Of mishaps and fortunes...

We finally made it to The Blueberry, a.k.a. El Calafate (while reading some history thing I learned that "Calafate" means blueberry. If not, it is a blue-ish berry that is a fruit. We were given one to try by a taxi driver and it definitely looked like a blueberry, but it tasted like medicine after the candy coding had vanished. The longer you chewed it the worse it tasted.) Lake Argentina, the mineral enhanced turquoise expanse borders one side of town and is the biggest lake in the country, while Glacier National Park borders the other side of town. A strip of shops runs through the middle with small single/double story ski lodge looking houses littering the hills and populating throughout the trees. 

We came to see Perito Moreno Glacier. It's as long as Buenos Aires with 50-70 meters of ice sticking straight up out of the ground and another 150 meters of ice under the water. The glacier is constantly moving - if a piece breaks off, it's ok because another piece will reform somewhere else. While we were at the park, we witnesses 3 massive parts fall into the Lake and heard the thunder crack of many more crashing somewhere in the middle of the glacier. 

We were given 2 hours to view the South side of the Glacier from various walkways (all while it rained) before we headed to a boat that would take us to the base of the mammoth. Jagged blue ice teeth soared upwards when we stood at the base. Luckily the sun came out and we had a clear sky. After a nice guide helped our tour group put on crampons (ice spikes you attach to your shoes) that must have been leftovers from the explores in the early 1900's, we began our ascent onto the ice; it was slow going and we had to walk like we had shit in our pants, all wide-legged and slightly hunched over because crampons are a hindrance and you can either stab through your foot or trip yourself and face plant if you're not careful.

But once on the frozen tundra, all the caution was forgotten. Fresh water rivets streaked down ice gorges and pooled into small ponds. The water was so clear we filled our bottles. Based on the sun's light reflectivity, crystal blue outlined the white/clear of the ice, giving the glacier a beauty it wouldn't normally have. Picture after picture, Robby and I tried to capture the essence of the blue, but it was really hard to see in anything but the eye. For 1.5 hours we walked all throughout a small portion of the glacier; it was amazing and definitely worth the ticket price. We were even given whiskey over glacier ice at the end. I snapped a lovely whiskey commercial-worthy photo to commemorate the trek.

Once back in town, we just explored the downtown shops and then went back to our hostel. The following morning, we woke up early to explore the Walicku Caves.  We decided to take a lone German traveler staying at our hostel because she had nothing else to do and we like hitchhikers. The caves turned out to be a 30 minute walk along the lake with some rock formations on our left. We stupidity declined the audio headset, so all we had was a map with numbers that corresponded to different parts of the cave - kitchen, hand image, big cave, little cave, etc. Not very helpful. But the site was beautiful, so whoever the people were, they lived in a nice place. 

After the caves, we caught a 3 hour bus to El Chalten, a hiking paradise. Most known for Mt. Fitz Roy; a very tall mountain range that mostly hides in the clouds and is know to be windy and freezing near the top. We were only in El Chalten for about 27 hours. The Fitz Roy trek is 20 km, so we went back and forth a bit on if we really wanted to hike it (mostly because we're actually very lazy and 20 km sounds daunting), but in the end, we decided we had to. It was after all the main reason we came to El Chalten. To ensure that we couldn't back out, we booked a van that took us passed the mountain range and dropped us off at a point 8 hours from town or roughly 20km. Along this path we bypassed another mountain glacier, this one actually looking like a glacier instead of a snow-capped mountain like in Ushuaia.

For the first part of the hike, it was a peaceful jaunt through a forest of trees with the glacier peaking out. Then the woods opened up to a wide white-stoned river bed. We followed the river to the base of a small, but sizable mountain ridge, and began to climb upwards on a rocky-stepped trail that our hiking boots did not like. When we finally reached the sign said 1 km to the Laguna del la Tres - the top of the Mt. Fitz Roy hike - we realized that whoever was the person incharge of distance marking the trail, was an idiot; it wasnt even 1 km as the bird flies. Robby's fitbit hit 1.8 miles before we crested the top of the large mountain and realize there was still another small hill to ascend before we saw the lake. 

