Gorgeous architecture and bright colours are the hallmark of Valparaíso
Kent, the owner of Hostal Mariposas, where we spent restful nights, sharing insider tips of the hostel business
A vague smell of the sea (ok, rotting fish) and the less ambiguous stench of dog excrement greeted us as we stepped out from the bus station, wobbling under the weight of our bags, which were hanging off us like awkward stumps off a tree. The temperature was cooler than Santiago from whence we came and I saw a couple of seagulls in the sky overhead.
We had arrived in Valparaíso, Chile.
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I’m terribly pleased to announce that Handcarry Only is now a contributor to CNN Travel, arguably one of the web’s leading authorities on travel and leisure. But mostly, I’m just chuffed that Handcarry Only gets to be seen by even more people around the world.
A few months ago, as part of my African adventure, I ventured in the fabled Okavango Delta in Botswana in a creaky wooden dugout canoe, ploughing through the seemingly never ending sea of reeds and spotting some hippos (which are a lot more dangerous than their somewhat friendly appearances might betray!) along the way. It was definitely one off the bucket list for me and an unforgettable experience.
Read the rest of my Okavango writeup on CNN Travel.
The makoro, or traditional wooden dugout canoe glides silently across the water in the Okavango Delta
A poler pilots the makoro, with a cargo of tourists. The tourist dollar is an important source of revenue for the locals.
Apart from occasionally getting whipped in the face by the reeds, it was a most relaxing way to travel.
The polers of the Okavango Delta
Check out the other posts and photos from my time in Africa
I left my job as an advertising Creative Director in August 2012 to travel Africa and South America for a year with my wife, documenting these beautiful places with my Fuji X-Pro1. View the rest of my RTW adventures on Handcarry Only and follow me on my journey by subscribing/following/bookmarking.
The most strenuous activity might be getting in and out of the hammocks
A stream with crystal clear glacial water provided the soundtrack for the idyll afternoons
The late afternoon sun peeked through the leaves on the walnut tree, flickering as the breeze swayed my hammock ever so slightly from side to side. I had been in this same position for the past two hours… or was it three? In any case, time seemed of little consequence as I looked around, a similarly tranquilo scene was played out all around me. A couple was lazing in the sun next to the stream, watching the butterflies as they flitted from one lavender bush to the next. Another girl was on a swing in the far corner of the garden, and judging from the glee in her eyes, quite possibly the first time in many years she has been on one.
We were in El Bolsón, in Patagonian Argentina.
I hadn’t heard of El Bolsón until I was researching the route to take from El Chaltén to Bariloche in Argentina. A small hippy town two hours south of Bariloche, the centre of the Argentinian lake district, El Bolsón sways to a distinctly different vibe. Whilst Bariloche is busy and somewhat upmarket, a ski resort town with a Swiss-styled architecture, El Bolsón is the counter-culture capital of Argentina. A haven for hippies in the 60’s and 70’s, who settled in the town and declared it a non nuclear zone and an ‘ecological municipality’. Nestled in the valley between two mountain ranges, it has its own unique micro climate, suited for the cultivation of cherries, raspberries, boysenberries, apples, and hops, which goes into the production of artisanal beer, for which the region is famous.
We were staying at La Casona de Odile, a little sanctuary for those who preferred things a little slower. Situated about five kilometres from town, it was accessible only by a dusty track on which a private bus plied once every hour, with a break during midday for siesta. A curious assortment of travellers were gathered there during our nine day stay, a Belgian toymaker, a Luxembourger carpenter, a South African yoga instructor, a television producer from Buenos Aires, a French-Palestinian lawyer, a pair of French doctors and a few other battle hardened travellers who preferred to keep to themselves.
Evening conversations spanned anything from trading travel tips for various parts of South and Central America, to politics and philosophy and stories of home. Such is the camaraderie between long term travellers, unusually open as there was no fear of judgement and no emotional baggage to carry. Secrets flowed with travel tips across the dinner table, all washed down with a generous serving of the local brew.
La Casona de Odile, barely visible amidst the lavender bushes
A portrait of rural idyll
The late afternoon sun on Mount Piltriquitrón
An afternoon mate, the ubiquitous Argentinian beverage
Enrique and Pablo, childhood friends living in different continents, but reunited again in El Bolsón
A rather common sight during our stay in El Bolsón
I left my job as an advertising Creative Director in August 2012 to travel Africa and South America for a year with my wife, documenting these beautiful places with my Fuji X-Pro1. View the rest of my RTW adventures on Handcarry Only and follow me on my journey by subscribing/following/bookmarking.
A pit stop for the morning dog walkers
A lone cat wanders the narrow lanes of Recoleta Cemetary
“Faded elegance” is one of the adjectives I’ve heard being used to describe Buenos Aires and it could not be more apt. Majestic and opulent, but also delapidated and somewhat run down, she presents itself as a city of contrasts. Perhaps, the everlasting symbol of Buenos Aires, Evita herself presents such a conundrum, equally loved and reviled by her own people, she offers an insight into the psyche of the people of the city. From the people who assembled in the millions to hear her speak, and the countless numbers who lined her funeral procession, wracked in genuine sorrow, to the same ones amongst that number who found so much hatred for her as to defile her body after death, she is at once a unifying and divisive force. Likewise, Buenos Aires, a city of grand avenues and splendidly ornate buildings, but also of tin shacks and cracked pavements, of museums filled with renaissance grand masters and streets covered with graffiti. Buenos Aires is a complex lady, to see just one aspect of her is to miss the story. Perhaps the ones that truly love her have the most critical things to say about her, and the ones that unambiguously declare their love for her, maybe never really knew her at all.
