Back to daily life

There's no time to ask ourselves why we're back or if we want to be back: our daily life takes over again as if we had never gone. We've been back for 2 months, and only now we get down to conclude this chapter.

It's impossible to capture this trip in a few lines, but if we really had to, that's how it could look like:

8 countries
45 towns
84 days
340 hours in bus
14800 km covered

best meal: grilled Patagonian lamb in Villa O'higgins
best bus service: playing loto and winning a bottle of wine between Mendoza and Bariloche
worst bus trip: 11h bus between Sucre and Uyuni, Bolivia. No AC, no service and no room for legs
Coldest place: 6am 4900m in the Altiplano, Bolivia. Just about freezing point
Warmest place: Iguazu falls, 36°C
Most expensive meal: 50USD plate of seafood in Montevideo
Cheapest hotel: 2USD in Isla del Sol, Lake Titicaca

If anyone is thinking about doing such a trip some day, just one advice: do it now! If not, daily routine will just keep you from doing it... Although it seems impossible before you start, you kind of get into a daily rythm when you're there: get to a new town, look for a cheap place, drop your bags, go around town, sleep, go to the bus station, spend a day on the bus and then repeat the sequence, again and again....

Here is the finalised map of the trip.

Back in Germany, we still feel the need to communicate with our family and friends so you can still follow us under the following blog:

http://fernsprecher.blogspot.com/

We finally realised something after almost 15,000 km: there's plenty to see just around the corner! Here are a few examples from the centre in Frankfurt: Sunset in the Frankfurt Skyline, musician pupet on a busy saturday, and a local asparagus dealer!

This is just to let you wait until our next trip!

Day 81-82 Buenos Aires 2

In Buenos Aires there's one of the most famous bookstores in Argentina, the "Ateneo". It's a huge, old theater that was restaured and transformed into this...
It's really amazing!

After this visit we went to one of the most touristy places in Buenos Aires: Barrio la Boca. This place was very popular in the beginning of the XX century because of the "milongas", the places where the "porteños" (people from Buenos Aires) went to dance tango accompained by famous live tango singers like Gardel. Right now it's an open-air museum, with coloured houses, cafés and bars.

The most famous street is "caminito" which was also used in a famous song. Here this is the first house of the street and then Caro next to the lyrics of this song.

We had a regular meal in one of the tourist restaurants, but at least the music and the show was great! And we could take some "touristy" pictures with the dancers!

Day 79-80 Buenos Aires 1

We finally reached our final destination :-(

Fortunately, we kept the best for the end! Buenos Aires lives really up to its image. Montevideo is comparison looks like a village.

The question is: where to start?

The place looks so much like Paris, sometimes it's almost disturbing...

These are some views of 9 de Julio, the main avenue.

Here this is a view of the new tramway, it's the same model as in Montpellier!

Although, here there are some different habits than in Paris: people queue to get to the bus. And after work it can last hours....

Our first excursion in the city are the train stations. We really wanted to know how it looks like, as the train stations in all the continent are disused (except from some in Chile)

So we realised that it looks just like in Europe....

We then went on to "Puerto Madero" which is the old harbour, restored into a super promenade with great restaurant and feeling.

We continued into the centre to get to know the local architecture which is sometimes really imposing.

This is the seat of the government, the so-called "Casa Rosada" (Pink house).

Day 78 Colonia del Sacramento

Colonia is a small village from the XVII century which is very well preserved. It is just accross the bay from Buenos Aires and was built by the Portuguese to sell goods to Argentina.

It is a very touristy village for people from Montevideo and Buenos Aires, and is just a great place to relax.

We stayed in a very nice hostel which had free bikes so we could go on a tour to enjoy the beach side.

Appart from that, there is not much to do or see, but in the evening, the place is full of nice restaurant with live music.

In the night, we took a ferry to Buenos Aires, just 50 min away. It is one of the only transportation mean which we hadn't used to cross a border.