One of the inevitable consequences of long journeys abroad is the period of adjustment afterwards. Everything that’s been put off or ignored while you’ve been off exploring must be dealt with on your return. I’ve done these kind of trips so often that I can mitigate the worst of it, but even so it took about two weeks after my return from South America before I felt that I’d caught up with the life I left behind.
Delivering write ups of my travels was part of that catching up, and that element of the checklist was ticked off about a week ago. Still, there are a few thoughts that never quite fit into the posts that I’ve already put up. So for the sake of completeness, here follow a few suggestions for anyone who might be tempted to follow in my footsteps.
Bring a Guidebook: First off, don’t rely on my words. Get yourself a guidebook. Lonely Planet usually serves me well, but your mileage may vary. Even though the Internet has usurped many of their functions, a collection of suggestions about places to stay, sights to see, and culinary delights to sample will serve as good bus or train reading in the space between places. Lonely Planet’s guidebook for South America added a hefty lump to my baggage, but it did what I needed (except perhaps in Rio, where its broad approach was spread a little too thin).
Pack According to Your Needs: This will depend heavily upon your habits and plans, but it’s possible to minimise what you’re carrying on a long overland trip. I generally go for a daily bag containing everything vital to the trip (passport, electronics, medicine, etc.) and a larger backpack containing clothes and anything I don’t need immediate access to. Judicious trimming of what you bring will make this even more functional: I only needed to use a laundry once during my three-week-plus trip, and I kept dirty clothes separated in waterproof internal bags.
Stray Dogs Everywhere: Start in the west and travel east and you’ll notice a change from canine to feline. Chile and Argentina both have stray dogs aplenty, though most of them look as though they’re well fed, and I didn’t come across any who were unfriendly. It wasn’t until I hit Buenos Aires’ main cemetery that I saw cats in the open. By the time you reach Rio, balance has been restored, though the marmosets on the Sugarloaf are surely an outlier.
Don’t Rely on WiFi: I did without buying a traveller’s SIM card for my phone, figuring that a bit of disconnection would be good for me, and that WiFi would fill any gaps that there were. Which was more or less true: wandering around cities is better if the world doesn’t intrude on your thoughts, and there’s WiFi aplenty in public spaces. However, be aware that most of these WiFi networks are unsecured, and even in hotels, where the networks are more secure, the strength of the signal may not be the best. In short, accept the disconnection and know what you’re going to need before you go online. (And don’t use data roaming except in an emergency—the 30 seconds that mine was active before I remembered to turn it off cost me about €20.)
The Roads are Pretty Good—Mostly: After driving north and south through Chile, my ambition to some day traverse the entire Panamerican Highway is stronger than ever. Probably not all of it will be as nice as the route between Santiago and La Serena, but what I experienced was exceptional in terms of quality and views available. I didn’t have much to complain about when it came to the main roads in Argentina and Uruguay either, so renting a car for travel is a definite possibility.
Don’t be a Competitive Driver: This is more of a general rule, as opposed to something specific to South America. Drivers who overtake at high speed, dive into the tightest of gaps between cars, and are allergic to the use of indicators, are best left to their own devices. Especially when you’re a foreign driver. If there’s going to be any consequences to that kind of behaviour, the further away you are from it, the better.
Carry Cash…: Many places will allow you to use debit and credit cards, especially in and around the major tourist sites, but it’s always handy to have some cash if you’re planning on exploring further afield or if the tourist stuff holds little interest. Of course, if you’re country hopping, that means you’ll need to make use of currency exchanges, either in banks or the smaller cambios. Also, the usual rules for travellers apply: don’t keep it all in one place, and don’t flash it around either. As always, be safe.
…but Beware of ATMs: If you need cash, you’ll likely need to turn to ATMs, of which there are plenty. Most of these will be in indoor lobbies, so they’re safe enough to use, though take the usual care. The major issue is that the fees for using them are not small. Limit your usage accordingly, because those fees do add up.
Trains are good, but buses are your friend: I’m as big a fan of train travel as you’re likely to find, but buses are the better option in South America. The passenger train network is disconnected, and the one I did take was a good bit slower than the bus alternative would have been. Buses go pretty much everywhere, and the major cities are connected by coaches run by multiple companies. Do your research and you can get where you need to go cheaply.
Go for comfort…: On the coach routes, you’ll often have the option to opt for “cama” or “semi-cama” seats. These will be on the lower tier of double decker coaches, and they’ll provide you with well-upholstered seats with lots of legroom and an ability to recline far enough to provide you with an opportunity for snoozing. Pick the right coach provider and you may even be offered snacks.
