Rosario...3 nights of pretty much nothing, I get someone sacked, and a shit art gallery

Sunday night, we checked into a very designery hostel called "Che Pampa". Everyone here is obsessed with Che Guevara (he was born in Rosario) so consequently this themed hostel was a little bit bright red and a bit over-designed for my tastes - apparently the guy who owns it is an architect. A bit handy with photoshop as well by the signage of the place - check the wall in the too-dark-to-type computer room. However, C liked it better than the more classic charm of the Palenque.


Like a Che theme park


The computer room. Couldn't see a bloody thing.

We at least got a private room again. Although unlike the Palenque,the cleanliness left a lot to be desired. We unpacked, gingerly shook our big black round textured, supposedly designery, rug out the window to get rid of the fluff and bits stuck in it, and, unsatisfied, I shoved it under the bed, so my toes wouldn't plunge into its matted pile when I got up. Nice.

I also did have a very traumatising morning when I had to (*GAG* - skip this paragraph if you're squeamish or eating, seriously) get other people's long, matted hair and associated bodily/unidentifiable "gunk" out of the plugholes in the shower and sink (used about a half loo roll around my hand to do so and I nearly vommed) as they were blocking the drainage and gunk was floating round my feet in the shower and making me freak out. I thought my feet might catch something in there - it was FILTHY. And I couldn't use the sink to brush my teeth withouth looking at that and feeling sick.

I did complain - the cleaner was truly rubbish, a real clock-watcher - the only two times I saw her she asked me the time - but unfortunately the girl who was checking us out wasn't the one I'd spoken to originally and my use of the past tense in Spanish (and lack of the vocab for "plughole", "gross" and "nearly sick") was insufficient to make this a claim for compensation/discount. It was so bloody cheap anyway, I just vowed to never go back. Ick.

Although I did notice they had ditched the cleaner and were all pitching in themselves. Oops she's probably got 6 kids to feed or something. Shouldn't be so rubbish then, though, should she? I mean, a cleaner's only got to do one thing - clean!

I can't tell you much about Rosario, unfortunately. It's apparently got loads of really cool bars and clubs, cooler than those of Cordoba, but by now my sore throat was really wearing me out (what with not sleeping), the weather was *freezing* and rain torrential most evenings, so we spent rather more time than we should in the cosy (red) living room with the heating on full (they have heating - yay! No more watching TV in my coat as in Posadas), gorging on cable TV films and random game shows, only venturing to close-by restaurants for eats or the staff for cheap beer from the otherwise-locked fridge.


The living room. Red isn't it?

We even had contact numbers of people in Rosario, that Alex (from the Cafe in Posadas) had given us, friends of his who would show us round, but C couldn't be bothered to get them out, so we never got round to calling them either.

We decided not to beat ourselves up about it, we were conserving our energies (and money) for Buenos Aires. And seriosuly, if you've been away from home for this long, and out every night pretty much, it kinda wears you out after a bit!

So what *did* we do in Rosario? In no particular order, as I'm writing this up from home now, and can't remember the gory details: we went to Che Guevara's birthplace.

An unassuming uilding which is still residential, so you can't actually go in (someone still lives there) we weren't even sure we were in the right building, because the sign had been nicked (apparently a regular occurrence...probably bloody students!), but a nice lady spotted us looking puzzled and confirmed we were in the right place. Should you ever go to Rosario, don't bother - this is it.



Pottered round town a bit aimlessly and not really feeling Rosario after beautiful Cordoba. But did find this rather hilarious sign...


Just imagine...(!)

Next day, we checked out the Monument of the Bandera (flag) where the first ever Argentian flag is kept (it was shut)



Then we went to possibly the worst modern art gallery I've ever been to.

Seriously, 8 floors of shite.

I only liked two pieces of art, and they were by the same guy Guillermo Iuso. "Mi Primer Mes Con Laura" charts in detail, everything about his relationship with this girl in the first obsessive month - a cute idea, click on it to enlarge.

The other tells of his mum being on a TV show and his brother destroying the house whilst she was on this show.





We were driven there by a mad cabbie, who despite me giving him the correct address and showing him the gallery on the map, refused to believe there was a gallery there and kept (crazily and dangerously) stopping on a busy triple carriageway to ask pedestrians waiting at the crossings or walking down the street if they knew about this gallery (they didn't - we reckoned it was quite a new gallery, or everyone was cultural heathens).

Wednesday: our last morning, we did try going to the more traditional Museo Nacionale des Artes after breakfast, but it was shut, not opening till 2pm (like, huh?!) and we had a bus to catch to BsAs...so again we didn't sweat it.

In fact the best fun I think we had was getting on the bus, when we realised we had a CAMA SUITE. Omigod, I was in heaven. Shame it was the shortest coach journey we had so far, only 4 hours, and we FINALLY GET A CAMA SUITE!!! At least we got to experience one. If you ever travel coach in S. America, try and get one of these bad boys - on it, the journey just FLEW by. I've never wanted a 4-hour journey to last forever. This is proper plush, flatbed, with TV, fat headrests, SOOOO comfy. With a table for when they bring you dinner/lunch. We weren't even tired, but I had to flip the seat out and lie down perfectly horizontally just because we could. I was careful not to fall asleep though - I didn't want to miss a second of this journey. Sad, huh?!

Next stop - and our final one (sniff!) - Buenos Aires...

Cordoba (where Robbie Williams is alive and well)

We arrived after an 18 hour journey (!) in Cordoba, Argentina's 2nd largest city, about 500miles inland from Buenos Aires. It has 1.2m inhabitants - 10% of which are students (Cordoba hosts Argentina's oldest University, dating from 1613), and it attracts students from all over the world (it's much cheaper than Buenos Aires) so it's a buzzy and vibrant place - quite unlike sleepy Posadas!

We decided to rough it again, (to save money for Buenos Aires - where we are going to live it up a little), but we did choose the nicest hostel.

The Palenque is a gorgeous early 20th century building, lovingly restored, with stripped wooden floorboards, high ceilings, iron candelabra fittings and stained glass windows. Friendly and homely, they even have a big old golden labrador (C´s fave dogs) called Jujuy, who unfortunately was a bit nervus as there's been bombs going off all over town (protests across Argentina whilst we've been here, re rising fuel costs, 35% inflation, rising food costs etc - guess what, nothing on the BBC worldwide website, as we don't really report on South America, only North).



From its grand beginnings (one of Cordoba's richest families lived there), it now houses an array of backpackers looking for somewhere with a bit of character and somewhere cheap to stay. Our private double was only 13 quid between us per night!

For that saving, we thought, "Sod it, well do the shared bathroom thing". Which was actually remarkably OK, my big fear was having to pick other people's hair out of plugs (*gag* I know), but the Palenque seemed to be cleaned on a 5-minute basis, so everything was immaculate. It just reminded me of being a student though, having to listen out and wait until the bathroom becomes free before bagging it!

Our first day there, we dumped our stuff and head out for the afternoon. The lovely staff recommended a City Tour to get a feel for the town. C baulked when he saw the bus was sponsored by McDonald's but I assured him they wouldn't be making money out of us going on it and we didn't need to buy their fries. Instead we chanced upon a city food fair where lunched on delicious freshly-made empanadas (they did veggie ones, yay! You can tell we're out of Posadas).

Our tour took us from the Catedral de Cordoba in the centre of town, with it's "trompe l'oeil' shadows paved into the brickwork...





...past the convent where the nuns still live as they did 400 years ago, the brightly-painted art college buildings, a house built to rotate through the day to face the sun, some galleries I earmarked for further exploration, a beautiful old church with a missing a spire (built that way to represent man's imperfection)...



