Rark Mussell Around the World: South America to Europe

Argentina

You know you are in Argentina, when you go to a restaurant, and the 'small' steaks on the menu weigh in at 400g. Notwithstanding that 400g is a rather large steak, no self respecting red blooded male could possibly go to the steak eating capital of the world and order a 'small'. It took me the best part of an hour to get through the large rib eye, served rare with a selection of condiments, and a bottle of Argentine red, but was it worth it, you betcha.

Florida Street, Buenos Aires, and one of my favorite photos yet.

Argentina didn't only deliver on the steaks though, Buenos Aires would have to be my favourite large city visited in South America. As with any large city, it is very difficult to put your finger squarely on what makes it such a good city. Maybe it was the cheap wine, the delicious beer, the best hostel we have stayed in yet, the street music & food, art, parks, or the people. But if I had to reduce it to one thing, it would be the vibe (by implication including Mabo & the Constitution). Everywhere we went, there were things happening, interesting things, things that made you laugh, things that amazed you, and things that made you happy (like eating chorizo sausage for breakfast lunch and dinner one day).

Playing beer pong at our hostel

BA was also the first time couchsufing on the trip yet. Couchsurfing, for those that don't know about it is a massive community (almost 2million people around the world) of people willing to host a visitor for a couple days, share some stories, show them round town, and generally have a pretty good time. Maria was our host, and within a couple of hours of meeting her, we were having a three person party in her apartment, dancing away to the Beatles and Buddy Holly. Unfortunately the ticking clock had us leaving Maria's place after a couple of days and heading up to Iguazu Falls on the border of Brazil.

A couple of the hundreds of waterfalls at Iguazu

Iguazu is simply overwhelming, with close to 300 waterfalls in the area. The Iguazu River bed literally drops between 60 and 80m over a semi-circular 2.7km sending twice the water volume of Niagra falls off the edge. The awesome thing is that you can walk below, above, behind and around most of the falls thanks to the extensive walkway system through the park. My camera has been previously covered in sand, and mud, dropped, baked, frozen, but this was the first time it has been fully saturated in water.

Brazil

What a time to head to Brazil. The largest, most passionate, and successful football nation on the globe, and we rocked up into Rio 2 days before the world cup started. Justice. You couldn't possibly miss any of the action, as every second shop, on every single street had a tv in their window, hanging above the counter, or otherwise, showing every second of every single game. But there were a couple days to go before the cup started, which meant time to hit the beaches and the city, and check the place out.

View from under Christ the Redeemer

We were staying about 3 blocks from Ipanema beach, and you can quite easily lose yourself for a day or two wandering along Ipanema, and the adjoining Copacabana, having a caprahina or chop on the beach front, and doing a good deal of people watching. All of these make for some pretty good photo opportunities, so will share a couple of my favourites below.

Dude got balls.

Pretty good form for a 7 year old

7 year olds are also take their body boarding pretty serious in Rio

Surfers. Although I probably didn't need to point that out to you.

Ipanema Beach

Rio is one of those crazy paradoxical cities, where you have the amazingly rich mixed with the dirt poor. 2 minutes from one of the most famous beaches in the world, you find yourself in the very heart of slum town favelas. Well I didn't exactly find myself in the heart of the favela, as you would be pretty stupid to walk in to one with your camera, or to walk in by yourself fullstop. But there were plenty of other areas of the city that you can get to, and although less sketchy, still have a good level of sketch to them. Certain areas of Lapa are exactly that way, so which is why I took substantially less photos there.

Lapa

Well, back to the World Cup. Fifa had set up a huge huge huge screen in the middle of Copacabana beach, and sitting in front of it watching England play the USA you felt like you were in the middle of a massive festival, surrounded by stalls, merchandise, food, people and atmosphere. Pity the game stank, and it wasn't until Australia were trounced by Germany that you finally had something to cheer for. But there was only really one day that really counted in the immediate future, 15 June. 15 June was to kick off with the All Whites playing Slovakia at 8.00am, followed by Brazil's first game of the tournament at 3.30pm. To say the Brazillians get into their football is an understatement. From first light at dawn the streets were buzzing. Cars tooting their horns, people blowing their horns, yellow and green hanging from every single building, shop and public space, and yellow jerseys all over the place. After watching New Zealand's famous 1-1 victory, the atmosphere continued to build. The noise, the colour, the excitement, all were phenomenal gearing up for the 3.30pm kick off. As for the game? I wouldn't know, my flight to the UK boarded at 3.20. Terrible timing.

London Town

It doesn't get much better really. Meeting up with one of your best mates (Owain P), in their new home town, in a city, and a continent you have never been to, over a year since you last met, and with a full couple of weeks of good times ahead. Well, I would have been happy if the whole trip ended after the first night, because what a night. It is easy to get blase about sights and attractions if you have seen them before, but walking through Westminster, to Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and over the Thames, I was actually blown away. First imagine the setting, evening sun streaming in some awesome golden light from a perfectly blue sky, and walking through and around maaaaassive ancient buildings, castles, and parks, for long periods of time not seeing a single manifestation of modern day living (no convenience stores, advertising signs, noise). You almost felt like you were Marty McFly, and the flux capacitor had just taken you back to the 1700s. It was a great evening.

Owain & London Town.

The evening also brought back a famous tradition, called 'eats town', that has been a long standing, and much loved activity of both Owain and myself. It involves an excessive amount of walking, while stopping every half an hour or so to re-fuel with a tasty beverage or morsel of food. Eats-town sessions in the past have been known to stretch for as far as 18km. This was up there, in both distance, and delicious food eaten, not to mention being in London. Everything seemed to just work out, eg. simply by chance, when we were walking past Queenies palace, they were changing the guards. Awesome.

Eat in Eats-Town.

I made Owain make this gesture, it is not in his character to do so, but for the good of the photo, and to produce a 2010 representation of British punk/rock photography it had to be done. This photo has not been edited (nor have any in the entire blog for that matter).

Owain getting his photo skills on.

I really like subways, I don't know why, but they seem to combine all walks of those above ground into a compacted, concentrated sub city, complete with trains. I also really enjoy taking photos in subways (they call it the tube over here though).

Mirror shot

Double trains comin' atcha

Ciaran

Well, its almost been a week now since arriving in London, and there really hasn't been any down time. Along with taking in a lot of the sights, and catching up with more friends, have also managed to get along to the Royal Ascot Races (thanks Helen and Aidan!) and to Wimbledon (thanks Kevin!)