Tierra Santa

Disclaimer: This is not a ridicule of the Christian faith. It is a commentary on the execution of the park that is Tierra Santa (The Holy Land).


A religious theme park seemed too unbelievable and so while in Buenos Aires, we trio took the opportunity to check out just what the fuss was about. Apparently the resurrection of an 18m tall Christ Jesus was executed every half an hour. That sounded like something not to be missed.



We sold the idea to our 3 new Scottish friends and together we navigated the bus system of Buenos Aires. And what a bus it was. Mirrors on the ceiling, on the driver´s pedals and all sorts of imaginable tassels hanging above the driver.

Located beside the Buenos Aires domestic airport, our initial response to the park was one of disbelief. A giant landscape of red earth, fake palm trees, fake plastic full size animals and workers dressed in Middle Eastern garb, greeted us as we left the Hotel California bus. Together with several school groups, we were shepherded through a tunnel displaying various scenes from the bible. Once seated in the underground theatre, we witnessed the birth of Jesus - a show of lights and animated plastic representations of the people - all with Spanish commentary.


Adam and Eve again.


The Birth of Jesus

Perhaps the most memorable moment of the day happened early on in the piece. Cora emerged from a cave, unable to contain herself and warned us 'don't go in there!' with a delightfully heavy scottish accent. Of course we all wanted photos with what we found in the cave.





We were summoned from the cave by the trumpets heralding the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He sure was tall and the moving body parts had Vicki and Derek crossing their fingers for a rendition of the YMCA. Unfortunately not. After looking both ways, he raised his head, closed his eyes and the resurrection was over.


Vicki, Lucy and Cora in character



We managed to spend the entire day at the theme park. It was seriously lacking in rollar coasters and rides though. What could be better than the Heaven and Hell rollar coster which ends in a giant downward slope as you hurtle downwards from heaven? Or perhaps they could share bread with the audience during the Last Supper scene? What about a Noah's Ark log flume? Voted most inappropriate was the Birth of Jesus ride. It involved an entry, an exit and a slide. Nice one Lucy.


Adam and Eve.

Early on we viewed the Creation of the World complete with Enya soundtrack. Obviously its the most appropriate thing for Enya music. If all those who dis her only knew that God employed her to compose the soundtrack for the entire book of Genesis. Derek was reminded of the Dylan Moran skit that describes Enya's music as exactly what a vagina would sound like during the Vagina Monologues. Unfortunately he explained this story with a bit too much of an emphasis on the word vagina, just as the room went silent.



We lunched in the Baghdad Cafe, before catching the Last Supper, which was a little disappointing. There was no uncensored version of the events that really went on. The karaoke, the fortune cookies, the photos taken by Leonardo and Jesus giving Judy shit, "lighten up Judy!". Anyone who has seen Eddie Izzard's skit will appreciate Jesus doing the "big arms thing".




KFC at the Crucifixion

We walked past the Wailing Wall, past the Stations of the Cross and ended the day with one last viewing of the resurrection. It was almost too much to take. Especially when the music kicks in at a volume that almost drowned out the passing 737 that was landing.

Completely worth the 20 pesos. Go to.

Why the picture book idea is currently not employed.

We´ve been back in Buenos Aires for just over two weeks. Jane has arrived. Safely, even though it took her over 3 hours to get from the airport to the hostel.

We rented another apartment, this time in Palermo, with a 25m balcony. Yes. A 25m balcony of glory. Facing north as well, meaning the sun streamed in to dry our clothes washed in true backpacker style - in the sink.

Palermo is lovely with its tree lined streets and plazas galore. It houses my favourite cafe in Buenos Aires. An organic vegetarian cafe with divine smells emanating from it, $6.50NZ bottles of organic wine and blueberry juice. Set in a little patio area, the sweet sounds of someone tinkling on a piano flow down from the upstairs shuttered windows. The only good part of a terrible day shopping, Jane and I vowed to bring Derek back to this little gem.