...and a "dancing water" display, where jets shoot up to classical music...it happens every hour, and it's all lit up at night, so we thought we'd take a wander down there later...

We found one swanky-looking restaurant in that vicinity that evening, but its windows were facing the other way so we couldn't see jack.

It was about to get more rubbish - turns out they only did bar snacks. I was STARVING so I ordered the most foody looking thing on the menu, mushroom pizza, sighing inwardly as I did so. My belly is like pizza dough!

Then it arrived and there was no tomato sauce. I pointed out this major ommision to the concept of pizza-ness to the waiter. He shrugged, pointed out that it did just say "cheese and mushroom pizza", so what was I to expect?!

Menus in Argentina are very very literal. If you order steak, that is exactly what you will get. No veg. No garnish. No chips. Just steak. Evidently ditto the pizza menu.

We by now had also missed the last showing of the dancing water, but consoled ourselves that it's on every day...so we just drank more wine.

Next day, Saturday 19th July was my dad's birthday. I sent him a text from C's phone as my Argie SIM was out of credit. Feel like *such* a student! It was raining so we visited an internet café and caught up on blogs a bit - I'm so behind now that we don't have our little routine any more.

Sent more emails to recruitment consultants. It looks bleak back home, loads of people are being axed from the Telegraph, News International, etc I've had the fear of God put into me by my mate Michelle who works in recruitment, and she said I really have to be realistic about my salary expectations when I get back in this current market. It's all doom and gloom. If I had known, I would have rented my house out properly and stayed out for a year. Seriously.

Also got an email off Tim, my oldest mate Lizzy's husband. She's now too ill with her cancer to respond to her own emails, so he was giving me an update. It's not good news. I decided there and then, as I hadn't smoked at all for the last few days of having a sore throat, (which I'd convinced myself was throat cancer) that I was simply not going to touch a fag ever again. I'm writing this over a month later, and weirdly because of Lizzy, it has been easy (not that I smoked loads, but it was a habit, a "with a drink" thing). I don't know if people are still reading, as I stopped writing for ages, but this is here as a pledge to you all.

C & I then decided to go check out a veggie buffet restaurant "Verde Siempre Verde" we'd read about. I had an unassuming doorway, tucked away on a busy high street. Most people rushed past it without even noticing it.



Inside seemed like a secret society, where closet non-meat-eating Argies could be safe, finally able to indulge their veggie/vegan desires. We looked around us at the clientele - they *looked* pretty normal. Heck! There were even men in business suits in there! But did their friends know? Their wives? Families? Colleagues?

I piled my plate high with anything and everything, thankful, for once, to not be limited to doughy thick pizza-base drowning in tasteless rubbery melted cheese. "Look at you! You're in Hog Heaven!" C laughed as I tucked in. 10 mins later I was full. I think having a buffet as the first meal of the day (we'd missed breakfast) doesn't work - my tummy couldn't cope with the sudden onslaught. So the one time I could eat everything in the room, I actually couldn't. Great!

We wandered round town, checked out a little art gallery close to our hostel, then scooted over to a rather splendid Art Deco arthouse cinema, but unfortunately there was nothing on we wanted to see (or could understand, if I'm going to be honest!).

Headed into a music store. C bought the new Coldplay album (every time he switched over to a music channel throughout our trip, it was driving him insane that he was only ever catching the last minute of "Violet Hill"!!!) - plus it was only £5 out here - and I snapped up a Bjork Live DVD that's not available in the UK, N.America or Europe. Cool!

An Argentinian girl saw me buying it and started chatting to me about how she'd love to see her, but all the stars only visit Buenos Aires when the come to Argentina. She was awed that I'd seen her in London before I came out. We take that stuff for granted over in London, don't we, centre of the universe and all that?!

As the afternoon melded into the evening we found the "UV Pop Bar" I'd read about earlier that day. It was funky but empty, and run by two guys. Was this our new Sampaka?!

We took up residence on a squishy sofa and proceeded to drink our way through the cocktail menu, whilst, bizarrely, watching Police videos (the band, not a crime thing), and then The Best of Later with Jools Holland.

The guys told me they downloaded it all from the internet (illegally) and pieced together their own video collections. They also said they couldn't find anywhere that played decent music in town, they loved English stuff and hated Cumbia (it *was* our new Sampaka! But with an indie vibe). Although I was a bit taken aback when on finding out we were from England, Juan shouted (only half-jokingly), "The Malvinas are OURS!". Er, quite.

C had met 3 other guys outside whilst having a fag and came and grabbed me to meet them. Hugo and his two pals were funny, spoke really good English and we passed a pleasant rest-of-evening with them sharing beers and (more) pizza. In the end, they gave us their numbers, said that they couldn't see us the next day as that was "Dia del Amigos" (Sunday July 20th, Friends' Day, why don't we start that in England?!) and they had dinner booked with their best friends, but that we could perhaps join them after. They also told us we should move to Cordoba as it was so cheap to live there. I could sell up my London house, buy 4-6 huge properties, live in one, rent the rest out and have no need to work. Food for thought, huh?

Can't remember what we did on our last full day in Cordoba, took a wander round, tried to find the thinnest building in the world, which our city tour had told us about (failed, I think she lied, cos Google says it's in Vancouver or something).

On our last night, we finally got to see the dancing water... then pottered onto a craft market, where I bought the last of my presents, and onto a proper milonga (Tango show) with dinner. When we got there, we were the youngest there by decades - although it was quite a fab show, and C noticed that Robbie Williams is alive and well and working, at least...which is nice.



Next day, before we set off for Rosario, we went to a fantastic gallery, the Palacio des Belles Artes, where C said he saw the best painting he'd ever seen...



...and I got arty with the architecture, which beautifully blended modern elements with the original building...



Next stop, Rosario...

The prodigal son and daughter return to Posadas...for one night only!

We got the coach from Sao Paulo and travelled for 19 hours - yes - through to Posadas, a necessary stop off before we headed onto Cordoba, Argentina´s second biggest city.

Well, we said we´d be back, but didn´t think it would be so soon!

It was really lovely pulling into Posadas bus station (even though they have the WORST toilets in the world), it felt like coming home.

In fact, I´d messaged Aida and our other Posadas contacts already and they had the proverbial welcome mat out. Well, towels anyway, I´d asked if we could have showers there when we arrived, and in exchange, I´d buy pastries for breakfast. The deal was done, and freshly-showered after our marathon slog, we sat and chatted with Aida and Flor (and new voluntario Emily, who showed us new photos of Augustin & co at the refugio - it was really weird seeing her stuff in "our" room...) like we´d never been away. Camila, who´d obviously not read our email, went absolutely *mental* at our return, really beside herself, neither of us had ever seen a dog so excited!

We left our bags there, took a house-key again (just for the day) and went off to find a hotel for the night. Turns out (Aida called ahead to find this out), we couldn´t leave Posadas that night as planned, so we´d have to stay a night.

We tried the Posadas Hotel, the town´s only boutique joint, but it´s actually Winter holiday fornight (hence the paucity of available buses too) and they were fully booked - damn, I´d fancied a bit of luxury!

Then I remembered this incredibly ancient-looking hotel, which just looked really sweet and charming and quaint, with a crumbly old dear in reception, which we´d walked by weeks previously. Miracle upon miracles, they had one room left. I think C thought it was run-down rather than cute, but it was clean, dry, the old lady was friendly and welcoming - and the room was so *incredibly* cheap (50 pesos, um...60 pesos is 10 quid!) and only for one night, so he couldn´t turn it down either. Although we were slightly amused and not a little worried by the electric shower.