…but mind the view: The one problem with those cama or semi-cama seats is that since they’re on the lower deck of the coach, you’re going to lose out on some viewing opportunities. You can mitigate these problems a bit by selecting the right seat when booking your trip. For example, when crossing the Andes from Santiago to Mendoza, sit by the right window for the best views, and sit on the left when going the other way.
Avail of “las verduras” where you can: Especially in Argentina and Uruguay, meat is a way of life. Vegetarians are going to have to put a bit of extra effort in, and vegans might find themselves restricted in terms of their dietary choices. (Well … more restricted.) That said, there are some really good verduras and frutas to be had, and if you’re not aiming to pursue a purely carnivorous diet, you should grab them whenever you can.
Brazil is different: There’s a lot of commonality across the three Spanish-speaking nations I visited, but once I landed in Rio, there was enough of a change to inflict just a little culture shock. Whatever preparation I’d done for the start of the trip went out of the window, and I was more or less starting again. Language was a particular issue, with Spanish and Portuguese far enough apart that there was little knowledge to transfer, and few people speaking much or any English. In short, put the effort in to learn a little about the country that you’re visiting. But isn’t that always the way?
It’s absolutely worth it: Sticking to road and rail to cross a continent is something that I’ve done four times now. Seeing the landscape close up is a massive improvement over staring at it out of a tiny plane window. Getting outside of the big cities, or just walking around a city from dawn to dusk and knowing that just a week or two ago you were sat by a different ocean is an amazing feeling. Every trip generates thoughts of things that you could have done or moments that you might have missed, but focus on the good memories. Trips like this will generate plenty of them.
The customs station on the Argentine side of the Andes crossing that took me from Santiago in Chile to Mendoza wasn’t unbearably cold, for all that it was winter and the roof’s insulation was fraying and falling away in multiple places. More importantly, it was efficient, moving an entire coach, its passengers, and their luggage through and out in about an hour. However, our trip was already delayed, and that combined with a couple of police stops further down the road, meant that I only got to see the first part of the trip in daylight.
The Argentine side of the Andes is notably different from the Chilean side. Part of this is undoubtedly due to the geological forces that heaved up the mountains, as the Pacific is ground under the continental plate. But part of it is probably due to water and ice as well: most of South America’s rivers flow east from the Andes, and the rivers and glaciers there have alternately left massive deposits of sediment on valley floors and carved narrow channels through them. All around are vast sweeps of red gravel and great stacks of sedimentary rock heaved up and tilted, creating bands of cream, grey, and red that colour the mountains.
Unfortunately, the best sights of the descent were lost in the dusk.
There’s no railroad that runs through the mountains on this route, though there must have been one once. Our bus ran parallel to an old single-line track that was still intact in many places, but broken up or buried under landslides in others. Perhaps it might get remade some day, and if so it would be well worth riding, but for now I suspect that the tunnel that took us across the highest part of the crossing has been stolen away and will not be given back.
In darkness I arrived in Mendoza, capital of Argentina’s wine region. Sadly, my stay was as short as it could be. I stepped across the street from the bus station into the spartan Hotel Bari and rested my eyes for as long as the sound of cars and barking dogs* outside would allow. Once up and showered, I had a breakfast of tea, cereal, and pastry smeared with dulche de leche, then headed back to the bus station. This time my Chevallier bus was completely on time and not completely full, so I got to sit back and relax as the winter sun shone down and we drove east, first to San Martin and San Luis, but eventually to Córdoba, where I would be able to actually explore a bit before the train to Buenos Aires. No wifi on this bus, despite what the sticker on the door promised, but the USB plugs provided power and the seat reclined, so I was able to rest and write and even watch a little Umbrella Academy as the miles flew by.
Living on these would be pleasant, but probably brief.
After a brief stop in a bus station along the route, where I was able to refuel with pastries and coke, the bus trip brought us ever closer to an escarpment running north-south, some distance southwest of Córdoba itself. The view they provided was spectacular, rising as they did from the flat plains of north-central Argentina, but the setting sun beat us there, and sunset had come and gone by the time we crossed over. In darkness we passed by several smaller towns before we came at last to Córdoba itself, entering town from the west and driving through the centre before pulling into the Terminal de Ómnibus about ten minutes behind schedule. After a short delay to grab my bags, the Casa Urbana Hotel was only a short walk around the corner and proved a step up from my Mendoza lodgings. It was late though, so after grabbing some meatstuffs and starch at the La Herredura buffet nearby, I settled in for sleep and a day of exploring to come.
