I even have a present for you, the long overdue post about Uruguay, one of the highlights of our trip so far!

Our first destination was Montevideo, a city I basically liked from the very beginning. Which is strange, because it’s not necessarily the prettiest of places. Let me rephrase that: it’s a city for the second look. There’s a lot of ugly architecture around, but also tons of nice old colonial buildings. Add to that tree-lined streets (occasionally even with cobblestones) and roughly 22km of coast and you have a pretty neat mix. On top of that Uruguayans are lovely people, very relaxed, friendly, talkative and with the highest mate consumption in the world. What’s not to like? We also had some great CouchSurfing hosts, so we met lots of people and had quite an active social life.

After a week though we decided to leave the city behind for a bit, and headed to the Atlantic coast, more specifically Punta del Diablo, a charming little town of about 700 inhabitants. At least during low season, because once high season hits the places grows to over 20000 people. While some may like that, I’m definitely not one of them and having kilometers of beautiful beaches to ourselves was a great experience. It’s hard to describe the beauty of this place in words (and I haven’t uploaded our pictures yet), but it was very hard to leave Punta del Diablo. If you ever get a chance to go there, do it, especially during mid to late November, when the weather is already good but the place is not overrun by tourists yet.

From the coast we headed back for another weekend in Montevideo, before setting off to picturesque Colonia de Sacramento, another place that was hard to leave. True, it can get quite full of tourists, but somehow the town absorbs them well. Also a lot of them just come on day trips from Buenos Aires, which means they leave again in the late afternoon and the old town full of cobblestones, cute little colonial houses and the friendliest street dogs in the world is all yours again.

Uruguay, a love affair. And I can’t even tell you exactly why. Is it because the whole country looks like Hobbit Land? Or because the people are amazingly friendly and welcoming? Or because of the very relaxed rhythm of life? Probably all of the above, and a bit more that’s hard to put into words. I know this mail is somewhat shorter than the others and lacks detailed descriptions, but somehow I find it hard to write about Uruguay. It’s not a flashy country full of things to do and places to visit, but it’s beautiful nonetheless and I had a wonderful time there. Whenever someone mentions it, something in me just wants to go back there right away…

Anyway, I hope all of you are doing well, I’ll try to be faster with the post about the month we just spent in Argentina!

Ladies and gentlemen,

with a delay of only 3 weeks I present to you our first impressions of Argentina! As you know by now, our last destination in Paraguay was charming little Encarnacion, from where you have an excellent view of Posadas in Argentina. And when I say “excellent”, I mean it:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/citizen428/8139257884/in/set-72157631893001328

Originally we wanted to take a bus on Thursday morning, but since our CouchSurfing host had an appointment in Posadas on Wednesday he took us along and so we suddenly found ourselves in Argentina. That was a rather special moment for me, because it’s a country I wanted to visit for as long as I can remember. I don’t even know why exactly, it just always held a certain attraction… Anyway, Posadas itself is the capital of the Misiones province, and while it may not be the most exciting place in the country, it’s rather relaxed and has some pretty spots. And it feels distinctly more urban than most of the places we saw in Paraguay, which was a welcome change for city rats like us.

Two nights proved to be enough though, so we followed our trusty friend the Parana river to San Ignacio Mini, a Jesuit mission similar to the ones found in Trinidad and Jesus in Paraguay. We managed to catch a tour of the premises (in Spanish) and while the ruins are very impressive, I think I preferred their Paraguayan counterparts, if only for the fact that we had the latter basically to ourselves when we went there, which is quite different from San Ignacio where domestic tourists are carted in by the busload. Still, if you are in the area, try to include the mission in your schedule, it’s definitely worth it!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/citizen428/8202692227/in/set-72157632056336739/

San Ignacio is also where the first terere withdrawal symptoms kicked in, but luckily one evening we met a guy called Paco, who not only offered us some mate, but also proved to be good company and an engaging conversation partner. Since then numerous encounters like this followed, and it’s one of the big differences to traveling in Asia for me: once you speak a bit of Spanish, the shared European cultural heritage allows for a level of interaction I never really managed to attain in any Asian country. Don’t get me wrong, I love traveling in Asia, people there can be as great and friendly as they are in South America (or even more), but barely ever did I manage to have such nice and meaningful conversations with locals…

