’d get my first taste.

A few hours later with the flight descending into El Calafate both of us looked out of our little porthole into this new world. I remember Inga saying something close to, ‘Wow, it feels like we’re landing on the moon’ and I have to say that’s pretty much the way it felt. Arriving late in the afternoon the creep of darkness had already commenced with its moody, atmospheric blues reaching out over the white capped Andes mountains. Grey bellied clouds hung low above the earth and the deep blue of Lago Argentino contrasted magnificently against the brown, barren landscape that surrounded it. Its places like this, with their heavy weight of atmosphere that always captures my attention.

Arriving in El Calafate - Santa Cruz Province - Argentina

The 20km drive into town on this section of the Patagonian steppe was enlivening. A lost highway winding through a landscape devoid of trees with just rudimental vegetation to keep us company and the odd inquisitive llama looking into our headlights.

As we stepped out of the cab at the America del Sur hostel I noticed that there was a distinct bite in the air, the dirt road beneath our feet making it feel like we’d arrived at some outpost at the end of the world. A short lived feeling of course, the moment we had waltzed through the doors it felt immediately felt like a typical hostel, and typically in that sense we found ourselves signing onto a tour for the next morning within minutes of entry. Not that it was an issue of course, we were now on the boundary of Los Glaciares National Park and the rock star in these parts was Perito Moreno. A place that I desperately wanted to see, so really was there a reason to wait any longer than we had to? I’ll answer that, ‘No’.

Early morning at America de Sur was…well, it was all about the view. The hostel was positioned high on a hill outside of the centre of El Calafate and with no impeding buildings the view over the lake and to the mountains beyond mirrored what I had always imagined Patagonia to be in my mind. Vast blue skies, white capped peaks that were now being coloured by the orange of the rising sun and stepping outside you also caught the chilled wind as it made its way across the steppe, it was a pleasure just to stand there and absorb it all.

Perito Moreno itself is in the Los Glaciares National Park some 70kms from El Calafate. The scenery is here is tough, spartan, rugged, and as we pass the entry gates of the Nacional park the bus slows as we take to managing the winding roads of the accompanying mountains. We make turns slowly and assuredly but then at one moment we capture sight of it, a white wall dramatically positioned between two distant mountains. A view we only encounter for a few brief moments as the bus once again turns away and continues closer to our destination.

First peak of Perito Moreno - Los Glaciares Nacional Park - Santa Cruz Province - Argentina

Perito Moreno - Los Glaciares Nacional Park - Santa Cruz Province - Argentina

Soon enough however we’re at the main Perito Moreno viewing area. A brief explanation of where to walk and where we need at certain times shoots in one ear and out the other as we immediately head for one of several elevated walkways that are situated on a hill across from the main wall of the glacier. And as we follow the paths and look both through and beyond the trees that line the hill we see the behemoth block of ice initially forming its own white backdrop and then as me moved closer we witness it rising imperiously for all to see. Then we're there, in front of it. Standing face to face with the glacier you realise that it has an unmistakable presence. Reaching some 70mtrs high (25-30 stories) off the waters of Lago Argentino and stretching 5kms across the valley, its state of existence in this space goes further to emphasising its size and the power it has in its dominance over surrounding physical elements. The glacier is immense in height and breadth and as you follow the ice up from its front face you see it wind back up into the mountains like an enormous white motorway leading into infinite whiteness.

Perito Moreno - Los Glaciares Nacional Park - Santa Cruz Province - Argentina

Winds off the glacier rise and fall without rhyme or reason smacking you in the face with short sharps cuts of cold and whilst that in itself sharpens your focus on where you’re standing ,its when that silence is broken, by sharp gunshot like cracks or long, rising thunder like rumbles, that you realise the glacier is very much alive, a work that is constantly in progress. Stand and stare at the front wall of the glacier long enough and inevitably you'll see chunks of ice fall into the lake below, the volume of which you can recognise from the wake that it leaves.

