Buenos Aires, city of thunderstorms

This is not a city used to the thunderstorms that Kuala Lumpar have every day as we discovered this morning. One of our recommended must  does was to visit the Cafe Tortoni, this seemed like a good plan for the start of the day a other things that attracted our interest were also in that area, it was an overcast morning but me, being ever optimistic had spotted lightening skys and vetoed Liza's raincoat suggestion, a decision which could be held against me for some time. By the time we had negotiated the Buenos Aires tube system and arrived at the central Cathedral station the rain had started, but again optimistic we dodged it as we headed Cafe-wards for a late morning coffee. Now the sky darkened to almost night, and one mighty storm erupted. Having to shelter in a shop being used as a small indoor market we discovered that this was not weather common to this city when the ceiling collapsed throwing a torrent of water onto the stalls. A dry escape being  impossible we helped the stall holders move their goods away from the worst of the torrent and off the increasingly submerged floor until the lights fused. A quick 10 metre dash to the next door cafe saw us totally drenched but not at our destination, the remaining 50 metres being a stupid idea in the prevailing conditions. We therefore had our coffee and empenadas where we had found ourselves, waiting until it was just a downpour rather than a flood. Further proof of the unlikely weather was on the television news that was covering the event in depth with reports of the tube lines being down, pretty girls standing in the rain telling us it was raining, and long shots of puddles in the streets.

When it was just raining hard we splashed our way to what turned out to be the most eclectic museum of our travels so far, the Museo de la Ciudad, which seemed to be a collection of oddities with no rhyme reason or overall theme whatsoever, A display of ceramic tiles was under a kermit the frog costume. A recreation of a 19th century office next to a collection of 1970's photos of the local market. A selection of toys round the corner from a display of woodworking tools. The annex held a collection of old city doors, while the still working pharmacy had the most beautiful carvings and frescos. All this was overseen by a wonderfully enthusiastic man who was obviously a frontrunner in the Buenos Aires moustache of the year competition. He insisted in showing us everything as we dripped all over his beautiful 1890's floors. Soaked to the skin we  headed back to the flat to dry off and have a late lunch.

On a totally different note, while returning from our great meat eating expedition last Sunday we passed this place which got us giggling......

http://www.unimoron.edu.ar/

Not a place high on the list of the great academic centres of the English speaking world one feels!

Argentina - eventually!

After what was a very hectic two weeks back in England; thank you very very much to everyone who put us up (put up with us) during our brief return, we are again on our travels.... So welcome to the second part of our blog posts, Latin America!

We had an eventful flight here with Brazil providing our first unscheduled port of call. We had an emergency landing due to a passenger falling ill en-route which meant we had a good look at the dawn as viewed from the tarmac of Sau Paulo airport. Not the most invigorating time we have spent and made worse by knowing the Donald and Alicia were waiting to pick us up. Luckily they were checking arrival times and had realised we were delayed.

They took us to their home and were superb hosts providing a very welcome introduction to the joys of the Argentinian grill. We had already some flavour of what was to be expected, their daughter & son-in-law having already introduced us to the concept, however as previously noted by son-in-law Andrew, the meat is of a different calibre here.

Donald and Alicia also have a flat lovely 16th floor flat right in the centre of what we discover is a really cool part of town, which they have, with astounding generosity let us stay in while we explore the city.

 I enjoyed getting the tripod out and shooting some night shots.

The chance to have a flat to ourselves, to be able to cook for ourselves and to be honest, not have other people around all the time has been a weird novelty which we have over the last three days really enjoyed.

Some initial slightly offbeat observations about Buenos Aires :-
1.Everyone has a dog! usually the small yapping variety, I am sure that professional dog walker is quite a sensible career choice here.
2. Everyone gently strolls rather than walks.... after 2 weeks in London and prior to that in KL we have had to learn to SLOW DOWN or we will mow people over as we walk.
3. Despite what we have been told the traffic seems light and although cars weave a little as the go, the general pace seems leisurely, drivers wave us to cross in front of them and the politeness of everyone is very noticeable.
4. Despite the weather being mild everyone knows it is May and therefore must be winter and therefore must wear a coat.
5. They love shoe shops.
6. Ditto cake shops.
7. Tagging graffiti is of epidemic proportions...someone needs to teach them some variation.