This "electric" shower had a plug. I mean a real, "electric" plug. With pins. And a socket. About a foot from the water flow.

The handwritten instructions instucted us to
1) fill up the tank.
2) Plug it in and leave it for 10 minutes to heat up.
3) Unplug and shower. It also recommends
4) you don´t plug the shower in without any water in the tank.


shower

I would add to that 5) make sure you have dry hands when attempting to do anything with the plug - it sparked brightly when I plugged it in.

I actually kissed C goodbye before I got under it the following morning...but it´s OK people, we´ve both lived to tell the tale.


I noted it was a bit different to the swanky hotel we had in Sao Paulo (above)

Checked in, bags dumped, we spent a lovely weekday in Posadas, doing what we´d never got round to doing all the time we were there...being tourists!

Wandered through town, had breakfast at the Posadas Hotel, took a stroll through a craft market, bought a few more pressies, was mildly embarrassed whe one of my former students, Florencia, came over and kissed me "hi"...she´d been in the 5B class I´d walked out of - her mum was setting up a stall, and F was helping her in her holdays, then we met Dani and Fernando for lunch at Alex´s (he wasn´t there though), wandered up to their swanky apartment for a bit (bumped into rather-dull-Gen again...how does she do that!? Just appear from nowhere?! So we had to tell her we´d arranged to meet the guys later at Vitrage), wandered up to Aida´s so Dani could meet the famous Cami, then we said hi again to Norma and Fernando, Dani and her Fernando demonstrated some great new salsda moves they´d learnt (very Dirty Dancing with the lifts!), then having said bye to all, we went for a little siesta.

Later that evening we two went to dinner at Cavas where C had his fave steak dish so far in Argentina again, and we were met a little later by Mariana and Cesar. In the end, Dani & Fernando called off, so Cesar took us to his fave little restaurant again, where we spent the rest of a lovely night in the company of our new old friends.

Next day, we finally managed to visit an art gallery I´d been wanting to visit for weeks, when Oz K had discovered it. Got chatting to the curator, Alejandro, who took it upon himself to be our personal (Spanish language) guide and narrator (we were the only ones there). He was especially thrilled when I showed him the picture of Oz K and told him we were friends and that we were meeting her in Buenos Aires. We had our pic taken together and he has already sent me an email, saying (amongst other things), how lovely it was to meet us, especially as he´s never met anyone of Indian origin before(!) and to keep in touch.

On our way out of town, and before we popped back to say bye to our Posadas family for real, I took photos of all the things I´d meant to in the past - the pastry shop across the road that has "HELADOS! HELADOS! HELOADOS!" in huge foot high letters about 6 times all over it...but never has any ice-cream in cos the freezer has long broken. Our old road. The very smiley man in the ice-cream shop (we bought a final cornet each, for old times sake). Bought a book I´d been meaning to buy from the bookstore. Went and said a final goodbye to Silvina and Aida (she asked "Are you really going this time!?"), although Camila, I think was now too confused and would barely look at us. I think we were messing with her little doggy head too much. Florencia, unfortunately was asleep having finished her final exam that day, so we blew a kiss at the door.

That is, by the way why we decided NOT to go to the orphanage (my school was on holiday, so decisoon was easy). C had already said bye to the kids twice, and we decided a third goodbye would be just too confusing for the little ones, and difficult for all parties, especially where Augustin was concerned.

Went back, picked up our bags and took a cab to Posadas terminal.

A funny aside, I got chatted up by our rather cute cab driver, Richard, when C dashed into he hotel to get our bags (fast worker, eh!?), and then as we paid him and waved him goodbye, he stopped the car, waved me back and handed me his phone number...right in front of C!!! So I could call him next time we come to Posadas, he said. I´m not sure if he meant just so he could take the cab fare...but it made me smile...which was a lovely way to end our visit as I´d been feeling a bit melancholy at leaving again.

Next stop, Cordoba.

3 nights in Sao Paulo, Brasil

We´d found an extra friend on the bus, a girl called Katya from Mexico, who had overheard us talking English and approached us. She kind of latched onto us, but her being a single young girl, C & I felt a little responsible for her in the big bad dangerous Sao Paulo (well, Lonely Planet said it was), so we took her under our wing and told her to stick with us.

Sao Paulo is the 3rd biggest city in the world. And with over 20 million inhabitants, twice the size of London. All the books warned caution.

By sheer amazing miracle upon miracle, despite us not giving him an exact ETA and our bus turning up an hour later than expected, Stéphane (my old teaching colleague Ali´s friend), had turned up to meet us and found me about to log onto my internet account to get his number.

He informed us he´d also booked us into a hotel for the night, near where he lived in the area of Paulista (quite a bohemian and arty area)...Katya looked a little worried we´d abandon her, but in the end, we managed to get a room with an extra bed in it and let her share with us, bless her.

It was a SWANKY hotel, all marble and chrome reception, with glossy designer internet terminals and big screen music tv above minimalist leather and chrome sofas. Stéph´d got us a really cheap rate, but I think it´s because it´s not quite finished yet - they were still laying carpet on the stairs up from our floor, I noticed.

Still, what an angel - we´d never even asked him to do this for us! We extended our booking for the next night too, dumped our bags and all headed out for what turned out to be a fantastic meal; meat or fish of choice with more colourful and tasty vegetables than I´d eaten in two months in Posadas (I gorged a little), and headed on for a few drinks.

Whilst looking for some bars closer to our hotel to end the evening, we noticed a lot of pretty boys in twos and a few butch lady-pairs too. Ah! We were staying in the gay part of town! I felt instantly safer, and smiled to myself as I watched C & Stéphane walking ahead of Katya and me, C oblivious to the fact that he was being checked out by quite a lot of the local talent.

We eventually stumbled across some gorgeous little bars in the arty area of town, Paulista (having nearly been guided into a titty bar the other side of town when we were looking for a club called Vegas...I think we got taken to the wrong Vegas...!), so we found one and sat in it talking away for the rest of the evening..

Not an awful lot more to say about the first night, except C & I were glad we´d got two people who had a rudimentary grasp of Portuguese. Katya in fact put us all to shame - early 20s and she speaks fluent Spanish, English, French (she lived there for a while) and gets by in Portuguese. She took the opportunity to speak to Stéphane in his native French (he´s out here for 6 months, just bumming and learning Portuguese, living with two Brazilian brothers), which I did too for a bit, but realised it was making C feel left out, so we mainly stuck to English.

A little embarassing, isn´t it, that everyone defaults to English so us Brits can keep up?!
____

Next day we all met up, Katya wanted, for some reason to buy a hooky footy shirt for a mate so there ensued a wild-goose chase which took us all over the city (it was a nice day, so we were walking), but this did mean time was ticking on and C & I were getting bored with not getting anything we´d planned to do, done.

Still, added to the C outside footy stadium collection (2 of a series of 2 now), Estadium Municipal, and failing to find the deep fried cheese-filled pastry pockets an appetising lunch choice at the nearby market, I picked some nectarines, strawberries and cherries out instead. I was so shocked when the man said it was 25 Real (about 6-7 quid, that´s fancy Borough-bleedin´-market prices!!!) that I simply handed the money over. Of course I should have bargained, walked away, whatever, but I was in shock. Plus, it being Portuguese I wasn´t exactly sure he´d said what he did. I consoled myself that they were, at least, tasty as hell and I´d bought enough for a yummy breakfast for C & I the next day.

Wandered round another craft market more centrally in town, bought a few presents for back home, then parted company with Katya and Stéphane as they were still on the hooky top trail.

