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Published: October 7th 2006
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Cemetary
The sky was so beautiful and the angels were just out of heaven So now we are actually back in Buenos Aires, we have a wonderful layover of about 8 hours, but had to switch airports in the process. Time here is now 1:45am and our flight leaves at 8:45am for Lima and then we go to Quito, Ecuador to begin our volunteering in the Galapagos. We aren´t too happy about the layover, especially because the only Internet cafe here doesn´t have a USB hook up so we can´t even upload any photos while we are here...but it does still give us a chance to get updated with the blog.
So this entry refers to Friday 9/22. After a particularly late night we didn´t wake up until about 12:30 and upon leaving the hostel we took our cigarette stenched clothes to the laundry and went for lunch at a good steak place recommended by the front desk guy at our hostel. Argentina is famous for its cheap steak and they eat more beef here than we do in America! The place we ate at is called Desnivel and Aaron had a great steak for only 15 pesos (about $5 US) and I had some delicious pork. We explored the area around there called
Evita´s grave
Just a marble facade, but no big angles. San Telmo, famous for antique shops and turn of the century architecture. We ended up in a big park that we had passed on our bike tour the day before and knew there was a museum in the center, so we went and had a look, it was the national history museum, but happened to be fairly uninteresting and somewhat stark on the inside. The building was an old house that was donated to the city by a dominant family and was the supposed site of the city´s founding in 1536. When we got outside it started to sprinkle so we made our way to the subway as the rain became increasingly harder. When we got out of the subway by the hostel it was pouring and we had to run the couple blocks to the hostel and still managed to be drenched when we got there, luckily we had some clean clothes waiting for us at the laundry. That night we went to a recommended (by Lonely Planet) Italian restaurant which was definitely disappointing, the sauces being dull and flavorless, but I did get to have some broccoli, which I had been missing (some of you know about how
The falls
Not even 1/2 of the falls, Francisquito didn´t get wet though much I love broccoli). After dinner we had tickets to a jazz show, also recommended by our guy at the front desk. The show didn´t even start until about midnight and we had a front row table for only 30 pesos each (about 10 bucks). Aaron was disappointed though because there wasn´t a drummer in the quintet (Tomas Gubitsch Quineto) but it was definitely a great performance with a guitar, piano, bass, violin, and accordion! Very unusual music and a certainly unique and Argentinean flavor. We were home by 2:30 and went to bed.
Here is Saturday 9/23. We woke up early because we thought we had to change hostels, but just as we had everything packed and ready the front desk called to tell us that a reservation had cancelled and we could stay another night, we were relieved, we liked the hostel. We left to go to the famous cemetery which was in a richer neighborhood in BA. We took the subway again and got out there to find a huge street fair going on with lots of vendors selling things aimed at the Argentineans, not necessarily tourists, it was cool and the stuff was unique. We wandered around the cemetery for a while, all the graves are big tombs above ground, ornate with lots of angels and crosses, it was a beautiful day, I can´t wait to upload some of the pictures. We saw Evita´s grave (most famous Argentine, remember Madonna in the movie Evita) and I was somewhat disappointed, there were a ton of plaques honoring her but the actual family tomb wasn´t anything special, no carved angels, but they didn´t know she would be so beloved (she won the vote fro women and helped the poor, elderly and children most during her husband´s presidency). After the cemetery we stopped in the Fine art Museum that was across the street and I was very impressed with their collection, it included Picasso, Modigliani, Degas, Rubens, Monet, even a small Jackson Pollack, as well as a floor dedicated to modern Argentinean artists. Inspiring... After the museum we had to get back to the hostel to get picked up to go to our soccer game! The soccer game was something totally different than a sporting event in America. We wish we could have gone to a Boca game (the Argentinean team that has mad it to world cup several times) the Boca stadium was in La Boca (the poor area) and looked like it was falling down, the concrete was cracked and crumbling, but it would have been an incredible game. The game we did go to was out in the suburbs about 30 minute drive outside the city and it was Velez vs. Belgrano. The fans were the real crazy part, they have 2 sections for what Aaron calls the ¨hooligan¨ fan. At each end of the field behind the goals all the crazy fans have flags, sing, jump, wave their arms in a totally different way than we do, and basically go crazy for the whole game. When the first goal was made, by Velez, they shot off a blue flare! and the opposing team shot off a something that sounded like a cannon and a bunch of white smoke came out, it was crazy. Velez won 2-0 and they had riot police escorting out the other team´s fans like it happens like that every day, it wasn´t even an important game or anything, they are just die-hard fans. It was a great experience. We followed it up by going to an incredible steak place for dinner called La Brigada, it was recommended by our friend Hugh, he had told us that they cut the steak with a spoon there, so we had to go. It was true, when we got there they were serving a table and cutting the meat with a spoon! It was a great dinner Aaron had steak and I had the biggest ribs I´ve ever seen. It was perfect for our last night in BA.
Sunday 9/24. After only about 4 hours of sleep we got up and went to the airport, and realized it was the wrong airport! We got a taxi and actually made our flight with time to spare, luckily we always plan extra time for stuff like that. We were off for one day in Iguazu Falls. When we arrived we befriended a taxi driver and had him take us to our hotel and then take us to the national park and after our day there the same guy picked us up and then even the next day he took us back to the airport! Our day at Iguazu was great. We did several hikes and saw lots of wildlife, coaties, toucans, lizards of all sizes from 5 inches to almost 4 feet long! We even did a boat ride that took us basically under one of the falls, we got totally drenched and felt dumb for wearing our jeans, but we´d gotten up at 5am... After hanging out on the beach in our undies while our pants dried off we went and did some more walks and saw the falls from all the different angles. One was the ¨devil´s throat¨ it looked like the end of the world where the ocean spills off, it was completely breathtaking and unimaginable, the pictures are awesome.
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wendy Albrecht
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Hi Beth, I just LOVE reading your updated blogs! Everything sounds so amazing and I can't imagine the soccer game and the wild fans. And I'm so surprised that they had so many masters represented in their fine art museum. And steak with a spoon! Yummy! Love, Wendy