Tuesday 31 January 2012

Empanada por favor!

I seem to be recieving my blog reminders again, so its time to type up another one! I´m glad many of you liked my first entry. My head got quite swollen after all the great feedback, but don´t worry it quickly deflated after seeing myself in the mirror in my bathing suit after how many Empanada´s I ate in Buenos Aires.


Amanda and I enjoyed our last few days together in Bariloche. We shopped, had chocolate and participated in a 30 km (thankfully shorter than originally planned) bike ride around Circuito Chico.  The bike ride took us 6 hours. This has been my favourite activity so far. It was difficult to bike through the mountains, but the beautiful views and the fresh lakes to jump in to were well worth it. And I can´t forget the bike rental shop gave us chocolate at the end of our route! Later that night I met a guy at the hostel who told me he saw me walking my bike uphill on the route (how embarassing). He claimed I looked tired and we got talking about how we don´t have hills where I´m from in Canada. This surprised him greatly, and he told me that he heard that Canadians live underground to avoid the cold.. I exlpained to him that it is cold, but most people in Canada manage to live better than the average rabbit.

Circuito Chico

 





I left Bariloche at noon on January 23rd for an overnight bus ride to Buenos Aires.  The bus was excellent, especially after a young waiter took extra liking to me and gave me luxury treatment. I sucessfully checked in to Millhouse hostel which lies just off of Avenida 9 de Julio. It is common in South America for streets to be named after dates - 9th of July being Argentina´s independence day.  This Avenue is particularly interesting because it occupies an entire city block. On either side runs an express way connecting the south and north sides of the city, and
in the middle are monuments and greenspace. Originally, this grotestly large boulevard seemed very interesting to me, but soon became my nemisis as I inconveniently never seemed to be on the side of the boulevard that I needed to be..



My first day in Buenos Aires was great. I caught the subway went to Palermo, an artsy district of B.A. There were many shops, restaurants, bars and like in true Argentine fashion nothing seemed to be open. I then ventured over to the Botanical Gardens and then to Museo Eva
Peron (Evita Museum). This was excellent. It was very interesting to see her story told from the Argentine side, viewed as a very passionate but controversial leader.  That night I was the
first night I got to see what brings most travellers to Buenos Aires- parties. 
My Millhouse hostel was one of two a couple blocks apart. This hostel had 6 floors with about 8 dorms per floor, mostly filled with Aussies. Each night one of the two hostels had a joint party with my favourite part, happy hour!



My second day I ventured to Ave Florida a vehicle-free street filled with shops and people then over to the beautiful mall of Galleria Pacifico.  This mall had tile floors and a gorgeously painted ceiling. After strolling around for a few hours I hoped back on the subway and down to Palarmo area again to see the Japanese gardens. Buenos Aires has a lot of greenspace for such a large city, with most streets shaded by old trees. The architecture of the old buildings is
spectacular as well.



January 26th Colin Parsons joined me in Buenos Aires. He arrived early afternoon after a long flight from Winnipeg.  Him and I wondered around Palermo area and through some of the parks. When we got back to the hostel we our roomies. 3 other Canadians from Vancouver and
¨Aussie Lee¨. All of our roomates had just arrived that day to South America. Colin and I ventured down to happy hour which would be exceptionally busy because as we were explained, it was Australia Day in Australia.  The patriotism of the Aussies in our hostel only seemed to feed off each other, making for a pretty job night! As we entered the drink line we met 2 solo travellers from the other hostel. Jakob Jakobsen (honestly) from Denmark and ¨Aussie Jaime¨.  Later, Lee would join us as well and the group of us partied together all night.



The next morning, after waking up slowly we learnt that Lee at the end of the night found a great Empanada place near our hostel. So for the first of many visits, we ventured over for lunch.  That afternoon Lee, Colin and I visited the gritty, colorful area of La Boca. We saw the tango, the pro soccer stadium and vibrantly colorful buildings.  On the way home from La Boca, we picked up more Empanadas. That night we attended the usual hostel party, where Colin has discovered a new love - Quilmes beer.

La Boca




Colin and I decided to visit Roceleta Cemetery the next day. Actually, we planned to visit the Urban Eco Reserves we had heard such good things about. But, after my bad navigations we ended up in the opposite direction. Fortunately, we were near Roceleta Cemetery. This is a massive cemetery in Buenos Aires I had planned to visit. Colin was not so wild about this visit, I believe his words were ¨this is just creepy¨. I promised him we could stop for Empanadas on the way back.  I have since been contemplating keeping a blog of all the strange things I drag Colin to and his reactions.  I found the cemetery to be very interesting. That night Colin, Lee and I decided to upgrade from our usual cuisine of Argentina. Colin had been talking about Argentinean steak since he landed, so that was what we were going to find. He claimed it was better than any of the steak back home, so our adventure was a success!  We later met with Jakob Jakobsen and got our first taste of Buenos Aires night life. The hostel sets up shuttles to go from the parties to a designated bar, a fun, safe way to experience the nightlife.


Sunday was our last day in Buenos Aires. Colin, Lee and I wondered around San Telmo market. This is a famous market in Buenos Aires that is only on sundays. It is known for its antiques. Although no one bought anything, we enjoyed the atmosphere.  The three of us went out for our last Empanda together.  We hung out at our hostel that night with our other Canadian roomies and played cards. Our Canadian roomies are on the same path as Colin and I until Carnaval. We all left the next morning for Montevideo, Uruguay. Colin and I boarded a ferry at 8 am the next morning.  We had an hour on the ferry and 3 on a bus to land us in Montevideo, where we met the other canadians. Montevideo was loud, stinky, and dirty - I joked that
it is just like my travel partner. Speaking of dirty and smelly, I decided to do laundry in Montevideo. I took all of mine, and some of Colin´s clothes to a laundry mat by our hostel. We explained to the woman working there that we needed our clothes back that day because we had a bus out at 10 am the next morning. She agreed that they would be ready by close, 7 pm.  Colin and I returned to pick up our belongings at 630, only to find the laundry mat closed.  We were very confused and a bit paniced, because if Montevideo was anything like Argentina this place may not be open again until next month!  We had no choice but wait and return again in the morning.  Montevideo was definitely not my favourite, but we made the best of it. We spent the day on the beach and played a spanish version of Pictograma at the hostel that night with our Canadian group and some Chilean travellers.
We returned to find a closed laundry mat again the next morning. Now we were a bit panicked, as I had been wearing my beach wrap as a shirt for the previous 18 hours.  Luckily, the other Canadian travellers were on the same route as us that day and departing a bit later, so they agreed to pick up our things. Although relieved we would be getting our things back, I was slightly disappointed that I no longer could justify buying a new wardrobe.



Colin and I arrived by bus to Punta del Este in the afternoon. This is a beautiful, posh beach city. We are staying about 400m from a massive beach just outside the city. We spent the day on the beach where we met Aussie Jamie from Millhouse hostel and returned back to our hostel
to find the Canadians with our laundry!! We plan to stay here for a couple nights, then off to another beach town a bit more remote, Punta del Diablo.



Time for happy hour, ciao for now!!

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