As would become a common occurrence for Inga & I, we found a walkway that moved away from the main viewing areas and followed the shoreline of the lake to a small dock. As we walked further around the lake we would see various pieces of the glacier that had broken off and floated to shore. Sitting on the dock and looking back to the glacier we cracked open our bottle of (Hiram Walker scotch) and toasted to what would be the first of many, many incredible sights on this adventure.

Perito Moreno - Los Glaciares Nacional Park - Santa Cruz Province - Argentina

Hiram Walker for lunch - I liiike - is good!

I've got my bottle and my boots - I'm good to go!

Now that's a solid lunch

After our tuna and scotch based lunch on the milky blue waters of the lake (trust me, tuna and scotch are an outstanding combination), we were driven to the south side of the glacier where we able take a boat ride across the lake to a staging area that would allow us to take trek on the glacier itself.

Looking out across the lake and the rising wall of ice as we approached only made for the realisation how incredibly insignificant we were by comparison and also made you wonder at the abilities of the boat to surf the wake of whatever wave that arrived should a significant portion of ice decide to carve itself away from the front wall.

Perito Moreno - Los Glaciares Nacional Park - Santa Cruz Province - Argentina

Disembarking the boat we walked about 15-20 mins around the shoreline of the lake before arriving at a location where we were asked to put on crampons, from here out it was going to be ice climbing time on the glacier itself. The guides advising that short steps for ascending and short v-shaped like steps for descending were the easiest ways to make progress and not become the glaciers bitch for the afternoon, but in all honesty everyone of us got 'owned' at some point. However the walk amongst the various shapes of tortured and teased ice coupled with the deep blue colours of the ice itself was just spectacular, just an amazing environment in which we were fortunate enough to have placed ourselves in.

Perito Moreno - Los Glaciares Nacional Park - Santa Cruz Province - Argentina

Our guides informed us that the glacial speed of movement of Perito is at the startling pace of 2 metres a day and that’s even more amazing considering the fact that the depth of the ice itself can be 170 mtrs in places, not bad for a block of ice that’s quite long in the tooth, some 400yrs. In direct acknowledgment of its age therefore, and the abundance of ice in this location, Inga and I decided that it would be a missed opportunity not to have ourselves a couple of glasses of scotch and utilise some of the ice that was probably around when Magellan himself was cruising these parts. Now my friends, that’s what you call a mature drink, with ice aged to absolute perfection.

Perito Moreno - Los Glaciares Nacional Park - Santa Cruz Province - Argentina

Well matured ice

Perito Moreno - Los Glaciares Nacional Park - Santa Cruz Province - Argentina

With the afternoon sun hanging low in the sky and our departure from the glacier imminent, we walked back to the departure dock and took some time out to once again view the glacier and appreciate the magnitude of what we had in front of us. To quote our good friend Rob Van Winkel from his 1990 album To the Extreme - 'Ice Ice Baby', and lets just leave Vanilla to have the final words on that one.

Borges y Alvarez Libro-Bar - El Calafate - Santa Cruz Province - Argentina

Our following two days were spent in El Calafate itself. Thinking back, I'm not quite sure why I thought we would require 3 days in this town other than making the assumption that assigning ourselves to get to Perito Moreno and Mont Fitz Roy, (which was not in El Calafate but rather El Chalten), would actually take longer and be more of a logistical challenge, which we found couldn't have been further from the truth. In any case the town of El Calafate, whilst small, is a nice little place that has obviously now started to have a growth spurt through the onset of tourism, the direct result of the El Calafate airport having been opened some 15 years ago. As you'd expect of a place catering towards Winter style tourists, there are the usual Winter style clothing stores, sporting goods stores, souvenir shops, restaurants and bars, the latter of which we were more than happy to investigate and in El Calafate we found a good one.