You would think Laguna del la Tres would mean three lakes, but it's really just one at the base of Mt. Fitz Roy. We lucked out and had warm sunshine for most of the trail and at the top. There wasn't even that much wind. Other people that we met had said they climbed the trail in the snow. Hum, I guess things were looking up for us, even if the 1 km to the finish wasn't nearly as spectacular as we were hoping. The journey there and back to town was prettier, in our opinions, but what counts is that we didn't chicken out and we hiked the 20 km trail which might have really been 23 km. Afterwards, we rewarded ourselves with wine before hopping on a 11 hour night bus to  Los Antiquos - the Argentinean border.

Our bus was supposed to be a sleeper bus with food and drinks, but it broke down on the way to El Chalten and an old greyhound type bus showed up as a replacement 1.5 hours late. The drivers werenice, but the bus sucked - seats didn't go back, the AC was on full blast (it was 50f outside), and our dinner consisted of a cheese sandwich the drivers picked up on the side of the road 2 hours into the journey. Needless-to-say, when we made it to Los Antigous, but we were tired and cranky when we got there. It didn't get better when we found out that no taxis were available to drive us to the Argentinean border- 3 km from the bus station. It was Christmas, but still, something should have been running. Instead the whole town looked deserted. So us, and 15 other people from the bus, including a guy in a wheelchair, walked the 3 km with all our packs on. It was kind of funny to see us all dragging suitcases or wearing large backpacking backpacks while walking through the empty streets.

We had chosen to take the night bus to the Los Antigous border because we heard it was easy to cross into Chile at the town of Chile Chico, which was supposed to have easy access to the town of Coyhaique (via another bus), where we were to have a rental car waiting for us the following morning. Instead, the Argentinean border is 4 kms from the Chilean border, through which we had to walk what is essentually a "no man's land". I'm not sure of it was Christmas, or a Sunday, but again, no taxis or collectivos were available to drive us through the random wasteland between the borders. All we could get out of the Argentinean border guards was, "hitchike or walk." Luckily our friend in the wheelchair, Elmer, was picked up, otherwise fate would have been very cruel to him. Once we reached the Chilean border, very sweaty and tired (a 30 pound backpack is no joke when you carry it far distances), we discovered that it was another 5 kms to the actual town of Chile Chico. Ugh. Good thing the border cops were nice and one called us a taxi that turned out to be super helpful.

We discovered that the bus to Coyhaique was 1) not running on Christmas, and 2) was a 12 hours ride because it had to go the long way around (apparently there's a river we didn't know about). Our taxi driver dropped us in front of the ferry terminal and said that the boat would take us to Puerto Ibanez, where we could catch a 1.5 hour bus to Coyhaique. Yep, sounded like a plan. We sat in the freezing wind for 2 hours while we waited to obtain ferry and bus tickets - we didn't want to miss the boat. We lucked out and were traveling on Sunday, the only day the ferry ran at 3pm. If it was any other day, we would have missed the ferry (there's only one a day) and would have been stuck in the very small town of Chile Chico.

So, after the craziness of walking the border and stressing that we were not going to make it to Coyhaique (we didn't know when the buses left for the Coyhaique for Chile Chico), therefore missing our chance to get the rental car and messing up our plans for the next few days, things ended up working out. I even managed to get coffee in the all but desolate town. A random caterer was opening his business for Christmas dinner and he made Robby and I a craft of hot water with a bowl of instant coffee, a bowl of milk, and sugar. It was so sweet and very welcome after our insane morning. 

For the rest of the story, the ferry took 2 hours, the mini bus to Coyhaique was easy to find, we had dinner in the only open cafe that didn't have a menu, and our hostel was a giant cabin in the woods with lots of fun, but crazy backpackers in it. Until next time...

Of penguins and sidetracks...

Pinguinos...my new favorite word. The animals they represent are cute as well, but they are even more adorable when you emphasize their name in Spanish. We rode for 2 hours on a bus to ride on a tiny dingie to reach the small island of the Magellanic and the "Surf's Up" penguins. When most people think of penguins, I assume the first thought is black and white waddling animals spread across an ice berg with baby balls of fluff hiding under their father's tummies. 

