Yearly archives: 2006

Click here for pics from the last 2 days in Buenos Aires and the flight home. Last day in Buenos Aires left. We started the day getting all our bags ready so that we could check out before deciding what to do with our last 6 hours. By 9am, we had our bags packed, and left behind the counter. We hit the hotel restaurant, where we hooked up for a final breakfast with most of the group. 2 of the group had left the night before at 2am, heading off to Rio. Lucky for them, they had more vacation left to enjoy. Sadly, Jody and I were facing work in under 2 days. The last weekend. Boo. We had to make a decision on what to do. We had a little bit of shopping left to do, but we were also interested in visiting a world-known landmark, the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. This is arguably the world’s best opera house. It has a long and storied history, which I couldn’t possibly get into in this brief post. We’d heard it was beautiful, but on our first weekend in town, had walked by it, and thought it wasn’t open, due to construction. We’d later learned it was in fact open, you just had to find the right entrance. The only obstacle in our way was that we hadn’t made reservations, and heard you really need them to get in. Oh well, it was our last day, and we wanted to take the chance. Read on…

Click here for pics from the last 2 days in Buenos Aires and the flight home. Hi all… the time has come to look back on the final couple days of our trip to Argentina. When I last wrote to you all, I was seated in an Internet cafe in Mendoza writing about that great city. I was about to hop on the overnight bus to Buenos Aires, a trip lasting 13 hours or so. In order to prepare for this, I picked up a litro of cerveza, and some snacks at Norte, a local grocery strore. Funny enough, I got searched by the security guard. Guess I looked shady. Of course, all I had were some chocolates I bought at the local chocolate factory. Tartufo. If you’re ever in Mendoza, I recommend you stop by there. They are an ice cream, as well as chocolate factory. Mmm delicious. I dragged some of the gang there, and the only person who wouldn’t buy anything was Sabine, our little Swiss miss. She felt it would be unpatriotic to buy chocolate in Argentina. Oh well, I couldn’t convince her otherwise. But I digress. We got to the bus station, and I headed to the bar with my new South African mate Allen for a quick Whiskey. Yup, somewhere along the line, he sort of convinced me I should start drinking whiskey. And you know what? It’s not half bad. So, we had a quick Johnny Walker Red Label, then boarded our final overnight bus. It was a pretty sweet ride as usual. The on-board attendant was a really nice guy, and popped in a DVD called ‘The Classic Project’, which was a music video collage of hits from the 80’s. We all had a great time just guessing the songs and singing along. We figure most of the other passengers didn’t really enjoy it as much as us, but that’s life. Suffice it to say, it was yet another long bus trip where I didn’t sleep too much. That’s where the beer helped me though. I managed to squeeze in a couple quality hours of sleep anyway. I wanted to be somewhat refreshed for our last full days in Buenos Aires. Read on for more about the last day.

For pictures from Paragliding and Mendoza, click here. G´day once again from the road. My last post before Buenos Aires will be about the incredible experience I had this morning. After yesterday´s bus trip, on the way back, we had to think about what we´d like to do today. Jody wasn´t up for returning to the same area again. However, I was very keen on getting to the top of a mountain. I don´t get those chances too often. I was pretty much desperate to find a trekking group. Last night, I wandered the streets asking various tour companies about options. Sadly, there were really no intense hikes to find to my liking. It seemed my best option would be a 2 hour trek to a mountain top, followed by a series of rappels back down, followed by lunch and a couple hours soaking in hot springs. Sounded right to me, and wasnt too costly. HOwever, not knowing our bus plans, I couldn´t commit on the spot. The trip was due back in town between 6 and 8pm, but I didn´t know when we´d leave. Read on.

For pictures from our trip to the Chilean border, click here. Howdy folks, your humble narrator Steve reporting in yet again from Mendoza. We´re just wrapping up our 3 day, 2 night stay here, and I thought I´d pop in and catch you up on the last couple days. In a little under 2 hours we´re all meeting up again, to head to the bus station and pile on to the overnight bus back to BsAs. It´s about a 13 hour ride, so we´ll be arriving at 8am. It´ll be our last day and night in Argentina, and I´m already getting sad to think about leaving all this greatness behind. However, my waistline will surely thank me, and I´m almost sure the rest of my trip-mates could use a break from my non-stop self 😉 (right, Sandy?). It´s been a great couple of days, even though we opted to skip out on the wine tours in this, the greatest Argentinian wine city. That´s not to say I haven´t embibed in a few bottles of white and red on the way. Mmm mmm, one of my favourite Bodegas has been Chandon, not sure if we can get it or not. I´m heading out to do a little shopping soon, but not till I tell you about (another) great bus trip we took yesterday. Read on.

For pictures from Mendoza, click here. Quick final post. I´ve got 20 minutes to wrap up this blog, pick up my laundry at the Bubbles Lavados up the street, and meet the group for supper, and a briefing on tomorrow´s activities. We arrived early in the morning to this beautiful city. Jody and I opted out of any city tours or any responsibilities. Instead, I got some laundry together, and explored the city on my own. Local busses, trolleys, and just plain locals in general. I´m really enjoying practicing communicating down here. I ended up getting a private tour of the city hall by a security guard, who took me to the roof of the building for some very impressive views and chit-chat, even though we were both out of our language comfort zones. It was quite cool. I then went to a very large park honoring San Martin, the man largely responsible for liberating Argentina. There is a mountain-top monument to this, the greatest of National heros. The location is known as Cerro Saint Gloria. It was a nice view, and nice moment. Then, local busses back here, and now I´m writing you. It was a bit funny, because a lot of the tour group opted to take a bus tour of the city, paying a bit of coin for it. My personal city tour, using local busses and my own two feet, was almost the same thing, but cost me 3.5 pesos, instead of 25+ pesos paid by the rest of the group. Of course, I didn’t go quite as far, but I still saw most of the main sights, and even crossed paths with them twice! Well, gotta go. Just realized it´s October 31st. Hope everyone´s having a spooky night, and I guess we´ll see you in less than a week now. Till then, enjoy the week!