Borges y Alvarez Libro-Bar stood proudly on the main street, Avenida Libertador. From the outside the wood panelling and chalet type of look immediately caught my eye and on the inside its décor and sunlit corner facing onto the street were a place that we would love to sit, hijack a martini rosso or several and glance through one of the Argentinian travel based books that occupied a place on one of the booked filled shelves. We both found it to be just a warm and welcoming place and no matter how many times we walked up and down the Avenue with the intention of perhaps trying another location, the Libro-Bar, or Libreria as we called it, would somehow always receive our final vote. Now, that's not to say that we did copious amounts of drinking in El Calafate,(that was to come later), but we did get out and commit ourselves to a fitness regime that unfortunately we found impossible to maintain,(substantial travel tends to do that), but I should recognise here at least that we did find it in ourselves to undertake a cross-fit session, go for a run around part of Argentino Lago and take on running up one of the steep hills facing the town, all for the sake of maintaining fitness levels. It was a noble effort from us in El Calafate I must say, although I think we were both a little too optimistic in thinking that we'd be able to manufacture ways of remaining consistent in that regards. Still, for right there and then, everything was going well!

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Colonia del Sacramento - Todos Canguros

Colonia del Sacramento (Uruguay)
02 April - 03 April 2015

Colonia de Sacramento stands idly on the shores of the Rio de la Plata, looking almost forlornly,even perhaps embarrassingly across the 52kms of water that stands between itself and its gigantic beast of a relative, Buenos Aires. If Colonia were a person then I’d have to say that it would be Doug Pitt,(Doug who you say?), 'Doug Pitt' I repeat, the almost unknown, unseen younger brother of superstar Brad Pitt. I mean sure, good 'ole Doug may have some impressive, even some endearing qualities. Doug is a businessman, a philanthropist and for some odd reason also the Goodwill ambassador for the United Republic of Tanzania (..seriously). Now as nice as that all is, I ask you, so what!? I'd imagine that Doug would be the type of guy you’d be okay having a casual chat with when Brad is off galavanting with Angie and you somehow find yourself stuck with a six pack of Millers, a flat screenTV and watching 'the game',(whatever game that may be), at Casa de Pitt. Colonia is what I imagine Doug Pitt to be, quiet, serene, quaint and close enough to its big brother Buenos Aires to be visited without being considered as an absolute nuisance. Sometimes proximity to greatness can have its benefits!

Historically however this city suffers from a complex multiple personality disorder. It was initially settled by the Portuguese for strategic purposes, it then fell into the hands of the Spanish and then, following that ownership transference, the succession of ownership went, (and don’t hold your breath until the end), Portugal, Spain, Portugal, Spain, Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Portugal, Brazil and finally Uruguay from 1828 until the present day. You could only imagine that with such a chequered upbringing the now older Colonia would be somewhat jaded and carry with it long persistent issues that were rooted in its childhood, but alas, the only sounds of fury on the cobbled stoned streets of the historical centre of Colonia were those of the tapping tread of tourists and the sounds of the pimped out golf carts that tourists utilise to get around the streets.

Colonia del Sacramento - Uruguay

Our two day sojourn to Colonia followed a well known and well-trodden path that commenced at the Buquebus terminal in Buenos Aires and then skimmed along the surface of the silvery-grey Rio de la Plata, ending up at the equivalent terminal in Colonia del Sacramento. It’s popularity amongst tourists and Portenos alike comes from the UNESCO heritage listing granted to the old town of Colonia, which as I’ve mentioned, is admittedly charming, quaint and makes for wonderful photos opportunities. In my personal opinion it is quite a photogenic town and it’s hard not to fall for its subtle, airy charms, especially when conducting a post photo-shoot reviews on your digital.

Walking in the barrio historico is kind of like taking a step back in time, although the proliferation of digital cameras and happy selfie posers does everything to entice you out of that daydream (yes, I realise that we're also part of the problem - but let me state for the record, WE ARE NOT SELFIE POSERS OR TAKERS).

