Since I las wrote, a lot has happened. Most of the time was spent in Buenos Aires, with exeption to three days in Ushuaia. I just got to El Calafate, Argentina last night.
Buenos Aires ended the way it began, rather eventless and relaxing. We were supposed to fly to Ushuaia on March 4, but we missed our flight with a priceless bonehead move. I thought the flight was 7 at night and it was really at 7AM. Oh well. I ended up convincing the owner of our apartment to give us the monthly rate since we had to stay there an extra week. This made a big difference because now we didn´t have to pay for the extra 6 days. It must have smooth talking because I would have never let anyone do that.
Anyways, we ended up hanging out with Ilona and Cornelis, the Dutch couple quite a bit for the next couple of days. We found a take-out parilla, that was insanely cheap, so we ate dinner there almost every night. At the parilla, for Lauren and I, we would get 2 HUGE prime steaks, a huge order of potatoes prepared any way you like, and some other kind of protein, desert (we normally got the amazing flan), and a 2.5 litre soda. All of this cost a whopping 12 American Dollars. The soda was good. We need something like it in the USA. Its generic name is pomelo, which means grapefruit. All it is, is grapefruit juice and a little carbonated water with a little extra sugar. It was like 96% grapefruit juice so I felt alright drinking it! The two nights we didn´t eat at the parilla were the nights we decided to set out to find chinese food. Cornelis and I decided this at about 4 AM one morning before bed. We were pretty burnt out on steak. Also, argentines don´t use any spice other than salt when they cook so we were really looking forward to some curry or something exotic like PEPPER! We looked up ¨best chinese food in Buenos Aires¨ and chose a place called Buddha Garden or some crap. After recruiting the new English guy, Glen, and rounding up Lauren and Ilona, we went for our food. It was in China town and we were all salivating on the walk there because we could smell the egg rolls cooking in all that tasty grease. After walking past all of the ¨ghetto¨ chinese places that were all packed, we arrived at the Buddha Garden, which was chic decor, PF Changs type of chinese place. It wasnt really what we had expected but we decided to trust the reviews we found on google. It turned out that it wasn´t even chinese. It was that fusion type of asian food, which I could care less about. We all pretty much felt that way. It ended up being too expensive and we decided that we would do the ghetto chinese food the next day. Ghetto chinese food was one of the best things we decided to do in Buenos Aires. It ended the longest streak of no chinese food ever experienced in my life!
We did a few things other than eat and go to soccer games in Buenos Aires. We explored the different neighborhoods and saw the tourist sights. I really enjoyed the parks in Palermo. Other cities could really take some notes from the expansive parks down there. They stretch for miles and miles. I also liked the Puerto Madero area, which is main port.
Ushuaia is badass. After our extra week in BsAs we got our flight to Ushuaia. It was really cool because its about like Alaska. The southern most town in the world (all the way at the bottom of South America, on the island of Tierra del Fuego) was exciting from the get go. Flying in, it was super cloudy, like you´d expect, and we came out of the clouds and were practically on the ground. That was a little nerve racking, with all the recent plane crashes and all. We stayed at a beautiful hostel overlooking the Beagle channel. There was a pool table and leather couches and a nice sound system on the top floor lounge, with panoramic windows around the whole room, for views of the channel. We spent quite a bit of time up there planning our attack of the pacific coast of South America. We hiked up the Marital Glacier while we were here, which gave great views of the town and the Ushuaia bay. We were going to go to the National park but it was insanely expensive, so we saved our money and ate a ton of the local king crab that night!
For the trip, we decided to head up the atlantic coast, on the paved road, then over to El Calafate to do some hiking and see some ENORMOUS glaciers. I´m in El Calafate now, getting ready to sit down with someone to plan my treks through Torres del Paine and my trip up to the Perito Moreno Glacier. It is one of the few advancing glaciers in the world. It moves toward the lake every day and huge, 60 meter tall, walls of ice fall into the lake when it reaches. I wish I had about $5000 more to do everything I wanna do down here in Patagonia! Unfortunately we´re gonna have to make it back to North Carolina within budget, so that means bussing it up to Peru ASAP after Patagonia. Hopefully we´ll be able to spend a week in Mendoza, to try some wines and tour a couple vineyards.
After my expeditions through Parque Nacional Los Glaciares and Torres del Paine, I´ll update again! See you guys soon. We´re on the home stretch!
Loved talking with you last night and then reading this account today! I am glad you are having such a great time, but I sure miss you! Love you!
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