The corner of Córdoba I’d arrived in wasn’t the most prepossessing. Bus stations rarely inhabit the best part of town, and it took the dilapidated Estación Córdoba railway station nearby to make the bus terminal look good. Once again, it was clear that Argentina had once had an impressive rail network but had long since let it go to seed, to the point where there are only two trains per week between the country’s two biggest cities, even though the land between them is almost perfectly flat and open.
Looks impressive, but it’s mostly a hollow shell, part of which is used for events.
That was a concern for the following day though, so I went exploring around the streets to the north of the Casa Urbana, eventually making my way to the Plaza San Martin, the heart of the city. My Lonely Planet guide hadn’t been much help in giving me an idea of what Córdoba had to offer, so I took advantage of a waiting open-top tour bus and climbed on board for an hour-and-a-half spin around the city’s highlights. I’d recommend it to any new visitor, though Argentina’s winter, while dry, can be cold in the mornings and proved chillier than any of my time spent in Chile. Not quite enough to make me put on my gloves, but enough to make me think about it.
Dropped off by the bus where it had started, I found myself essentially replicating its path on foot throughout the afternoon, with a few variations. A black-bun burger in the Black Pan restaurant before exploring malls and the Museum of the Natural Sciences, with its tiered exhibits of Argentina in the present and the distant past of megafauna before the Great Biotic Interchange and the arrival of humans upset the applecart of South America’s biosphere.
Yes, these megafauna are particularly charismatic, even if they’re dead.
My wandering eventually took me to the Parque de las Tejas, a broad green space filled with activities for kids and athletes in the southern half of the city. I spent a pleasant hour wandering its winter-parched fields and avenues before the long stairway that acts as the park’s ceremonial entrance deposited me not far from my hotel. Having spent the better part of the afternoon just walking, I decided that a rest might be in order, and I retreated to the Casa Urbana, where all the staff were focused on the Argentina-Chile third-place game in the Copa America. In my room I watched it too as I updated my notes and charged my phone.
I did manage to venture out again after dark, this time across town to the Antares Córdoba bar, where a couple of cheap pints of craft beer were more than enough for this traveller’s underfed stomach. I solved the underfed problem with some ice cream next door and some provisions from the supermarket across the road from the Casa Urbana, but the combination of beer and ice cream was enough to send me to sleep before too long.
All of this lights up in rainbow colours at night.
Of my last day in Córdoba, there’s not much to say that I haven’t already said. I packed and checked out after an Argentinian breakfast of toast smeared with dulce de leche and fruit, then went for an extended walk to use up the hours between checking out and my train journey. My loop this time was a smaller version of the day before, and this time in the opposite direction, but it took in part of the colourful Juniors district too, including a bust that looked rather too much like Peter Cushing in Star Wars for comfort, and a brief revisitation of the Parque de las Tejas. With more time, I’d say there’s much more to be found in Córdoba, but my time was up, and I grabbed my bag at around 1330 before heading down to Estación Córdoba.
I wasn’t the only person taking the journey, as the neglected grandeur of the old station featured a long queue, albeit one that shuffled on pretty smoothly. Soon enough I was seated in Seat 61, and after a brief snooze we were off. The initial part of the journey saw us crawl through some of the poorer outskirts of the city, with kids throwing stones at the train more than once, but soon enough we were out and into the countryside. Not accelerating though. This is a slow service—I calculated the speed at 32km/h at one point by timing the distance between kilometre markers on the road running parallel.
The start of a 19-hour roll through day and night.
Still, the land remained resolutely flat throughout. We passed grain fields and wetlands, as well as through the backyards of several small towns, and even as far as the horizon there hadn’t been much sign of a rise in the land. It reminded me of the American Midwest, with its level crossings and isolated towns. As we cruised on slowly, the sun began to set, and I used up some of my limited battery (no USB connections here) continuing my viewing of the Umbrella Academy and writing up my notes.
I’d tried, when booking, to get a first-class seat, but things didn’t work out that way, so the one I had was in standard class. It wasn’t too uncomfortable, though with no reclining, there was a limit to how good my sleep was going to be. I kept on scribbling and watching as the darkness came in (the little girl beside me showed some interest in the Umbrella Academy, so I had to turn the screen away at some of the more violent bits), but after the lights were turned out at 2200, it was time to hunt for sleep. In this I was successful, more or less, though my neck didn’t thank me for the sleeping positions I chose.