We opted for a bit of culture, but not before I stopped to eat a very weird street snack, I will call Hot Cheese on a Stick!

We headed to the Oriental quarter and spent a few hours there watching the celebrations; 100 years of the Oriental community settling in Sao Paulo.

I did think it quite funny we´d come to South America to watch a load of Chinese/Japanese celebrations, but there you go, aint the world just a big old meltin´ pot...

Later that night (much later, annoyingly, they were like 1.5 hours late...and I was starving), Katya, Stéph and his flatmate Gabriel, a lawyer, came to pick us up and go to Gabriel´s favourite restaurant which served food typical of the only part of Brazil that doesn´t have a river or sea. Something started to niggle me about that.

I was right; they did no fish dishes! Or any vegetarian ones. So now I was hungry, we were really late (it was nearly 11), I´d not eaten all the yummy food at the Chinese fest as we were going to this great restaurant, and I was stuck with...soup and salad. Whilst the rest of them tucked into a huge fat meat feast. I felt like I was coming down with something too, so I was feeling a bit emotional already and hunger just makes it worse. I tried hard not to cry. My last night in Sao Paulo and this?!?! I glugged at my Capirinha, sipped at my soup and nibbled on a salad, that I then couldn´t finish, when C sneezed on it by mistake. Great.

We wandered round for a bit trying to find a promised Samba club, but in the end, I was feeling a bit ropey, so C & I headed back - we had to be on a bus back to Posadas the next day anyway to get the next bus out of Cordoba and we had not been able to get the swanky hotel to help with bookings (they were a bit rubbish on reception), so we´d have to go early.
___

Next day, we found out we couldn´t actually leave Sao Paulo that day, so we´d have to get an 11am the next day. We´d just checked out and paid the hotel 15 Real to look after our luggage! And we couldn´t book a ticket till 2.30 as they were on siesta or something, so we had to hang around the bus station. Tried to go online to blog, but the "24 hour" internet café was inexplicably shut, so took a pic of C next to an amusing chemist´s sign instead (Farto) and had a tiny hot chocolate as I tried to drown out the tuneless tinkly-plonk of a drunken tramp on a piano in the café´s courtyard.

Eventually we managed to purchase our tickets out of town and headed off to find a bit of culture...found a samba band playing tunes on recycled drums, pots and pans...think it was a "Green Week" or something...ended up finding a fascinating Antiques market on the way to the Art gallery, so much so, we didn´t get round to doing the gallery either as we were then too hungry so went for something to eat. We really are crap at being tourists!

That evening, we kept it low key, checked back into the hotel, had a nap, and went out about 11pm to get something for C to eat. I just had a hot chocolate. I really wasn´t feeling great...eventually I think, hanging out with "Sicknote" has finally got to my immune system...oh oh...

RIO: La la laaa, la la la, la-la-la...

(sing to the tune of The Girl from Ipanema intro)
_____

Actually...Before we get to Rio: HUGE apologies to my readers (of which I´m discovering, there are more than I thought...thanks, guys!) - I have *not* stopped blogging, it´s just that we are now transient, spending three or so days in a city, trying to pack stuff in, occasionally leaping into internet cafés or shared hotel/hostel computers, and we simply don´t have the luxury of a good couple of hours catching up. Also, I have been spending an inordinate amount of my limited time online, e-networking and sorting out my CV and firing it off to various recruitment agencies.

They are still letting people go at the Telegraph I heard today - and at News International (Times, Sun, News of the World) they are cutting their sales force by a third - or 100 staff. There´s been about 50 gone at the Tele. Seems I got out just before the proverbial sh*t hit the fan...had I waited for redundancy pay-off I would *not* have been one of the ones let go anyway (I´m, rather annoyingly, too good for companies to let go of at these times) - no, I´d be one of those they´d keep on, to do the work of 2 colleagues. A lucky escape, methinks.

Today I have spent 4 rainy hours in a Rosario internet café trying to catch up from Rio...5 cities ago. So deep breath, and you might want to read the next few posts in a few sittings!
_________

Sunday: Arrived in Rio. We´re staying just off the Copa-(Co!)-Copacabaaaaanaaaaaa beach resort...we decided on a bit of luxury after all our hard work, so we´ve got a proper hotel, with a pool and gym and everything. Get us!

A couple of things I noticed on the way to Rio (Her name is Rio and she dances on the saaaand - there, now I´ve got all the tunes in my head on paper, I can carry on as normal):

1) In the bus station ladies toilets, I was surprised to find 8 urinals to about 6 cubicles. Confusion. Had I walked into the men´s by accident?! Oh no, phew, there was an old dear washing her hands...I was OK. Then it clicked. Rio has a huge transexual/transvestite culture, and these were obviously laid on so they don´t have to share the men´s toilets. How very 21st Century!

2) We noticed Brazilian kids are adorably cute, but couldn´t work out what had happened to the parents (to put it politely). In fact, the only lookers we saw were most definitely gay, and unfortunately they won´t be passing on their genes any time soon.

Anyhoo, Rio. Got there Sunday mid-afternoon, dumped our bags at our hotel, and went for a recce of the beach 2 mins away.

We christened our arrival with a couple of surprisingly violent Capirinhas from a little bar on the beachfront - accompanied by delicious fresh grilled prawns on wooden skewers, then toasted peanuts in a paper cone, from the hawkers that come up to you every 2 minutes - and sat in the setting sun sat contentedly people watching.

Copacabana beach is as you´d imagine: perfect golden clean sands, blue oceans, hawkers that hassle you every 2 minutes with a smile, showing off their various wares.

Almost - to C´s disappointment (and my eternal relief) the beaches of Rio are *not* choc-a-bloc with lithe lovelies who look like Gisele, wearing nothing but dental floss. That is a fiction you see on the telly - hurrah!

In fact we saw a lady, in her seventies (I´m guessing) and quite out of shape (large, droopy, if you know what I mean), wearing *only* tight short purple leggings and a very thin strapless boob-tube bikini top. Grim, yes, but that lady obviously has more body-confidence than anyone I know, so on second thoughts, good luck to her!

There is a lot more to see for the girls though. We watched a group of guys playing an energetic game of beach volleyball crossed with football (futebol, as they say here) in front of us. No hands, just head, chest and feet are used. Thinking about my earlier observations though, they´re probably gay too!

Headed back as it got colder, checked Facebook, Leanne and Fin hated Sao Paulo (oh dear, that´s where we´re heading...) and they were in Rio already! I messaged them to say where we were going that night, but figured we might miss them that evening.

C & I hit a Lebanese restaurant that night called Amir. Huge tasty portions and very cheap, a good find. We took a cab as all we read is that Rio is very dangerous and you shouldn´t walk about at night, especially looking lost and flashing your camera about.

There was a raucous street party going on in the park across from the restaurant which we summoned up the courage to venture into, but C didn´t feel comfortable (so how am I meant to!?!), and as I pointed out, he was glow-in-the-dark-white and his fear showed on his face. So we decided blending with the locals was probably not going to happen and made a swift exit.

Went for a drink outside a nearby bar, which we quickly realised was teaming with working girls. C & I ended up having a heated debate about the morality of it all. Don´t get me wrong: I feel these girls are often driven to it out of poverty and desperation: to support their families, pimps or drug habits, or they are tricked or forced into it. They are putting their lives and health at risk on a daily basis - they need society´s help and support to get out, learn a trade, get a job. But my stomach turns at the guys who think that´s an OK way to treat any woman. Let´s just say C´s views on the subject were shockingly flippant which I hadn´t expected from him at all, so our heated debate soon somehow turned into a full-blown row.

