One for the lads.......Boca football

Sooooooooooo.....turns out it is pretty easy to get a Boca shirt - loads of people selling them on the street, especially when there´s a massive market on Sunday´s in Buenos Aires. Cost an extra 40 pesos but that´s not exactly breaking the bank and it looks more real than the other dodgy guy who was selling it on the street. And this person had more hair, so definately trustworthy. So I handed my 140 (20 quid) pesos over in exchange for the number 10 Boca Juniors home shirt, currently donned by Juan Roman Riquelme, once sported by the legendary Maradona at the same club. They bloody love that fat Argentine here, statues of him in the stadium museum, lifesize models of him outside shops charging 10 (1.40 quid) pesos to get a photo with, and even some fat bloke in the street who half resembled him asking for 50 (7 quid) pesos for a photo with him whilst he wears his old grubby shirt which only half resembles the Argentina shirt. Nice to see he put the same amount of effort in as his looks.

Anyway they love Riquelme just as much nowadays which is cool cos he is a pretty dam good footballer, shame I can´t say the same for the rest of the team.

Anyway, rant over.....lets start from the start..........

Donning my number 10 Boca Juniors shirt, we reluctanly handed over our 640 pesos (90 quid) to the hostel which got us our ticket, and transport there and back, and supposedly a tour guide to keep you safe in the stadium. We had heard stories of non locals (or gringos) getting beaten up just for wearing the wrong colours, even if its not even a football shirt. After a few beers at our hostel bar we boarded the bus, one guy being told he couldn´t bring beers on board so had to neck the 3 he just bought for the journey. The bus dropped us off just outside the stadium to a "bar" that the guide promised us before hand. This "bar" turned out to be just someone´s basement or garage which was highly dodgy where we could buy beer or beer by the tin for 20 pesos (about 3 quid). After purchasing my second overpriced tin we were promptly told we had to leave and we couldn´t drink on the street so we endulged in some more necking!

After leaving the bar we were told that the way we were all entering the stadium, quote...."wasn´t exactly offical".....end quote. We were all handed a members card with photo ID on. My name was now "Marcos Martin Guardia" and I had endured some plastic surgery and assumed I had become fluent in Spanish.

(not that you can really make it out but here is our mate Ash we went with, who got a similar membership card with a white Argentian chap on it. He dropped the funniest line I´d heard since I´d got here....."Jesus Christ, didn´t realise I´d got that good a tan since leaving the UK!")

Anyway, back to the story.......the ground was highly policed with guards doing pat downs and metal scanners etc. We all nervously queued up as our "tour guide" was no where to be seen and we had no idea if we were going to make it through the security checks seeing as no one looked like their pictures. With all of us silent as can be so as not to alert them to us being English (and some of the lads Aussie) we all got through fine, seems all they were bothered about were lighters which they confiscated as we were later told they were always used as missiles so banned from the ground).

So anyway, part one a success we got in to find a pretty empty stadium, with some conrete steps to sit on which they called "seats". The stadium is pretty epic, kind of a half oval all around the pitch exept for one side which kinda looks like a block of council flats.

 As the stadium started to fill up a bit, they ran through the team, I obviously had to get a photo of Riquelme as he popped up on thr big screen, the crowd going wild. 

And as any true Brit would do, I donned my home team shirt (underneath my Boca shirt) and got a photo as quick as I could, with the memory of stories of wrong colours in the back of my mind. But it had to be done, when else is a chap wearing a leicester shirt going to be in the Boca ground?! The team definately ain´t gonna make it there! About 2 seconds after this photo was taken the Aussie lads I went with hit me where you don´t wanna be hit, cheers guys! Holding my now soar testes, I threw my Boca shirt back on.

With the stadium now completely full and the players coming out of the tunnel, the place went off. I´ve been to a few football games in my time, including the mighty Leicester beating Tranmere at Wembley back in 2000, where I thought the atmosphere could never be topped......but to my dismay it was. I´ve never heard anything like it and I doubt any football fans back home will have either. To the lads who went to Munich, imagine that, times it by about 20 (literally) and then imagine that for every second of every minute of the entire match! Flares going off the second the players hit the pitch, fans taking their shirts off and swinging them around into my face with every turn, it really was incredible. By the time kick off started you were as crammed into the stadium as you might be on a London Train at rush hour. No room to sit, looked like we were standing for the entire game then!

So, with Boca supposedly being a great team, and Union Sante Fe being the supposed crap opposition who are facing relegation, we thought we were in for a home team goals fest. Within minutes Union scored but it was ruled offside. Minutes later, as home fans were shouting their songs, Union scored an awesome goal, with a Messi-esc chip over the out rushing keeper. You´d think this would silence the home fans......not even for a second, it just made them get even loader (which I didn´t think was possible) and support their team!

