Denouement Diaries - Week 6

Essentially the ramblings of two adults that probably require adult supervision.

As usual, follow along at:

And...here. Anyway let's get into it:

16/3/23 - Day 36: Salta + Salinas Grandes, Jujuy Province

Early start
Waiting for our bus at 0700
It found us
We do the usual thing of rolling around the city picking people up
Eventually rolling out of the city after 0830
Tour guide filling every moment with words
Drive for a couple of hours
Bladder ready to burst
Stop at a little roadside cafe thing for a break
Then a short way on to the next stop where we see the 'hills of seven colours'
Pretty cool
Gaining altitude now
We get up to 4170m elevation with a very windy mountain pass road
Rolling down the other side to the salt flats
Which are awesome
Amazing to walk out onto another planet
And yes, I tasted it, its salty
Mucked around getting a bunch of photos
Had to pay to use the toilet there - which is contructed from bricks of salt
Back on to the bus
Starving by now
Back up over the mountain pass and into a tiny little town
Church nearly 40o years old
Got some food and coffee and had a look around
Then the long drive home
Was a massive day
Dropped off in Centro and grabbed a pizza to take home
Watched 'Luther'
Sleeps

17/3/23 - Day 37: Salta

Sleep in after big day yesterday
Wandered down to a cafe
Breakfast for hours
Read while we were there
By about 1300 wandered to the other side of the square to check out the museum of high altitude archaeology
Saw some mummified children that the Incas had ceremoniously killed and arranged at mountain tops to appease their gods or some such nonsense
Incredibly well preserved for 500 years in the cold
Wandered around town
Chilled at the apartment
And did some booking a little ways ahead - booked a few day at Iguazu falls in Brazil at a sweet hotel
Dropped off Casey at her pole class
I killed some time watching ‘Carnival Row’
Picked her up and we walked to a massive music/dinner hall for another weird South American dinner and show combination
Only ones there initially
Show started with Sergio Leonardo serenading us with Argentinian folk songs to a multimedia presentation background that looked like it was made with clip art
To the delusional host of the whole place singing and nearly weeping about how Las Malvinas was always Argentinian and getting the whole crowd to go full ‘Viva Argentina’!
To him then having his son sing on stage with him
To them both kneeling and singing to images of the Virgin Mary
Completely deranged
The steak was good though…
Started pouring as we walked home
Got fairly wet
Casey’s crocs were unfazed
Sleeps

18/3/23 - Day 38:

Very chilled day
Sleep in
Rolled down to the same cafe for breakfast
Read for a little while there
Then wandered up to a big fort thing we saw last night on the way to the crazy dinner and show
Was closed of course
Kind of just amble around
Back to our apartment
Read upstairs on the rooftop for a while
Casey got very sunburned - idiota
I had a swim in the pool - it was freezing cold and disconcertingly cloudy…
Chilled in the room for a while
Then wandered back out closer to 1800
Went to the restaurant that plays soccer on the big screen
Had some empanadas and coffee
Until I walked Casey to the next pole class
I did some reading and wandering
Before picking her up
She had a fun time being taught by a tiny Argentinian lady
We stopped for dinner on the way home at the patio attached to the Franciscan church and monastery
Lovely outdoor dining space
Alright food
Then home
Need to get all our clothes dry before we start the bus travel day tomorrow…

19/3/23 - Day 39: Salta --> Asuncion

Ooof we are not active today
Checkout of our airBnB around 1130
Wander into the main sqaure for some breakfast - which we took our time with
Then made camp in our favourite little Cafe Martinez on the corner of the square to kill some time
A little bit frustrating because its not like we had a secure hotel lobby to store our bags in for the day while waiting for an 1830 night bus
And we cant really walk around all day with bags on in 30 degrees before being sweaty stinking messes on a bus all night
So tour de cafe it is
Eventually we wander down to the Terminal de Omnibus de Salta through the nice little park where lots of families are spending their Sunday afternoon
Find the station
There are lots of people here who you would be very unsuprised to find at a bus station...
Grab some snacks - more medialunas
And some pathetic snacks for the bus - oreos and muesli bars
Actually very easy to find the bus
On and we set off
Look, what proceeds is 16 hours of bus travel in which it is difficult to sleep and an incredibly bright TV screen plays kids movies all night
And the buse stops at like 4 in the morning to pick up new passengers who were the most incredibly vague Argentinians imaginable
And the toilet was smelly