We went back to our hotel early, me in a foul mood and not speaking to him.
____

Monday: My mood was somewhat lifted by the arrival of Leanne & Fin that morning - yay! I´d Facebooked them to arrange a day hanging with Jesus.

That´s the big Christ the Redeemer statue which looks over the city, 2000m above sea level and about 84m high and apparently one of the new 7 man-made wonders of the world, fact fans.

Not much else to say about it really - we were fleeced for 36 Real each (about a tenner) for a 20 min train ride to the top (admittedly some great views, but after Argentina prices, the fare seemed as steep as the mountain itself), and saw a big stone Jesus. Views of Rio from up there were amazing through - a full 360 view of the city, although it was a little misty, so the pics weren´t great - you´ll just have to take my word for it.

Here´s some hilarious pics of monks giving it the thumbs-up in front of a huge Jesus though. That´s something you don´t see every day.







C, Leanne & Fin, hanging with Jesus. As you do.

And we spotted a woman in the café being served a slice of the biggest watermelon EVER...look!!!



Brazil is way more expensive than the other S.American countries - we´ve gone through 2 days money already (oops!). It´s twice as pricey as Argentina for most things, and only slightly less than London for others: especially the fish - sometimes 3 times as much as the steak - which doesn´t make sense when you´re sat there eating and looking out at the Atlantic Ocean.

Later that evening, we ate at The Girl from Ipanema restaurant, and were amused by our waiter Evandro, who when thanked for the menu, said ¨That´s what friends are for¨, when taking our drinks orders asked ¨To beer, or not to beer? That is the question¨ and as we left, he hugged us, implored us to stay, and said ¨I love you with all my heart¨. I think he´d learnt all his English from song lyrics and films!

I didn´t realise the original sheet music for Ipanema was in the bar till after C mentioned loads of people were having their pic taken behind us (Gaaaaah! Why didn´t he mention it at the time?!?!), but turns out that this is where the famous song was actually written.

Anyway, I´m still a bit sketchy about getting the camera out at all due to all the horror stories in Lonely Planet etc. Apparently Rio is rife with crime.

Tried to find some bars after the meal, but strangely, the beachfront, so lively in the day, was dead as...er, night, at night. Where does everyone go?! We wandered round Copacabana lamely for a while, got accosted by a persistent beggar, so hopped in a cab and pegged it home. In bed by midnight!!!

Tip: don´t stay in Copacabana - it´s as dated as the song, with a smattering of beachfront restaurants that probably had their day in the 50s and 60s, the last time they were decorated.
______

Tuesday - Beach day. C was moaning about it from the off as he is white as white can be and burns easily, so he sat in the shade, whilst us three girls lapped up a few rays on Copacabana beach. It´s nice to feel warm after the rain of Posadas!

A funny thing happened when I turned round and C was having his trainers polished (huh?!?!) by a hawker. They were talking football so I left him to it. We girls had to laugh though when C then came over all flustered and asked one of us to give hin a 10 Real note (about 2.50 quid) as the guy was demanding 50 Real (and that´s all C had on him). 50 Real!!! Schoolboy error to not ask the price first, but C said he didn´t get much of a choice. We gave him a 10 and C waved the hawker off, but not before he offered to clean our *flip-flops* for the bargain price of 30 Real a pair...ummm, I´ll just rinse mine under water, thanks!

Evening: met the girls after dinner for drinks, who brought along Amy from Bristol travelling with Alex from Hull (they´d been teaching English in Mexico) and another guy Cedric from Sweden (I think). They were room buddies of Lea and Fin, and a jolly time was had by all, especially after we quit Copacabana and headed to the much livelier Ipanema.

Ipanema´s a lot cooler, but apparently the even swankier places are in further north, Lapa, which, feeling scruffy, we didn´t really feel dressy enough for...!

Regaling our various tales of teaching to our new friends, I have to admit I felt a pang of nostalgia. I´m finding it very weird to just be a tourist. Days of nothing, no purpose, time to fill, money to spend. Also not speaking Portuguese is so disorientating after months of getting by in Spanish. Back to asking for the English menu, it´s sooooo embarrassing!

Portuguese is meant to be similar to Spanish, but a bit French-influenced (the French invaded first, the Spanish booted them out). However they pronounce things very differently and nasally and I really struggle with what they are saying.

You can get by with Spanish some of the time, but most locals don´t understand - or pretend not to. I read that some Brazilians get offended if you launch into Spanish, (I think it´s a case of national pride as they are the only S.American country that speaks Portuguese) but there are 13 countries in S.America and Brazil is bordered by an incredible 11 of them (fact fans) so the influx of Spanish speakers into into this holiday resort must be huge!

Besides, this is how the converstaion would go
Me: "Voce fala Español?"
Them: "No"
Me: "Voce fala Inglés?"
Them: "No"
Me: "Voce fala Francesa?"
Them: "No"
Me: (in Spanish, as I know no Portuguese other than the above phrase and "Obrigada" which means "thank you") "Um...dos biletes por favor..."
Them: "Si..."(and then they respond in perfect Spanish...)

Quite.
______

Wed - C not feeling very well (again, I know! He has the constitution of a small, fragile gerbil. I´ve started to call him ¨Sicknote¨). I´d arranged to go to the beach with the girls, but without the convenience of our mobile phones for now (our Argentina chips don´t work in Brazil, I feel so helpless!) I had to go to their hostel to meet them and tell and tell them that I couldn´t meet them (!) as I should spend the day with Sicknote.

They were staying in a strange little hostel; next door to a kindergarten, and opposite a morgue and hospital. Lea says she saw bodies being carried in and out, from her room window. I mean they were carried out of the morgue, not her room window, obviously. Surely that would give the kids nightmares though?!

Anyway, I had a chilled day, used the gym (finally!) and didn´t do much while C slept away. Our leisurely pace meant we managed to royally screw up meeting the girls in Devassa´s restaurant on time, by the time we got there it was 9.15 and we missed them. Went to search the bar they said they´d be in (Shenanigans...classy, eh?!) but I think we went the wrong way down a very long street. Passed lots of bars, one looked gorgeous, really swanky, but I was too embarrassed to ask the doormen outside where Shenanigans was. That´d be like asking the doorman at the Ivy where the Walkabout was.

I shuddered at the thought, and, starving, we decided to cut our losses and head straight back to Devassa´s (which had come recommended) where I had the strangest pasta with mushroom dish. The mushroom sauce was actually mushroom gravy made with what tasted like meat stock - it was the same sauce that was on C´s over-done steak. However, I didn´t have the language or inclination by now to question the origins of my dish so I woofed it down and ordered a dessert to take away the taste of meat fat. Again, I´ve decided it doesn´t count as I didn´t order it and couldn´t help it.
_______

Thursday: C feeling better so we headed to the Maracana football stadium: the biggest in the world. We were going to do the tour, but as we approached there were about 200+ people queueing up in the blistering sun, under a motorway arch that stank of pee to purchase tickets. But for what?!

Everyone looked like locals, so we were convinced that they were in fact buying tickets for Sunday´s match, not a tour. In fact, there were no signs for the tour.

C´s Portuguese is even worse than mine, and having established that no-one spoke Spanish or English, he tried to ask a man in uniform if this was the queue for tickets to the tour (pointing at the Portuguese in our bi-lingual Rio pamphlet) or for ´el partido´ (match). The man nodded agreement for both parts of the question.

We didn´t really fancy what could be an hour or more wait for the wrong tickets, so somewhat dejected, we left the stadium...but I got a pic of C outside it at least...
What an anticlimax! We must be the world´s worst tourists.

