Ushuaia Abril 19

Hoy dejamos Buenos Aires, la ciudad me encanto, una de las ciudades donde definitivamente me gustaria vivir, ahora entendo a los Portenos porq se sienten tan orgullosos de su tierra, tienen razon. Una ciudad con muchas actividades para hacer, ver y vivir. Pero lo q mas me encanto fue la arquitectura de los edificios. No me cansaba de ver todo el dia en cualquier esquina un edificio o construccion con algo diferente e interesante.

Tuvimos muy buen tiempo en BA porq tambien pudimos compartir una vez mas con los amigos q conocimos en nuestro viaje: Naty, Andy, Fede, Ceci, Lucila, Patricio, Alejandro y Noelia.
Muchas gracias muchachos por sus amabilidades y atenciones.
(Gracias C4 y CL300 por llevarnos al aeropuerto y pasar tan buena velada anoche, cada vez que miro mi ropa y hasta q la lave me acordare de Fito)

Ahora salimos de BA, por lo del humo pensamos q iban haber muchos retrazos de vuelo, la verdad es q habian, nosotros teniamos vuelo a las 10 y el de las 8 todavia no habia salido. En un momento informaron q iba a salir primero el de las 10. Pues se armo como dicen en Argentino un QUILOMBO que hubo q llamar a seguridad y la policia. Hay pense que realmente lo peor es ver un argentino BERRACO ( en colombiano muy enojado).
En fin no se como termino la situa pero nosotros salimos a tiempo.

Llegamos hace un parte horas a Ushuaia, es simplemente HERMOSO, me siento como en un cuento, las montanas estan cubiertas de nieve, el pueblo es muy pintoresto, esta rodeado de cantidades de agua cristalina. Hay un concierto con la sinfonica de Viena pero como q ya todo esta sold out, vamos a tratar de ir temprano haber si se apiadan de nosotros y nos dejan a entrar.
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At the edge of the world

We are finally down at the tip of South America, in the southern most town called Ushuaia.

This place is pretty dam cool, the airport is made of wood, as you arrive the plane crosses over all these snow capped peaks, the wind is bitter, but the air is crisper than anything I've ever felt.

Our hostel is the first that Paula and I have ever shared with other folks, usually we get a private room, but because it is so damn expensive down here we decided to pay for a community bunk. Not too bad since there is only one other girl in this room. Apparently it is low season so the town is not that busy now. Tonight we are going to try to sneak into the International Classical Music Festival which is sold out on its very last night down here in Ushuaia (check on google festivalenushuaia.com.ar).

Hopefully we can sneak in like we do sometimes at movie theaters back in NYC!!! ;-)

Will try to upload pics from the past couple weeks, since we have free internet from here.



NOTE:

We spent our last night in Buenos Aires with agent C4 & SL300 all around town, they were phenomenal tour guides and even let us stay at their home with cafe de manana included!

Thanks so much guys and remember this message self destructs in 5 minutes (ojo con mi lado derecho, me esta molestando...sera que el microchip no se implantio bien???!!)

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Our first great meal in Argentina...thanks to Ruben..

Paula's brother-in-law was in town today and took us to eat some great food in downtown Buenos Aires, thanks so much Ruben!
See for the past few months we've been trying to watch our budget so eating at expensive places has been out of the picture, ..so if any other family wants to visit and feed us... you're more than welcome.
Anyway, tonight we are meeting up with two other friends Natalia and Andres who we spent such a great time with in Buzios...
Long live the "pens are in the box"!

NOTE:
Last night we went out with Cecilia, Noelia, Lucila, Alejandro, Patricio, and Federico and had a chilled out time in Palermo. Thanks guys for coming out last night and yes we wish we had more time to spend here in BA! We have really enjoyed the people from Argentina.
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Having some drinks in BA

Having some drinks with our friends from Buenos Aires...cool, chilled out spot in Palermo which is like Soho in NYC.
Bought our winter gear and getting ready for the cold that waits for us down south in Ushuaia.
Talk later.

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Walking with the dead in Buenos Aires...

We are walking in one of the most famous cemetary of the world, "Cementerio de la Recoleta" which holds generations of Argentina's elite. The ornate splendor that these dead people have on these amazing, house sized tombs, is breathtaking.
You can feel things moving all around, sometimes its a bird, cat, mouse, or maybe a spirit that's still wandering...we hope we don't get taken by the ghosts!!!

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Primer dia en BA

Definitivamente hay ciudades q cuando tu llegas sientes esa compatibilidad, energia y alegria de estar alli, sientes que la quieres conocer toda, ver todo lo que te ofrecen, esa ciudad es Buenos Aires.



ayer llegamos en las horas de la tarde y aunque no hemos tenido mucho tiempo, ya conocemos el microcentro un lugar con mucho encanto, edificios historicos, tiendas, restaurantes, musica, espectaculos, bares y mucha vida nocturna.



Ayer estuvimos en Senor Tango un show excepcional en una casa grande muy emblematica, con decoraciones en rojo y dorado muy elegantes. Lo que mas me gusto fueron los bailarines y los musicos, la orquesta tenia de todo, acordeonistas, violinistas, guitarristas, chelos y un pianista Habia momentos que cuando sonaban todos los instrumentos juntos se le paraban los bellitos de cuerpo de la emocion.



