Hola from Montevideo, Uruguay!! I am here visiting my friend Ana and while she is at her grandma's house I thought I better get going on the updates from my past 2 weeks here...I arrived in Buenos Aires in the morning on September 28th. I continue to be the luckiest traveler in the world (knock on wood) and somehow managed to get two seats to myself on my connecting flight from Houston to Argentina, so I slept comfortably and had an easy flight. Here is a picture of the city from above just before I landed. I took a shuttle, followed by a taxi to the hostel Tango Backpackers which is in Palermo, a hip and trendy neighborhood. I met up with Josh (a friend from high school and WWU) and his friend Mike, who also went to Western. Josh and I went and got coffee at Havanna, which is kind of a South American Starbucks. We took the bus to Recoleta and wandered around all afternoon. That part of the city houses the Cementerio de la Recoleta, which is where Eva Peron (Evita) is buried. The cemetary was huge and very ornate, and the graves reminded me a lot of those in Coptic Cairo, as you will see in the pictures.
walking around Recoleta
I had to.
Evita's tomb
After walking around in the afternoon, we decided to go back to the hostel for a nap before we went out that night. We signed up for a pub crawl that began in a park nearby and included free pizza and wine. So after our nap, we walked over the park with some other people from our hostel, and just mingled, ate and drank while waiting for everyone to show up from the nearby hostels. After about an hour or so, we had a pretty good crowd, but they ended up cancelling the pubcrawl and reimbursing our money because it turned out most of the people there worked for the group that organized it. It ended up being even better than I had imagined because we still went out with a big group of people to a couple of bars and a club to dance, not to mention we got our money back and got free pizza and wine. Not too shabby. We had a great time at the club and were back and in bed by 3am, which is early by Argentinian standards. :)
The next day we took the subte (subway) to the bus station to try to buy tickets to Iguazu falls. Then we stopped at a lunch counter and had choripan, which is just chorizo in a bun, and is soooooooooo delicious. I have definitely had my fill of chorizo on this trip. We walked around San Telmo, which is full of cobbled streets, and then we went to rent bikes. We biked around Puerto Madero, which is such a charming neighborhood full of parks and statues. I LOVED riding bikes around the city, and we got to see a couple of interesting things, such as the front bumper of a car falling off right in the middle of a traffic jam, and a man dressed in a really nice suit getting thrown on the ground by cops and arrested. Oh, I also almost got hit by a bus. But it was all part of the adventure of Bike Gang Buenos Aires. :)
Mike needed a choripan break
After biking we took a little siesta, followed by an Indian dinner recommended by the Lonely Planet. It was pretty disappointing, since it wasn't traditional Indian food. Then we went back to the hostel and drank some beers while chatting with some other people in the hostel. Josh and Mike went out that night while I went to bed, as I was coming down with a cold. Apparantly Mike and Josh met some guys out on this evening that owned a restaurant several blocks from where our hostel was, but they couldn't remember exactly where. So...The next day we wandered around for an hour looking for the place. When we finally found it, by some miracle, it was actually very good. Mike had some of that famous Argentinian steak, which really can't be beat. After lunch we went to a little outdoor market in Palermo, and I drooled over all the botiques and specialty shops all the way back to our hostel. The shopping there would have been incredible, and I am really regretting not taking advantage of it. Oh well, maybe next time. ;) The day ended up being pretty stressful, because on my first night Mike and I met a New Zealander who had lived in BA for awhile and told us about a 10k race Nike was doing, I think it was called the World Race, or something. Anyway, lots of major cities were hosting a 10k on the same day and it was a really big deal, so of course I really wanted to get in on it. The race was the following day, so we basically spent a good chunk of the day trying to find out more information, like where the race was, how to sign up for it, etc, and we were having no luck whatsoever. Eventually the stress of searching all day began to cause tension, so I gave up the dream of running 10k with everyone else in the world.... :( Anyway, we went out for a big steak dinner that night, where we drank Malbec straight out of the barrels and finished our feast off with 3 postres including one topped with dulce de leche, the best treat ever. mmmm...
That night was our last night in Buenos Aires, so we wanted to have another big night out. We ended up going to a club called Crobar with a bunch of other people from our hostel, and it was pretty fun, even though everyone at the club looked about 17 or 18. The boys stayed out til the wee hours of the morning, but I came back at about 4. The next day we were late checking out (of course) and we boarded our bus to Puerto Iguazu. The bus ride was around 15 hours, if I remember correctly, but it was more comfortable and enjoyable than any plane could have ever been. We got full cama seats, which means they reclined almost completely into beds. They also gave us dinner and breakfast (although we slept through breakfast, so I'm not sure what it was). We also brought some wine on the bus, which aided in a perfect night's sleep and arriving in Puerto Iguazu very well rested. ;)
Josh and Mike enjoying the recliners
the dinner... wah wah
Without a wine key you have to be creative
Our hostel in Puerto Iguazu
While we were in Puerto Iguazu, we basically spent most of our time trying to get a visa into Brazil, and spending lots of money on that and on a plane ticket to Uruguay. Puerto Iguazu is also where I began a long saga of money problems, starting with not being able to take out enough money to pay for my visa and my plane ticket (both of which had to be paid for in cash). This was the beginning of my debt to both Josh and Mike, who basically lent me enough money to last for about 4 days. Anyway, we went to Iguazu falls and were blown away by the beauty and power of it all. I have never seen anything so huge!! I took way too many pictures, saw amazing animals and beautiful plants, and took a boat into the falls that puts The Maid of the Mist to shame!!! (Disclaimer- Niagra Falls is amazing and the Maid of the Mist was really fun). We basically went INTO the falls in one of the most intense parts, and they don't give you any plastic raincoats or any of that sissy stuff to wear. They give you a waterproof bag for your camera and belongings, and when you get out of the boat it's like you've gone through a washing machine without the spin cycle at the end. We were completely soaked to the bone for the rest of the day, and it was worth it. The whole experience was just breathtaking.
The next day we took our pricey visas to Brazil, to Foz do Iguazu, which is the Brazilian side of the falls.
To be continued...
*UPDATE* Ok everyone, this post has been stalling to be published for a few days while I tried to figure out how to get more space for pictures, and it turns out I've used up all my allotted space and even though I've purchased more, my blog is full. SO, I am going to continue writing my stories down on this site, but I will attach a link to this post so you can look at my photos via Picasa. This is not ideal for what I wanted for my blog, but it will have to do... so, here's a link to Picasa and the rest of the Argentina photos are in a folder called End of Argentina. Those are the pics from Iguazu. Enjoy, and thanks for waiting!
sorry I couldn't successfully make a link, just copy and paste
http://picasaweb.google.com/shannon.carney/EndOfArgentina#
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