Anyway, we went onto the Museo Naçional as it was quite close by. Amazed we found it, again, nothing sign-posted, not even on the stone edifice as we walked through the door, nor as we paid - don´t they realise they might get more visitors if they simply put a sign up?!

Found some funny little pottery men (I love the one on the right) and the pre-cursor to the tanga (aka dental-floss) pants Rio is so famous for. Did you know they were originally made of wood? Ouch - how did they sit down?! Maybe that´s why they kept strolling down the beach...





Later that night - our last in Rio, we went to meet the girls at their new hostel (The Girl in Ipanema hostel - I think a lot of businesses round here trade on that song!), and Alex and Amy who´d also decided to move as their original hostel had managed to cram 3 more bunks to make 18 people in their room, mainly drunken blokes - apparently the smell, snoring and farting had become unbearable. *Shudder*.

Had a fantastic meal in an Oriental fusion restaurant despite the somewhat obtuse waiter who could not or would not answer simple questions such as ¨Is that price for a full bottle or a glass of wine?¨ (Believe me, we tried in English, Spanish and by pointing to the menu...). As Lea & I had the sushi platter, we felt totally justified in having desserts too, but they looked so great, everyone else ordered one after ours had arrived. We considered a club nearby but as it would cost a total of 180 Real to get on for all 6 of us, we figured we´d rather drink that money in a bar down the road which was free to get in and was playing great music (naturally, it turned out to be a gay bar!).

C created quite a stir and attracted a few new male admirers (it´s the shaved head, goatee and skinny hips that do it!) and Alex tried the 700ml of draft wine he´d spotted on the menu, which tasted every bit as disgusting as it sounds. We girls played it safe with the normal bottled stuff! After a great evening, we were finally chucked out, the last to leave, as the staff were pointedly putting chairs up around us.


Alex and his draft wine. Yum.
____

Friday - C & I went on a Favela Tour. Now if you´ve seen the movie City of God, those Favelas are dangerous crime-ridden shanty towns - and it´s true no tourist should ever wander alone. But we went with a highly recommended company, www.favelatours.com.br. Although I´ve been surprised to hear since that no one else we´ve met had even dared take the tour!!!

The Favelas of Rio constitute about 20% of Rios 6.2 million inhabitants, but the Goverment only recognises 300,000 of them and one main road running through the largest Favela, Rocinha. The other roads, and therefore homes, people, facilities for these people simply don´t exist.

Although I was really amused and incredibly surprised to find posters everywhere advertising a Ja Rule gig, in Rocinha itself, in July. Bloody hell, he knows his fan base, doesn´t he?! Gangster-land. I´d like to see the security bill on that one.

Actually, our tour guide Martha told us, 90% of Favela-dwellers are honest citizens, and the criminal percentage are about 2% - probably the same as London then - but it´s the drugs lords who run the community.

The Favelas started only this century when the Gov´t started to develop the lower lands nearer the beaches for tourists and the rich. The poorer folk´s homes were razed to the ground, and they were forced to move further and further up the hills to survive. There they have created their own homes in these unforgiving territories, made out of whatever they can salvage - a higgledy-piggledy stack upon stack of wood, corrugated metal, brick and stone constructions, one on top of the other.



Brazilians don´t beg - they are proud people and even though deprived of state support, they will make, sell, trade or buy anything to make a living. We bought a few souvenirs from a market stall of craftspeople and traders, happy to put some money into an economy that gets nothing from the official routes.

The favelas have of course, over time, built their own sub-culture and economy, based on drugs money: marijuana and cocaine.

It´s the drugs lords have the power and the money, and as Martha told us more, it seemed almost Godfather-like. The shoot-outs that occur on a daily basis(erm, now they tell us!?) are solely turf wars between rival dealing factions - but they fiercely look after their own villagers.

We got told of an incident where a mother needed to pay for treatment for her sick child and the drugs lords paid for this. Equally though, a woman who cannot pay her way through an addiction may have to pay with her head shaved, and a man may have a finger chopped off.

Favela streets are actually safer than those of any normal city though - other types of crime - muggings, rapes, burglaries etc are next to non-existent - as long as the drugs lords keep their gun-fighting amongst their own people and keep other crime under control, the police ignore the dealing under their noses.

It´s a self-governing, self-policing, self-supporting community. I marvel at man´s ability to survive whatever life throws at them.

Martha has been doing the favela tours for 7 years, she has the respect of the community, and so we were allowed to take photos - but only from and to very specific points, not *here* or *here* as they were dealing points. Taking photos *there* would risk ALL your group´s cameras being confiscated by the dealers, and as Martha explained, she was not going to negotiate our memory chips back with angry men who have big guns. C & I caught two dodgy-looking youngish guys who were definitely dealers (all in black, *lots* of bum bags, chewing gum on a street corner, doing nothing, but watching everything). They were eyeing our group up, so I pushed my camera further into my pocket, whilst strangely thrilled to be so close to something I´d only read about and seen in movies.

Weird though, to think the Gov´t have nothing to do with these people, and to them they don´t exist. A few companies, phone, gas, electricity, etc, have realised the fiscal potential of 1.2 million people, but as most homes don´t have a recognised address (there is only one street recognised by the Government), people can´t get a job or a bank account or sign up to the services. Ever innivative, they simply connect their own cables to the supplier´s posts and ¨steal¨ the electricity and phone signals...what Martha called "spiderman´s work"...um, safe, or what?!?!



The second Favela had no dealers so we were allowed to take as many pics as we wanted. This seemed more like a pretty village, coloured bunting everywhere, old men playing cards in the street, although the gentle waft of marijuana as we walked through the narrow backstreets reminded you this was no ordinary village.



We were thrilled to hear some of the profits of which actually go to run a school we visited there. All jolly and painted in bright colours, Favela tours were funding a safe place for the kids to flourish in an area the Government doesn´t deem education is important (they´d pulled promised budget a few years previously).

Favela kids only have a 3% chance of making it into higher education - parents want their kids out working asap, and anyway, the richer kids get all the places and opportunites so why bother? With the help of this school though, and an education programme that extends to persuading the parents to think differently about their children´s chances, they´ve managed to get 37 kids through this tiny school so far into higher education - and only failed 3 of them. Amazing, huh?!

At the end of our tour, we tipped Martha and thanked her for a fascinating insight into the other side of Rio, before leaving in the mid-afternoon for Sao Paulo...(7 hours on a bus...)

26 hours on a bus to Rio

Saturday morning, said sleepy and therefore slightly less emotional goodbyes to Aida and Silvina than the night before, and Fernando took us to the Terminal de Omnibus at Garupa to catch a bus to Rio.

A 26 hour bus to Rio.

Yeah, I know what you´re thinking...FLY! But they are soooo cheap, and I don´t have a job right now, so we´re being a bit prudent.

The buses were ¨Cama¨ which means your seat opens out like a first class seat in most airlines and you get fed. So once the bus actually pulled in (about 1.5 hours late from Buenos Aires), I piled on and got the seat out to full extent and settled down for some much-needed shut-eye.

Yeah, comfy as anything for the first 8 hours. Then I got antsy and fidgety. Still, managed to watch 3 films along the way: In the name of the King (with Jason Statham and Burt Reynolds, two markers of a shit film if ever there were...C fell asleep, but I was riveted to watching this car-crash of a movie simply to see how bad it got), Dan in Real Life (with Steve Carrell, funny and sweet rom-com), and the next day (after a breakfast stop!) Eastern Promises (a hugely violent but brilliant film about the Russian Mafia in London - get it out on DVD).

