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Published: December 4th 2007
Our last few days in Buenos Aires was spent watching free tango shows (Argentinians are all about the tango so street shows are abundant), visiting the posh Recoleta Cemetery, and doing all sorts of "touristy" things. The cemetery was opened in 1822 and is the final resting place of many famous people, the only one of familiarity to us being Eva Peron. It is in a pretty swanky part of town with storefronts among the Ralph Lauren, Cartier, and Armani variety and sidewalks occupied by the uber wealthy and their purebred pooches. We felt slightly underdressed and out of place!
Some random notes on Argentina/Buenos Aires:
We've learned that Argentinians are all about the dulce de leche, which is a thick caramel spread that they put on EVERYTHING. Supermarkets have entire isles dedicated to it, and it is served with just about everything: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They put it on crackers, on bread, on ice cream, in tea, on fruit ... OY! We think it is gross (like, really gross) and avoided it at all costs.
We've also learned that Argentina's seemingly impeccably clean streets (in comparison to anywhere else we've seen thus far in South America)
Recoleta Cemetary
Kinda fun, kinda creepy. are thanks to the city's nightly trash separators. After dark, the side streets become big stinky messes as garbage bins are dumped and sorted, but amazingly, the sorting is always completed by dawn and there are no clues left behind to indicate the garbage monster had been there.
The best lesson we've learned though, is the intricate game of "Frogger" that one undertakes each time he attempts to cross the street. We run fast, they drive fast. As in all South American cities we've experienced, street crossing in BA is a challenge. The exception is that it seems to be tougher here than anywhere else. In Canada, we are used to pedestrians having the "right of way" - uh, definitely not the case in SA. Drivers actually speed up to see if they can hit you when you cross. The worst street to tackle so far has easily been "Ave 9 de Julio" in Buenos Aires -- think
14 lanes of "run for your life!"
Anyhow, after 8 days in Buenos Aires, we bused 17 hours north to Puerto Iguazu where we are now. Seventeen hours on a bus is enough to make anyone cringe... unless of
course, it's 17 hours on a bus in
Argentina. We were treated to nonstop movies (some even in English, a most welcomed surprise!), fully reclining seats, and meals. The cherry on top was the complimentary "nightcap" of champagne or a shot of whiskey. "You've got to be kidding me!" Ha ha, that's what we said! Oooh la la!
Happy Travels,
Team Canada
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shelley
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The Coldest Winter In Canada
Hi my honey's Just wanted to let you know the news report that said this will be the coldest winter across Canada in 15 years. I want you to re-live what you would be going through right now in Edmonton, the scraping and sweeping off the car, the wind chill bite on your fingers, burrrrr! Doesn't that make you feel good to know you are missing all that? We already had a huge dump of snow here in Abbyville, and then the next day it rained and it was all gone. I got the X-mas decorations up, another thing you don't have to worry about this year. Where do you think you'll be for X-mas? When you come back I'll make you a big turkey dinner. Love you lots ....Yo Mama