Sunday, April 25, 2010
October 29th, 2008
I left for El Calafate and arrived in Rio Gallegos at 7 am October 30th. Rio Gallegos is the stopping point for everyone going further south to El Calafate, Ushuaia......The next bus to Calafate left mid day. Sooooo....I caught the bus to El Calafate at 12 and took a taxi to the wonderful hostel that I stayed at there. The floor were heated and absolutely wonderful. The hostel was very cozy and the staff was friendly. I decided to relax in El Calafate a little bit. I planned a mini-trek on the glacier moreno for sunday, November 2nd.
October 25th, 2008
We left for Puerto Madryn on another really long bus ride. Thankfully there are bathrooms and the buses like I said are quite luxurious in Argentina. We arrived in Puerto Madryn with reservations for one hostel and apparently we didn't actually have reservations there. We ran into a couple girls that we had met in BA. We went back to this other hostel and stayed there. This hostel only had one bathroom for women AND......one shower....AND....the bathroom and shower were in the same area so you couldn't even pee while someone was in the shower, yucko!! But we had a nice time nonetheless. I don't remember what we did on the Sunday. On the 27th, we went on a whale watching tour. It lasted the entire day....was a lot of fun, but a really long day. The next day 28th, we went on a tour where we got to see Penguins in the national park and we also went to a Welsh village. It was all a lot of fun. Sadly my traveling time with Sue came to an end and she returned back to BA that evening when we finished our full day tour. I'm not good at saying good-bye. I really love having someone to travel with and hate when I'm left :(! But so glad that Sue came to travel with me a bit.
Iguazu to Buenos Aires
Sue and I left Iguazu on October 23rd after going to see La garganta del diablo at Iguazu falls. Another looooooong bus ride back to the capital. We made it back on an overnight bus....The buses in Argentina are quite luxurious. On the bus ride to Iguazu we were on a "super-cama" bus, the bus seats pretty much lay completely down, they serve you steak, wine, champagne, etc. Nice. Our bus ride back was a cama bus. Almost as good as super-cama, a little cheaper and we may not have gotten champagne. We made it back to BA the afternoon of October 24th and decided to stay at Tango Backpackers Hostel in Palermo. Vania y Caro were staying there and we decided to stay there with them. It was a quick turn around as we left the next day for Puerto Madryn in Patagonia, beautiful!!!
Sue's arrival in BA
Sue arrived on October 17th. We went shopping in Palermo on saturday....ahhhh, I someday hope to go back to do some shopping there. On Sunday we went shopping in Recoleta and went to the Cemetary. We of course found the grave of Evita and some other famous people. We took the very long bus ride (I think about 18 hours, mas o menos) to Iguazu Falls, Argentina. Before leaving for Iguazu, we made a quick trip to La Boca for Sue to see that area of the city. We arrived in Iguazu Falls on October 21st. We attempted to go to the Brazilian side of the Falls. I say attempted because we were denied without Brazilian visas, Booo!!! We were told that most of the time you just stay on the bus and go right to the falls and there are no problems, but apparently we were the unlucky ones that were told a big fat NO! I asked a taxi driver later that evening if we could somehow get across just to see the Falls from the Brazilian view point and he proceeded to tell me that we could....but there were some stipulations....I had to pretend to be his gf. I guess taxi drivers can cross the borders easily......Yeah, we declined that! We opted to take a jungle and boat tour on the Argentinian side of the Falls. I highly recommend it. They take you right into the falls. OF course this would not fly in the USA or Canada or many other countries for that matter, but it was AWESOME. We were drenched (as you will see in several photos). We didn't have time to go to La Garganta del diablo (ginormous part of the falls) that day, so we returned the next day to go see it. It was also very amazing. Such a glorious place. I highly recommend Iguazu Falls as a destination. It chumps Niagara Falls big time. Don't get me wrong, I still think Niagara is beautiful, but wow.....this is just endless. Check out the photos!!!
BA to Uruguay to BA
Toward the end of October 2008, I made my way to Uruguay for a few days. I took the Buquebus Ferry over to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. I went with several girls from my hostel in BA. It was so cold and rainy. My 2 peruvian friends went back to BA and Dana (from Israel) and I went on to Montevideo. Dana and I took the bus from Colonial to Montevideo. Uruguay seemed pretty similar to Argentina in it's scenery and the accents were also very similar. I spent a couple nights in Montevideo. Dana and I stayed with her friend from Uruguay which made it fun to get to know the place with a local. During the day we took a little tour of Montevideo with a tour company since we had so little time to explore there on our own. I had to make it back to BA as Sue was flying in to spend a couple of weeks with me traveling. I ended up going back on the Buquebus in the class above first class, wooooo, fancy!!! Actually I upgraded so I could leave from Montevideo instead (I think). I need to reference my calendar on that one. I made it back to BA to meet up with Sue. Sue and I spent a few days in BA so that she could see some of the cool spots there. We made our way to the bus terminal (always a fun experience) and bought our tickets for the looooong bus ride to Iguazu Falls! More to comeee.........
Long time
It's been a long time since I've signed onto this blog. I'm going to try to go back in my travels from last year and update with pictures and updates. Most of my pictures can be accessed via facebook, but I thought it would be nice to try to get myself back to blogging about my past travels and my future travels coming up.....
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