Buen Dia Amigos!

<<<<IMPORTANT: This blog is being written on public computers in South America on a Google program that is not operating with Chrome, therefore spelling corrections are impossible as is formatting. In the case of horribly spelt words and/or formatting, I reserve all blame for the machina. Thank you>>>>

Welcome to the South American TravelBlog. This blog will be randomly updated with the Travels of Megan and myself. The tentative plan for our next 3+ months is not to have one. I will write frequently and very infrequently, so if its short tough, its its really long, wear glasses. It turns out that not having plans is sometimes the best strategy because if something unexpected happens you can easily take it instride instead of having to complete rebuild an itinerary that was meticulously built.We learned this first hand after refusing to make plans and have our feet take us where they would. However, after our first couple days in Buenos Aires (BsAs) we made a rough outline of a 3week plan and that is when everything fell apart. Let me start from the beginning.

The beginning of our trip did not even start in Argentina, but in Los Angelas, California. We took the train out of Gallup, NM, overnight, to Union Station. Before we were even able to get on the train, 5 mintues until it arrived, Megan realized that we had left her passport in the scanner while we were making copies of everything for the trip. WILD. Megan and I stayed at the train station while my folks took off for the passport. The train arrived and still no more passport. Then, with only moments to spare, my parents came screetching into the parking lot, pedestrians popping out of the way like corn kernals from hot oil. We completed the pass over the chain link fence and jumped on the train. SAFE!

After a long night on the train we arrived in Union Station where we were greeted by Mr. Andrew Jones and the sweet Lara Fernando. They whisked us off to Andrews new, super PIMP apartment (CONDO) in pasadena. After lots of talking we hiked and enjoyed the beautiful LA smog, however, this is not a story of North American smog. So the rest of the weekend was filled with great meetings of friends as we got to see Summer Disante and friends, Lots of lovely Beta ladies in Brockton, a short meeting with Tim Krantz, a near miss of seeing Francisco Guzman Guzman, some of the first and last Frolfing of 2012, Beers with Kit and Robyn in Pasadena, dinner in Long Beach, then getting passed off to Nick G. Zaharapolis´s place in Huntington for our last night in Norte Americano and one of Nicks last in his superpimpalicious house. ´WE had a crazy fancy breakfast in Huntington full of crepes and waffles in Huntington then got dropped at LAX for the flight to BsAs.  Then Sur Americano.

BsAs is big. I mean freaking big. ITs like 13 million big. Like, so big it has the widest street in the world (16 lanes). 13 million of the 40 million argentines live in BsAs. But we started it out right. My sister, gifted me a bonus free night to a Hilton anywhere in the world. So once we figured out we were going to South America we immediatley chose to use it for BsAs. This hotel turns out is the nicest place I have probly ever slept. It was soooooooooo pimp. We got upgraded to an Executive room which gave us access to the Exec lounge (E-lounge) and didnt leave the hotel our 1st 24 hours in BsAs. We were on the top floor of the Hotel overlooking the dikes of BsAs (the city is on the widest river in the world). Our room was really nice, but the piece de resistaunce was the bathroom. We had a huge jacuzzi tub, a toliet, a bedah (sp? aka butt squirter), and a shower. There was a roof top pool that we frequented for a huge portion of our stay. BsAs is super hottt too. It hasnt really dipped below 70F while we´ve been here. Back to the E-Lounge, this place had food 24/7 (salmon, brie, mushrooms, ), a fridge full of soda and beer, pool table, computers, and at 4pm they bring a full bar out with ordouves. Full bar = red label, JD, Tanqueray, all topshelf liquor. Slept for 16 hours then began our journey.

We randomly found this place called Portal Del Sur, a great hostel located right in the heart of BsAs near the central Plaza de Mayo. Its a crazy hostel on a small dirty street with a very unassuming entrance. You have to be buzzed in, you have to be buzzed into almost every store that is not a restaurant or supermarket. But the hostel is 5 stories and most of it is built on floor 2-5 all around a very large atrium that has a roof that opens and closes. The top floor is a rooftop bar with a great view of the city. Every store in BsAs has giant metal screen that they use to block their stores from vandalism/graffiti etc. they close these during every siesta (2pm-5pm) every night, and every sunday. This gives the city a very ominous, closed, metallic feel if you are walking in an abandoned neighborhood where there is nothing but the dirty streets and closed shops. However, BsAs is far from being dead.

