Monthly archives: October 2006

Click here for pictures from Salta. Okay, last post for the night, to catch you up. It’s getting late here (now in Salta), and I’ve got a 7:30am bus to catch for our next tour. We’ll be up at 4200m tomorrow, so i should rest now. We’re doing the ‘train to the clouds’, well make that the ‘mini-bus to the clouds’, as the train, for maybe political, maybe physical reasons, hasn’t been running in a year. Oh well. The past 26 hours were long for sure. The bus ride was only 19.5 hours, which was shorter than expected. the bus itself was something to behold. Picture first class in an airplane. Yup, like that. Only quieter. There were many movies, and the seats layed flat to sleep. I brought on a nice bottle of red wind, and some beer to pass the time. We were also fed once on the bus, and stopped twice for included meals. All in all, a first class experience. It didn’t seem anywhere near that long. Also gave us time to get to know some co-travellers. We’ve got a really nice group of twelve people. We all get along very well now. more…

Click here for photos from this day. Well folks, when in Rome, do as the Romans, but when in Argentina, one must certainly do as the Argentinians do, and that’s exactly how we siezed a unique opportunity on the 22nd. When we awoke, we were expecting a group meeting, and then boarding a bus for Salta (a 20 hour ride). Instead, we were told the bus didn’t leave until 10pm, so we had another full day in the Paris of South America. While we were initially bothered, since we’d mentally prepared ourselves for the long ride, this did open other opportunities. The two that came to mind were that first off, the next Air Canada flight got in at 2pm, so there was an off chance Jody might be re-united with her bag, if it hadn’t been lifted off the carousel. The second was the fact that later that day the River football team would be playing a home game. This is huge in BsAs, and we were interested in taking part. Read on…

Click here for photos from this day. Well here marks the end of our 2nd day in Buenos Aires (well, first real full day). Jody was just emailing our tour guide to let him know about the lost baggage situation. We’ll be meeting with him tomorrow morning, but the note said that if we had anything important to tell him about, we could just shoot an email. The weather was friggin’ awesome today. I’m talkin about 34 dgrees celsius here folks. Luckily, the humidity wasn’t too high either. However, the sun, she was mighty hot. Think scorched stevey-head. I’m wiped out after all the walking in the sun. We spent the day doing a self-guided tour of all the sights in downtown BsAs. We also did some shopping, we’ve started phase II of project forget Air Canada, Jody bought a duffle bag, as well as some replacement tank tops, and other things. Our tour took us all over town, to some of the important plazas, as well as to the famous theatre (Teatro Colon) and to Recoleta Cemetary, where all the rich and famous dead hang out in their mausoleums. Pretty cool place actually. We tracked down Eva Perron’s tomb (not easy to do in a place like this.) Snapped lots of pictures, of which you’ll all see plenty of when we return. We managed to get back to the hotel for what we thought was our 6pm briefing. Turns out our guide was stuck somewhere between Bolivia and Argentina, and we wouldn’t see him until the next day. Oh well, time for more adventure. read on.

Click here for photos from this day. End of first long day in Argentina. It’s been an interesting one, culminating in me sitting in a bean-bag chair working on my 3.40 peso beer – A delicious 1 liter bottle Quilmes Cristal. That works out to about $1.25 CDN. That’s more like it! In the room, a german, couple Scots, and a Dutch guy, all enjoying a couple bottles of red wine. Flashback to arrival in BsAs. No problem getting through customs. Off to baggage claim. World’s slowest conveyor belt. Time passes. I finally get my backpack. Wait another eternity, no 2nd backpack! Oh shit. Yup, somehow, Jody’s bag never made it. Bad news. Sadly, not a hell of a lot we can do. Report is filed, but I’m not holding my breath.

Well, the over-nighter was okay. Popped a Robaxacet in hopes of sleeping soundly. Didn’t, though. Asked for beef, ran out, had chicken (Ice Cream made up for that though). Asked for Cranberry juice, they had none, settled for a bottle of White Wine. Oh well. Hoped for Nacho Libre 1st, got the Notebook. Oh well. At least ‘Deception Point’ by Dan Brown is good. Flight time: about 10.5 hours.

Sitting in airport. I can now say I’ve been to Chile. If you asked me whas I did there, I’d answer, Walked down a hall, through security up some stairs, down another hall, through the duty-free area, to end up here, sitting and waiting for re-boarding. On the plus side, it’s gorgeous outside. Scored prime seats on the plane, giving us awesome views of the Andes, including the very impressive 6,962m Aconagua (the highest mountain in the Americas).