Ok, the goal of this little blog is to write the occasional story and keep my friends and family informed. I will hopefully be writing every other week or so... knowing me this will be my only little entry and I will forget the rest by time I´m back in the states.
I arrived in Buenos Aires on January 7th at 11:45 in the morning. My plane was only 45 minutes late and apparently on international travel they even feed you. not a bag of peanuts either mind you, but an actual meal of braised meat and mashed potatoes. The Argentinians accross the aisle were accidently given vegetarian meals.
Upon clearing customs I met up with Lainick at the airport, It was good to see ickles and the hairy one again. By means of the extreamly cheap bus and subway system we managed to find a friends house to store my bags in and let me change out of my freezing to death clothes from Colorado to something that would be a little more fitting in the 85 degree weather of Buenos Aires.
Buenos Aires is HUGE! The main highway through the city is 26 lanes across and divided like the countings for a Don Ellis composition. The buildings themselves are a interesting mixture of young and old. You can see the old style columned government building backdroped by a mirror-windowed modern skyscraper on the same block as an old spanish influenced apartment building.
I only spent 3 days in Buenos Aires. After 5 weeks in Denver for Christmas I was ready to get out of a big city. On the afternoon of January 9th we departed buenos Aires by means of a bus for Las Grutas. The 14 hour busride went by in a flash (mostly due to the fact I slept nearly the whole time) and we saw a beautiful sunset just outside of Buenos Aires. Thje sky was a pallette of oranges and reds... definitely one of the preettiest sunsets I´ve seen in a while. We arrived in las grutas on January 10th to VERY hot weather and very strong winds. Although it is a popular tourist destination, we are the only foreigners here. EVERYBODY else is from Argentina. Las Grutas means the caves, and is aptly named. The beach here is trapped between the water and 20 foot cliffs that are riddled with caves where seabirds make their home. Especially common is a type of green parrot, and you can hear their squawk of complaint most anywhere in town. The tideal change here is truely impressive too. When we first arrived (shortly before high tide) the beach was very narrow in most spots, and non-existant everywhere else. Upoin returning to the beach after several hours of setting up camp however, the beach was 100 meters wide at its narrowest. the town itself is very beautiful, with multi-colored pastel stucco buildings that extend all the way to the cliffs and gaze out over the water. We leave tomorrow at noon for southern patagonia. Ushuaia here I come!
