Whats On the menu?

In India you would get treated with extremes; from the very best and tastiest to the very worst food which would leave you riding the porcelain bus for days on end. Some dishes even incorporate the whole spectrum of sweet and sour, spicy and bland, delicate and revolting. You could choose to have vegemetarion food (translation for the carnivores : that means there is no meat on the menu. Not one bit. Incredible, innit!?) or you could go to a “non-veg” restaurant where you could eat meat at the great peril of your stomach’s well-being. Wherever we went though it was hard to find something that was dull or non memorable. We did try. There's only so many food orgasms you can have with the exciting Indian spice before you get a bit numbed by the experience. So, just to remind yourself what you are in bed with, you cheat on India with a greasy overweight American... Or a sleazy Italian with extra cheese on top... Just to come back to your favorite “Palak” with loads of ghee, garlic and tomato. Did I miss eating meat? Hardly. Especially not the morning after the evening I succumbed to the urge and did have some.
So how is South America so far? I think it is best described by the fact that the waiter asks you “how would you like your meat?” instead of showing you a menu. Well okay it's not a fact. But it could be. Take Brazil for example. You will always get beans and rice and potatoes and farofa on your plate. Always. Which explains why brazilians can sometimes be mistaken to be descendent of the Michelin man. So the only question you will have to answer is if you want “chickenbeeforporkoralloftheabove?”.
In Argentina you don't even have to worry about that question. Any side dishes and condiments are usually just for decoration and it is going to be a dead cow that lands on your plate regardless. To the question of how you would like your dead cow needs to be grilled the waiter will frown at your answers until you give the right one which is: medium rare please.
Another thing we discovered is that one shouldn't bother ordering more that one dish as it would be more than enough to feed an Ethiopian family for at least a month. This is something we were a bit slow to get into our heads. How do say “Can we have a doggy bag?” without actually going home with a dog in a bag?
The meat at least is very good and so is the wine. A good bottle of Malbec will help you forget that there isn't really much variety on the menus we have seen so far. It all seems very conservative and traditional. The last invigorating effect must have been delivered by the Italians when they mass-invaded Latin America and brought their traditional cooking along with them. You can get pasta, you can get pizza (although we had worst excuse of a pizza that could have been better prepared by a student coming home as drunk as a newt at four in the morning raiding the house fridge of all the cheese and ham he could find and in artistic rush used some slithers of leftover bell pepper for decoration and put that on a wet towel before shoving it into the oven)... and besides that you can also get gnocchi.
Rn.

