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...