Well this experience was nothing like that. The penguins of Ushuaia live on a dirt island with a few tuffs of grass, a pebbled beach, and lots of wind and rain. There were originally 25 couples of the Magellan breed on the island, but now there are over 7000. They breed every year (once they turn 2) and they breed for 20 years. They always have twins, that grow at an exponential rate, so the ones that we saw were 3 weeks old and rivaled their parents in size, but were still a weird fluffy gray and not yet waterproof. There were only about 75 total of the Surf's Up orange beak and orange feet penguins. They mostly congregated in the middle of the sanctuary, so we couldn't get too close, while the normal black and white Magellan's waddled all over. If you weren't careful where you stepped, you could potentially smoosh a baby and its mom because they burrowed holes and lived in them. 

All the penguins have unique voices, so when they start what looks like a grand tantrum of throwing their heads back and screaming at the sky while flapping their fins up and down, it is really them calling to their mate, "time to go home, Honey." Fascinating to watch. We got about an hour with the beautiful creatures before we had to leave, but as it had started to pour on us, we didn't mind to much. 

The next morning we switched penguins for cormorants and sea lions. Not nearly as exciting as penguins, but it appears that when you're on a boat sailing along the Beagle Channel, you can't help but to keep snapping photos. Maybe it was the excitement of seeing something up close - our boat practically hit the rocks stopping for us - or the fact that I'm on vacation and on vacation I tend to take oh so many photos. After a while I was like, "I've just spent 5 minutes trying to get the perfect angle of a Sea Lion. I've seen 100's of Sea Lions, I don't need 50 photos of them." Away my camera went and only came out when we went to hike a small island covered in green moss, rocks, and small hedges. At the top we had a spectacular view of the Beagle Channel and Ushuaia. We lucked out and the day was sunny and bright blue. 

After such a great morning, the rest of our evening wasn't so wonderful. We ended up at the airport, eager for our flight to El Calafate - the start of what was to be 5 days of hiking in nature and enjoying fresh air. Instead, there were streams of people backed up to the other end of the terminal, all looking bored or pissed off. Stupidly we just thought that since the Antarctica cruise ships had got in that morning, everyone was trying to fly home. Nope, Aerolinas Argentinas airline workers decided they'd had enough crap and threw a Strike. No planes going or leaving. We sat (no one moved) in line for 4 hours before one of the couples we met from the penguin tour loaned us their phone to call the airline to book a new ticket. We were told we couldn't leave for 3 days. 3 more days in Ushuaia, a beautiful, but very expensive place. We'd also seen most of the sites during our current stay there. Needless to say, we were not thrilled.

We took a taxi back into town, found the nearest bus station, and booked a 16-hour bus to El Calafate that left the day after. Therefore we still would have time to visit El Calafate and El Chalten before having to make our mandatory bus to the Chilean border on Christmas Eve. If we waited for the plane we would have skipped seeing the nature towns.

We spent our extra day in Ushuaia doing the only free activity we could find - hiking 2 miles uphill to the base of a Glacier that looked like a giant, snow covered lake spread across a mountain side. Not an impressive glacier, but it was a refreshing hike, even when it started to pour on us, me wearing jeans, and proceeded to snow the closer we got to the top. The fresh air was heavenly and just being active helped loosen the joints and our spirits.

The 2 buses we had to take during the 16-hour ride to El Calafate weren't all that bad. Since Ushuaia is an island, the only way to get out is to cross into Chile and then cross back over to Argentina once you cross the Magellan Strait - which we did without having to pay the East India Company. We only encountered a problem on the second bus. 4 children under the age of 4, accompanied by 3 20-something's - that could have cared less what the kids did. 3 of the children had a grand time hitting people on the top of their heads, kicking the backs of seats, and crawling up and down the aisles. About 2.5 hours into the ride, I'd had enough. The 3-year-old boy was making his way towards me while slamming the sides of all the seats in his path. I put my foot in the middle of his path, waited until he looked at me, and then shook my head No while firmly saying No! He tried to inch passed, but my foot didn't move and I gave him a very angry face. For the rest of the trip he didn't go pass the seats in front of me.

So yes, I was mean to a 3-year-old, but I was gonna spank him if he didn't stop. Did I mention it was a night bus and everyone was trying to sleep. Kind of hard when you're jolted out of your slumber by a wack to the head or a kidney punch. But at 1am, we arrived tired, but in one piece to the sleepy town of El Calafate. Better later, than never.

Water and Prisoners

Water is powerful and terrifying at the same time. We jumped on a tour of 9 people to stare at the intense beauty of Iguazu Falls - lots of water falls flowing into a river that floods through Argentina. The water looked like Dulce de leche rivets swirling together before rolling over the cliff's edge onto a frothy pool of white. A mess-up in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's production line. 