.......60 minutes gone and Boca were 3-0 down at home, still with the crowd going mental. With us gringos thinking Boca were now pants and me even commenting to Ash that Leicester would most likely beat them or at least give them a good game (which I have since retracted since finding out City lost 0-1 at home to Sheffield Wednesday!), Boca managed to score a late goal to make it 3-1. Might have helped if players passed to each other, seemed like the defenders passed to midfielders who dribbled until they lost it. Riquelme was the only one who looked half decent. With the Aussie guys moaning that football was pants as players spent most the time on the floor (he had a point, one dude was on rolling around for literally 5 mins and of course got up after that with no medical assistance), the ref blew the whistle. We were locked up in our part of the ground for an hour after full time with the mental fans so the others could get out safely, still squished together....it really helped that the guys were walking through the crowd with drinks smashing you in the face with their box and tredding on your feet as they struggled past.

After finally getting out of the stadium, our tour guide was of course no where to be seen so we walked around in the scary neighbourhood of Boca at 11pm and managed to stumble across our bus!

In summary 

• Boca are pants
• Leicester would batter Boca
• Boca fans are mental
• The stadium is crammed full, and you will get trodden on, hit in the face with boxes and shirts
• Players spend half their time on the floor
• Players are super greedy
• Riquelme is bad ass
• Argentinians can`t dribble unless your name is Maradona, Ardiles, Battistuta Messi, Aguero, Teves or Di Maria
• Tour guides don`t keep you safe
• Ash can pass as a white man
• I just noticed there´s actually no evidence of me in my Boca shirt! I have it, honest!

Anyway, visiting the stadium later on in the light you can see the past players names and footprints like in Hollywood. I opted to check out Riquelmes footprint over Maradona´s seeing as he´s no cheat. Has bigger feet than me too.

Sorry for the essay of a blog, but there was too much to say.....innit. Check my bad self outside the Bombonera. Owwwwwwwww

I witness Jack in a mega strop for the first time....

It was Saturday, nothing out of the ordinary to report. We had had a fun night partying at the hostel the night before and decided today that we would go for a stroll. We first ventured down the main shopping street where Jack dragged me into everyone sports shop we came across looking for a Boca football shirt. He had bought a ticket to see them play on Sunday and got it into his head that he needed to wear the football shirt to the match. Unfortunately for Jack the shirt was selling for around 80 quid so his dream was soon in tatters.

We walked to one of the main squares to see the pink house (below) which is the presidential house and the one where Evita (and Madonna) stood out on the balcony (it is also lit up in pink at night).

There was also this cathedral nearby...... and this is where I saw Jackie´s face light up.....there was some dodgy argentinian selling football shirts off the rug he had laid on the pavement. After close inspection Jack decided that they looked like pretty decent ´real´ shirts but he wasn´t sure of which name/number to purchase, for the knock down price of 14 quid. Jack felt further research was needed so back to the hostel it was to check the internet for Boca football players and to get some cash.........

Jack literally skipped the 10 min journey back to the hostel, looking the happiest I´d ever seen him (except for the day he met me of course*). He was picturing himself at the stadium in his Boca shirt looking like a local. But we had to hurry just in case the little street man wasnt there when we got back. After Jack had decided to get number 10 (Roman) and I had a quick pit stop to the loo we were back on our way out, we had probably been a max of 25 min. As we approached the catherdral Jacks worst fear was realised - the little man was all packed up and crossing the road with his trolly. We stalked the little man across the square and for another street or so but we felt the time had passed to tap him on the shoulder and instead we just looked like wierd tourists following a man with some boxes.

*Jack had no part in writing this

This was when Jackie´s strop kicked in. I have actually never seen Jack in such a mood and nothing I could do or say was helping - I don´t think mentioning it was only a football shirt went down too well.

To try cheer him up we went on a stroll by the river (you can tell by the photo that this tactic really worked)

Even some weird guys getting filmed for a music video, which Jack would normally find hilarious, didnt raise a smile.

We then stumbled across a boat which was a museum which was pretty cool although we couldnt read anything as it was all in Spanish

Was that a smile I could see on Jack´s face.........no

But I was having fun.....

Finally I thought Jack was starting to cheer up - this big bit of rope had seemed to do the trick!

(It was in fact actually Sunday by the time Jack got over his strop.....maybe it was just that time of the month)

First class - whoop!

After seeing the back of 2 weeks of a serious case of the shits, we were ready to set off to Buenos Aires, good job too with an 18 hour bus journey ahead of us. It really was bad, like having our own iguasu falls up there, I feel sorry for the cleaners in Brazil (I had no part in writing this bit - Jen),

The last bus was so cramped and cold so we splashed out on luxury transport, the top class in bus service. We expected fully reclining chairs which we got but we didn`t realise we`d be getting not just wine with dinner, but also a beer, a martini, a whiskey and champagne! winners.

We thought the bus was ace with a shared TV (although we were a little disappointed to find the audio didn`t work with our headphones), but we were curious to find out why we were ushered off the bus after 6 or so hours......had it broken down? Others were rumouring a better bus was on its way but how could the possibly be?! Could anything ruin Jen`s relaxed state in this scene below?




Of course not, the new bus had personal TV screens with a choice of films and music. Here`s Jen chilling with personal headsets, champagne and white wine. Double winners!