And then: Iguazu! I saw waterfalls before, or so I thought before I saw Iguazu. It’s like nature put on its best Crocodile Dundee impression and said: “You call that a waterfall? THIS is a waterfall!”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/citizen428/8203664696/in/set-72157632056336739

I never thought I’d be this awed by water falling down some rocks, but I was, and words can’t really describe it. Or maybe one word can, ridiculous, as in ridiculously big/impressive/awesome. The town of Puerto Iguazu mostly consists of tourist infrastructure and is nothing to write home about, but there’s a cool tri-border point from which you can see Paraguay and Brazil. There’s also a pretty cool animal sanctuary close by, so if you find yourself with some free time before catching an overnight bus, give it a go (it’s called Guira Oga).

If you know Argentina, you may have noticed something, namely that we never ventured to far from the Paraguayan border until now, which means there still was the Parana, the Guarani influence, chipa and landscapes and vegetation similar to Paraguay. This was about to change however, since we embarked on our first longer bus trip in Argentina, namely a 15 hour ride from Puerto Iguazu to Colon in Entre Rios provice, which is one of the border towns from where you can cross into Uruguay, which is just what we did. But let’s keep that for another time and go back a little… Long distance buses in Argentina are good, bordering on awesome. Our “semicama” had good reclining seats, ample legroom and they even served food, most of which was vegetarian to my great surprise. They also are rather determined to get you to your destination, so while our bus didn’t really go to Colon, it was nice enough to drop us off at the point where the road into town starts, which is what they told us before they would do. What they omitted however is that said point will be on the highway, with no real transport into town. So there we were, confused after not being awake for too long, by the side of a highway in the blazing sun. Luckily there weren’t too many cars, so we managed to cross the 6 lanes without too much trouble and call a remis (a kind of radio taxi) which took us into town. Colon itself is quite pretty and seems to be a rather popular destination for domestic tourists, so it was a pleasant place to spend a day and night (we rented a room from a nice old lady) before heading to Montevideo.

We spent the past three weeks in Uruguay, a country I’m madly in love with by now, and about which I’ll tell you more soon! Tomorrow we’ll enjoy our last day here, before heading to Buenos Aires on Friday where my friend Ezequiel is waiting for us! :-)

Oh yeah, I wouldn’t be the language nerd I am without at least mentioning that the Spanish around here (Español rioplatense) is quite different from the one in Spain (the use of the Voseo, the pronunciation of “ll” and “y”, the melody), but I have to say I really quite like it. I’d write more about it, but I’m currently in charming little Colonia del Sacramento, so I’d rather have a walk and expand on this thought when I tell you about Uruguay and the rest of Argentina…

Considering we left Paraguay almost three weeks ago, it’s a shame I haven’t told you anything about this wonderful place yet. But let’s backtrack for a second and explore how we got to Paraguay. When we looked for flights out of Curacao, going to Medellin seemed to be the most obvious choice, considering the flight with Insel Air is dirt cheap and takes about an hour. However, obvious choices are boring and we kinda wanted to work our way up from the South of the continent to the North, so we started looking into other options like Buenos Aires, Montevideo or Santiago de Chile. But then I found a reasonably priced flight to Asunción and given my previous wonderful experience in a place nobody really goes to (Bangladesh) I started liking the idea. So I introduced the subject to P. and we decided to go ahead and discover Paraguay. And I’m glad we did!

Let me get one thing straight right away: Asunción is not the most beautiful city in the world. In fact it’s a bit on the ugly side, at least around the downtown area. Apparently that’s because a paranoid dictator had all tall buildings torn down because he was afraid of assassins hiding in them, but I’m not entirely sure that’s true. It’s a pretty good story though. There are some beautiful old colonial buildings left, but since there’s not a lot of money to go around, they are usually in a state of disrepair (or worse). There are however some nicer modern neighborhoods like Villa Morra where we stayed with a wonderful CouchSurfing host. Anyway, Asunción’s a rather relaxed South American capital, that feels safe and is full of wonderful, helpful and welcoming people.