Para mi fueron momentos muy felices de poder apreciar algo tan bonito pero a la vez senti mucha tristeza y nostalgia porq me recordo a mi papa que ya no esta. Para mi papa el tango era su vida, no habian muchas cosas q lo apacionaran porq siempre estaba trabajando, pero el tango era una de ellas, yo siempre recuerdo q la musica q siempre escuchabamos en mi casa era el tango y su idolo era Carlos Gardel, para mi papa no habia mas musica, el tango era el mas romantico, lo mas sublime, los mas q mas lo llenada de recuerdo y le daba alegrias.



Recuerdo que el tenia un restaurante en el centro como por mas de 25 a#os y no hubo un solo dia del a#o que no pusiera sus tango.

Por eso senti tanta nostaligia y se vinieron a la mente muchos recuerdos de mi papa y de lo mucho que le hubiera gustando tanto a el como a mi estar viendo eso show juntos.



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In Buenos Aires...Federico is showing us around...

Hi there, so we have met up with Federico (a friend we met on Ihla Grande) and he's walked us around Buenos Aires which up until now has been a really great looking city, very European architecture and with some of the most fashionable people we've seen on this trip. Thanks Fede for the city tour!
We are headed to a Tango show tonight and will likely have some great wine and Argentine steaks, apparently the best there is.
Talk soon.
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In Buenos Aires...looking for bitter cold winter clothes for the Patagonia

So after months in the tropical wonders of Colombia and Brazil we have arrived to cool Buenos Aires Argentina.
You can feel the chill in the air already as fall is getting going here.
At the airport now, going to the downtown to get a hotel find some winter clothes and send back some of our summer gear to NYC.
Will write again when we get to a tango show tonight! Later
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49 days later...and a 200 dollar fine...

About 1 hour ago we crossed into Argentina, and all would have been fine except that we were hit with a fine for having stayed in Brazil more than 30 days, in fact the total was 49 days and each day, a 5 dollar penalty.
In the end we are excited to be in a new country but annoyed with the Brazilian border officials for making it so difficult to understand the time limit.
Whatever...we made sure entering Argentina that we have more than ample time.
So our very last stop in Brazil was Iguazu Falls, which are considered a wonder of the world. These falls were monstrous and thanks to some refreshingly sunny weather we were able to enjoy the falls all morning.
Tomorrow we are going to go to the Argentine side of the falls. The views from this side are apparently not as grand, but they get right into the heart of the falls.
Heading over to an Internet cafe where I will be doing my taxes...this really sucks!
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Que vivan los Argentnos conchudos

Ayer partimos de Curitiba hacia Iguazu, la distacia fueron de 9 horas en Onibus, los buses de Brasil son excelentes, muy modernos, las sillas super comodas, hizo un poco de frio pero de resto todo muy bien.

Llegamos a Iguazu e inmediatamente fuimos a las cataratas, el lado brasilero, que majestuosidad, un lugar hermoso, con mucha energia, un lugar que parece de mentiras de lo imponente que es. Ahi pasamos toda la manana.

Despues de la visita de las cataratas dejamos Brasil y nos dirigimos a Argentina. Nunca pense que Brasil me gustara tanto, es un pais q vale la pena conocer pero ya queria estar en Argentina, Brasil ya habia sido suficiente, tanto que vamos a tener q pagar una multa por quedarnos un mes y 19 dias, supuestamente solo nos habian dado la entrada por un mes, pero eso nunca no lo informaron o nosotros nunca lo preguntamos. En fin estamos recontentos de esta en Argentina, lo primero q hicimos con maleta y todo fue ir a una churasqueria y comernos una parrillada y un vaso de vino, yo pedi un cerveza Kilmes en honor a mi cuchado Ruben.

En Argentina la parabra conchuda es feisima, es como mentarle la madre a alguien, para mi es una palabra q utilizo mucho, pero se q aqui ya no la puedo utilizar mas.


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A detour, stars, and another night aboard a bus...

So yesterday we solved our dilemma on how to get to the tip of Argentina...basically we had to cough up a bunch of money to get flights to the southern most city on the South American continent, Ushuaia.

The prices were outrageous if we wanted to fly down in the next few days so we pushed it out till Saturday. We hope that the state parks in this part of the Patagonia are still open. We came to understand that it will not be possible to get to Antarctica since the passageways are already iced over. Major bummer because we were so close...basically we should have started our trip from down there and made our way up the continent, you see winter is starting in that part of the world so everything closes down for the season. If we are lucky we'll get another 2-3 weeks of decent weather and we'll be able to see some glaciers and things down in the Argentine Patagonia. From there we will make our way back up the continent by bus hopefully seeing both Argentina and Chile as we make our way to Bolivia and the desert salts flats.

On a bus again and this time we are going straight to Iguazu Falls. Last night we took a detour to a secret place. All we will say is that it was spectacular and the stars were brighter than we have ever seen. You could actually see the elliptical shape of the Milky Way galaxy. Absolutely amazing.

We should be arriving to Iguazu Falls at about 7 AM, so we'll be saving another night of hotels! We've logged thousands of kilometers on these buses, our necks are killing us!

I'll be on the Internet down there for a while, so we'll try to do a LIVE.

Like a dumbass, I left my taxes for last minute so now I need to efile them tomorrow...anybody want to do them for me??!!

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