Toronto

Or ‘Trono’ as it is called. Very big city. Perhaps I could live here, but it loses its appeal for traveling after walking around it for several days. Luckily I know someone here; Alina, a good friend and fellow word traveller, lives here and she is helping me see the place.

It is with some relief that I have been able to stay here for a week. I feel like I have returned home in many ways. I’ve been here before. I’m talking and seeing someone I’ve known for years almost every day. I have been very lucky to have been given a place to stay. Almost everyone speaks English. I’m very firmly in the first world: the traffic runs smoothly and quietly; the streets are kept clean; everything is expensive and just works; I can use the credit card again. Apart from the funny accent, this could be Australia. So I feel like the trip has finished, and I should be getting back to some sort of productive activity (especially as the expenses have skyrocketed!)

Not so fast! There is still a chunk of country to see before I can stop.

Last weekend was the first real weekend in Spring. It was a long weekend, Monday was Victoria Day. Unfortunately it is still Spring, and Winter this year seems to be draging on (at least that is what the locals assure me). I hope they are right – surely it can’t be cold and wet all year. Whinging about (or “aboot”) the weather seems to be a national sport, and for good reason this week.

Saturday was forecast for rain, so we didn’t plan any outings, preferring to go on Sunday or Monday in the sunshine. You guessed it, Saturday was fine, the others not. So, of all things, we went shopping on Saturday. Well, I needed a new camera anyway so the effort wasn’t entirely wasted. Sunday started well but deteriorated into a movie session with one of Alina’s friends – who turned out to be an IronMan/Woman (how do you describe a female who has completed an IronMan?), marathon runner, and similarly all round sporty type. So we had something to talk about

With only one day left in the weekend, we took the risk and Alina drove me to Penetanguishene, a town just north of Toronto. It rained on the way there, and the sky was cloudy. But it cleared when we arrived, and I was treated to a Spring walk in the woods. Pity I didn’t have a camera, the woods are spectacular in the Spring. I imagine it would be nice in all seasons actually – there are lots of trees, and one of the great lakes is right there, both of which are covered in snow and ice over winter. The stories of cross country skiing to work and then in the forest or on the (frozen) lake by moonlight after work made me slightly jealous. Ok, more than slightly. If I’m around here in winter, I’ve picked my sport. Except I don’t expect such a good cover of snow in the city.

And I have got a new camera. So here is a photo from around the place that I am staying, well within walking distance of downtown Toronto (a city of 5 million people, another million on Sydney). I’m pretty lucky to be able to sleep in this area. Nice, eh?

There are lots of flowers out: Violets, Lilacs (not only in the colour Lilac so I’m told), Lilly of the Valley, along with flowering trees: Cherry, Crab apple, Almond. Alina has been attempting to teach me some botany. I’m just showing off. Everything looks so different to my last visit (that time there was snow about).

Next stop: Ottawa. Just up the train line. Heading east for a short trip. I would like to take a bike, but Canada is BIG and I don’t know that I want to spend the time in the saddle again, so soon.

 

Canada

Well, I’m here. Spring is definitely here also. Thank goodness. Although it did (briefly) rain on me yesterday. I’ve got a few days planned in Toronto, and then I have to work out for sure whether I go east or west. At the moment starting east seems a good plan.

Football

Michiel (Dutch cyclist first met on the Carretera Austral) has found his way to Buenos Aires for a weeks rest before tackling the lagonas ruta in Bolivia. Oh, what’s that Michiel? Only if I go as well? I must admit it is a tempting offer, but I’ve got this ticket to Canada, and, well, you know, the altiplano in Bolivia is hard work. Good luck with the ride from Salta to Mendoza instead. Better alternative for a solo cyclista.

But Michiel is crazy about football, so we went out to see a match last night (one of 6 this week for Michiel). Originally we planned to see River Plate (one of the ‘Big Two’, the other being Boca Juniors) vs someone, but due to current events in the Cupa de Liberatodores we didn’t think this would be a very lively match. So instead, for a reason that still escapes me, we headed to San Lorenzo. This barrio(suburb) could generously be described as poor. We were a group of four (others from the hostel) with two fluent Spanish speakers, but it was possibly a little foolish (ie dangerous). Of course nothing happened, but we were all pleased to get back without an incident.