People who drink Tereré, all day, every day. Tereré I hear you ask? It’s basically like Mate, but made with ice-cold water and generally with some extra herbs like mint added. It’s refreshing, delicious, and since you pass it around it’s also a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours with some friends while drinking and chatting. Which we did quite a bit, for example with our friend Javier who just opened a beautiful little hostel close to Asunción’s downtown which you definitely should check out if given the chance! Anyway, for Paraguayans Tereré is more than just a drink, it’s an integral part of their culture and you’ll see lots of people carrying around a thermos at all times of day. They also always asked us we already had tried it and were delighted to find out that we did and that we actually love it!

Another vivid memory of Asunción are the public buses, which are colorful and full of people selling all kinds of things (food, drinks, little knickknacks). Also they don’t really bother to stop for letting people get on or off, they just kinda slow down and give you a chance to practice your Ninja skills.

Now for one of my favorite topics, food: Paraguay was surprisingly ok for a vegetarian. Not great and I had to eat a lot of carbs, but I managed. While the modern Paraguayan diet is centered around meat, a lot of the traditional dishes are vegetarian. This means that I basically lived off Sopa Paraguaya, Chipa Guasu, Chipa, Mbeju and Pasqualina. Fruit juices were ok too, but unfortunately they add sugar to them unless you stop them, which is common in the region and something I absolutely don’t understand. We also cooked quite a bit for ourselves which was rather nice since supermarkets are quite well-stocked and carry lots of Italian-style products. They also offer quite a few different soy-based “meats”, which despite not being my favorite way of eating soy is a rather convenient way to get some protein in your diet.

Language-wise Paraguay also was rather interesting. While the city population mostly speak Spanish (more on that later), Guaraní is still the most common language in rural areas. The local accent was rather easy to understand, although a lot of people mix in some Guaraní words. Anyway, it was a good place to improve my listening skills, and while I’m still far from being able to hold my own in an interesting conversation, I’m definitely improving.

From Asunción we did a day trip to Areguá, a nice little village with a stunning lake, a beautiful church placed on a picturesque hill and lots of handicrafts. We stayed in the “Casa Amarilla”, which is an old colonial house that’s part hostel and part art space and looks like something out of a David Lynch movie. We also met a couple of nice Argentinians who not only gave us a lift back to Asunción but also invited us to stay with them in Corrientes, an offer we might take them up on next month.

We then moved on to the pretty little border town of Encarnación, which has a pretty costanera from where you can actually see Posadas in Argentina. Nearby there are the stunning Jesuit ruins of Trinidad and Jesús, and since Paraguay isn’t exactly overrun by tourists, we basically had them all to ourselves when we went there, which made me feel a bit like Indiana Jones. Our CouchSurfing host also took us to Itacua, a famous local religious site, which had some gorgeous views. He also was kind enough to drive us over the bridge to Argentina, which made for one of the more interesting border crossings of my life. The border guard first looked confused when he got two Paraguayan ID cards, as well as an Austrian and Italian passport, but then stamped us in without so much as properly looking at us.

I guess that’s enough for now, I’ll soon write something about Northeastern Argentina, where we spent around a week before moving on to Uruguay from where I’m currently writing this.

After a lovely time in Paraguay (a separate post will follow), we explored the Northeast of Argentina a bit (Posadas, San Ignacio, Iguazu Falls). Today we’ll take an overnight bus to Colon were we’ll cross into Paysandu (Uruguay) on Friday or so. We don’t know how long we’ll stay there yet, but after that we’ll head back to Argentina to finally visit some cities.