Colonia del Sacramento - Uruguay

Posada Plaza Mayor - Colonia del Sacramento - Uruguay

Colonia del Sacramento - Uruguay

Arriving at the Andalusian inspired courtyard at the centre of the Posada Plaza Mayor, our accommodation for the evening, was like arriving in an oasis of tranquillity, one step away from the already sedate streets of Colonia. The town I gather was quite contented to be living within its own placid, peaceful corner of the world without interruptions. In fact the only ‘happenings’ in the town on that day was the advertising of a candidate in upcoming state inflicted elecciones nacionales. His campaign strategy must have been top heavy on advertising as the vehicle he had hired to do laps of Colonia for the day trumpeted his annoying catchy theme song incessantly, so much so that the tune stuck in our heads for weeks after we had left Colonia, and even though we couldn’t quite pin down all the words we did consistently catch the mysterious political line of ‘todos canguros’..dah, dah, dah. Now why a Uruguayan political candidate would appeal to ‘All the kangaroos’ I couldn’t tell you but damn me if that kangaroo line didn’t float around in my subconscious for months after.

Sunset over the Rio de la Plata - Colonia del Sacramento - Uruguay

Colonia del Sacramento - Uruguay

Colonia del Sacramento - Uruguay

That afternoon was spent in the courtyard of our posada, downing our own mojito creations with fresh ‘menta’ that Inga was resourceful enough to locate in a store by simply asking for 'menta',(logical woman!), and waiting for the sun to commence its fall over the Western side of the Rio de la Plata, behind the tall glass and metal structures of Buenos Aires. The fact that we had made a point to watch the sunset was not surprising. Apart from my penchant for watching sunsets one of the highlights of an afternoon in Colonia is to meander to the Rio de la Plata and witness the sun paint on its own earthly canvas. But as the afternoon faded and our mojitos took control, the bliss of our buzz increased in direct proportion to our mindfulness, or rather lack of it, of when sunset was actually meant to be happening. It was only when Inga called out ‘sunset is in 3 mins’ that we jumped up off our chairs like startled gazelles and ran through the Portuguese/Spanish/Brazilian/Uruguayan streets like Wilderbeest stampeding through the Serengetti (ok, so perhaps not even that elegantly). Never the less, when we reached the banks of the Rio de la Plata we were in fact rewarded with quite an appealing view over the water out to Buenos Aires with the Sun providing a master class as to how the concept of 'paint by numbers' actually works.

Colonia del Sacramento - Uruguay

Colonia del Sacramento only allows you to play as hard as the toys it provides. It's like playing with your 10 year old cousin, whatever you're doing is basically for charity purposes. Okay, its not as bad as all that and as I've mentioned its relaxed charm and picturesque surrounds provides for a soothing atmosphere. It's sycamore lined streets, coloured building facades, winding cobble stoned streets and Portuguese inspired architecture offers enough for the passing tourist to enjoy a few hours before being called back into the arms of Buenos Aires screaming for a morcipan with buckets of chimichurri and denouncing the much hyped credentials of the local fare, headed solely by the mighty chivito.

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Buenos Aires - I'm going to take you to a tango show!