The city is one of the most lively and adventurous places I have ever spent time in. It is pieced together by neighborhoods that range from types of stores, price of goods, and very strong economic gaps. We resided mostly in the microcenter which during the day bustles with business people, but at night there are very few buildings so it is alive with many homeless and more destitue souls. However, it was not a far walk or bus ride to anywhere. The whole city is patchworked together with possibly the most complex and successful bus system ever created. There are close to 200 bus lines all with different routes that you can ride from 10 mintues to 2 hours. Every bus ride costs 1.35 pesos (4.33 pesos to 1USD) but takes only coins and gives no change. This has created a phenomena where coins exclusively remain in circulation and are impossible to obtain at a bank. They go from pockets to buses to pockets. Therefore, coins are once of the most valuable commodities in the city and people are always reluctant to give them up. If you want 100 pesos of coins you will essentially have to buy them for a premium (receive only 90pesos worth for example). Most of the time we opted to take the subway which is very fast and gets to most places in the city.

Argentines are some of the nicest and friendliest people and have a very European mindset and feel to their lifestyles. Everyone drinks Mate and eats ice cream. Just about everywhere you go you see people drinking mate and they have every type of accessory you can think of. Most people have thermos´s with hot water with them to enjoy mate anywhere. Every park (which there are 1000´s of in every neighborhood) you can spot people playing soccer, drinking mate, eating ice cream, guys on bikes screaming ¨HELADO´´ trying to sell ice cream, and couples making out hardcore to the point of ridiculousness. For some reason middle aged women love to ask me for directions and no amount of spanish study prepared me for the slang and twang of Argentine spanish. They leave off the endings of many words and run it all together and soon my spanish became one sided where interestingly enough I can speak more than I understand. ¨¿Que?¨ has become my favorite word which means What? as I try to gain more time to understand what they are asking me. After they repeat it louder and usually faster. At this point I usually just start talking about where Im from and what my plans are for Argentina which usually has nothing to do with what they said/asked, or nod say yes a couple times and point. The outcome is usually they thank me and walk off (after I point) or they just start laughing at me and ask someone else. ITs fullproof.

Our favorite activities have boiled down to walking 10´s of km a day, exploring different neighborhoods, and going to the many parks to practice yoga, play cards, do ab workouts, and enjoy the company of other travelers. Turns out the 2 largest cities that participate in couch surfing are New York City and BsAs so there is a huge international community. We met an English guy who was a friend of Dre Kaelinas (a friend from redlands) who had just come from Columbia. Talk about a small world. But we have had yoga sessions with people from Hungary, Germany, USA, BsAs, Brasil, Estonia, England, Lithuania, and more. We have tried to contact our friend from school, Jane Carten, but that has also been difficult. After a couple attempts with email, we were able to use the phone to talk to her once, but were disconnected before we could make any plans so that never worked out. The pay phones took us about 2 days to figure out anyway. After entering every combination of numbers we could think of and trying to figure it out, we learned from some guy that you had to use exact change (25 pesos) and Viola it works. But most of these activites were for the 12 days we spent in BsAs. We first spent 5 days there then left and had to come back, this is when we started making plans.

With a few days left in America we started finally putting together plans for what we would do when we arrived. We finally came up with an outline of arriving in Buenos Aires, staying there for a couple days, then head to Mendoza which is the 3rd largest city in the country at 1 million people and nestle right next to the Andes and the tallest mountain outside of the Himalayas (a whopping 22,000ft), then take the bus over the mountains to Santiago and Pichilemu (the surf capital of all of Chile), where one of my good friends from High School, Sean, has been living for years teaching English. From there we were going to fly down to Patagonia and work our way up hiking, seeing sites, and Wwoofing near Bariloche. We started by going to the Omnibus terminal to buy our bus ticket from BsAs to Mendoza.

The Omnibus terminal is huge. Three levels over 100 ticket windows and over 100 terminals for busses to leave from. Its in one of the more destitute parts of the city, and we even saw a guy that had gotten stabbed and was bleeding all over the place at a restaurant on our way to the subway, as well as the ambulance going to pick him up. We were able to navigate the maze and buy a 375 peso ticket to Mendoza on a 14hour overnight bus. We did this the day before the departure and went back to the hostel to pack and spend one last night with the few people we had met in our short time in BsAs. The next day we packed everything and headed to our 715pm bus on the Metro. It was rush hour and the Subway was packed, like Japanese packed, where it was shoulder to shoulder, ass to face packed. We squeezed in with our giant backpacks and tried to look as local as we could in and just try to get out. We finally got to our stop and shuffled along, and up the stairs, and finally away from the crowds to the Omnibus terminal.

When we got to the terminal that is when I noticed the pocket where I had been keeping my wallet (and my passport for the bus ride) was completely unbuttoned. Not even I can usually unbutton this thing, but somewhere in the 5 minutes when we got off the subway to the ground level some dude had unbuttoned my pocket and swiped my passport that also had one of my credit cards! LAMESAUCE! With only 10 minutes until our bus left we ran around and found an internet cafe where I was able to cancel my creditcard. And not wanting to waste our bus ticket, or get back on the subway we went to catch the bus, and there was NO BUS. Then we were running around trying to find our bus (they give you a range of 20 terminals where it might leave). Our bus was scheduled to leave at 2010 and soon it was 2100 and still no bus. We tried getting on some to Mendoza with no luck. Finally, we found some Argentinian guy who was also on our bus and we ran around until we found more people in the same delemma, and our bus was an hour late and we finally jumped on and were able to calm our nerves.