Our waiter gave us a big grin as Jane and I sheepishly walked back into the cafe with Derek in tow, and sat at the same table we had the day before. Ordering a bottle of wine, a quinoa salad and a rather handsome pizza, Derek, Jane and I set about having a fantastic lunch. The waiteress came over twice to see that Derek was okay after he was unable to stop laughing for about 10 minutes. It wasn´t until I returned from the toilet that I noticed my bag - that had been sitting between Derek and I - wasn´t there. I wasn´t worried - Derek does things like hiding bags all the time, but unfortunately for me, I had become too relaxed about how close you really need your bag to be in order for it not to be stolen. Turns out there was a couple who sat down behind us, then decided not to order and left ... taking my bag with them, complete with my Canon baby and my ipod.

Here we were, three of us at the table, and the bag was stolen right from between two of us. Here we were, having good wholesome fun, feeding our minds and bodies with rich organic food, and some trashy couple has the nerve to take my bag. Not even young punks. People in their 50´s who target wholesome cafes. I wonder if they believe in Karma.

So we had our apartment for a week and now we are back at the hostel. Jane and I officially hate shopping as you can´t find anything when you want to, the air of Buenos Aires appears to be entirely made up of carbon monoxide and cigarrette smoke and clothes are starting to get a little tight with the constant supply of dulce de leche ... but I like Buenos Aires ... ¡Me gusta mucho Buenos Aires!

Thats my dogs

Deciding to go back to Buenos Aires via the more scenic route, Derek and I found ourselves in Carmelo. The name sounded so good (cravings for Cadbury Caramello) but it lived up to its reputation of being sleepy.

We paid an exhorbitant price for a double room in a shitty hotel that came complete with a television that hummed annoyingly and a breakfast of stale toast, raro and coffee to rival the sewerage-like qualities of Nescafe. Seeing as we were the only people in the hotel, you think they could have done a little better. Oh well. This was Carmelo.

Under a concrete sky (yet again), Derek and I decided to make our way to the beach. We acquired a stray dog early on in the journey. A gorgeous caramel coloured male hound, he had half of his front paw missing and did this little skipping motion while he ran beside us. We crowned him 'hop-along'. Boy did he seem happy to be with us. He often cast his eyes endearingly over Derek and whimpered whenever the two of us walked more than three metres apart.

But in true South American style, we acquired two more hounds when we reached the beach, two hooligans out looking for trouble. They barked at everything that moved - bicycles, people, cars - only to lose interest once their target had moved on.

They attracted three more dogs and the pack became agitated with the introduction of a bitch that was clearly on heat. By this stage I was more on the panicky side of scared. The pack started fighting, knocking over a parked motorcycle in the process.
There was nowhere to go and nothing to offer protection from these dogs (no fences to jump over for those who remember the dog attack story of 2006).

Still, once they had sorted out who had first priority to smell the female dog´s arse, they calmed down. Hop-along left us (he was top of the smell list), and Derek and I made our way back to town. Unfortunately we couldn´t shake off the two hooligans. We tried to lose them but they were adament they were going to protect us from all moving objects and other stationary ones.

We arrived at the bridge at the edge of town and the dogs took off down the slope into the river. Sensing this could be our chance, we walked faster over the bridge .... only to be overtaken by the shaggy wet pooches half way across. Clearly they have a protocol to have a wash before entering the city. It wasn´t until five blocks later when they spotted another dog and went up to investigate. Derek grabbed me by the arm, and we slipped back around the corner we had just come from and ran to put as much distance between the hooligans and us.

We never saw them again, although it wouldn´t have surprised me if we had bumped into them around a corner. They would have welcomed us with wagging tails, flapping tongues and been ready to accompany us on any adventure Carmelo might throw at us.

Fortunately for us we left Carmelo before we died of boredom.