This ain't Kansas anymore | Foz Iguaçu, Buenos Aires & Montevideo

Well actually it ain't India anymore. How do I know? Because it is fucking cold and not stinking hot, ergo we are not in India anymore. Something I admit I already knew since thankfully fell to our knees as soon as we hit Swiss soil about seven weeks ago. Thanking god for the swiss's swiss-ness and their attention cold hard clean and overpriced detail. I know it sounds odd to thank the Swiss for anything, but back then we were quite happy to leave that overly hot sweaty heat behind us. The thing is now though that I wouldn't mind trading places as here it is fucking cold. I'm wearing more layers than an onion to keep me warm, but still struggle to recreate any kind of heat. The temperatures range from outer space to a balmy "ice age" depending on wether the sun is shining or not. Which at the moment it is not. I'm going to try googling Armstrong's phone number to see if I can get him to lend me his space suit...
The cold started in Iguaçu, which is in Brazil. I might sue the travel agents for selling Brazil as a always sunny partying paradise. I also couldn't have been wetter. I 'evoluted' and grew some gills. That wet. The bags that were inside other bags were wet. That wet. And because we like wetness we went to see a waterfall. That was also wet, well they usually are. I reckon the best thing though would be finding very nice places to stay. In Iguaçu we stayed in the guest room of El Refugio. Owned and operated by Danish Ole and his wife Lupe. You get what you don't get when you stay at the Taj (although admittedly I found that quite agreeable too); a connection to locals. Ole invited us up to their private level in the house and showed us his awesome musical instruments, with the definite star being a Japanese string instrument called Shamisen. It rocks harder than Magnus... Well almost, but keep trying you japanesies! See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QAMrzqeDGM&feature=youtube_gdata_player
From Iguaçu we got a ride in Ole's original VW Beetle, driven by his son Casper the friendly ghost, to drop us on the Argentinian side of the border where we off course decided to divulge a dead cow. Sorry you vegemetarians there's no way around it.. If it makes it any easier for you than I can say the cow was very old and blind and when it was just going for a nice afternoon stroll happened to run into a barbecue and fell on it. After which we ate it. Well I did. Sandra, miss I'm not going to eat apples in India because they're not local, decided to have fish. Fish. In Argentina. Land of the juicy steaks.
I made her repair that error in Buenos Aires where we on advice of our good friend Rido took advantage of the happy hour at La Cabrera. 800 grams of fine barbecued beef and nearly a bottle of Malbec later (Sandra also had some sss...okay try again...s-s-s-s...ahem...sa...fuck...saaa...salad! Few. Didn't know I could actually say the word.) I was extremely happy and she not so much. It must have been the salad I reckon.
We spent our time in BA being school kids, trying to pick up some Spanish in the week we were there learning such useful things as "¡mis bolas están por el piso!" and behaving like school kids; cracking badly translated jokes and feeling very naughty when we got to classes late. Thanks Marcelo for all the patience!
We also did some after class activities such as watching the very recommendable “Los secretos de sus ojos” (not the simple special effects action movie that I voted for) and Argentinian wine tasting. Go to the bottle-o and get a bottle of Malbec. That's an order. I will be checking on you!
So to conclude I found BA a quite agreeable city with loads of engrained culture, little bars where you can have a drink and be social (no tv's on the wall ozzy boozebarns), good meat & good pastries, grumpy faces on the streets (did the Swiss ever have an influence here?) and of course fucking cold.
Rn.

Paraty - weekend in paradise

We arrive at Paraty's bus terminal with the promise of finding paradise, a bit like the new evangelists walking for the first time into a church trying to find god and redemption. Michel (a french sailor) was there to great us. French? Yes, sounds odd but he like many others (running away from old and depressed Europe) chooses this place as his last stop before eternity. We were about to start our 3day weekend aboard of Horizonte Azul, an old ship where hot water is inexistent and blankets smell like they had been pulled out of donkeys ass. This however was probably the closest experience to luxury boating we have ever done and we didn't regret it one bit. Paraty has been able to keep the beauty of its streets and relaxed atmosphere, life music seemed to be present in bars and restaurants so much that sometimes you couldn't tell who was singing (either the cheesecake in your bar or julio iglesias in the one next door). There is also the improvised samba on Saturdays where anyone can take part. Given that our dancing skills are as good as a drunken turtle we were trusted a couple of percussion eggs we had to use for background rithm. This was perfect for Arne who could play while looking at those Brazilian arses shaking in all directions (hubbahubba whoot whoot!!!) (I just pretended I didn't see it). The best by far was sailing off and getting to know areas accessed only by boat whilst being totally spoiled with yummy breakfasts on the deck. Arne thinks this is boring but he fairly enjoyed every single bit of it!

Rio - there is more to life than samba

Whilst walking along copacaba beach one may wonder where are these brazilian women we see on tv? Long hair, small brazilian bikinis, hot pants... If I was a dude I would totally lodge a formal complaint to the tourist department. You can't fool a tourist like this! Instead, you will find guys (as big and hairy as a gorilla and as tanned as rabbit dipped in chocolate) playing soccer beach-volley (or whatever that is called) all day long. If you want to look for chicks you should totally consider a visit to Mundial, the local supermarket. There you will find a wide variety (age and style) trying to take the whole supermarket home (those shopping carts were so full you would think they could feed a whole army for a month!). Writing about food reminds me of the best brazilian meal we had in Brazil, awesome BBQ with rice, potatoes and farofa with egg and banana. Arne loves anything with meat but this was something special... We ordered one serve and we got food for 4 people, nnniiiiiceeeeee! We also managed to visit Niemeyer's office (the pritzker man himself), a kind of weird office set up on the ninth floor of an officially eight story building. But the space has an amazing view to the beach and the ocean. Arne said he saw a photo of naked women on Oscar's desk, I say that porn for man over 100 years should have disclaimers (just in case)... or maybe it works better than a pacemaker to keep his heart ticking.