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Published: April 22nd 2008
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Iguazu
iguazu Greeting friends, family & co-workers
I am finally checking in after 1 week in Argentina & Brazil.
This past week has been very eventful. Lets start at the beginning. Left LA on the 14th & arrived in Buenos Aires (BA) the 15th. The flight was bad as the seats seem to be getting smaller. My legs were touching the seat in front the whole time. Needless to say, the sleeping pills really helped deal with that issue.
I arrived in BA and went straight to www.Palermohouse.com. It is a small hostel in Palermo right next to all the most fantastic rows of restaurants and night life. The room was fine but overall, the hostel was loud so sleep was hard to come by. The first day, I mostly napped as the sleep during the flight was very disruptive. That night, I went to Olsen Restaurant (Recommended by two good friends) & enjoyed my first bottle of Malbec, the argentinian wine, and some amazing Scandanavian food. The Malbec can be described as having the nose of a Pinot Noir & the finish of a cabernet with all those toungue snapping tanens. Pretty good stuff really but still not as
Iguazu
iguazu good as any California Syrah. The restaurant was so well decorated, it could of rivaled any in LA.
Palermo is famous for that. They have restaurant after restaurant that look more impressive than each other. Think of Palermo as SOHO in NY or Melrose in LA (Times ten!). That night, I met three crazy guys at the hostel & we went out looking for some fun at 130 am.
The next day, I had to get some miles on my shoes. I walked from Palermo to downtown & visited Evita's grave. She along with the richest of the rich in BA is barried in the most ostentatious of all cemetaries (See picture). It was still a good time but once I finished, headed back to the hostel as I was worn out. That night we hit the town again but started to smell smoke. Within an hour, our eyes were burning as the whole city of BA was covered in smoke from a major fire outside of the city. We still made it out to the most of it by going to the world best gelato place. Yes, the worlds best gelato in Argentina of all places. Before
that though I had my first Argentinian steak. Their steaks are famous as they are grass fed making the meat very lean (Keepin it Lean) and flavorfull. The team of Cam, Mike & Peter had a full dinner of Ribeye, Filet Mignon & off course a Malbec which was not too great this time.
I took a tour of the city by bike which takes over 4 hours but is well worth it. It really is the best way to see the city as you dont feel like cattle sitting in those large red buses and gives you time to see things more slowly. The soccer stadium where the Boca Jr's play was pretty sweet. They have so much juice in the city that they made Coca Cola change its logo from red to black if they wanted to sponsor them as red & white are the colors of their primary rivals.
The city is gorgeous though as the influence of the French blends in well with the Bristish buildings. There are multiple parks throughout the city which breaks up the monotony of cement and steel that make up most cities. One of the parks I called the
park of a thousand cats as it looked like people would drop off their cats there once they were no longer kittens. Dont get too sad though as they have it pretty good as the local cat lovers keep them fed pretty well. Kind of weird though to see so many cats in one park (See picture).
After a second unbeleivable steak dinner (appetizers, Full steak dinner, desert, two bottles of wine and bottled water for less than $40 US), I realized I could not deal with the terrible smoke anymore so I booked my flight to Iquazu Falls in northern Argentina. Here is a tip! If you ever come to Argentina, avoid AREOLINAS ARGENTINA with all your might. They represent all that is bad about airlines. I wanted to goto Patagonia to see the worlds last city Urushia and the penguins but the flight and land travel would of wasted a day +. I just did not want to sit in a bus for 9 hours so I went to Iguazu.
Side note for the MGA folks. No BRATZ dolls to be seen but Little Tikes have a slight presence (See picture).
Iquazu falls are actually
275 falls ( Each named Salta XXXX) along a 1.6 mile line of the Iquazu River. The access to them is via these 5 foot wide walkways built on top of the river which lets you stand right next to the falls. I woke up at 7 am & was luck enough to be the 3rd person to the falls that day. The train dropped us three off & we ran straight for Garganta do Diabo (I think that is his name). This is the major waterfall area as it is where falls are all dropping in their massive payload of water from three different sides. As the water falls, it breaks up thereby not allowing you to see anything at the bottom. The shear sounds of the water and the massive ploom of mist coming up at your face makes it awe inspiring. After about 5 minutes, my two other fellow trekkers left & I had the Diablo to myself for over 20-30 minutes.
(Paste this link to see the Diablo). Those 30 minutes made the whole 24 hours of travel worth it. The power of the water and the beauty of the nature that sorrounds it assured
me of the existence of God as such perfection is no coincidence.
I spent the next few hours walking and viewing as many of the falls as I could. Each time there was an enormous rush of adrenaline as I stood on top of each spot & looked down.
My general thoughts on the falls are that they are a top 5 destination in the world (Pyramids of Gaza, Machu Pichu, Iguazu Falls, Ephesis in Turkey (Home of the Virgin Mary), Acropolis in greece) and most definately a great family vacation place.
I will leave you with this for now. My feet are all blistered from walking everywhere so I though they are hurting, I have really enjoyed the exercise. I have been in RIO for the past 3 days & it has been clowdy. Tomorrow, I will do the touristy stuff & visit the statue of Christ & the rest of the monuments of Rio. I then will be leaving for Ilha grande to see the worlds most beautiful beach. Hopefully, I will make it out with both kidneys in tow (Haji).
I hope you enjoyed seeing the pictures & reading about the trip and
I look forward to the comments.
Peace & chicken grease,
Rodney
PS: To all the beautiful California ladies out there, Rio has nothing on you. I have spent three days here and have walked the two major beaches (Copacabana & Ipanema) and the women are no where close to as beautiful as the ones in LA. Sorry to disappoint but it is true.
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Janet
non-member comment
HOLA!
This looks awsome! Hope to see you soon.