20/3/23 - Day 40: Salta --> Asuncion

Which brings us to the morning
By about 1030 the bus stops in Clorinda, a little border town
And we are jolted from the daze by the door opening and random young men poking their heads in and shouting something about 'la fronterra'
We get into what is clearly a gypsy cab for some not-quite-agreed-upon price for a quick ride to the border
Worryingly, the doors dont open from the inside, but I can literally put the window down and open my car door from the outside handle
Less sinister and more 'simple non-roadworthiness'
We get to the border
Have to change some money from Argentine Pesos into Paraguayan Guarani
Because of course even though we are still on the Argentinian side of the border, we have to pay the gypsy cab in Guarani for some reason
Ok so we start walking across the border
Almost just waving passports around for someone to stamp them so we can exit
We receive vague hand gestures to proceed over the border
Ok so we literally walk across the bridge that is the border between the two countries
Past the people having tea in the shade
And come upon what seems to be two immigration departments side by side - but both clearly on the Paraguayan side of the border
Try one
Nope, we have not been exited from Argentina
Ok but we are standing in Paraguay
We go to the other immigration thing
He says we need a stamp
We say we tried
Some scanning of passports happens
And we are waved away from what turns out to be the Argentinian authority and gestured back to what turns out to be the Paraguayan authority - both on the Paraguayan side of the border of course
The Paraguayan office that we now return to then stamps our passports with an entry stamp
Apparently no exit stamps from Argentina - all digital?
Anyway we ask a lovely fellow in an information office about taxis and he shows us out to the rank
We agree on a price - 25 USD
And we take the drive into Asuncion - is hot
Find our AirBnB easily - we are just a bit early
With a bit of google translate we are able to leave our bags in a room and go and have lunch for a while until the room is ready
First food in a while after the bus
We smell like feet
Lots of food and drink to recharge
Wander back to our place - its all set
We shower alot
We no longer smell like feet
We have a nap
Coffees in the afternoon just down the street to wakeup
And a little bit of groceries
Then chilling around our rooftop pool as the sun goes down
While watching a completely mental example of "The Influencer" - some girl and bags and bags of clothes (all with the tags still on) that she was modelling and having some dude take photos and videos in between constume changes
In the meanime, our airBnB host had checked in - he let us know that as Australians we may be interested to know that Tame Impala were playing in Paraguay tomorrow at a festivel
We booked tickets
Cooked up some empanadas for dinner
And watched 'Bullet Train'

21/3/23 - Day 41: Asuncionico

decent sleep in after the bus night/day
Wandered to the end of our street which happens to be the trendy new central area of Asuncion
First job was to find where to get our wrist bands for Asuncionico, this festival thing
Tried to find the collection place
Couldn’t
Gave up for a while expecting to have to travel to another location to pick them up
Breakfast at a nice cafe
Good food
English breakfast
One last look after breakfast
Found the little stall
They told us to get tickets at the venue
Didn’t believe them so actually found another pickup point to see if we could pick them up
Told again to get them at the venue
Ok a bit more reassuring
Extremely hot cab ride down towards the old town
Saw some very old governor style buildings
Some little drunk looking Paraguayan man gave us the finger - the absolute least threatening thing that I have ever seen…
Wandered towards the Palacio de Lorenzo?
But it was surrounded in military and police
Is there some sort of government thing going on?
Anyway by this point is was 35 degrees and feeling like 38
Got a cab back to Shopping Mariscal to cool down and have some coffee and croissants
Until another ca to the other side of town to Casey’s pole session
I hung around as Casey booked the studio as a private hire
Then Uber we back to our place
Had a swim and read and cool down
Until we started heading off for the concert
Uber through a heap of afternoon traffic to Parque Olimpico
And tumbled out to an army of people flogging tickets and bottles of water at the gate
We still didn’t have wristbands as yet
Bit wary that we had messed up
But followed some other people without wristbands back over the highway walkway into a little ticket booth set up in the carpark
Got our wristbands
VIP baby!
Into the festival
Boys and girls separate lines for security pat downs
The girls line took incredibly long because they all have handbags…
Rejoined Casey and headed in
Easily into the VIP area which was essentially just the areas in front of the two main stages
While the plebs stood beside us behind a fence
Always book VIP it wasn’t even that much more
Only missed 30 seconds of the first song from 'The 1974'
They were good
Put some money on the little wristbands and got some drinks
Because it was still 32 degrees
We ditched the food line to get back to Lil Nas
Lil Nas was amazing
Absolutely incredible showman
Then moved over to tame impala
Very experimental
Cool to hear some Aussies for the first time in a while
After their set went and grabbed some food while 21 pilots started
Worst empanadas ever - soggy vegetarian things - Argentina would be offended…
Getting tired by now so decided to head off
Exited out to the highway
Absolute chaos
Highway essentially standstill of people just standing around waiting for Ubers
No mobile data so couldn’t order Ubers
Ended up wandering over the highway, through a Carpark and out to another road where we eventually hailed a cab
And then easy ride home
Ended up just vegging out and cooking up some eggs and going to bed a bit later
Fairly successful night

22/3/23 - Day 42: Asuncion

Sleep in
I had a swim on the roof to wake up
Eventually wandered over and grabbed some breakfast from another cafe
We are clearly doing tour de cafe de Asuncion
Came back and had to do some washing unfortunately then hung around until headed off to Casey’s next pole lesson/studio hire
Back into town for some crepes and coffees
It is just so hot that the thought of wandering for hours is not particularly appealing
Swims and reading in the afternoon/evening
Cooked up some ham and eggs on toast for a simple little dinner
Watched some 'Jurassic World' movie - bit weird

Stay tuned...