Rosario... A visual diary

Hola Amigos,
We had a ball in Cordoba, but today I´m going to fill in my dear blog on our time in Rosario, just so we don´t forget it. And then, I will write about Cordoba in the next day or so. I am a little bit pedantic about keeping the blog in the right timeline, a blog for each place we go, but its hard when there isn't WiFi, as its so much easier to blog from our own computer. Well NOW we are in Tucuman (Yerba Buena, about 30 minutes from the capital), and we do have wifi, so, back tracking, history, the past... Back to Rosario!

 Rosario was lovely, a beautiful city with a relaxed feel to it. It is a much bigger city than Melbourne, but it doesn´t have an urban sprawl, it is a city surrounded by farms and rivers. I don´t have too much to say about our time there, it was nice, we enjoyed ourselves thorougly and had some busy days and some lazy days. Our first night we spent in a hostel, which turned out to be terrible as the other guests had their pre drinks until 3am, I thought about joining them because it was impossible to beat them but we were exhausted after a long day of travel. The only positive about the hostel was the nearly 100 year old copy of The Jungle Book that I found in their book swap library. So, for the rest of our time in Rosario we stayed at student accomodation that was almost empty for the holidays, it was nothing too special but a couple of single beds, grotty shared bathrooms and a big, mostly equipped kitchen.

So... Rosario.. In pictures, with perhaps a few words thrown in...

James made a friend!

Chilling in the park, tired after our first night in Rosario.

A shrine with the eternal flame inside, and the flag monument in the background.

The flag monument - a monument to the man who
designed the flag (which was first flown in Rosario!)
The monument also contains his crypt. The aerial views
in some of the below pictures are from the top of
the flag monument.

A crazy busker who picked up that we were tourists
and picked on us for his entire show, it was
funny, but he could have been telling
everyone we were from the moon for all we knew!

We were both roped in for some 'crowd participation'!

We went to the circus, it was pretty great!

I find it hard to believe myself, but they had 9 motorbikes riding in here... 9! 

And only one of them was female...

We went on a 2 hour river to of the Rio Parana,
the same river that forms the delta in Tigre and the
port of Buenos Aires. It was beautiful,
full of wildlife.

'Mate' (pronounced mah-tay) the national drink. The cup is full of the dried
leaves of the 'Yerba Mate' plant, then with hot water and sometimes sugar,
sometimes with coffee too. You drink it through a metal straw with a filter in
the end. I enjoy it, its quite bitter at the start, but the cup is refilled with water
over and over until the thermos is empty and it gets weaker.

Everywhere you go in Argentina people are carrying
a thermos, a container with mate, a container with sugar
and a mate gourd and straw! Everywhere!

Che Guevara, is he a positive or negative figure
for Argentinians, no one will give me a straight answer.
Who knows. He is not idolised, but he is remembered.

The house where Che was born and spent his first
couple of months of life.

And some firetrucks!!! Rosario fire station!

Not a very inspired post I must say, but, its better than nothing!

Bomberos de Tigre

I haven't posted a blog for a while, I've been too tired after big days out. Also, I came down with gastro for a few days last week. It was not fun at all. I'm ok now, and have been walking around 10 kms a day since around the town. 

The places here are magical at night time. So many lights and sounds. We are in a very nice hostel in the middle of the city, where it's quiet and peaceful. I booked in on very short notice. The place we were staying at before was a hostel on the other side of the city and a complete dump and the other guests were very inconsiderate of anyone but themselves and thought it would be a great idea to start a party at 2pm while we were trying to sleep. Needless to say, we left the next day and got this great place.

But that is neither here nor there. The main reason that I wanted to post a blog was because I had a very special day last week. I went to the Tigre Sociedad Bomberos Voluntarios. Thats Tigre Volunteer Fire Brigade in English. It was AWESOME!. I walked up off the street, and with limited spanish tried to explain to the man I met that I am a volunteer firefighter back home.It turned out that the man I was speaking to was the Chief of the fire station, Comandante Mayor Rodolfo Sebastian Vandolino, and he was more than happy to show me around. He asked me about the Australian fire brigades and I asked him about the bomberos and stations in Argentina. Some of the things I found out were really cool. There are 70 bomberos in the stations around Tigre, and there are four stations in the municipality. When they get a firecall, their mobile phone rings and sends a message. They also have a siren, which we could hear from where we were staying.

When I was talking to him he showed us the Command Center of the whole Municipality. He showed the button that is used to sound the siren. When he pointed to it he made a sign of the hair on his arms standing up, patted his heart, and then pointed to his ear. I laughed and said the word 'Adrenalin!' and he laughed too and said 'Si, si, adrenalina!' Some things are the same the world over. 

He showed me over the trucks, which are enormous when compared to any fire fighting truck in Australia, he showed me the turnout room where they use the same gear as we do at the station at home, only a different colour. And I tried on Argentinian BA, which is very heavy and old when compared to an Australian set. Funnily enough the same company supplies them and the CFA. 

Most of the time we used hand signals and gestures, as well as my limited Spanish, however Google Translate is fantastic in situations such as this!

I went back the following week as I thought that he had invited me back, he had, but just not on the day that I rocked up! He meant the next week... Google Translate Fail... It was okay though, I met the administration officer, a lady who had been working at the station for around 8 years, and could speak English. She told me that Rodolfo was out but she made a phone call and told him that I was there, he promptly came down to the station, from his home, to see me, which made me feel great. Unfortunately we couldn't do anything, like visiting the other stations, like he wanted to, but he sat with me for another two hours while we talked about fire brigade. Before I left, again, that day we promised that if I return to Tigre he would cook me a parrilla with all of the bomberos. Hopefully as my Spanish improves, I will be able to call him up and arrange it when we come back to Argentina towards the end of our travels. That would be fantastic. 

Below are some photos that Brenna took on our first visit to the station. Brenna didn't come with me the second time I visited, 2 hours of fire brigade talk was enough for her!

Tigre Sociedad Bomberos Voluntarios - a very impressive building to look
at from the outside, however when you go inside it is just like any other
fire station (apart from the grand ballroom on the top floor!)

The turnout gear in the turnout room, all bomberos
wear the same gear, however the Chiefs wear a white
helmet, the sub officers wear a yellow helmet and the
bomberos wear red. The helmets are the same as the
one I have back home.

This is a close up of the big Ford 300 that the Chief gets around town in. Its
also used as a support vehicle for big fires to get supplies and take bombers
to the call.

Me inside the American style ambulance which was
donated 3 years ago to the brigade from a brigade in
America. They take this out mostly to fire calls and
some medical emergencies. Ironically the ambulance
station is next door to the fire station.

A line up of some of the American big rigs.  The truck on the far right was
also donated by a brigade in Florida, USA.

The ambulance looks more like a truck and is much bigger when compared to
the DAF water tender which holds 18,000 liters.

A beautiful old Mercedes Benz, at least 40 years old and still in service. Its a
pity I couldn't go out for a drive in it.

The giant grand ballroom on the top floor of the building, above the trucks.
It is used for weekly dances, weddings and other community events. It can sit
300 people, with standing room for another 200.

Rodolfo and I in our "station gear". I wore my CFA
shirt which I then gave to him. He was very happy
at this gesture.

In return he gave me this commemorative flag, the 100 year anniversary of the
Tigre Bomberos, and a trophy which is given to all brigade members. I felt
very proud and honored to be given this.