Buenos Dias Argentina

Ah, finally a chance to rejoin the blogging world. I was feeling a touch of withdrawal. Well, as I write, I am sitting in an internet cafe in Santiago de Chile. But Christine and I didn´t come here directly - we made a three day trip to San Carlos de Bariloche in Argentina. I must admit it was one of the most amazing and beautiful places on earth. Bariloche is a little tourist honky tonk town with a chalet theme, and is famous for chocolate making (and let me say, the chocolates are nothing to shake a stick at - they are VERY good). The truly amazing part is the setting, high in the Andes nestled between several¨"alpine" lakes. Think Lake Tahoe, except several more lakes, a lot of mountains, and snowy peaks as far as the eyes can see. The hotel was equally amazing, as we had a balcony overlooking the lakes and several snow capped mountains. I spent several hours enjoying the view, although somewhat unwillingly. I caught some nasty cold in Buenos Aires which effectivel...

Well, today was officially the last full day in Buenos Aires (and as I type, I am taking my mid-day blogging break before heading out to dinner). Antother very interesting day amongst the portenos. It all started with a visit to MALBA, the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires. It was defintely enlightening, but I have come to the conclusion that modern art, no matter from what continent, is just not my cup of tea. I just don't see the value in a few pieces of jaggedly cut out blue construction paper pasted to white backgrounds and then, voila!, modern art. Even in the little Spanish I know, I could still hear people struggling to explain the pieces. For me, there's nothing to explain - you either like it or you don't. Then we hit of Carrefour, the French version of WalMart in the heart of BA, to pick up wine and other goodies. I picked the wines that were sporting security tags - anything that's worthy of theft has to be of good vintage, right? And then ...

So, it's about 11:30 pm local time and we've just returned from dinner. When I get home, my whole eating schedule is going to be thrown off! Today, we spent the morning -- shopping, the afternoon -- shopping and the evening -- shopping . . . so you can say that today was our shopping day. Argentina, as you may know, is known for its wonderful beef but what else comes from cows? Yes, amazingly soft and supple leather . . . and that's what I bought. Four leather bags and two pairs of boots all under $400 . . . YAY! It also helps that August is Buenos Aires's biggest sale month . . . so I got 50% off my leather, brown, knee-high boots which were 398 pesos originally and were marked down to 199 pesos -- about $67. Oh how I love boots. In addition to the leather and the beef, we've taken it upon ourselves to sample a couple of other cuisines while here. The other night we stood in line to eat . . . at a Mexican restaurant. Yes, there was a line to get in, appar...

Okay, with all the eating I'm doing here, I really think I'm a going to gain a ton of weight. Seriously, I'm eating a couple of sweet rolls smothered with dulce de leche for breakfast, along with an accompanying glass of jugo de naranja and cafe cortado. For lunch it could be a huge plate of pasta or half of a large pizza. Then for dinner, I'm having the requisite bife con chorizo, an enormous New York strip steak that weighs at least a pound and a half. At least I'm slurping down diet cokes to balance things out. Well, it's been two days in Buenos Aires, and I must admit, I have really come to like the city. I wasn't too sure at first - it was really cloudy and cold the first day, and as with any big city, it seemed noisy, crowded, and dirty. But scratch beneath the surface, and Buenos Aires has a rhythm and life that is unique, and wonderful. These people love their dogs - and not those little rat like things people in LA carry in their purses. The...

Today has been primarily a traveling day. After having a slow paced morning, with breakfast served in our room, we packed up all four of our suitcases, Joe's back-pack and my giant purse, dropped our things at reception and took a quick walking tour of the central town of Puerto Iguazu. It is a quaint little town with only a few shops and two really nice dining establishments; there are still several indigineous peoples selling the wares on the sidewalk and most of the locals didn't come out until after 12:30, but it was a cool day out and we enjoyed the vigourous walk up and down a steep hill leading into the center of town. Our flight out of Iguazu was on time and we arrived in Buenos Aires by 6:00 pm. The part of the city where we are staying is called "Las Cananitas," it's young and vibrant. The shopping area Palermo "Hollywood" is just a few blocks away. Our hotel is a small boutique hotel with about 8 or 9 rooms, each with it's own theme. ...

It defintely has been a very busy first two days in Argentina. Very busy, but extremely enjoyable. I have gotten ample opportunity to practice my basic, broken Spanish. I am able to form simple sentences, but it is going to take me a while to differentiate between when to use the"ir" versus "estar". I must admit, thought, that the four years of high school latin, as well as a knowledge of rudimentary Tagalog, have made it somewhat easier. I still can´t get people to believe that Lagrimas is really my surname... So yesterday Christine and I spend the entire day at the spectacular Iguazu Falls, supposedly the world´s second largest waterfall system. It is truly amazing, and far more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. The Argentinian government has built the equivalent of a natural theme park surrouding the falls, offering all sorts of soft adventures, including rides through the forest in open jeeps, cruising down the rivers and through the waterfalls i...

After nearly 20 hours of traveling, we´ve finally made it to our hotel in Puerto Iguazu. Everything has gone well, except for a two hour "minor" set back. We made it to LAX with no problems and lots of time (thanks Jamie), there was practically no wait at TSA, our flight departed on time and we had great seats. Our arrival and transfer in Santiago also went rather smoothly, as did our journey through customs in Buenos Aires. Our luggage was the first off the carousel and although the airport from which we were to take our third flight of the day was across town, that 45 minute trip still left us with a great buffer before our final flight. Well, we were overconfident! Because all seems to be going well, does not mean all "will" go well. First, we were informed that our flight to Iguazu was slightly delayed. The original departure time was supposed to be 2:30 and it was pushed back to 2:40 . . . not a problem, right? We were at the airport at 12:30, but we we...

The clock is now ticking down. We leave in just a few hours, and the last minute preparations are occurring at a furious pace. The biggest concern of the moment - how much luggage is too much luggage? Once again this year, I tried, in vain, to pack light. But how does one pack light when experiencing large swings in weather? Add to that the very stingy luggage allowances from Aerolineas Argentina, the airline who will be taking us on one leg of our trip from Buenos Aires to Iguazu. If you do not fly an international leg with Aerolineas (which we are not, we decided to go with LAN), you get a measly 15kg baggage allowance per person. Anything above that is considered excess baggage, and Aerolineas will charge about $1.50 per kg extra. That's not really a big deal, but it's annoying. And consider this fact - at last weigh in, I think Christine and I had about 80kg of luggage (about 170+ pounds). I guess that constitutes taking a third person along, huh... Right now, I th...

Aug 8 – 11 Puerto Iguazu, Argentina Aug 11 – 16 Buenos Aires, Argentina Aug 16 – 19 San Carlos di Bariloche, Argentina August 19 – 20 Santiago de Chile