We started the tour at our hotel, where we met the only other Americans we've seen here. James and Scott happen to be at the Buenos Aires ComicCon and decided to see one of the new 8 Wonders of the World in their short amount of time off. Unfortunately they had just booked everything last minute and James had had her purse (including all her money) stolen the day before, so both of them were wishing on a prayer that the Iguazu ATMs worked for them to grab money. Apparently they wished enough, not that the ATM worked for them, but that they met us. 

We luckily brought enough pesos for ourselves and them to get into the Falls. Plus Robby helped Scott get money from the ATMs in town later. ATMs in Argentina are finicky; some like cards with chips, some don't. Some just hate ATM cards period while others will only take their own bank cards. It's Russian Roulette on if you'll get money from one or continue to the next.

Inside the falls, we walked 3 trails to different lookout points. The uppers Falls are not visible from where the park train lets you off, so you get to breathe in fresh air while walking over the river on jetways until you round a corner and start to notice the plumb of spritz in the distance. The closer you get, the louder the roar of the Falls, until you arrive and are in awe at the magnitude of water pouring over the cliff's edge a good 5th of a mile long. About 1/2 a mile away we could see people from the Brazilian side of the falls viewing the Falls from their angle. We had the better angle. 

Robby and I splurged, along with Scott and James, on the Great Adventure - we rode for 30 minutes through the jungle looking out for wildlife that could hear us from miles off and choose to stay hidden while eyeing us for dinner, before arriving at the water's edge. We threw all our gear and shoes into dry bags and speed towards the base of the Falls. After stopping 300 or so yards from the culmination of the big falls to take pictures, our boat dashed into the falls head on, drenching everyone. Robby took pictures with her waterproof camera and since we couldn't see a thing, she just snapped shot after shot. The images look like we're entering hell and proceeding to shipwreck. It was amazing. Terrifying, but amazing.

After the Falls, we headed to town to have a nice dinner and grab lots of wine. In the morning, Scott and James ended up on the same flight as us to Buenos Aires - where we got to talk a bit more before we said our goodbyes and hightailed it back inside the airport to catch our flight to Ushuaia. Apparently connecting domestic flights in Argentina send your bags straight through to your final destination, but whenever you land, you have to fully exit the airport before rechecking in to your connecting flight. Not very efficient.

Ushuaia is the End of the World. It's the southern most city with a population of 75,000 or so. It's adorable - like Juneau mixed with Boulder, but warmer. We were expecting it to be freezing, but it's about 60+ during the day, hotter with the sun out, and brisk when the wind kicks up. The city spans across the Beagle Channel and built itself into the surrounding mountains, mostly going uphill. No building is higher than 4 stories and everything looks like a mini ski town. There is a snow mountain outside of town, but mostly only locals and Olympic teams go there.

King crab is a staple here, with little restaurants littering the downtown advertising tasty meals for $20 usd or less. You literally get to pick out your own crabby victim, pose for a picture with it (if you're disturbed like that), and wave goodbye before it arrives 20 minutes later, hot from the boiler and ready to devour. Best meal so far in this country. 

Robby and I spent the evening here wandering the town. The following morning we were picked up for a hiking tour through Tierro de Fuego National Park. We walked 7 kms along an inlet of the Beagle Channel while weaving in and out of the trees. We were periodically rained on, but it was still a beautiful hike. Abet at a faster pace then we would have preferred, due to our tour group being fast walkers, but after 5 miles, I was tired, so i didn't need longer there. Our tour guides rewarded our efforts with wine, cheese, and the best homemade chicken soup we've had in a long time. It was delicious and perfect after expelling so much energy. 

Too bad we'd also booked the "kayak" trip along the Channel. The 7 of us from the tour and one guide loaded into a river raft and combated the mountain winds to paddle 1.5 hours across the bay, practically back to where we started our hike. The guide kept teasing us, "row, more faster! 1, 2, 1, 2, faster, faster." "We paid to do this?" everyone grumbled, but we all secretly were enjoying ourselves once our arms adjusted to the physical exercise. Again, we were rewarded; this time with cookies and a snapps-type drink that was full of sugar and disgusting. Robby had to finish mine.