 Two friends of Patrica's; Manuela and Victoria, pictured above next to a very nice but regrettably empty tun, took us out of town on Sunday to one of their favourite grill places (oh it does have a proper Argentinian name but sitting here in the wifi enabled cafe I'm stuck to recall it) A popular city dweller's weekend occupation is to drive out to one of these ranch like places and have an all you can eat grill consisting of beef, sausage, black pudding, chicken pork, etc etc almost ad infinitum. Obviously we partook heavily and then after a suitable time on loungers around the large wide open lawn, placed there for recovery reasons, we strolled around the adjacent crafts and food market before waddling back to the ranch for the inclusive teas.

 Sunset was beautiful, after which we were chauffeured back to town.

 One of the 'must do's' here is a visit to the cemetery, which is one of quite spectacular over the top mausoleums erected to the great, good and to be honest, rich of the cities past. They create quite a city within a city, with avenues of marble, granite and plaques. Hardly a touch of green to be found and a curiously antiseptic place even with the children's coffins, weeping angels and rich variation between the superbly maintained marble monoliths and crumbling edifices of the now derelict.

We are looking forward to an in depth exploration of the rest of the city prior to heading up country.

Malaysia, things are not what they seem!

We landed in Kualar Lumpa and got the bus from the airport to the city... We enjoyed being on good roads and saw on the way into town more high voltage power lines than we have for the past seven months,,, Ah we thought a country more like the west where organisation means organisation.

We spent the night in the city and rather than explore KL we thought we would catch the bus over to Tiomen Island which has the reputation of great snorkaling and nice jungle walks. So a shuttle bus to the bus station which is the most modern bus station we have ever seen in any country. Our trips round KL had led us to think that the best description you could come up with was a modern Birmingham with air conditioning. Malaysia is obviously much richer than anywhere else we had been and KL is a city of motorways. Our bus was very luzorious only 3 seats wide with as always in Asia with the A/C on so high you need a jumper. The drive however was really boring, (advertised 6h - took 8h) as I have never been in a country with such a mono-culture, we drove past miles and miles and miles of Palm oil trees, in fact it was often the case that all you could see was plantations of them stretching as far a s the eye could see. After a night in the small port town of Maning we caught the boat (advertised 1h... took 2h). to Tioman which was however as beautiful as described.

 We walked up the gentle incline through the jungle that gets from one side to the other....Here Liza looks fully eager to see what we can find.

 That included these two critters!

We has a couple of wonderful electrical storms.... managed to shoot this which I quite like!

Onward from Tiomen we took another bus to Channing a small coastal resort where we stayed for a couple of nights drawn by the chance to go and see fireflys and turtles. The fireflys were wonderful, floating leds across the river. Flash photography does them no good as does any light ie from the infrared of focus control on modern cameras consequently there are no photos of a superb evening.

On the following evening we went to see turtles laying eggs and to release turtles that had hatched into the sea. (there is a conservation project going so all the eggs laid are collected, and reburied in the conservationists own sand pit and then released on the same beach they were laid.

Onward to the Cameron Highlands, where the height makes the evenings cool. Our first day there we had a day of tropical rain which we spent the afternoon dodging while going on a half day tour. Tea plantations, mossy forests and butterfly farms were the order of the day.... Here's the pictures... all taken in the damp.

Leaving the highlands we went to Georgetown in the north, just near the Thai boarder where the British first established themselves in Malaysia, apparently it was at one time a settlement to rival Hong Kong and Singapore only politics and location meant that no longer.This has meant that the old colonial and Chinese buildings are still there which makes it an interesting place to look around. The food is superb, Chinese rather than the Indian that was available in the Cameron Highlands.

 Two angry birds!

  3 above of Chinese temple

George town tourist information!

We then returned to KL to spend a day wandering around before heading back to the UK via Hong Kong where we again spent an enjoyable day with Kerry going to a couple of exhibitions one featuring an inflatable Stonehenge

and the other a trip around the city from the perspective of the totally blind.

Anyway here are our KL pictures:-

 The view from the top of the KL tower is quite spectacular, especially the haze of pollution over the city.

The modern central mosque is fairly spectacular too...

Anyway greet ings to all from our current location London.... Hope to see some of you before we depart on the 22nd to Argentina.