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Published: February 13th 2007
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Air Conditioning anyone?
This building made me laugh.. It was a sad sad day when we had to pack up that cabaña and head back into the bustle of city life again. Although, the 'big' city in Uruguay is Montevideo..and there are only about 1 million people there I think - and 3 million in the entire country (so it's really not THAT big) It´s an awesome country...if i haven´t said that before...a million times...Montevideo was cool too - old buildings and pretty parks..If i move here, i'd live in Montevideo for awhile. We did a little shopping (really holding out for Buenos Aires though..) and wandered around ¨Old Town¨ and along the harbour walk (much like the seawall..but not in a big park) and had a fabulous all you can east Asado (bbq).
With our eyes set on being in Buenos Aires for the San Telmo market on Sundays only..we had to keep on moving - so we hit up the small little city of Colonia de Sacramento. A city with parts of the huge protective walls still standing - we tried climbing and conquering the wall..we failed..however, there was a huge drawbridge left open for us about 100 feet away! Lucky for us! We walked around
Sunset in Montevideo
along the boardwalk.. this small city, taking in all the colonial buildings and ´roads´, climbed to the top of the light house for an awesome view, saw another incredible sunset (we could see the bright lights of Buenos Aires across the water once the sun went down!), ate some more deliciously inexpensive food, and got ready to say our goodbyes to Uruguay...
We took the Buquebus across the river to Buenos Aires, arriving quite late into the city on a saturday night..exhausted and not really in the same mood as our dorm roomates were in...luckily they didn't come home the next morning until we were pretty much awake anyway! We made it in time to check out the big antiques and artisan market in San Telmo on Sunday...where we made the decision that we should send a box of stuff home because the shopping was just too good in Buenos Aires!! That night we took in a Tango show, and man...my tastes have changed from soccer players to tango dancers! Man can those people move!! It was an incredible show of passion and love and loss...all rolled into a musical (with only about 3 songs with words..everything else depicted by the dance).
Montevideo
beautiful buildilngs..and palm trees! The story was of an immigrant woman who falls in love with a dock worker the moment she steps off the boat into Buenos Aires..of course this love is ill fated - with the rich pimps buying her love. The true lovers are reunited and torn apart through various dance duels with the good and bad gangs..and eventually our hero is killed - and our heroine has one last dance with her lovers spirit. It was so sad! Neither of us would have predicted such a sad ending! The dancing was passionate, intense, and above all incredibly moving! If only we could all move like that and express ourselves in that way!
The next day we went to the horse track..to place some bets on some fast horses to repay the debt we had gone into with all the shopping the previous day. Haha. Ok, kidding...but we did go to the race track. And we did place bets (1 peso bets between 4 of us...i lost all 3 times we made a bet...down 3 pesos. Damnit!). The following day we went to an incredible cemetary - and that may seem a little morbid - but this place was incredible.
My new Apartment
That little bright one..in the corner..who wants to come visit? The super rich and famous of Buenos Aires are laid to rest here in elaborate displays and statues. It's number one claim to fame is the Evita's grave- yes..the ¨don´t cry for me Argentina¨one! Another day we found this amazing sail boat docked in the harbour - it had made 33 world voyages, it's last one in 1938 - it was so old and so fabulous. It has been turned into a museum and it was really cool to be able to check out all the nooks and crannies! We went to another Tango show on Wednesday night, which didn't even come close to the standard set by our first show! It was still enjoyable none the less.
The last highlight to share from Buenos Aires was...the FUTBOL game!!! It was fantastic - and every bit as crazy as we had imagined it would be. A friend of ours who we met in Mendoza a few weeks back (he lives in Buenos Aires) took us to a game a little out of the center of town. A game between Villez (¨his¨team) and Newell's Old Boys. It was a gong show! We started off the game on the seats pretty
Climbing over the wall...
there weren't very good foot holds! much at center field - where things were a lot calmer than the end zones. We wanted to see some of the game from a good angle before we got straight into the mess of things! And then at half time we made our way to the endzone...where all the craziness really is. The game was really fun, we learnt some Argentinian Soccer chants (my favourite was one that sounded a lot like PANCHO FRIIIOO - meaning Cold Hotdog...we all had a good laugh when i inquired as to what they were actually saying and what i thought they were saying... (or were they laughing AT me..hmmm). Anyways, my thing for soccer players has returned. So...a tango dancer or a soccer player will do - too bad we are leaving Argentina tonight!!
ps - we are in Salta right now (in the north of Argentina) - we got in on monday morning - and are leaving tonight (tuesday) to make our way to the border with Bolivia. Salta has a teleferico thing too - like the one in Santiago - and it was pretty cool, despite the rain - but it made for quite the ascent into the clouds!
Old town of Colonia
pretty cobblestone streets and old buildings We opted to walk up the mountain and then cable box it down..training for Machu Picchu!!
Much love to everyone - i really do miss you all! And wish you could coem join me down here 😊
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Mom
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PANCHO FRIIIOO - Cold Hotdog
So WHAT did it eventually turn out to be? Happy Valentine's Day!