The Bikini Diet

It’s a couple of days before we hit Rio and from the depths of my backpack I’ve just dug out that bikini I’ve been carting around with me for the last 6 months... I’ve been carrying it of course with the ultimate vision of frolicking on the beach looking as good as those scantily clad Brazilian women - however deluded that may be!? Guess we’ve all got to have some sort of aspirations and one of mine is to pretend I’m not pasty and flabby but instead tanned and svelte and ready to compete for attention with g-string wearing goddesses on Copacabana beach :)

So with this vision in mind you’d think I’d be embarking on some mega detox diet of diuretic foods, vegetable juices and the like. No! I’ve instead been forced to partake in the ‘Argentine Bikini Diet’... Not read about this one in Cosmo this year? Look out for it! This high sugar, red meat and pastry diet is certain to be all the rage! Though perhaps it should be referred to as the ‘Strap it on your Arse Diet’ or the ‘Add 3 kilos in 3 weeks Diet’ :)

If you haven’t been to Argentina then this might need a little explaining... though maybe I could just say this nation eats caramel sauce or ‘dulce de leche’ with virtually everything. Breakfast consists of spreading it onto white bread and medialunas (or croissants) – something Konrad has become rather addicted to... that’s cream, sugar and butter every morning on white bread with added healthy lashings of butter! Feeling sick? Then perhaps you need an ‘alfajore’ or biscuit covered in chocolate and filled with ‘dulce de leche’ to give you that required morning sugar high? And of course following this nutritious start to the day, for lunch, the bikini diet requires that you eat least 6 empanadas and/or a big juicy ‘lomito’ or steak sandwich! And just when you thought you’d eaten for 3 of you already, come dinner time (at the spritely hour of 10pm) we’ll need at least 500g of steak at the ‘Parilla’ with additional white bread and ‘papas fritas’ or chips on the side. Given too that you’re likely to be experiencing some major sugar lows during the day, then maybe a little tasty cake or pastry with some more dulce will sort you out... even better how about a big tub of ice-cream with some more healthy dulce? :) And as for vegetables, well who needs them anyway? Aren’t fries some kind of vegetable? Okay the occasional tomato or onion is allowed with your hunk of meat as long as you don’t forget that side of dulce :)




With a diet like this you’d think you’d be a prime candidate for bowel cancer and a serious case of haemorrhoids. However, after consultation with a random woman authority on the subject, I was informed that the local remedy for the traffic jam in your gut is the digestive drink of Yerba Mate – which is a disgustingly bitter herbal tea Argentines seem to drink incessantly out of a special cup or ‘mate’ through this funky straw. We made the mistake of trying it once and I don’t care how blocked up I am, I’m never drinking that shit again! I read somewhere once that bitter herbs are good for liver and bowel cleansing so I guess as long as you drink 5cups of this medicine a day, then hopefully you’ll digest that 3kgs of red meat and 10kg of sugar you are consuming per week. I think I would prefer to eat some fruit and vegetables instead however :)

To illustrate this practice for you, I have provided a snap of a gentleman at Iguazu Falls having a sip on his Yerba which he of course brought a large supply of, together with his thermos, for his outing to the waterfalls! Never leave home without it!


And then of course there is the red wine that you need to consume copious amounts of as well! Not that we are complaining about this one though. As most of you are well aware we are both big fans of this nectar of the gods and here in Argentina they produce a great drop at a great price! I’m glad to report that we’re taking full advantage of this :).

When we last left you, we were on our way to San Rafael and Mendoza to take in some of the wineries or ‘bodegas’ as they are known locally and of course do some serious wine tasting. And this we did! 4 bodegas in San Rafael, a highlight of which was drinking the Bianchi Particular Malbec, 2004 (one of the best wine’s I have ever tasted) and; 6 in Mendoza, which involved hiring a bicycle and cycling approximately 25kms – quite an adventure when you haven’t ridden a pushbike since riding around your tennis court in Joburg at the age of 10 and when you’ve been consuming various glasses of plonk along the way. Some of the highlights from this day out were the fantastic wine museum at Rutini (their wines are amazing too) and being gifted a bottle of Temperanillo from a boutique winery called Boschi. All in all it was a great couple of days in this region and although they are famous for producing the best Malbec in the world, we had the pleasure of tasting some fantastic other varietals as well.