The European-style interior of Retiro.
With dawn came wakefulness, and the lights came back on around 0800. We crawled into Buenos Aires some time around 1015, a little behind schedule but not too much. Estación Retiro is one of those grand old cavernous spaces, with signs here and there of the expense that went into making it, but rather more signs of neglect (albeit less than in Córdoba—the rail lines around the capital are clearly better looked after and more used). As water and trail mix** do not a solid meal make, I grabbed a slice of pizza for breakfast in the station before going in search of my hotel.
Of course, walking out of the hotel and spotting a tall tower all alone in the middle of a green square, the Torre Monumental, was always going to distract me. What was I meant to do? Ignore it? No. I went straight to that sucker and bought a ticket to the top, enjoying the views of the city and the Rio de la Plata in the morning sun. My need to climb tall things having been satisfied, I finally descended and shortly thereafter found the Bisonte Palace hotel, my lodging place for the next few days. It was still a bit early for check in though, so I ditched my main bag and went off to get a feel for Buenos Aires.
Known as the English Tower before that unfortunate business with Las Malvinas.
Like most larger cities in South America, there’s a lot that’s relatable for Europeans. We’re all infected by the 20th century American virus, and Europe’s earlier colonial efforts have had plenty of effects. (That Torre Monumental was until the Falklands War known as the Tower of the English.) The Avenue 9 de Julio cuts through the heart of the city like the Champs-Élysées, and is named after Argentina’s Independence Day (coincidentally the day after I arrived). A little way downhill and to the east is a Docklands area that would be pretty familiar to Dublin visitors, though at a larger scale and with far taller buildings for the nearby financial institutions.
One thing that is entirely Buenos Aires’ own is the Costanera Sur, a wetlands park that flanks the city on the east, providing access to and views over the massive Río de la Plata estuary (only debatably a river in its own right, it’s the confluence of the Uruguay and Paraná rivers as they reach the sea). As it was winter when I visited and roamed around, there weren’t too many birds to be seen in the protected lagoons within the park, though I did spot some large, predatory-looking waders that I’d be fascinated to learn more about. Thankfully, I didn’t spot any snakes or alligators, despite warnings to alternately keep an eye out for them or not feed them. Which may amount to the same thing in some cases.
The Costanera Sur is a lovely place to walk, even in the dead of winter.
As I was tired, I didn’t do much more exploring beyond having a look round the locality of my hotel in order to secure some proper food and bottled water. Uniquely for this section of the trip, I have three whole days in this city before I have to depart, and with Independence Day set for the second of those days, I have good reason to be rested and ready to enjoy it. Also, what’s with the lack of Natural History museums in Buenos Aires? Don’t they have a lot of fascinating dinosaurs here? Sigh.
So, my timing in general wasn’t the greatest for Buenos Aires. The Monday I arrived saw most of the city closed or only half-heartedly open, and Independence Day the day after was much the same. If anything, the city was even more shut down as people took advantage of the public holiday. I tried and failed to get the hotel to do my laundry for me, and eventually spent part of the morning doing a loop around the centre of the city, exploring down the Florida shopping street, across to the obelisk in the centre of Av. 9 de Julio and the massive topiary “BA” that people were queuing to get their picture taken in front of, and beyond to the theatre district on the other side. Interesting but not highly active. Luckily, I had an appointment for the afternoon.
They even have a Caltrava bridge, the copycats!
A friend of mine from my old Masters course in Dublin settled in Buenos Aires a few months ago, and I met him at Retiro Station at around 1400. Together we rambled southwards as far as Plaza de Mayo, with its pink-coloured Casa de Rosada, as he told me stories of his own travels across South America (far more extensive than mine), then eastwards across Puerto Madero, the Dublin Docklands-alike, to the edge of the Costanera park, where we sat down and had some very tasty Choripan Completo sandwiches, washed down with Coke.
In a straight line west from the Plaza de Mayo is the Plaza del Congreso, where we headed once fed. Once again there were signs of protestors, and of cops keeping their distance, but the main attraction was the architecture. I’m no expert, but some of the buildings are absolutely gorgeous, with tall, narrow domes and baroque decorations across their facades. The influences are a complete mix of European styles, including French, German, Italian, and classical, and simply walking along any of the old neighbourhoods would be a treat for any architecture fan.
Just one of a huge variety of fascinating buildings in Buenos Aires.