AFter the 14hours we arrived in the beautiful Oasis of Mendoza that is surrounded by Vineyards and mountains and is filled with parks and fountains. There are even canals of water running next to most roads. Once we found our hostel I was able to get online and figure out the steps to getting a new passport. Long story short, the US is the only country without a consolate in Mendoza and that we had to do everything back in BsAs. So we enjoyed teh city for a day, a night, a day, and then headed back to BsAs. But our time in Mendoza was great, filled with huge parks, awesome fountains, very nice people, vegetarian restaurants, tree lined streets, a relaxed pace and lots of running around to get passport photos. But then, with our tails between our legs, we had to head back to the raging metropolis of BsAs.

We rushed back so we could file a police report and head to the embassy before the weekend. So on friday we got to the bus terminal and filed a police report. Like I said before, we can understand very little Spanish but enough to go to stores, ask for directions, buy food, make hostel reservations, but you cannot fake spanish when you are being asked very pointed questions by the Policia Federale. So after lots of frustrations the Popo´s finally found a guy that kinda spoke english and we were able to file the report necessary for my new identity and for filing for a new passport. So when we had all the paperwork in hand we rushed to the embassy with hopes of reaching American soil where we would be welcomed with open arms, english speakers, apple pie, discussions of the super bowl, but instead, we had to speak to a mirror with a speaker, with a guy that had a very sassy attitude and informed us that passports could only be processed M-TH 830am-Noon. I couldnt even report my stolen passport to the embassy to prevent someone from using it. So we then headed back to the Hostel to a hilarious homecoming after having just said our goodbyes.

We ended up having an epic weekend filled with lots of new friends at our hostel. First, an outline of a typical argentine day. Wake up 11am or later, enjoy some coffe con leche and sweet croissants, seista and eat a HUGE lunch at 3 or 4pm, do your normal daily routine till about 10pm when you eat dinner, relax and shower, then start to have some beers around midnight or so, then at 2/3am go to a club and dance till the sun comes up or later. Some of the weekend highlights include partying 10blocks with a guitar, beers, 10+ people on our way to a club that was in an old cathedral full of locals, great reggaeton, cigarette smoke, and 1 liter beers. The next night we ended up going to a bizarre club that at 2am had a trupet interlude after great music, a standup show that we understood nothing of, then a striptease by NEO, a dude totally jacked on roids, then a lap dance contest, followed by another NEO show (we left when we found out NEO was coming back on). Also lots of Foosball on the roof throughout the weekend. On Sunday we drank tons of Mate and learned an awesome card game, Yassiv, from an Israeli named Yotom. Monday we went to an incredible drum show called La Bamba Del Tiempo and had a wild Subway ride with Spanish, Swedish, and German friends until the first and one of the craziest downpours stopped us in the streets under an overhang for quite sometime. It ended up being an incredibly great time in BsAs.

On monday, at 8am I was finally able to head back to the embassy to see what I could do about my Passport. Totally lucked out. AS the first person in line I got to talk to the guy behind the mirror who greeted me with a ¨Hello Again.¨ But Got in had all my paperwork and had 2 options. Get a 1year emergency passport that day or wait 2 weeks to get my full passport. Took the 1 day option, went back and picked it up at 4pm the same day. We were then able to plan the rest of our trip. And after lots of research it turns out the easiest/cheapest way to patagonia was still through Santiago and getting a 7bus pass for $380 bucks. The buss pass can be used anywhere in ARgentina and Chile where most bus rides cost between $80-150 bucks, so it was a great deal.Now in Mendoza we met up with a girl from Germany we spent a bit of time with in BsAs and tomorrow we will get to see legendary Katie Shea. A friend from school who is working at a Winery here in Mendoza until April. It should be a great time.

So now 2 weeks after we arrived we have come full circle back to the original plan, although with a huge bump. We are back in Mendoza after using our 1st of 7 bus rides to get to Mendoza. We plan on being here through the weekend and then finally getting to Chile! Yeah! For some surfing and visiting with our friend Sean. We might even get some Spanish lessons and see if we cant get better. We have some plane tickets to fly down to patagonia on the 8th of February then we will spend a month exploring all the national parks down south and soon hopefully we will be wwoofing (ina month or so). But our spirits are high, our bank accounts are getting lower, we are making friends, learning Argentina (and so much more), and were almost back home to the mountains. We miss you all and will try to keep you updated, if you have any questions, please post them as we would love to update you on all we are seeing/experiencing.

But now off to enjoy the sunset, drink some Mate, and wander the main Plaza for some music and memories.

Ciao!

Nic and Megan