Since the tour ended in the early evening, we had time to visit the Prisoner Museum. Ushuaia was originally started as a penal colony, but the idea was scrapped once they moved prisoners here. Instead they combined two prisons and just used the prisoners to create the town. When felons found out they were coming to the end of the world, a bunch of them tried to kill themselves, some succeeded. Sure, they were coming to a cold, tree covered tundra, but its since turned into a great little city.

Anyhow, the prison had numerous buildings spread across the property, but a main circle building with five wings springing off of it that housed the criminals and the guards. Each wing held a different degree of criminal - thieves, murderers, con-artists, etc. Currently the outlying buildings are part of the Argentinean Naval Base while the 5 wings holding the cells are divided into several museums. Most of the cells house artwork or placards describing the history of the prison and the town, while other wings tell the history of sailing and flying in Ushuaia. One wing was left completely as the prison left it in the 1940's (when it closed) - peeling paint, missing doors, and creepy ghosts. It was the best part of the whole place. Luckily most people took a peak and left, leaving us lots of opportunities to take pictures without tourist in them.

I have more to write, but I'm tired and I assume your eyes are blurring. Until next time.

Puerto Iguazu and the Jesuit Ruins

We arrived in Puerto Iguazu, discovering that the northern part of the country is a hot forest with numerous rivers. Trees lined the 20 minute drive to Jasy Hotel, just outside of the town center. We were given essentially a mini apartment with a loft area containing a king bed, the AC unit, a tv, and French doors opening to a private balcony. The downstairs consisted of  two beds in the "living room" area, a small dining table, closet, and bathroom. If you wanted an awesome one bedroom built, this room was the perfect layout to copy; you would also need to plant the jungle outside to complete the view.

After ditching our bags, we wandered up the street to find food. 8 blocks later the heat got to us and we just plopped down in the first decent looking restaurant that wasn't a buffet. Apparently buffets are popular here and still just as scary to eat at (I really dislike buffets). At lunch we realized that we could use credit cards, knowledge that is super handy as our pesos were running low. We wanted to walk the town and maybe go wine tasting, but we needed the credit cards...which were back at the hotel. It was an internal struggle on whether to go back to the hotel to get the cards, or just walk around and hope we found an ATM later. Somehow going back to the hotel won out, but our town adventure was waylaid for an hour by Robby falling asleep. I had to force her back into the heat, but it was only 2:30pm and we couldn't see ourselves hanging out at a hotel all day. They did have an inviting looking pool, but there was not a lick of shade anywhere near it, so that option was crossed off our list.

Town turned out to be rather large- 5 long blocks consisting of stores and restaurants that all met together and diverge into more shopping or residential areas. Robby had decided to we're going to Three Frontiers- a lookout spot that showed you Puraguay, Brazil, and Argentina. We stood on the Argentina balcony 100 foot high over 2 rivers that flowed between the countries. Kind of cool, but since it was so hot, we walked to the lookout point, snapped a picture, and then hid in the shade for 30 minutes to recover from walking there. When we recovered a bit of our energy, we walked back through town, bought a nice Malbec, some local cheese, and fruit to share while hanging out at the hotel bar.

Day 2 in Iguazu - we woke up early for a tour to the Wanka Gem Mines and Jesuit Ruins. The gem mine was mostly a tourist attraction, but they have 12 working miners and they create beautiful jewelry using mostly quartz that's evolved into different stones through mineral and chemical reactions creating amethyst, rose quartz, and other stones of various colors. The quartz lives in pockets throughout the caves, but stupid tourist break in on the weekends and smash the pockets open to snag pieces of the stones, therefore destroying large pieces of the gems, messing up the caves, and hurting the company's finances. Robby and I decided to buy a few stones to support the local business, plus gems are pretty.

Next stop was the Jesuit Ruins, which happened to be a 2 hour bus ride away from the mines. I had unfortunately chosen seats in the back of the messed up 15-pass van thing our tour used, where the backrow seats were 2 feet higher up than the rest of the seats, so everytime we went over a bump, our heads would graze the ceiling. It was not all that comfortable. but luckily Robby didn't get carsick and we made it to the ruins in one piece.