It was a fantastic movie, but I couldn´t help feeling maybe they should have left the throat-slitting and eye-stabbing for the late night screening and showed the Carrell one in the morning!

There´s not much else to do on a bus for 26 hours except read (so I check our Lonely Planet notes on Rio, bugger it´s all Portuguese, so we´re back to understand nada, also it´s twice as expensive as Argentina, and now I´m here, it´s nearly London prices really) and sleeeeeeep, which fortunately I´m rather good at.

Eventually, we pulled into Rio a full 2.5 hours late, at about 1pm on Sunday afternoon, ravenous after a breakfast of dried fruit (freeze-dried mango that´s as brittle as glass with the texture of honeycomb...weird but so good! Dried Apple rings, and this amazing Banana Pulp bar - I might go into importing) and Cheetos crisps (those motorway service stations)...

Time to say goodbye...and does it count if you don´t chew?!

This feels like the longest goodbye.

If I felt emotional leaving job, family and friends in the UK 2 months ago, it´s more intensified saying goodbye here as chances are we may not return (although we want to).

But before I get to the sad bit, I´ll tell you about the rest of my week in the run up.

Thursday: Went into school (again, a little lie-in, as no 5b; although I did feel bad when they ran in to say goodbye, waving cards and sweets for me on Tuesday at the end of my last class with 5a), this time with Florencia, my house ¨sister¨.

I had to make up a lesson for these kids, all about useful phrases for a basic conversation, as the clever little blighters had finished all my planned work ahead of schedule. I was looking forward to the help and support of a native Spanish speaker in Flor.

In the end, though, this is how it panned out: 6b were the naughtiest they´d ever been (high on sugar and pop, and excited about end of term), and all Flor did was stand in the corner and make notes...!

Bloody psychology students, thinking they know it all!!! If I´d have known I was going to be subject to scrutiny and analysis, and Flor was not going to do anything to help, I´d have said no to her request. It was extra pressure I really didn´t need, and today´s was very unusual behaviour, and a tad embarassing as a result. I half-joked that she should have been in yesterday´s class when they were angels if she´d wanted to simply observe a class.

At one particularly rowdy moment, she looked coolly over her notepad and observed, somewhat needlessly, ¨It appears you are losing control of the class, Sapna¨.

¨So help me calm them down! Don´t just stand there taking notes, *do* something!¨ I hissed.

I handed her a particularly naughty boy to take to the Oficina whilst I dramatically dropped the confiscated 2-litre bottle of cola-style pop he´d been drinking through a straw under cover of his desk, into the bin from a height so the closed bottle fizzed furiously.

I knew how it felt.

With that example made, I reigned the class back in with a very fun game of good old hangman again.

In the last few weeks I´ve been making it more challenging by combining adjectives and objects and adding to their repertoire of new vocab week on week, so they have to search their entire notebooks for help, not just that day´s words (e.g. a green crocodile, four blue shirts, long curly hair) to try and drill home the fact that the order of these two elements are swapped round in English (Spanish would be e.g. un crocodilo verde, cuatros camisas azules, pelo largo y enrulado).

I did therefore find it particularly funny this week when some of the kids who gave me cards had still written that I was a ¨very girl cool¨.

Thursday pm: spent the arvo drawing Felipe...he´s a funny looking thing (a chihuahua) with huge ears (we call him bat-dog) and a face that only a mother could love, but he´s weirdly cute, with a very sweet, bouncy personality.

In the end, I thought that drawing was actually technically more accomplished, but we all had to agree, Cami is the cutest dog ever (I will post these pics, promise!). I put them into clip frames, we wrote ¨Para (names), Gracias por todo, Besos¨ and signed them before I headed into town to get V´s photomontage printed up (3 pics from Marcelo´s party in Sampaka; one of all us voluntarios, bar Ali - John, US Kristen, Fin, Leanne, C, Oz Kirsten, Tom & me; one of V & Marcelo and one of me & C with Norma & Fernando, V´s parents) with the message ¨Los mejores voluntarios en todo el mundo!¨ and our names and then I went to meet US Kristen for a couple of glasses of vino at Alex´s and to rest my weary eyes.

We remaining 6 of the original posse (Tom, John & Ali had long gone...sniff!) had decided to give V this framed pic, signed on the back by us all along with vouchers for a great restaurant in Posadas, Las Cavas, which we´d all been to for Ali´s last night.

That last Thursday night about 24 of us went to the largest and oldest restaurant in Posadas, La Querencia. All us voluntarios leaving (Oz K, US K, Fin, Lea, C & me); Gen (the exasperating one I had to stop blogging about); Meredith from Colorado, a newbie who´d arrived that day who had moved into Pilar´s where Oz K was staying and doing the same conservation project (an excellent, fun girl and irritatingly as stunningly beautiful as she is nice!); plus assorted friends and family; Aida, Silvina and Flor from our house (no Mariana & Cesar unfortunately due to M´s toothache), Laura from Oz K´s house and her mate; Dani, the voluntaria who fell in love with Posadas 2 years ago and stayed and her boy Fernando; and of course, Veronica and Marcelo (no Norma & Fernando as unfortunately for us, they had guests over).

Great meal, great night, Aida actually nearly cried when I gave her the pic of Cami (Flor said no volunteer had ever, or would ever do anything for her which would touch her like that again...sweet!), V also had an emotional moment apparently after we gave her the picture & vouchers.

C & I also decided to get our family´s meals as a thank you, and then I suggested we 6 leavers all pitch in for V & M´s, which was a nice way to go.

If you´re thinking we were being a little splashy with our cashy what with no jobs and all that: what with the gorgeous mains, tonnes of wines and a few coffees and desserts for good measure, the cost per head was 45 pesos - or about 7 quid a head.

I have a fab shot of us all outside the venue, I will post later, again.

A few of us went onto Alex´s to say goodbye and ended up staying out till about 3am drinking ridiculously strong cocktails and knowing I would regret it the next day.
_______

Friday. Getting out of bed was a chore, I´d left it so late I didn´t have time to wash my hair...but it was my last day, so I obviously had to go. For the first time in 2 months was 10 mins late for class...eek!

4a had obviously been worried I wasn´t coming, because as I rushed into class with a flushed face and a ¨Lo siento¨, they erupted into a huge cheer, clapping their hands, jumping up and down and chanting ¨Sapna! Sapna! Sapna!¨ over and over again at top volume.

My head hurt, but what a reception!

We whizzed though a lesson learning La Comida (food), which I did for both 4a and 4b, along with a few photo opps to get the last classes on my last day in Posadas, especially my two fave boys, Thomas and Johnathan from 4a. Cuuute!

Again, lots of sweets and cards and *massive* long hugs and big kisses (at one point, I had about 15-20 kids all wrapped around me in the biggest group hug of all time...I wished I could have got someone to have a pic, but no one was there and besides, my bag was squashed to my side in the melée!

After lessons, I got called into the Oficina - but not for being naughty!

Graciela and Fabiana gave me a large gift bag with pics of Iguazu on it (so I wouldn´t forget Misiones), and inside, a gift-box of typically Argentinian sweets, a certicate thanking me for my time there, and also, touchingly, a souvenir T-shirt which F said was ¨en tu color favorito¨. I looked down and realised it pretty much matched the one I was wearing, a sludgy army green, which I guess I *do* wear a lot of when travelling! I was touched by the thought that had gone into these presents, returned their tight hugs and kisses and thanks, and tried very very hard not to cry.

In all the emotional goodbyes in the playground, from the kids pouring out of school for lunch, I somehow managed to leave my presents in the office - and when I went back to get them, it was locked up. Bugger! There was only one thing for it: I walked to F´s house, knocked on her door, explained my predicament, and so her son Lucas, 11, grabbed the keys and took Junior, their fluffy mutt to accompany me on the walk back to school.