So San Lorenzo played Independentia (thanks for the reminder Michiel – I don’t pretend to memorise these things). We (ie San Lorenzo) lost: 0-1. I say we because our seats, or rather patch of concrete to stand on, was behind the home goal. It was rather an experience with the crowd singing most of the game, and clearly challenging the away crowd in the songs. I was impressed by the passion the crowed showed. This was only (I say only!) a club match, and San Lorenzo didn’t play so well, but the crowd was right behind the team. I get the idea that San Lorenzo are doing well in the Cupa de Liberatodores so I think the crowd kept reminding themselves of this – especially after the goal, which of course caused the away crowd to go nuts.

After the game I was a bit surprised that none of the home crowd moved. In Oz, there would be a great rush to be out of there. But for maybe half an hour they just sat there. Eventually the away crowd had all filed out to be packed into buses and escorted by police out of the suburb. It looks like this is normal, to avoid the post match hostilities. It worked pretty well, but meant we were on the street looking for a taxi at 2230, in a reasonably dodgy neighborhood. So we caught a bus.

 

Update: The nice Argentine/Canadian I set next to on the flight to Toronto was slightly horrified, and glad that we survived unscathed, when I told him we went to see San Lorenzo at a home game, and then sat with the supporters. The neighborhood is slightly more than dodgy…

The bike!

Is gone. I wasn’t actively trying to sell it, but someone in the hostel heard it had to go and he wanted it. So, after 14,000km it’s not in the best shape (actually, I described it as a wreck when he said he might want it), but it should be ok to bash around the city for a while yet.

I had owned it for 274 days. That is the shortest time I’ve ever owned, and ridden to death, a bike (and averages at over 50km per day!).

Bye, bye, trusty steed.

Time waster

I’m here to waste some time. But, I´ve discovered something. Wasting time doesn’t (any more) make me mad, having someone else waste my time for me, well, that attracts my ire.

I tried to sent a packet home from Buenos Aires. I walked to the central post office, thinking that this might be most efficient. I took a number and sat down. 1 hour later… (this part suffers from the fishermans’ story syndrome – the first time I told it is was 30mins, and since I don’t wear a watch, it could easily have been an hour). I was finally served and told that to send a cd of photos (and a lovely mothers day letter to mum) I would need to complete a customs form, and this would need me to produce my passport. The passport that is accross town in the hostel. I knew this to be rubbish, having sent plenty of parcels and not needing my passport once in Argentina. I tried to explain this. They didn’t budge. The prospect of a long walk followed by another long walk back and another long wait for no good reason got me reasonably fired up, but I left without sending the parcel. I think they understood I wasn’t impressed.

There is another post office, not 50m from the hostel, who took the packet with barely a question (certainly no passport required) and I went back to a more profitable time waster of reading. The James Bond books, if you are interested. Now that is really wasting time.

Iguazu Falls

Since leaving Buenos Aires, the twin main objectives have been to waste some time until the Canadian weather gets its act together and realises than it’s time to be warm. And visit the Iguazu falls.

One objective is complete. The falls are well worth such a huge detour. Since we had come so far to see these falls, we visited both sides, one side being in Brazil and the other in Argentina.

I must admit to being slightly underwhelmed at the start of the view in Brazil. We’d just had a (verbal) fight (in ‘Russian’ or Portuguese, could be either) with the Brazilian guards about having to pay for the bus service in to the park even though not using the bus. [It's not possible to enter without buying a bus ticket as well, don't waste your time trying.] The walkway / viewpoints in Brazil at first only allow you to see some of the waterfalls on the Argentinian side (across the river). They are impressive, but worth several thousand kms? Not really.

Not until later do you see the Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s throat) with is a U shaped thundering wall of excitement. And then, suddenly, it is worth the visit (if you can see anything through the spray). On the Brazilian side, there is a walkway on which you can stand in the spray of the falls, and have falls almost all around you. It is huge! But this is all I liked about the Brazilian side – I prefered the Argentinian side. Lots of walkways. Lots of view points. Lots of places for Stefan to take photos (>200!). Many smaller falls (less water, same drop) amongst the trees.