Here’s some pictures for now:

• Curacao
• Paraguay

Last time I promised you all a bit more information about backpacking on a Caribbean island, so here we go: before we set out, we didn’t exactly know how much time to plan for Curacao, so we decided on 12 days, which also had to do with P.’s birthday. Considering this island isn’t too big this seems like a rather long time, but things here are slow, especially when travelling on a budget…

Take transport for example: unless you rent a car, you depend on the bus system, which mostly consists of white minibuses which you flag down at a “Bushalte” (or anywhere else really). You then tell them where to go and they drop you off there, but only after they did the same for all the other passengers who were already on that bus. So it takes time, but kinda works like a taxi since they bring you right to your house. At 3 NAf (around Euro 1.30 or USD 1.70) per ride they are rather expensive, especially for the locals, which you’ll often just see walking next to the road. Anyway, we got to see a lot of “real” Curacao that way, which is cool, but the whole system is a bit unpredictable and waiting for 40 minutes in the scorching midday heat on a Sunday was rather frustrating. There’s a great quote to remember in situations like this though:

“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.“ – G.K. Chesterton

Our accommodation was rather nice, especially because it’s more or less the only backpacker place on the island. It’s not in a particularly good location, since it’s neither close to the beach nor the town center, but it has a lovely garden, two great dogs, a cute cat and you are bound to meet interesting people here. We were especially lucky with our initial group, since we all got along super well and did all kinds of things together. I found this kinda cool since the youngest member of our gang was 21, while the oldest was 53. This also allowed us to pool our money to rent a car for 3 days, which finally gave us the option to explore some of the nicer beaches in the northwest of the island (Kleine Knip is my favorite, so if you ever make it to Curacao, make sure to check it out). Anyway, you all definitely added a lot to our Curacao experience, so thanks guys!

One thing I really found attractive about Curacao is the mix of languages and cultures. I have a soft spot for creole languages, so I obviously really liked Papiamento. I almost was tempted to attend a course, but I’ve done enough strange language courses in the past when I got carried away while traveling (Nepali for example). Besides Papiamento there’s still a lot of Dutch, many people speak English and there are a fair few Chinese and some South Asians around. It’s this hotchpotch of cultures and the fact that Curacao’s main industry is not tourism (yet), that make the place rather interesting.

Considering how long this mail already is, it’s rather surprising that I haven’t talked about one of my favorite topics yet: food! The local cuisine is an interesting mix of various cooking traditions, with Dutch things like Kroket and Bitterballen next to more Caribbean fare like Papaya stew, plantains and obviously loads of seafood . On top of that there are many Chinese takeout places referred to as “Snacks”, which serve decent but rather uninspired staples like fried rice and noodles. Compared to many of the other options they are rather cheap though, so they became a regular contributor to our diet. They also serve a lot of vegetarian food, which made my life considerably easier, although I have to say that while the local cuisine is rather meat heavy, people were generally very helpful and considerate and just made up vegetarian dishes on the fly for me, which is more than can be said for a lot of other places. Last but not least there’s also quite a few Surinamese restaurants and “roti shops”, and although we only got to try one, I have to say we instantly became fans (veggies and roti, what’s not to like?).

So, how to sum up our Curacao experience? Overall, it was a pretty good and enjoyable stay. The Caribbean is not Asia, so on a backpacker’s budget it may not be easy to have that perfect lazy beach holiday. Especially compared to Thailand or Malaysia, where 15 Euro per day gets me all the luxury I need, meaning a decent room in a nice place and good food. On Curacao the same was closer to 40-45 Euro per day (including the 3 days of shared rental car), which is a bit steep for the kind of journey we are on. But after a rather stressful period in Vienna we both needed to wind down, so this was a bit like a little holiday before the actual trip. Besides that the pleasant weather, perfect sea and beaches and the interesting cultural mix definitely made it a worthwhile stay.

Would I recommend this place? If you are willing to spend a bit, definitely. Compared to neighboring Aruba it’s actually pretty cheap, but if you are on a budget, your perspective changes. A car definitely is a worthwhile investment, so if money’s tight, try to find people to team up with, even if it’s just for a couple of days. Also, if you do wanna spoil yourself, invest in a trip to Klein Curacao! Granted, 75 Euro for a day trip is quite the investment when you are traveling for a long time, but a couple of hours on an uninhabited Caribbean island were definitely worth it in my book.