After a quick lunch we headed into the ruins. At first the guide came over and started jabbering on for 10 minutes in Spanish before moving on. I decided to ask if he spoke English and he goes, "why didn't you say so in the beginning?" maybe because he just walked over and started a diatribe without stopping to breathe. He told us to wait on the side and went to fetch anEmglish guide. We ended up on our own private tour with a college girl that at first was annoyed with us constantly taking photos, but aftern we started talking with her for a bit, she lightened up. The ruins were from the 1800's when the Jesuits came to conquer the local native tribes. They convinced the tribes to live in houses, work with the priests and live monogamist lifestyles (they used to be hardcore polygamists). The ruins were of a city, one of three that fought a bunch with the other tribes in the area and tribes from the surrounding countries. 

The king of the tribe's children were allowed to go to the Priest's school and learn about Gid and politics while everyone else learn a trade. Everyone had to contribute and if you didn't agree with something, the Jesuit's tied you up in the center square and whipped you. But besides that, the place didn't seem half bad. There was a sense of community, families lived together and everyone took care of everyone else.

After the ruins we found out that the dingy mini bus had broken down, so we wandered the town (not much there but a few dirt roads, closing shops, and mangy dogs) before our bus driver told us we get to go home on the big greyhound type bus. Oh darn - comfy reclining seats, legroom, and a movie; sucks the mini bus broke. The movie was called The Mission and starred Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons. It told the story of Jesuit missionaries coming to convert the local Iguazu tribe, Guarani, and protecting them from the Porteguese government, who thought the Guarani's were no better than animals and needed to be wipped out or enslaved. The priests died for what they believed in, Ali g with most of the tribe. This movie was based on the real plight of the Guanai and the missionaries that came to change their lives. Even though the movie was dubbed in Spanish, it was interesting to watch.

Back in Puerto Iguazu, we had a nice fish dinner before hitting the sack. Even with the heat, this place is quite lovely. 

It's ends with a beat...

Argentina has an interesting history, it was founded twice. In 1536 by Pedro de Mendoza, a Spanish explorer out to conquer the world. Well, the natives of Buenos Aires didn't exactly appreciate his Spanish integration and land grabbing, so they fought him off and in 1539 he returned home with his tail between his legs. But, in 1580, another settlement came and stayed. They were more powerful and therefore subdued the locals, took the land, and built a thriving city of Agentineans. San Telmo was the first settlement, but it quickly expanded in various sub-cities.

Robby and I booked ourselves a bike tour that went through the old part of San Telmo and then La Boca, the poor region that used to be a waylay point between the port and the town with a criminal and sex element. It was later turned into an art community via gentrification. To this day artists still sell their wares on the street infront of what used to be the houses. It's also the birth place of tango and the current location for the Boca Jr's, the beloved futbol (soccer team) of Argentina. If there's a game on, people flood the streets to watch through bar windows and cheer on their team.

We stopped to drink Mate and take photos of the colored houses in La Boca. The houses used to be tenaments, but were then turned into shops and through gentrification, painted pretty colors to attract artists, therefore becoming live/work studios. Now-a-days, it's mainly a tourist attraction with stores and restaurants. Still a rather poor area, but there's much history and love in the neighborhood. Mate is the tea drink that is drunk everyday by Argentineans. It consist of bitter tea leaves (from the mate tree) put into a cup with hot water poured on top and then passed between friends with a straw. One can not be a germaphob with the Mate, as you use the same cup, leaves, and straw for a sitting of Mate. To Robby and I, we didn't mind sharing the tea with our tour guide, but Mate taste like green tea that's been seeping for 10 minutes. Very strong, and therefore bitter to drink. Plus you're expected to drink it when it's super hot through a metal straw and sometimes holding it in a metal cup. I don't know what it is about tea drinking countries, but they love hot drinks in little cups without handles. 

We finished out our long bike ride (which could have been short, but the sweltering head made it feel like 15+ miles), in Puerto Madero - the newest, safest, and richest part of Buenos Aires. When the city was founded they had a port run through the middle of the city, but the boats had to dock out at sea and then shuttle goods and people in via small boats because of the swallow water near the actual city. In 1882, Buenos Aires paid a politician a lot of money to build a new port, 2 km down from the old port. The politician's name was Madero, thus the name of the port. In 1897 Puerto Madero was open, but the city had a beautiful, swallow, and therefore useless new port. I guess next time the money men decided to think with their brains rather than with their political agendas because in 1930 a real team of engineers built the New Port - an actually useable shipping port. In 1989 Puerto Madero was turned into the modern part of the city with glass buildings, fancy restaurants, lots of security, and a giant wetlands that borders the water. The wetlands formed on top of the landfill, which makes the beauty more ironic. Now Buenos Aires is complete with a modern city built against the old city and a useable port a few kilometers away. It's beautiful and sad at the same time. Gentrification is great, but it also destroys part of the soul of the city and covers up the history. But then hipsters don't really care about that stuff too much, so I guess it evens out.