For us, we followed the Av. Entre Ríos until we found ourselves surrounded by bookstores. There we dropped into the El Ateneo Grand Splendid, a former theatre converted into a bookstore and now featuring three or more floors of bookshelves arranged around the central hall. We’d made a serious loop around the city though, and the sun was setting, so food and drink were again an issue, so we headed back to the vicinity of my hotel. The On Tap craft beer bar was closed due to the holiday, but the Natacha cafe nearby could at least provide more straightforward refreshment. The rest of the evening was lost in The Temple Bar (!) just a few doors down, where slightly underwhelming beers mixed well enough with solid burgers and a subdued atmosphere (Argentines generally start eating and drinking later than us Irish) until it was time to part.
My last full day in Buenos Aires was the first day I got to see the city alive, crowded with people and traffic. It was also a day of walking a loop, the largest yet. First to Florida for medialunas and black tea in the Florida Garden cafe, then south along Av. Leandro Niceforo Alem, where I ran into a phalanx of cops in riot gear lurking near a crowd of protestors beating drums to a dance rhythm. I passed them all by and started my museum visiting at the Museo de la Casa Rosada, in the cellars of the presidential palace, where I experienced a run through the history of the presidency and a fascinating mural chamber in the company of a gaggle of schoolkids.
You can’t get too far from the Perons in Buenos Aires.
I dropped into the cathedral on the other side of Plaza de Mayo, but then I headed further south along Calle Defensa, under flyovers until I reached the Museo de Arte Moderno, which highlighted the fact that although pre-Colombian art was cut short, there are still art movements very much indigenous to this continent. In particular there were excellent exhibits from Max Gómez Canle, who mixes natural landscapes with unnatural intrusions to fascinating effect, and Flavia da Rin, who makes herself the subject of her art, altering her face and form to various effects.
After passing the fascinating San Telmo galeria market, the southernmost extent of my wanderings came at the Parque Leandro and the Museo Histórico Nacional, where I went through another run at the history of Argentina and South America at large, this time focusing on the revolutionary era and all leading to the sword of José de San Martín himself, guarded by a soldier in historic garb. (Many countries in South America have their own revolutionary hero: in Chile it’s Bernardo O’Higgins, in Argentina San Martín, and in Uruguay José Gervasio Artigas.)
The sword of San Martin, which is surrounded by the swords of his contemporaries and followers.
The time had come to turn the loop though, so I headed west along Av. Caseros, all the way to an overpass that provided shelter to some of Buenos Aires’ many homeless. Beyond this was the Plaza Constitucion railway station, another reminder of the railway glories that Argentina once had. From there I turned north, first along Calle Salta and then along Av. Entre Ríos again, this time all the way north to the Recoleta cemetery.
Recoleta is one of the city’s most upmarket neighbourhoods, and the cemetery is where anyone who is anyone in Argentina is buried. Lanes lined with mausoleums intersect across this space, with some of the shrines still well tended while others have long since started to crumble. Almost all of them have been designed to within an inch of their lives, for what’s the point in being dead if you can’t still outdo your neighbours? This was also the first place in South America that I came across any free-roaming cats. As in Ancient Egypt, they still act as guardians of the dead.
Mausoleums of all kinds, in varying states of repair.
I’d walked my feet off at this stage though, so it was time to close the loop. South along Av. Alvear with its ultra-swanky shops and hotels, to the French Embassy on Av. 9 de Julio. As a bonus, not only was I able to rest in the hotel for a while, I also bought some fridge magnets, got my ferry ticket printed for the next day, and picked up the laundry I’d left at a nearby laundrette that morning. All told, my most productive day in the city by a distance.
For my last evening, the plan had been to go for a steak dinner with my college friend, but it turned out that he couldn’t make it, so I headed out on my own later in the evening to Parrilla Pena, an old-school grill, where I was served enough steak and chips to put me into a meat coma. I struggled through a dessert of flan/creme caramel and dulce de leche, then staggered back to the hotel. Plans for a nightcap in On Tap were set to one side as I settled for an early night to get started on the hard work of digestion.
This took a long time to finish, but the Mendoza wine paired well with it.
That was mostly it for Buenos Aires and Argentina. The next morning I was up early to purchase provisions and pack, then check out and stroll the ten minutes distance down to the ferry terminal. Buquebus do regular services across the Rio de la Plata to Uruguay, and I was taking the noon boat to Colonia. A quick passage through immigration and a short wait in the boarding lounge, then shuffling onto the ferry itself (paying a little extra for business class gets you a glass of sparkling wine and a comfy seat on the upper deck). Then the ferry itself took off into the mists wreathing the massive river and the country where I’d spent most of the past week was consigned to memory and these notes.