The next mail will probably be about Paraguay (which is where arrived last Sunday), so stay tuned!

This was originally written on October 6th as an email, but I only got around to modify and post it here now.

“Bon bini” means “welcome” in Papiamento, the creole language of the ABC islands, which seems fitting, since I’m writing this from Curaçao. Yes, that’s right, I’m in the Caribbean right now. But more on that later…

Let’s start from the beginning: I’m happily unemployed and homeless again, which can only mean one thing: prolonged travelling! Before anyone wonders, “I” is still a “we” and P. is somewhere around here, I promise.

Back to the present: our first destination on this trip is Curaçao, mostly because we found a really cheap one-way flight with Air Berlin, which in my book is a rather good reason to go almost anywhere (except for you, Dubai, I’m afraid we’ll never be friends). Except for the 45 minute delay the flight via Duesseldorf was rather uneventful, although the lack of in-seat IFE combined with slightly annoying neighbors made the almost 10 hours seem somewhat longer. Anyway, we got here safe and sound on October 2nd, met some really cool people right away and have been happily idling away the last couple of days. Unfortunately two of our new friends already moved on to Columbia, but the remaining four of our little hostel family are holding up bravely and are going to Klein Curaçao tomorrow as consolation.

We have a flight to Paraguay on October 14th, and while 11 days on Curaçao may seem like stretching it a bit, this is a much-needed break after a rather stressful period back in Vienna.

Since we only got here a couple of days ago it’s too early for any profound observations, but expect more impressions of backpacking on a Caribbean island in the next post.

[W]e’re rushing to meet so many deadlines that we hardly register that what we need most are lifelines.

• I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave
  This sounds like early 19th century, not early 21st.
• The Joy of Quiet
  A joy indeed.
• Clean IT – Leak Shows Plans For Large-Scale, Undemocratic Surveillance Of All Communications
  This reads like a marketing effort for darknets.
• Meet the Man Who Built a 30-Story Building in 15 Days
  He’s Chinese, in case you wonder.
• How Did the Duck Hunt Gun Work?
  Another childhood mistery solved.
• Lettland: Der Musterschüler fällt durch
  Latvia is losing its population due to migration (in German).
• The drugs don’t work: a modern medical scandal
  Most articles about pharmaceutical companies leave one slightly worried (or worse). This one is no exception.

• “In Wien fehlt der Diskurs zu Gentrifizierung”
  On urban gentrification in Vienna (in German).
• Odd Things Happen When You Chop Up Cities And Stack Them Sideways
  Great visualization. And wandering around Istanbul is indeed a pleasure.
• PIN analysis
  Interesting analysis of PIN numbers from a security point of view.
• “Was the Arab Spring Really Worth It?”: The Fascinating Arrogance of Power
  “Arrogance” really is the only term that comes to mind here.
• Iran preparing internal version of Internet
  One wonders if they actually think this will work…
• How Much Food is Eaten Around the World in One Week
  Not really an article, but still quite interesting.
• The fallacy of the phrase, ‘the Muslim world’
  Well put.

• depression lies
  A very personal blog post by Wil Wheaton, and one I can relate to very much on several levels.
• Proof claimed for deep connection between primes
  A new important proof in number theory may have been found.
• Why China still can’t create the next Texas Instruments
  The Electrical Engineering Times looks at why China is not yet in a position to create a company like TI.
• What Is Seen and What Is Unseen
  What starts as an article about doping, becomes a look at cheating in general.
• Caribbean Coral Reefs Mostly Dead, IUCN Says
  This is very sad…
• Crack in Internet’s foundation of trust allows HTTPS session hijacking
  Poor SSL had to put up with a lot these past few years…

I was rather busy this week, so this Information Overload is super short.

• Condition Handling for Non-Lispers
  If you ever need to explain condition handling to a non-Lisper, this is a sensible post to point them too.
• IWF-Forscher spielen radikale Bankreform durch
  Two IMF economist test a model where banks can’t create new money in the form of loans (in German).
• Prehistoric human brain found pickled in bog
  A bit older, but still very insteresting for science.