From Mendoza we travelled through the original capital of Cordoba and onto the swinging, kick arse, super cool city of Buenos Aires!! Honestly, what a fantastic place... Parisian architecture and cafes, Barcelona night life, London shopping, New York energy all with a little touch of tango and Latino flair. If you haven’t already been, then I suggest you book in a trip now! We spent an awesome week there wandering aimlessly through the barrios of San Telmo, Palermo and Recoletta; visiting markets; shopping for shoes (yes I did pick up a couple of pairs, including a fabulous pair of purple snake skin numbers – by way of example, Palermo seems to have more designer stores than Soho in New York) and; just soaking up the vibes.

Of course we wanted to experience the excellent nightlife this city has to offer and while we did make it to one of BA’s top jazz bars to watch a great fusion jazz band that was recommended to us by some locals, we were unsuccessful in our attempt to hit ‘The Big One’- a 2000 capacity nightclub playing the best of BA electronica music recommended to us by our friend Ignacio at Telmotango Hostel. Being Australian and having started our drinking all too early that day (without eating dinner either as the bikini diet prescribes dinner only after 10pm remember) we unfortunately hit the wall around 1:30am - way too early to hit the dance floor given that the club only opened at 1am, no self respecting Buenos Airean would be arriving before 3am and the place didn’t actually get going until around 5am! I guess grandma and grandpa should have gone to bed around 6pm and set the alarm to wake up around 2am to start drinking vodka shots to ready themselves for the party! We will know better for next time!








It may come as somewhat of a surprise but Argentina is famous for the sport of polo – yes that pretentious sport invented in England and only played by the likes of Prince Charles – is actually most popular in and around BA. The large number of horses on the land has lent itself perfectly to the establishment of many polo clubs, produced the best polo players in the world (a fact the Argentines are quick to point out) and resulted in plenty of annual polo tournaments open to the viewing public. Of course being the upper class wannabe wankers that we are, we thought this no better place to experience the sport first hand and so organised our way out to the Tortugas Open on a Saturday afternoon to watch Indios Chapaleufú II and Pilará play - just for the record Pilará won 14-12. This was to be a particularly exceptional match as each team had 37 goals (very good as 40 is the maximum goal handicap per team... look it up on Wikipedia if you think you need to know more) and thus was very fast paced and of the highest quality. Although knowing very little else about the rules of polo I was sufficiently entertained throughout the afternoon as we sophisticatedly downed a bottle of Torrentes from Salta (though this may have contributed to our not making it to ‘The Big One'... perhaps we should have instead taken to sipping on Yerba Mates as all the locals seemed to be doing). In any case we thoroughly enjoyed the occasion though it has to be said that this was without a doubt the smeggiest sporting event I have ever witnessed. In this particular tournament each player had between 12 and 20 horses and there were just 3 families of brothers represented across the two teams – we were told that 5 Argentine families dominate the sport as you really do need a small fortune to even think about venturing onto the field to wack that little white ball around. That said the players did of course display some excellent horsemanship coupled with superior hand-eye coordination and the play was so faultless and smooth that we had to remind ourselves of the incredible skill involved by those on the field.



Sad to be leaving this great city – we really could have spent another couple of weeks there – we next visited the spectacular Iguazu Falls on the Brazilian/Argentinean border. Having arrived in some very torrential rain, we were getting ready to pull out our 2 dollar garbage bag ponchos purchased just before we started the Inca Trail and brave the park. To our good fortune however, the following day was just beautiful and we got to enjoy an amazing day at the falls. Overall the park comprises of 275 waterfalls which makes for some spectacular views from the many walking trails made accessible to the visitor. We especially enjoyed the view from the ‘Garganta del Diablo’ or the Devil’s Throat where you get to watch 1800 cubic metres of water per second (that's a hell of a lot of water) pour over a 70 metre drop onto the river below. I can’t say whether or not we enjoyed them more than Victoria Falls but the shear number of waterfalls and the jungle environment in which they are surrounded make them very unique and something well worth visiting. We spent 7 hours there enjoying the views and took only about 300 happy snaps :)





We have just arrived in Rio and are about to bring this grand 2 year adventure of ours to an end. We are eager to explore this beautiful city as well as head down the coast to Parati and Ilha Grande for some sun and beach action. I’m of course very much looking forward to donning that bikini of mine and showing my body some sun after too long, so stay tuned for pics of me looking fabulous (or not … maybe I’ll spare the world those images :)).

It’s time to go and drink some Caipirihnas so I’ll sign off and look forward to seeing most of you very soon.

Ciao