*Stray dogs are a fact of life in Chile and Argentina. Less so the further east you go, it seems though.
**I’m convinced that trail mix exists mostly to convince you that you’re not really that hungry. Or that almost anything else is actually edible.
It’s that time of year again. (It’s not—that time of year would be September, if I hadn’t skipped it last year, for reasons.) The travel itch has overtaken me. (The travel itch never really goes away—what does overtake me is available money and time.) I’m about to go somewhere I’ve never been, see something I’ve never seen, and tell the story of it all here. (Those bits are true enough at least.) So sit back and let me explain what’s going to be.
A bit more than a year ago, one of the podcasts I follow, the ESOcast, flagged up something interesting. A total solar eclipse was due to pass over Chile in 2019, more specifically directly over one of ESO’s mountaintop observatories in the Atacama Desert. More relevantly, they were going to sell tickets to this event. My travel plans for 2018 having fallen through, the combination of viewing an eclipse, venturing into the southern hemisphere for the first time, and getting to visit and perhaps cross South America was too tempting to resist.
A map of my own folly.
This time though, I did something unusual for me when travel planning. I reached out to a couple of friends who I knew to be astronomy buffs and suggested a joint trip. When I got positive responses, I booked three tickets. A year ahead of time, I was locked into a big trip. It was the longest lead time I’d ever had for a trip like this. The only question is what shape the entire trip would take. The result is the shape on the map above.
Santiago in Chile is the starting point, where myself, the Doctor and the Lawyer will congregate. Chile’s an awkwardly shaped country, thin as a ribbon and stretching across a good portion of the world’s latitude, north to south. The eclipse event is due to happen at a mountaintop site called La Silla, at the southern end of the Atacama Desert, so we’ll be driving (or to be more precise I will) five hours north, first to La Serena on the Pacific coast and then a further two hours north on the day itself to La Silla. As the Atacama is one of the driest spots on earth, this is as close as possible to a sure thing as regards eclipse watching, but either way it’ll be a unique experience.
After this, things don’t get any less interesting on the trip. Another night on the Pacific coast and a few more in Santiago, and then the Doctor and the Lawyer depart for European shores, whereas I go on my merry way. Once again, road and rail are my carriers, but South America’s rail system being as disconnected as it is, there’s only one rail section of this trip, from Cordoba to Buenos Aires in Argentina. To get there, I’ll be hopping two buses, crossing the Andes to the wine district of Mendoza before reaching Cordoba itself.
Buenos Aires comes highly recommended, so it should be a highlight on the trip, and I’ve set aside several days to explore it. Plus, it’s only a ferry trip away from another goal on this journey—the less-visited country of Uruguay and its capital of Montevideo. Like Moldova and Mongolia on earlier trips, Montevideo is an inexplicably personal requirement for a place to visit. Maybe I have a thing for locations starting with “Mo”?
Anyway, if things were otherwise, the trip might end there. I’ll have crossed another continent to add to Europe, Asia, and North America (and I have plans for two of the remaining three), and Pacific to Atlantic would be enough for me. Except that when I was booking flights, departures from Montevideo or even Buenos Aires were prohibitively expensive. So I made a somewhat rash decision that gave birth to the ludicrous-looking line on the map that runs north from Montevideo to the metropolis of São Paulo.
It’ll be the middle of winter when I hit Brazil, but a 29-hour bus trip will drop me into heat matching anything that an Irish summer can muster. For this last part of my trip, I don’t know how much time I’ll spend in São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro (from whence my relatively cheap flight departs), but for my mum’s sake I’ll at least try to climb the hill overlooking the city to visit the Christ the Redeemer statue.
So that’s the plan. Another continent-spanning, mostly land-based odyssey, with a lot of freedom to improvise around some pre-booked fixed points. It’s been too long since I’ve been on one of these trips, and it’s going to be a novelty to be kicking it off in company for a change. My Spanish being as limited as it is, and the prevalence of English speakers being probably less than you’d find in Europe, I’m expecting to face a few more challenges than I have before, but challenging myself is part of the reason why I like to travel solo. You don’t learn anything new by doing the same old thing, again and again.
As always, I’ll fire up travel highlights here as often as I can, and more detailed travel journals will follow in their own good time. There’ll be photos and maybe even some videos, especially of the eclipse. I hope you enjoy it all. I know I will.
The Clarity of Now 