Buenos Aires (Argentina)
28 March - 06 April 2015

The question I get asked by all and sundry is ‘What is it about Buenos Aires’? In the immediate moments after I hear the question I always find myself in that inevitable space of having to fumble for the appropriate verbs and adjectives, I simultaneously berate myself for not ever having developed a stock answer, but now, with the equivalent lucidity of a man that’s consumed three glasses of Malbec and has hit that ‘sweet zone’ of temporary enlightenment, I figure that I don’t ever really need to have one. The question is about as complex as answering ‘why are you in love?’, I mean how do you formulate an answer and provide a significant amount of justice to the weight of that feeling? I know that I can frame the response in terms of what initially drew me in, which was the steak, red wine and its vibrancy of life, but that’s basic talk, that’s just Buenos Aires 101 for the newbie. I could then add something about its energy, passion, lifestyle, architecture, sense of style, sense of self, nightlife, the cobble stoned streets of San Telmo, café con leche and medialunas in Dorrego Bar, the roar of the crowd in La Bombonera, the dog walkers handling 10 dogs at a time on the tree lined streets of Palermo, watching the afternoon sun light up the buildings with a glorious burnt orange hue over Puerto Madero, walking Defensa on market day, sipping cocktails and feeling the buzz of Plaza Serrano, looking at the uniquely framed Punta de la Mujer, infiltrating a cross fit class in the parks surrounding Madero, empanadas, dulce de leche, having three bites of walking across Avenida 9 de Julio, not grasping the weird locks of our apartment on Humberto Primo, talking about going to a tango show, actually going to a tango show…you see, the point ends up becoming so irrelevant because in the end it all rests within the realm of my own personal connection with the city and how this place makes me feel. That’s something that I can’t convey in it's entirety, you can’t simply give that to somebody, you can only hope that someone else gets the chance to have that experience and also, perhaps, feel the same sort of thing as you do. So when Inga’s flight touched down at Ezeiza on the 29th of March all I was hoping was that this town would somehow permeate her pores and pass on that same vibrant energy that had mesmerised me for so long.

San Telmo - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Sunrise in San Telmo - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Obelisco de Buenos Aires - Avenida Corrientes - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Puerto Madero panorama - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Drinks on Plaza Serrano - Palermo - Buenos Aires - Argentina

When you front up to the starting line of a 3.5 month adventure you convince yourself that you have all the time in the world, whilst at the same time secretly whispering to yourself, in your 'other' internal voice, ‘yeah but time will pass us by so quickly’, and you know in yourself that you’re right. This adventure originated from an idea that was formulated in Paris, that when said out aloud at the time sounded like pure fantasy, and yet as I drifted through the now familiar streets of San Telmo, there I stood, in another city, on another continent, Inga in situ and me waiting for us to started.

The decision for both of us to do this was a huge roll of the dice on both parts. Travelling with friends, family members, partners, etc can be fraught with danger. The traps are an ever present reality. Spending so much time in the company of one another can quickly undo a relationship and turn it into a pile of rubble, but with that said, where there is risk there is also the chance for an equally large reward. So as I waited at the overcrowded arrival gates of Ezeiza airport and spotted that familiar face in a very foreign crowd all I was able to say when she approached was ‘hey, look at you’, not the most profound opening line of all time but at least I had time on my side to be able to improve on that!

Corridor entrance to our apartment - Humberto Primo - San Telmo - Buenos Aires

Our apartment - Humberto Primo - San Telmo - Buenos Aires

Our home in Buenos Aires was a great apartment on Humberto Primo, literally on the doorstep of Plaza Dorrego, a place where for me I believe that a person can find the essence of this city. On Sundays the plaza, and the avenue that it sidles up against (Avenida Defensa), comes alive with the chatter of people through its markets, the sounds of tango and the movement of people in dance, cafes filled with Portenos and tourists alike, parillas filling the air with the aromas of all sorts of grilled meat, the clinking of glasses filled with Malbec and the unique sound of Argentinian Spanish. For me it felt somehow important that Inga fall for Buenos Aires the same way that I did and the only way I could think of doing that was to throw the wall of Buenos Aires straight at her on arrival. Walking through the throngs on Defensa, heading up to Plaza de Mayo and admiring the uniquely coloured Casa Rosada, walking Avenida Pres.Roque Saenz Pena and being pulled into the central vortex of the city as represented by the Obelisco de Buenos Aires, an historical monument located at the intersection of Corrientes and Avenida 9 de Julio. This to me is how I believe a city can be truly experienced but especially a place like BA where walking the streets really allows you to feel the vibrancy and its pace of life. As I’ve commented many times before in this blog, I often find the best way of getting to know a city is to just walk, to go, explore and discover, whether that be with a certain intent or wandering aimlessly in the hope of acquiring those ‘happy’ accidental discoveries. I was more than happy that with Inga her modus was similar to mine, although I found out very quickly that she adopted the exhausting principal of ‘walk until you drop’, mitigated by only by the fact that refreshment stops for us both were for the most part cocktail sessions somewhere in the city. An outsider viewing our movements could quite easily have been fooled into thinking that our journey through this metropolis was nothing more than an extravagant bar crawl!