On the way, Lucas informed me he´d transferred to this school as from today and is now in in my former 6a class (remember he went to a private school and hence had excellent English?). I didn´t ask why the change, but I suspect F simply couldn´t afford it any more. Apparently teachers here earn only 500 (125 quid) per month, and although F is a deputy head, I´m sure it wouldn´t be much more. She supports 5 people and a dog on that. I´m not sure what her husband does, but it appears she´s the main breadwinner.

What a shame about Lucas though, I thought, as the educational levels of those kids were markedly less than his, and his progress is bound to be affected.

Lucas also told me that there had been a big fight (he mimed huge punches) in 5b today. So glad I ditched that class!

Before we headed back to F´s, I popped into La Cueva (the café where I´d often get lunch after school for the last 8 weeks) on request of Roberto, the owner, to say goodbye. He gave me a massive hearty hug and kisses and wished me Mucha Suerte on my travels and hoped he´d see me again in Posadas.
_____

Once at Fabiana´s again, she unexpectedly asked me to join them for lunch before I left. She´d already dished out a plate of a creamy-looking spaghetti dish, but as a veggie, I was horrified to notice it had *ham cubes* in it.

I tried to get out of it politely, but F was insistent and the whole family were sat there, Lucas, her husband Paulo, her 2 nieces, Yamila and the gorgeous little Macarena, eagerly waiting for me to join them before they could tuck in - in the end, I had no option to say anything but thanks.

As I ate, I gingerly swirled the spaghetti and tasty cheesy sauce round my fork, trying to surreptiously wind my way *round* the ham pieces. It was futile: there were tonnes of the little buggers, and sometimes they got caught in the strands.

There was nothing for it: I couldn´t pick the cubes out without looking really really rude. So I opened wide, gave the spaghetti only a cursory little gentle chew (rather like you do with oysters) to avoid choking on the longer bits, was really careful to avoid biting down on the meat cubes, and swallowed. GULP!

I think F noticed my reticence, because she then casually mentioned to her husband, Paulo, ¨Sapna es vegetariana¨.

But if she *knew* why did she serve me processed ham!?!? I awkwardly confessed, yes I didn´t eat meat, but then relief hit as the truth came out and I realised I could delicately pick my way round the rest.

Before I came out to Argentina, I had been open to the possibly of breaking my 21-year of vegetarianism with perhaps an excellent organic and cruelty-free Argentinian steak if I really had no option. Luckily, Aida´s cooking meant I could keep things meat-free.

I had no idea it would be broken like this with 2 tiny cubes of processed ham!

But then I rationalised, it was two tiny cubes in two mouthfuls, under duress, not out of choice...and if I didn´t chew or taste them, does it actually count?!

I decided it doesn´t.
_____

As she left to go back for the afternoon session, we said our long goodbye´s again. F said I could always come back and teach English there full-time, (although I´m not sure they could afford me, really).
____

After lunch at F´s I walked into town and went later met Oz K and C at Alex´s for one last ¨Submarino¨ (fantastically, chocolate bars which you dunk and stir into a large beaker of hot milk yourself to make into a hot chocolate - and Alex´s were actually submarine-shaped! An excuse to play with your food!), but in the end we decided it was too hot (typical the weather goes great as we´re leaving) so we asked Alex if he could do us milkshakes. So he got his man to create quite the most pretty and fantastic vanilla milkshakes, specially for us as they weren´t on the menu, before again offering C & I jobs at his expanding empire on the Costanera if we were to return.

Then we said by to Oz K, and C & I left to get a cab and go back to El Hogar refugio to await the 3pm delivery of the furniture we´d ordered that previous weekend. Amazingly they turned up about 3.15, which C said was not bad for Argentina-time, but I observed was bloody brilliant for anywhere, considering all you get in England is an AM or PM delivery time, so you take the day off to make sure you´re home for noon and they still don´t turn up till 5.30pm.

You may remember they had a broken table-top (split down the middle) and too few seats which meant mealtimes, some of the kids had to eat standing up or sat on the filthy floor.

We signed the table tops ¨Buena Suerte, Paul y Sapna x¨ and ¨Con Amor, Paul y Sapna x¨, helped the bigger kids set them up on their trestle-legs, and took pictures of the kids that were there sat at their new table. The kids and lady who ran the orphanage (first time I´ve seen her!) thanked us wholeheartedly with hugs and kisses.

As we left the kids for the last time, we both had tears in our eyes, soppy things that we are. And as I said to C...we *have* made a lasting difference, and every time they have a meal, they´ll hopefully think a little bit of us.

On a further soppy note: I was sorry to not have had the chance to say goodbye to little Augustin & his sisters Diaina and Romina, but it was for a good reason, their mum had taken them home for the weekend. C had said he´d managed to see him earlier that day, Augustin had looked really cute in his little white shirt, dressing up to see his mummy, and C had lovingly straightened his little collars, before saying goodbye.
_______

Then we went back ¨home¨, met the new voluntaria (a very softly spoken and slightly naive 19 year old called Emily...oh my god I thought, her & Gen in ¨Hogar¨ will get eaten alive!), tried to prepare her with the help of C´s photos, then bobbed over to Norma and Fernando´s to give them the picture of Felipé. Fernando, the soppy old goat was welling up as he hugged us goodbye, and Norma was holding the tears back too and said they would miss us greatly as we were such nice people.

Backatacha, Norma.

Then, C & I went out to get two photos printed out for the boys in Samapaka of the night they´d put the party on for us. They´d asked for us to email those pics, but I suggested to C we could go one better and give them the prints themselves.

Even the man in the design shop, who I´d only met the previous day, was keen to wish us suerte for our travels...everyone´s so lovely here!

So after a lovely farewell/hello (for Emily) dinner in which Aida cooked some of our favourite foods (yes, including C´s sausages) and we drank lots of wine and tried not to get too emotional about (hard, when Aida insisted on dining with my drawing of Camila on the table beside her!), C & I headed at about 11.30 to Sampaka to say goodbye to the boys.

Unfortunately, the gorgeous Mario wasn´t there, but Carlos was, with a few mates, playing cards, and he leapt up to greet us warmly as ever and pulled up two chairs for us and grabbed some beers.

We still had to pack, so we´d deliberately left our money at home, but Carlos was having none of it and said ¨No importante¨. Drinks on the house! C said it´d be rude not to.

We gave Carlos our presents - the photos and C´s England footy top, which Carlos asked us to sign - and then were surprised when their DJ ran off and got us two promotional scarves (quite nice black ones actually, that´ll be handy in wintry B.A. when we get there) and CDs of his mixes. Cool!

As we said one more emotional goodbye, Carlos said that we would have jobs any time if we were to come back as these boys had plans for Sampakas 2, 3 and 4. (Although I´m not quite sure how these boys are funding the expansion, the bar is always pretty empty when we go in (location, location, location), I´m more and more inclined to go with Oz K´s theory that it´s a front for something else.)

Anyway, that´s 3 more job offers than I have in London. There´s nada at the Telegraph post-cull, and, sat at an internat café today in Rio, having check my email, I hear from a recruitment consultant that media in general is going through a slump. I´m really not sure I want to go back at all.

We left at about 1.30 and didn´t get packed for Rio till 3am.

I think we were both not wanting the day to end as we really didn´t want our experience in Posadas to come to an end.

We´ve fallen in love with the place and the people, and have vowed we will go back (just as soon as we have jobs to fund it!)