Birdies and friends

As if we hadn't seen enough wildlife on our travels already.........we paid to see some more in a bird park next to the waterfalls. It was pretty awesome all the same and loads of other animals as well as birds such as this butterfly (amazing photography if i do say so myself).

When you first walk in, you can see a bunch of different birds in their own enclosures.........

......including weird birds with some funky hair do's 

You also get to walk into some enclosures yourself and get up close to the little critters 

Some of them are so used to human contact, you can pet them, not knowing if they'd try and peck you or not

like this one who had a little go at Jen when she tried to get near. There's no photo evidence of it but I almost got pooed on! the enclosures are quite high and cos you're looking at the birds on the ground level you almost forget there are birds above you, one of which shat literally an inch away from my head landing by my feet. That signalled the time to get out of that enclosure.

There was a cool enclosure which had butterflies and hummingbirds flying around your head. The humming birds were so quick that this photo only took about half an hour to get, even running the battery out of one camera in the process.

So enough of the birds and onto some reptilians, this guy was just chilling out, a metre or so beneath the walkway.

And what tour of reptilians would be complete without seeing some tortoises doing what they do best....no not walking round slowly, I think you get the picture below.

Seems the parrots were getting in on the action too but they didn't go so far!

To round the trip up we were allowed to get a picture with a parrot, seems he posed for me and not Jen.

Best waterfall EVERRRRRRR!!!!!!

Sooooooo, turns out 16 hours on a bus IS as boring as it sounds! Picture the scene.........still recovering from the patheticness of So Poo Lo, wanting to move on to what would surely be epic in the Iguasu Falls..... we set off from our hostel to the bus terminal. With our 65 litre backpack strapped tightly to our backs and a 20 litre backpack strapped onto our front like those baby carrier thingies, we had to take on the busy subway in the 30 degree heat. This turned out to be quite a struggle, with the security guard taking pity on us and letting us through the disabled entry as our bags were getting stuck through the normal gates.

Having successfully conquered the subway, we got to the bus terminal and waited to board our bus. After our semi luxurious 6 hour bus journey last time we thought this one wouldn't be so bad......wrong wrong WRONG! With about as much leg room as a giraffe would have in a telephone booth, we struggled to get comfy, I found little comfort in turning the curtain into a sort of hammock for my feet. Anticipating a bit of a chill on the bus, we packed jeans and hoodies. Starting off in a shirt and shorts turned out to be a massive error, for some reason the bus had air con on the highest setting making it about minus five degrees. I put my jeans on but forgot my hoody, so we had to huddle together for most of the journey to conserve body heat. I attempted to warm up by putting another shirt on and tucking my arms in, looking like a convict in a straight jacket.

However, it sure was worth the nightmare journey. Putting the bus episode behind us we arrived at the Brasilian side of the Iguassu Falls....via another bus! Seems they like people standing rather than sitting with room for 29 sitting and 65 standing.

I find it difficult to describe how epic this place is, maybe you might be able to tell via the pictures! On the Brasilian side you can appreciate the vastness of the falls...it is massive! There are waterfalls everywhere you look along a massive stretch of river, the sound and mist are immense.

We got a bit obsessed with taking panaramics with my camera, but it helps to show how much area is dominated by waterfalls.

We could see this walkway from the top.............

 

.......And when we got there, we got completely drenched!

Jen's £1.40 poncho wasn't up for the challenge!

 

And here we are at the bottom of devil's throat, the widest of the entire falls (those silhouettes are us, honest!)

 

 After taking in the amazing views, we were super excited to visit the Argentinian side of the falls which most would say is better as you can get up close to the falls and take in the noise and power of these beasts. We had to get on a minibus to go through the border which was surprisingly easy, and the driver pulled over on the bridge crossing the river where the borders meet. Here we are on either side of the countries, (I'm attempting to show off my argentina flag on my shoes if you wondering what the pose was) me in Argentina and Jen in Brasil denoted by the colours.

The falls also cross into Paraguay, and we stopped on the Argentinan side where you could see the 3 countries divided by the river.

After going on a short walk across a walkway cutting across the river, we arrived on the other side of the Devil's throat and got some more awesome views.

......and got drenched again. Jen ditched the poncho so had no choice but to get a good soaking. If I ever hear another joke about not needing a shower I won't be impressed

 

There were rainbows everywhere shimmering through the mist (cheese alert)

And pretty big catfish roamed the waters by the walkway. We saw turtles and crocodiles too

More waterfalls......

guess what.....more waterfalls..

 

 Having finally got to the bottom we were excited to get on a boat and get right into the action so suited up in our life jackets....which provided some entertainment! Here we are sumo wrestling in life jackets......I won

 We sure did get a good soaking having been taken right under the waterfall. We've never been pummeled by so much water in our lives. Its an experience that we'd recommend to anyone.

These boats weren't actually our one, but this is what it looked like!

After one hell of an experience in the falls, we got back to our little town of Puerto Iguasu and relaxed with a sandwich and the local beer Quilmes, shame they sell the beers in litres!