What Buenos Aireans care about is music and that includes, La Bomba de Tiempo - a drumming band that sounds like a Spanish "Stomp", but the conductor changes the playlist every time the 10-13 person band plays. They mostly only play on Monday nights and usually have special guests sit in with them. Robby and I decided that we should go, even if it was for a little bit because it is part of the local culture and numerous people told us it would be amazing. We figured out the subway system and ended up in a dirtier part of town, but somehow felt more at home than in the downtown part of the city. The venue wasn't too hard to find as we followed the hordes of 20-30 something's flocking to the entrance. While waiting in line for tickets, we grabbed 2 cold beers to drink from a street vendor for $3 each and a street empanada for $2. Dinner and a drink without even having to leave our spoy in line, not bad. 

Once inside the facility, we discovered it was a giant warehouse converted into a dance club with a small museum inside and a large courtyard in the middle. Since it was so hot, the performance was luckily in the courtyard. The band started promptly at 8pm, something almost unheard of in Argentina because people don't eat until 10 or 11pm for early bird and 30 minutes late is still on time. But at 8pm, 12 hippie looking people dressed in trash jumpsuits started banging on drums, ringing bells, and hitting stratching instruments. The packed crowd went nuts. To me, it sounded like loud drum noises that went on for hours (but probably only in 12 minute stretches). It wasn't bad, but also not my cup of tea. Though the people watching was amazing - I'm always jealous of people that can just lose themselves to the rhythm and dance like there's no one else around, plus the special guest brought a guitar and started softly singing (probably my favorite part of the concert). La Bomba de Tiepo is amazing and for sure an event to go see, but it is loud, sweaty, and there's a lot of standing. But it gave us a night out and a great ending to our 3 days in Buenos Aires. 

Drinking: café or vino?

Buenos Aires is a strange city. I really didn't like it the first two days I was here; could have been the fact that we were again victims of the stupid "throw crap on tourist" scam. This time we were just sitting on a park bench waiting for a walking tour to start. It was a ring of three people- one to ask us a question and figure out that we didn't speak Spanish, one to spray us, and then one to offer the tissues. They didn't get anything, but again, this was the beginning of the day so we got to be covered in the foul smelling goo for many more hours. With our mood greatly deminished, we were about to just say "adios" to the walking tour, when Robby spotted a different walking tour. Turns out that the tour we were waiting for did not operate on Sundays, yea us. Luckily this random tour let us join them for the last half of their tour where we learned a little history on the Mothers of the Disappeared (MOTD).

In the 80's, Argentina was under a dictatorship and the people didn't like their rights being stomped on, so they protested. The evil dictator was not about his citizens uprising, so he made the most prominent and loudest protesters vanish. Soon mothers realized that their sons and daughter were not coming home at night. Even children, some as young as one, were disappearing off the streets. It started off subtle, but soon the Mothers went to Mayo Square, the main city square (in front of the Presidental Palace), to ask for answers on where their children were. When they got to the square they realized they were not alone in their plight, as 100's of mothers were gathered, all begging for answers. Now this was a bit of an issue for them as a law was passed that no large groups of people could stand together.

Since the Mothers were smart, they formed lines of two people stacked behind each other, that circled the square. Everyday they came to ask where their children were, but sadly they never received any official answers. To this day, the MOTD march every Wednesday in the square; they're still looking for answers, but more importantly, they do not want the government, or the people, to forget what happened. Over the years it was discovered that the young children of the loudest protestors were kidnapped and given to family's of the military to be raised on the right path and mass graves/torture sites have been uncovered (which sadly only accounts for about 2% of the missing). 

