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Published: April 6th 2011
Kinda artsy...
I didn't mean to over expose this, but I like it none the less.As terrible as I have been at keeping this blog updated I can assure you all that it was just because I was just having too much fun. Here's hoping I can remember enough of it to write something passingly interesting about it all. And most of that fun started in Buenos Aires. I flew in on the 12th and spent a large amount of time just resting, relaxing and recovering. This travelling business is really exhausting. But after catching up with Lillian for dinner and doing some shopping at the San Telmo Markets, I met up with my next tour group. There were 16 of us in all but two were missing. Omar who felt the need to sample the night life in BA for a few more days and James a British guy who had met someone to spend a bit of time with in BA. Both of them had arranged with Fernando's (our guide) help to meet us in Iguazu.
That left the two very religious boys John and Michael 22 and 21 from Pittsworth. They'd been homeschooled until university and were... very sweet, very innocent, very naive - possibly a little bit of fun to play
Viente-cinco de Mayo
There are heaps of streets and and statues named after dates in South America. This one had to do with Argentinian Independence. I think. with. There was a 60 something Egyptian named Ahmed - a little different from the rest of us, but he turned out to be rather sweet - he kept feeding us. There was a British couple who'd been married for a few months and this was their honeymoon. Well kind of. They'd already taken one to Spain and now they were taking another one. Planned of course because of the South American penchant for soccer. And like all good Brits this James was a mad keen soccer fan. Other than that we had girls.
An of course our incredible guide - Fernando. A short little Peruvian man who was just excellent. One of the first things he said was that he wanted to not just be our leader but also our friend. And as the tour went on he definitely did just that. The theme song of the tour quickly became "Fernando" by ABBA. Not really a song any of us would have listened to much other wise, but fun none the less. I still find myself randomly singing it now.
I didn't find that too disappointing since I wasn't there to pick up but I don't think
Ecuador??
Ahhhh... this is Argentina. some of the other girls were so blase about the matter. But nevermind. We all got along just fine. We had Kat from Canada, Bailey from San Francisco, Hazelle, Laura and Jess from the UK, Eva from Germany and us Aussies - Jodie, Tory and myself. On that first day a few of us decided to head into La Boca - the poor yet good area of Buenos Aires. Touristy with character and lots of things to buy. Of course I bought stuff.
And then that night a few of us went to the famous Cafe Tortoni to watch a Tango show. It was incredible. There was singing and talking which of course I had no idea of. It was all in Spanish! But the dancing and the outfits - stunning. I would love to be able to dance like that. So sexy. *sigh*
And then the following day we were on our way - to Colonia. Uraguay. Another country and more concerns about whether I would have enough space in my passport. Excitingly although also concerningly I am very close to needing a new passport. This one is about to honorably discharged rather than retired due to
Glass Bottles...
In San Telmo Markets old age. All those trips back and forth to New Caledonia for work sure do add up. At this stage I had 3 full pages left and cuold find a couple of tight spots in there that I thought would be just fine to slip a stamp in.
This particular customs point at the ferry terminal leaving Buenos Aires was different to most others I'd been to. The Argentinia exit officer was sitting in the same booth, right next to the Uraguayan entry officer. Thankfully they were both in a good mood so when I asked the Argentinian lady to stamp on a certain page she did and told the Uraguayan bloke that I was conerned about space and he also stamped on some random page to help me save space. I am pretty sure I looked like a major moron doing a little dance when I realised that I hadn't lost any more space. But since I knew I still had at least 8 more stamps coming up over next week I thought that it was justified.
The boat ride itself was nothing special, although the size of the boat was pretty impressive. The range and cost
Some street art
Near my hotel in Buenos Aires of the duty free on board was also disappointing but.. meh. Colonia though... I have to say I really liked it. Sadly we were only there for one and half day. It was a small sleepy little town, very pretty and we had a great first group meal and first shared bottle of wine. The first of many. We found a restaurant that was willing to move almost all their tables into a big square for us to sit around and chat and we started to get to know each other. And I new that with these people I would be making myself some good long term friends....
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