Gardelito, Defensa on a Sunday, he's just such a part of the city. This is the personification of San Telmo - Buenos Aires - Argentina

If it's a glass of Malbec then it must be Argentina - Puerto Madero - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Love this place - Dorrego Bar - San Telmo - Buenos Aires - Argentina

'Seriously Mafalda!?' - San Telmo - Buenos Aires - Argentina

The 30^th of March brought with it an important milestone for Inga, her 30^th birthday. It was this date and of course the 2^nd of July, my 40^th, which essentially provided the bookends to our intended South American adventure. It was these two dates that we selected months ago as being ones that we wanted both wanted to celebrate in this town. So, as opposed to the previous day where we experienced Buenos Aires on the street, I thought that, post morning champagne celebration, which also involved some extreme skill on my part where I caught the flying rebound of the champagne cork off the living room wall (trust me, it looked impressive), that we head out to the heliport at San Isidro and take to the air in order to gain some vertical perspective of what is the second largest metropolitan area in South America after Sao Paulo.

Somewhere over the Rio de la plata - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Puerto Madero from the air - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Looking back now, several months removed from where it started, you realise that in writing at ‘arms length’, the location of where a place resides in your mind is always punctuated by the moments that you carry in your memory for what and how those moments made you feel. I do recall on one particular evening whilst taking a walk through the parks surrounding Puerto Madero that we encountered a cross fit group mid-session. What’s fantastic about this area and I guess about Portenos in general is that they enjoy getting out and doing things, now that may be in the guise of going to cafes, restaurants and bars, or as in this instance, keeping fit. Puerto Madero of an evening is filled with inline bladers, runners, meandering couples and fitness groups, something that we of course intended to be a part of. So with the stealth and deft touch of a blind elephant in a China shop, we infiltrated one of these groups by mimicking exercises from the safe distance of 5 mtrs, because as a foreigner, you know, you’ll never be spotted with your cloak of invisibility!? Sure enough, within seconds the instructor was calling us out and beckoning us to join in, without a second thought Inga does and enters the fray and of course I follow. Now, I don’t want to say that the gringo ring-ins showed the Portenos of Puerto Madero a thing or two about exercise, but yeah, we absolutely owned them!

'El Che' mural - Carlos Calvo - San Telmo - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Mothers of the disappeared mural - La Boca - Buenos Aires - Argentina

El caminito - La Boca - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Estadio Monumental - Belgrano- Buenos Aires