Enough with the sad, after the walking tour ended, we met a lovely British/Canadian couple that introduced us to the Buenos Aires transit system. They paid our way to ride 4 blocks on the bus to San Telmo. The buses come fairly frequently, but even though there are assigned stops, you still need to flag your bus down to have it stop. On Sundays in San Telmo, there is an amazing street market that spans about 10 blocks. It's lively, colorful, and loud. Buenos Aires is a strange city because a lot of the buildings look closed- with darkened windows, metal garage door window shutters on the housing units, and shop doors that you need to be buzzed through. You would think that only about 2-3 million people live here instead of 10 million. Probably a great city for an apocalypse or zombie movie to be filmed. 

Anyhow, San Telmo was streaming with people browsing the street stalls and weaving in and out of the little shops. I discovered a small coffee shop inside the old antique market where I had my first Agentinean coffee. I'm pretty sure it's Nescafé mixed with warm cow's milk and if you are adventurous enough, you can try the espresso, which will put instant hair on your chest. I'm fairly certain I will have to go cold turkey while I'm here and I don't know if I can handle that. Maybe I'll just drink more wine.

For the evening Robby and I went to a beautiful tango show performed inside a 1930's looking music club. The dancers did a few different tango dances to various eras of music accompanied by a live band. We were served a descent dinner with a bottle of wine and a glass of champagne. Not sure if being tipsy helped, but the show was entertaining and the dancers made me want to dance, but there's no way my legs will do what theirs did- they're very flexible and I'm pretty sure, double jointed in places. Oh well, I guess I'll be content watching and drinking Malbec.

So to everyone reading, I raise my glass and bid you all good night. Until the next entry!

 

You live and your learn

I'm pretty sure in my old age neuroses are starting to develope. I began planning my sister and my Patagonian adventure about 8 months ago and in that time I've perfected a twisted version of OCD for research (literally scowlering the Internet for every travel blog, advise column, and iteniery on things to do and see in Patagonia), had anxiety attacks over what clothing I should bring (resulting in 5 trips to the mall/outlets and 2 amazon purchases all to find the perfect warm, yet thin puffy jacket and a backpack that would fit my camera, but not stand out as a camera backpack), plus I've managed to become the queen of needing everything to be planned ahead of time - a disturbing development considering I used to just go by the seat my pants, so to speak. My old Meyers Briggs score is no doubt screaming at me to update my answers.

Anyhow, all my careful, metiticalous planning and foresight is finally a reality. We touched down in Buenos Aires, Argentina 9 hours ago and in that time I've walked over 7 miles, almost twisting my ankle three times (the sidewalks are shit and if I start to drink that Malbec that is everywhere, I'm screwed); visited La Recoleta Cemetery, a very old and gothic cemetery that houses the remains of Evita; and been a victim to the con-artist scam where an asshole throws gross stuff on you, then helps you clean it off while their friend steals your bag. Luckily I knew that the minute something wet ended up all over my hair and back something was up. My theory of the scam was confirmed when the guy in front of me stepped to the side, took out napkins, and waved Robby and I over to "help" us get the crap off our stuff. 

Robby stood still like a deer in headlights wondering what the hell was spilled all over her while I told her to move it, distancing ourselves from the schmuck. The sucky part was that we'd just started our first day adventure out in the city and did not want to head back to the hostel to change, so we smelled like the spit of tobacco chew mixed with sewage all day. Why couldn't we get coffee grounds or even an egg smashed on us instead? A McDonald's bathroom helped in making us less offensive smelling, but it was nasty. The good news was that we were wearing our shitty yoga pants and dry wick t-shirts- easy stuff to clean, not so important if they get nasty shit spilled on them.

So I guess we will now just have to be more vigilant of our sourroundings and if someone does that again, Robby might pummeled them- which could be awesome or we could end up seeing what a lovely Argentinean jail cell looks like- which could also be interesting. Other than the stupid scam artist event, Argentina seems like a lovely place. It's very green; the buildings have a Eastern Europe/Colonial/New York vibe to them with balconies, small doorways, and lots of stairs; the food smells amazing and coffee can be found on every block (although I've yet to try some); plus it's a walking/bike city with small, treelined side streets jetty out of most intersections.

Now, I've finally gotten a shower and our private hostel room looks like a wet clothes line threw up, but at least everything, including the 2 occupants of the room, smell presentable. I'm pretty sure a bottle of Malbec is calling my name, so I bid everyone an adieu and I welcome you all to my Patagonian adventures.