Mafalda, a 60’s symbol of political and social commentary, remains popular to this day
National hero and Argentine liberator, General José de San Martin rests in the mausoleum in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral
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The lulling effect of the late afternoon sun claims yet another victim
Public busses in Buenos Aires, Colectivos, are a cheap and efficient way to navigate the vast city
I got thinking one afternoon, hanging on a greasy pole in a colectivo hurtling from stop to stop barely 2 blocks apart, the late afternoon sun sending everyone, or those with the luxury of a seat anyway, nodding away in motion induced slumber, how nice it would be to have peanut butter for breakfast. Not the boring smooth creamy kind mind you, but the ‘Extra Crocante’ variety. Peanut butter, or Crema de Maní, is a rare beast in Buenos Aires, finding a jar is not unlike finding an Argentinian who likes his steak medium rare, or ‘jugoso’, which is to say, whilst not impossible, certainly very uncommon indeed. Which leads me to another thought … on why a nation of people who pride themselves on having the best beef in the world then insist on cooking the life out of it, we had on various occasions ordered our beef in the local parilla to be ‘jugoso’ or juicy, and it had turned out in various levels of doneness, mostly ranging from medium well to completely well done … but I digress, today, peanut butter occupies my mind. We had a reported sighting at Barrio Chino by someone at our Spanish school in Palermo. I made a mental note of trying to hunt it down the next day… speaking of Barrio Chino, it might be worth trying to get hold of some char siew as well, I wondered how char siew would go down with Argentinians, they certainly weren’t opposed to barbequed meat, so I figured Cantonese barbequed pork could actually have a chance of existing in Buenos Aires, even if no Porteños bought it, there was still a sizeable Chinese population that could possibly justify its sale …
I’m afraid that no thoughts more weighty or substantial found their way around my head that particular afternoon, filled only with frothy musings and fluffy reverie … which kind of leads me to wonder why I haven’t really seen any marshmallows on sale at the supermercado either …
I left my job as an advertising Creative Director in August 2012 to travel Africa and South America for a year with my wife, documenting these beautiful places with my Fuji X-Pro1. View the rest of my RTW adventures on Handcarry Only and follow me on my journey by subscribing/following/bookmarking.
Arriving in the rain to Buenos Aires, “La Paris de Sudamérica”
I was more than a little excited to be arriving in Buenos Aires, a city with a reputation that precedes it. Bestowed with names like “La París de Sudamérica”, or “La Reina del Plata” (Silver Queen), I pictured a city of elegance and Old World charm. Buenos Aires, or ‘Fair Winds’ in Spanish, was to be our rest stop on our travels. We would be spending a couple of months here studying Spanish and just trying to live like a local. It was good to have a place to call ‘home’, even if it was for a while. It can get tiring living out of a backpack and being constantly on the road.
As luck would have it, we were greeted by torrential rain when our bus pulled in to the city limits, added to that, a toxic chemical explosion in the docks near Retiro, where the bus terminus was, closed the station down amidst a poisoning scare. It later turned out to be harmless but it didn’t stop us from getting dumped on the side of a busy avenue in the rain. So marked our first hour in The City.
I left my job as an advertising Creative Director in August 2012 to travel Africa and South America for a year with my wife, documenting these beautiful places with my Fuji X-Pro1. View the rest of my RTW adventures on Handcarry Only and follow me on my journey by subscribing/following/bookmarking.
Handcarry Only has been featured on Cyclelove! Check out some of the bike related photos I’ve snapped throughout my Round-the-World jaunt as well as James Greig’s other lovely 2-wheeled wonders!
On Cyclelove:
The Brazilian side of the falls offers a panoramic view, albeit from a little further away than I would have liked
The view from across the border in Argentina
We trudged along in the 35 degree (or 95 Farenheit for my readers in the New World) heat, sweating buckets and fending off mozzies hovering around our heads. The liberal coating of insect repellent on my arms and neck seemingly doing little to deter the flying pests from having their meal at my expense. The roar from behind the trees was unmistakable and quite familiar, considering we had just visited Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe just a month prior. We pushed ahead just a little further and a vista of utmost grandeur opened up before us. Split into 275 discrete falls, Iguazu (or Iguaçu in Brazil) is unsurprisingly named as one of the 7 wonders of the natural world. Stretching for over 2.7km (1.7 miles), its hard to imagine the amount of water crashing over the edge every second, throwing up a huge mist and forming rainbows all around. It was a spectacular sight, even the thronging hordes of shutter-happy tourists jostling for picture taking positions did little to take away the wonderment of the scene.
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The quaint port town of Paraty lies along Costa Verde, the Green Coast of Brazil
The architecture has been preserved all these years, aided in part by the mass exodus of the town that left it nearly empty for many years
A hop, skip and jump (ok, 4 hour bus ride) from the world famous Rio de Janeiro along the Costa Verde (Green Coast) of Brazil lies the little UNESCO heritage town of Paraty, sometimes spelt Parati, but always pronounced Para-Chee.
A little piece of Portugal in tropical Brazil, Paraty was a blast from the past, chock full of old colonial architecture, cobbled streets, horse drawn carriages and old men peddling sweets in carts. A port town, Paraty is decidedly working class, and the simple, almost rough hewn architecture reflects that fact. In the 1800s when gold was still flowing from the mines up in Minas Gerais, Paraty was the port the Portuguese used to ferry the loot out of the country and to imperial coffers in Lisbon. When that gold dried up, Paraty fell in importance and faded into the annals of history, a mass exodus left the town almost empty, but it also meant that the buildings remained preserved in time without too much degradation all these years.
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