Drinks at Floreria Atlantico - Retiro - Buenos Aires - Argentina

When you think of Buenos Aires there are places and things that immediately come to mind, places that punctuate your consciousness, but in the same way these places and events are unique in the manner in which you experience them. So when I think of us in San Telmo I remember the mural of ‘El Che’ on pasaje San Lorenzo, the accompanying words which I now know to say ‘For love, use a condom’ or I think of wandering the multi-coloured streets of La Boca and El Caminito and remembering that greater than the vibrant colour was the acquisition of the best Pisco Sours in the whole of South America ( we didn’t know it at the time but our extensive testing over three months was definitive, Buenos Aires (La Boca) owned the title even though Chile and Peru disputed intellectual property rights) or I think of the inspired 3am suggestion by Inga whilst lying in bed that going out for drinks would be a much better way of passing our time (and I had to agree) or I think of rocking up to the well known restaurant of La Brigada in San Telmo well after midnight and the waiters responding almost incredulously to our question of whether they were still open ‘…but of course we’re open’…but of course we repeat to ourselves, this is Buenos Aires and this is where a so much living is done between the hours of midnight and 6am. This is a town where you can walk into a florist, waltz passed a very non-descript door and descend stairs to one of the coolest bars in town (I’m looking at you Floreria Atlantico) but it’s also a town where old school charm is still maintained and none better than within the four walls of the well known Café Tortoni. It’s a city of passion, as encountered by our trip to Estadio Monumental where one bright April afternoon we caught the local derby between River Plate and their inner city rivals San Lorenzo, and it’s a city of culinary delights, mostly of the carne persuasion, as typified by our visits to Don Ernesto, La Brigada and Desnivel but more importantly highlighted by our expert opinion which of them had the best chimichurri (The most necessary of condiments in Argentina – and - It was Desnivel by the way). The ‘key’ to feeling a city, this city, is to immerse yourself the best way you can in whatever it has to offer, and sometimes, if both you and the city are on the same wavelength then something magical can happen. Buenos Aires to me is some place that I have to feel and not just see, and, far more importantly I think, one of those rare places that even though it isn't home it somehow still allows me to feel at home, and if I mayspeak for Inga also, I think it’s a place that she fell for in the same manner as I have and did again. Why and how that happened is not so important as the fact that it did and the fact that I really hoped that it would. Buenos Aires never ever seems to disappoint and is always able to give so much, this occasion was certainly no exception and for that, Buenos Aires, we say ‘Muchas gracias!’.

We were there! It says so!! Don Ernesto - San Telmo - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Friday, March 27, 2015

Sydney: Trienta y cuarenta - the tour of never say never!

Sydney (Australia)
27 March 2015

El treinta y cuarenta es un sencillo juego de casino muy popular en Francia, pero poco conocido fuera de ese país.

In 2005 Australia qualified for the World Cup for the second time in their history, the wait since the last occasion had been a long 32 years. There were many times during that period when all of us despaired at the qualifying path that would be dealt to us in each four year cycle. There were nights of anguish and cruelty, there were nights of hopelessness, but, on one particular November evening in 2005, John Aloisi struck the ball into the bottom right hand corner of the net and the 80,000+ parochial Australian crowed erupted in a manner I had never experienced before or since. The words that rang true on that evening, ring true as equally today, ‘You can never say never’. Life at times can seem to be so predictable, so straight forward but in a short half breath, the ground beneath your feet gives way and you’re left in altogether different reality. Sometimes the opportunities that this presents amounts to possibilities that you could never have fathomed in the second before the event took place.

So now, in the tradition of all my other kick-off write ups such as ‘Life in a year full of Saturdays’, ‘The wingand a prayer tour’, ‘Don’t call this a comeback’, ’43: The tour of awesome’, ‘Argentina– The two-timer tour’, I give you ‘Trienta y cuarenta’ – the tour of never say never!

Part of this write up also needs to be dedicated to the continuation of an epic story in the making. For those of you who have missed ‘Riga – Latvian Nightmoves’ and ‘Paris: Who the hell saw that coming’, you would know that Inga and I met in Riga, had our first date in Paris and now, effectively, we’ll be having our second date in Buenos Aires…but of course, how in the world would you ever follow up an epic first date like Paris. For those of you that want to know, the city of good air will resolve your dilemma!

3 months in South America with two major birthday milestones, 30 & 40, time to get started!

Life in a year full of Saturdays

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Monday, April 6, 2015

El Calafate - It's all about the view

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Colonia del Sacramento - Todos Canguros

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Buenos Aires - I'm going to take you to a tango show!

Friday, March 27, 2015

Sydney: Trienta y cuarenta - the tour of never say never!

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A year full of Saturdays