Uruguay

So we decided to get out of Buenos Aires for awhile and add another country to my list of 'Countries I've Visited' (which is currently pretty small).
We travelled by boat (complete with in-float entertainment of dancers with costumes that barely held onto their tanned bodies) to Colonia in Uruguay.

Colonia is a quaint little town on the Southern/South West coast of Uruguay. It has plenty of history in its cobblestone streets, little houses with old lantern street lights out front and museums that were open at odd hours.
Derek suggested we bike around the town seeing as it was so small. Great idea except that a) we had to ride on the other side of the road, b) I can't look over my left shoulder terribly well and c) I'm not sure there are any road rules in Uruguay. I can't figure out who has right of way when.
But with persistance, I got on the rattly old bike and took off down the street, following at a great distance behind Derek - those of you who know me well, know I have negative fitness level and probably because I kept getting off the bike to cross the road. We followed the coast, complete with concrete sky and upside down Rio De La Plata views. Upon returning (ever so slowly, as my arse was hurting by this time) to the town, we rode towards the old part of the city. It was on this small journey that I had my near death experience with a golf cart.
Yes.
A golf cart.

See, upon reaching the cross roads, it became clear that neither she nor I knew who had right of way. She revved that golf cart's engine until she was doing at least 3 km an hour and I had to swerve around her, defying death by the slimmest of margins.

I may be elaborating.

We have spent time in Montevideo - a city the size of Auckland that has the most odd mix of architecture. We took a bike ride (again - I'm getting good at this) along the waterfront, where the Rio De La Plata was still brown. The sky had finally cleared up to the blue but the highrise buildings along the front of the beaches did nothing remotely picturesque. I think Derek took pictures of the clouds instead.

Montevideo can be summed up by two things - Vdub Beetles (there are scores of them here) and caballos de basuras (in terrible spanish) or Rubbish horses. Horses with carts that clip clop around the streets while their drivers collect the rubbish.

I sit now in Punta Del Diablo - a small fishing/surfing village which is as cool as the name sounds. Derek and I are one of 7 tourists currently in the town. It has a population of about 700 right now - although I haven't seen much proof of this - which sky rockets to thousands during summer. Progress is evident as there are at least 25 "houses" being built around this hostel. It's growing as the out of towners hook into this grand little place hidden in the sand dunes. During winter (ie now) there is nothing open. Two restaurants out of the 10 we've seen, the supermarket is shut down, you can't go horse riding or hire bikes. Pretty much there is nothing to do but play in the sand dunes, read and watch the Atlantic Ocean. Our first jaunt to the beach rewarded us with the view of two pods of 4 - 7 dolphins and 1 seal swim along the shore line.
Our dinner last night was served to us by Ernesto - the owner, chef, musician of El Viejo y El Mar. This is a unique restaurant. The dog (Papita) sits by your table all night (alternating between who has the most food on their plate) and the walls are covered by memorabilia from past customers. Ernesto has been there for five years, serving fresh fish, interacting with his customers and relating funny stories about how busy it gets during summer. He even sings a couple of tracks on the cd that is playing through the speakers. The wine is specially made for his restaurant, complete with grainy black and white label with him and Papita on it. We spent 4 hours there last night, stoking the fire, patting Papita and eating. It seemed strange to have to pay after feeling like guests in a house.

Apologies for lack of photos. They are on their way. This country has too many interesting things to not put up photos.

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires.

It smells of bus fumes, car fumes, urine, dog shit, roast meat and peanuts cooking in sugar.

It looks of dog walkers surrounded by at least 10 dogs, yellow and black taxis, old buses, wrought iron balconies, shuttered windows, grey oppressive skies (mostly so far), Quilmes signs,

Its sound is loud. The buzzing of door entries. The roar of the buses has no where to dissapate because of the tall buildings. The same words yelled at you every 50 m on the street: señora, cambio, leather, comida. Everyone drives fast. While simultaneously sounding their horns.

My biggest fear so far has been about being killed by a bus while standing on the sidewalk. They drive that close.

I like it.