Dearest blog followers,
Oooh where to begin. As you all know (well, at least if you read my first blog post – if I didn’t send it to you let me know and I’d be happy to fix that), my adventure to San Martin de los Andes began a few short weeks ago. On June 23, I hopped on a plane in Chicago, which brought me to Sao Paolo, Brazil. Then I hopped on another plane, which brought me to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Other than your typical international travel problems like being threatened to be detained in Brazil (apparently some connections in Brazil require a Brazilian visa… what??) and losing all of your checked luggage for a few days (lucky for me, I knew a sneaky trick for when you are lacking in undergarments – thanks to mom’s college roommate), all went well. After 30 hours in an airport/on an airplane, I had made it – almost.
Leaving the airport was actually much nicer than I had predicted. I had expected to leave lugging 130 pounds of crap with me. Instead, I only had about 20 pounds worth of crap. Score! (Though I did have my fingers crossed that all of that crap would show up at some point). After a short cab ride from the airport and finding out that I could pass as a Brazilian (thanks cab driver), I made it to my hostel. Finally re-united with Jose (who I found bundled up in all of the warm clothing he owned and wondering what the weird contraption sitting on the floor in our room was (eh hem…space heater)), in a country I knew next to nothing about and my favorite Colombian coconut candy melting in my mouth. No need to wish for more.
Buenos Aires is a beautiful city. Most of you know how I typically feel about big cities, so I’m not going to be that good at raving about it. I will say however, that the architecture of BA is very pretty, the people are friendly, and the jeans and sweatshirt weather was great (seasons are opposite down here, so right now we are in the middle of winter). We visited the Pink House; which is the White House of Argentina (and failed at finding a gardener by the name of Mucher –sorry Ed), walked through parks and plazas, and just kind of wandered wherever. An itinerary seemed unnecessary - I think both Jose and I were generally just happy to be with one another again. And it was great. At the end of this email you’ll find a link to pictures of BA.
After being in Buenos Aires for four nights, getting my luggage delivered to the hostel doorstep (yeah!), and buying bus tickets to San Martin de los Andes, we took off. We didn’t end up getting the fanciest bus seats possible that I mentioned in my last email, but were still treated like royalty during the ride. Well, royalty in the sense that we felt like we were being fattened up to be eaten for dinner when we arrived to San Martin. Each meal started with an “appetizer,” which, at first, we thought was the meal. Then we were served the meal, followed by a little cafecito and sometimes a little desert. We were also fed snacks throughout the entire bus ride. The server got used to Jose and I only asking for one serving of food to share between the two of us. The scenery on the bus ride was nice – a lot of desert and then a bunch of apple trees. By the time we made it up high enough to see the mountains, it was dark. But we had arrived! Excited doesn’t begin to describe how we were feeling.
Pictures of Buenos Aires:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10102278017456637.1073741826.8630239&type=1&l=a338952dc3
Hasta pronto,
Jenna
