May 30, 2005 - First day in southern hemisphere

Buenos Aires, Argentina "Good morning southern hemisphere of the blue planet." were my first words as I stepped out of the plane at Buenos Aires, Argentina. As usual, I had no idea how to go where I'm going (of course, I could take a taxi, but that's not fun or cheaper). In fact, I realized that I even didn't bring the address of the place where I wanted to go. Fortunately, after fumbling into my stuff, I found that hostel's name and address from somewhere. More fortunately, the folks at the airport were quite helpful. I had also not...

May 25, 2005 - Beunos Aries - Bustling and Beautiful

We arrived in Beunos Aries around breakfast time after another long bus journey from the falls. Being a big city we decided to organise accomodation ahead of time so as to be in the area we wanted and avoid chasing our tails for a day. This story is evidence that as good as the guide books are they don`t always get it right. We arrived at "Lime House" after a short ride with the world's grumpiest taxi driver. The Hostel was a so described funky hostel with a great atmosphere and comfortable rooms. Well sorry but that place was an absolute...

May 25, 2005 - Buenos Aires, Argentina

After having a surprisingly good time in Santiago (many travellers I have met didn't really like it there), it was time to move on to Argentina. Flying in I felt a kind of sadness that this is really the last leg of my travelling experience for the time being (North from Buenos Aires to Rio over the next 5-6 weeks) before having to go back to work. After staying in the world's flashest hostel in Santiago, I knew that I probably had spoiled my hostelling experience from this point onwards. As it happens I have found a reasonably good one in...

May 16, 2005 - Buenos Aires, Argentine

Hola! from Buenos Aires. We arrived yesterday (5/15)morning, to a gray day in Argentina. We took a bus to our hotel and dropped our bags for a search to find coffee and food. Within the 3 blocks of where we are staying we saw a TV commerical or movie being filmed in the middle of the street and a bike race or tour start on the main street through town, very exciting. I have to take a quick break and ask you, our readers, to kindly overlook any spelling or typing errors. The combination of not having a spell check and different keyboards to...

May 13, 2005 - Aires

ENGLISH TEXT BELOW Apres 9 jours, j'ai l'impression d'etre toujours en train de "digerer" la ville. C'est beaucoup de bruit, de fumees noires de pots d'echappement, de multitudes de gens qui courent dans tous les sens et d'humidite. Car qu'il fasse chaud ou froid, il fait toujours lourd (et c'est ete comme hiver a ce que l'on m'a dit) et cette humidite fait que j'ai l'impression de transpirer de la salete et que ma peau est un desastre. Comme me l'a fait remarquer Marcelo, la ville est dos a la riviere, quand on est dans le centre, il n'y a...

May 9, 2005 - Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires es una ciudad muy linda...muy al estilo europeo ya, muy diferente del resto de las ciudades que eh visto en Sudamerica. Y ya sabé que los argentinos hablan muy muy chevere;)) jiji Tiene una arquitectura muy bonita, segun dicen, muy al estilo de Paris..yo no puedo comparar, ya que nunca estuve en Paris... La gente es muy muy amable, muy acogedora!! Increible, te dan de todo, te ofrecen todo lo que tienen, gente verdaderamente muy buna. Me siento muy agusto aqui, ya solo me falta poder averiguar donde viven mis familiares,...

May 5, 2005 - Beunos Aires

Beunos Aires is a pretty amazing city. Its very European in both its architecture and food, although the steak is unsurpassable, as is the wine and the Chocolate... We met up with a English couple on the first day who were pretty nuts about soccer, and they were going to go out to the local match, so we taged along and got the rules run down on the way. It was a pretty cool the fans cheer and sing and jump and get right into it. We also went out to a street market selling antiques, pretty boring stalls but the area of the city was really...

May 4, 2005 - Mendoza and Buenos Aires

Photos will be added as soon as I find a computer in Auckland (where I now am) that will allow me to connect my camera. I finally put my Lan Ticket (transfer flights in both Peru and Chile) to good use (having already cancelled three flights in favour of overland travel) when I flew back from Punta Arenas to Santiago. I went straight from the airport to the bus terminal where I caught a bus over the Argentinian border to Mendoza (I now have sixteen Chilean and Argentinian passport stamps from all of the criss-crossing of their borders I...

Apr 24, 2005 - ARGENTINA - Buenos Aires

We arrived in BsAs, as it is referred to by the locals, after spending an uneventful night at an airport hotel in Santiago. It was Sunday afternoon and we were hit by the chill of autumn in the air. Everyone was bundled up, but the sun was shining and the sky was very blue! This is another city where I had always wanted to come. It probably has to do with my love of music and of course seeing the musical Evita when I was young added to the magic of the city. (Perhaps I should stop watching musicals... after writing that line I can see that...

Apr 24, 2005 - I have arrived!

Wow. So I'm finally here! I was and am looking forward to the challenges this adventure will bring, but so far my maximum stress level has been with preparing to come and not actually being here. My plane ticket was a three-day hassle, my immunizations were completely by the seat of my pants, I was sick the entire week I was getting ready, I had to cram a month and a half of preparations into five days, and my ride to Portland (the airport) fell through last minute! My good friend Ben ended up shuttling me to Portland Friday eve where I...

Apr 22, 2005 - Buenos Aires Again

What is it about this town???? in a city of 14 million people, I would hardly expect to see anyone I know without an appointment, yet it seems no matter what time of the day or night I go out, George pops up somewhere... 2 am in the morning... wandering down deserted streets.. restaurants... pubs... Maybe we should get married as Anna suggested! It is Friday again and everyone is in town, so we hope to find a decent club this time( I have one lined up, but it had better be good) On another matter: I am a dismal failure! I only had one...

Apr 5, 2005 - Fly Bariloche to BA

6th April - Up early only to find out that Paragliding was cancelled. What a surprise. Bariloche is a very activity orientated place however as it is all outdoors everything is weather dependent and other than my first day there the weather was dull, overcast, windy and wet. Left hostel at 12pm for lunch with the group. It was nice and also sad to realize that we were all heading our separate ways after this meal. Lally and Jessie were heading on to El Bolsen that evening and Karen was gone the next day and Andre was planning on spending...