On top of the Garganta del Diablo you can hardly hear yourself think. A phenominal amount of water pours over the falls, and sprays all over the place in a thourougly frivolous way. A wall of white noise. I tried to encourage a boat race over the edge – bit of a waste of time, you can’t see through the spray for about half the height of the falls. How would you know who won?

After a while of watching all that water it seems a little irresponsible to lose all that energy, and not, maybe do something useful, like turn it into electricity (spot the engineer…). Luckily just up the Paraná river (maybe 30km away) is Itaipu hydroelectric station that generates a lazy 14GW. The biggest hydro plant in the world, generating essentially all of Paraguays electricity and 20% of Brazils. We went there to have a look, but they wanted to shunt us into a bus and charge us to look at the dam wall. Not go inside the generating hall or anything exciting, just look at the outside of the concrete dam. Do I look so stupid? We looked from the road – it looks like a big dam(n) wall.

The Iguasu falls looks much bigger than Niagra (turns out it is), but maybe I’ll have to just have another look at Niagra in a week or so. And then see Victoria Falls. Could be a bit harder to get to Victoria falls though… Does this mean there is another trip to Africa coming up? Hmmm.

And a bird we saw at the falls for Kev and Steve. Sorry, no idea what this guy is called.

Let’s just say it’s Bluey from Argentina.

I wonder if Sea to Summit would like to use this one – the butterfly was a bit crazy, it was trying to lick the dry bag. I guess it is a similar colour to it’s favourite meal. I’d never seen a butterfly’s tongue before. I don’t know why I would have, but I felt I should have.

Toronto is expecting mid-teens for a few days. Warm enough to visit? I guess it will have to do. Maybe a bit better in a week. Still working on the second objective.

Brazil-Paraguay-Brazil

Brazil has been an amusing interlude. Possibly more amusing for the locals – I still cannot speak a sentence in Portuguese. I still call it “Russian”. If they speak too fast to me, I reply with “Russian russianrussianrussian”. Honestly, some of the sounds are more Russian than Spanish. Stupid Australian – still only speaks English.

From Morretes we climbed up into the metropolis of Curitiba via a back road. It rained the day we went anyway, so the cobblestones were wet and slippery. There were only two maniac drivers that tried to skid off the road, the rest were more sedate. But the scenery was pretty good – possibly amazing without fog. Lots of rain forest. Too wet for many photos. Stefan and Sabine hit 10,000km. Well done… 10,000km more to go Sabine!

With barely a pause in Curtiba (ok, a few hours stop) the three of us jumped on a bus to Foz do Iguaçu at the border of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. A long bus ride and a day later we were still in overcast conditions. So we did the only rational thing – find a place to sleep and wait for the rain to go away. It did.

So the next day we went bargain hunting in Paraguay. The weather wasn’t nearly nice enough to go and visit the falls. The oddest thing about this day (apart from the utter chaos of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay) was the border controls. From Brazil to Paraguay there was exactly zero control. That was a bit odd, but it meant I could enter, take a look around, tick Paraguay (otherwise a big hole in the middle of the continent I hadn’t set foot in) and not need to worry about a new visa or the return to Brazil. Whew. Lucky.

Ciudad del Este was chaotic, and Stefan and I ran out of steam and patience before hunting down a bargain. I probably should have been looking for a camera. Eh. Canada is fast approaching. I think they have them there as well.

The border crossing into Argentina began as simply as the one in to Paraguay – we had to go and ask for an exit stamp from Brazil. Normally you could just exit without hindrance. The Argentinian side looked more like normal, with a propper border control. The catch phrase of the day was “Everything is better in Argentina”. This was backed up by the cost and quality of accommodation, the food, the wine, the language (I can understand something again!), pretty much everything. Although after a day of consideration, the consensus was “everything is better in Argentina, except for the breakfast, fruits and beach chicas”. You can’t have expect one place to have everything.

So in a spirit of inquiry, after a strenuous ride of 13km and a border crossing, we tried the Puerto Iguasu offerings. A kilo of Bife de Lomo (fillet steak) and sides, for three. Almost as good as out west in Argentina. Everything is better here. Life could be so hard. I’m really starting to put weight on. Not to worry: I’m sure I’ll lose it in Canada again.