You can´t have lunch without a drink!!!

Hello campers! In this installment of our story, we finish our time in Argentina (for now!) and head to the land of the short people with a fine appreciation for food that can be consumed sans ham. That´s right--we are now in a world where not everything is required to be topped by ham, cheese, hardboiled eggs, and olives, usually simultaneously. But let´s not get ahead of ourselves, since I have only been in Ecuador for 2 days and really am not in the know yet.

Last time on our show, we had just returned to Buenos Aires to spend a disappointing night in a hostal in Palermo where our room was right between the reception desk and garbage truck activity outside. Thankfully only one night was required to determine that it was time to move on, and we left the next day for Mendoza. 12 hours by bus will get you there, and suddenly you are in the Argentine wine capital! We stayed at a great little hotel in Mendoza for about a week called the Hotel Zamora, which came complete with a very non-threatening dog who was there to attempt to restore Shannon´s faith in the species. Think it worked, at least to a certain extent.

While in Mendoza we did such things as drink wine, eat something other than steak, drink wine, continue searching for a solution to the good-looking man conspiracy, and drink wine. Mendoza is a lovley little town right after my own heart: These people believe in the siesta, and it is no joke. The whole town shuts down from 1:30 to 4:30 including stores, internet cafes, banks, travel agencies and any other place you can think of to go during lunch hour. The only places open are of course the restaurants, where one waiter was so offended that we were not ordering wine that the now famous line had to become the title of this post. Not ones to offend cultural sensitivitiers, we of course consented and agreed only a full bottle would be most appropraite.

Other things we enjoyed: A tour of the wineries of course where we drank wine (imagine that) and also got a tour of an olive oil factory and a family operation who make their own chocolates and about 100 different kinds of liquor. We had to get the dulce de leche, because really, where else but in Argentina are you going to find such a liquor? We also went on a tour to the mountains that was entirely in Spanish and therefore probably more informative to Shannon than to yours truly. But the scenery was beautiful, and you can check it all out here:

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w190/sweidmann/Mendoza/?start=0

In the mountains we saw the highest peak in the Western Hemisphere, Aconcagua, which tops out at around 21,000 feet, and Punta Del Inca, which is some kind of natural bridge made by the sulfer in the water or something like that. Again, my limited Spanish didn´t really catch any of that story, but at least the pics are cool!

After our relazing week in Mendoza, we returned to Buenos Aires. Shannon returned home and to her real life-and apparently time in the Harlem ER to deal with the real or imagined threat of rabies. So the good news on that end for all concerned is that she is getting treatment for it, which I understand invloves numerous shots given over a period of time. More on that when I find out.

I stayed on in BA to attempt to put a bit more Spanish under my belt, although it is entirely possible all I really did was take money out of my pocket and put it into someone else´s. Ah well, I did get to enjoy BA and lived in another apartment in San Telmo with a fun couple from Virginia No photos of that for a while though because I really have no idea how long it will be before I can download any more photos. Some wrap up pics are here though:

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w190/sweidmann/Buenos%20Aires%20May%202007/

So my time in Buenos Aires has come to an end, and I am left to contemplate such things as:

The disturbing lack of vareity in the diet of such a cosmopolitan city; the thought process of a people who burned down the constitucion train station while we were in Mendoza to protest the fact that the trains never come (apparently not thinking about the fact that now, of course, they can´t come); dulce de leche and what this stuff is really made of; and the gene pool that makes all these people so damn good looking and how one can dip into said pool. Add to all this the puzzling lack of napkins in this country, and I venture to say I will need to spend more time in this country to figure out what it is all about.

Now I am in Quito, where I have spent about 4 hours on the internet and cropped up a bill of roughly 50 cents. Good thing it is so cheap as the days of cheap wine have clearly come to an end here! I am off to the jungle and the start of my volunteer work tomorrow, so will post more when I actually have something to say. :)

Be well my friends and live grandly!

The Argentine preferred method of travel and Iguazu Falls

Bueno. First of all, thank you to those that are posting comments--it is so exciting to know folks are actually reading this thing!

In our last episode, the intrepid young travellers (or not so young, depending on how you look at it) were happy to be returning to Argentina, home of the hot men, from Uruguay, home of nasty dogs and not so hot men. The most exciting thing for us about Urugauay was the coffee service. $42 pesos (about $1.75) gets you your own coffee pot, steamed milk pot, sweet popcorn, juice, and small basket of sweets. Not shabby.

Anyway, we are done with that now. We took the rapid ferry back to Buenos Aires, which takes about an hour. The river was really choppy and it did occur to us that they had not played the safety video upon embarkation and here was a time in which it might be possible to need it. Although the only thing you really learn from the safety video is that if the boat goes down, you are going to drown.

Anyway, we went directly from the ferry terminal to the bus terminal to catch the 18 hour bus that would take us to Iguazu Falls. The bus was actually pretty comfortable and we had gone first class to get the seats that recline all the way (about $60). They serve dinner, wine, played a movie we couldn´t hear, and had a snafu with the reading light that would not go off. The steward guy finally came over and covered the light with luggage stickers to block out the intensity of it. The light finally burned out about a half hour before we reached Iguazu. Not a bad trip though. No comments necessary about the attractiveness of the on board bus steward.

At the bus terminal, there are a bunch of people trying to tell you about thier accomodation and we decided to take one that she said was just a few blocks away. This being only a week or less post dog, it was important that we not have to walk for an hour with our heavy packs to find a place. Of course, with her directions, it did take roughly that long to find it. Anyway, we finally found it, checked in, took cold showers--apparently adverstising caliente agua is more a hope than an actual reality sometimes--and took off for some lunch. Found a little place nearby that we could sit outside, have a bottle of wine for 6 pesos and a milanesa and just chilled out for a while.

That evening, we had arranged to meet with Rosina, a woman I met on the Lonely Planet website, and her friend Pam at the post office in town. We hung around about for about 15 minutes and this van pulled up and an attractive man (imagine that) got off and called my name. Expecting Rosina to be a woman, it took me a few minutes to realize she was in the van and this guy was the tour guide showing them around town! Anyway, we went with them to see the sites of the city and then have dinner. The night was a lot of fun as there were 4 people in the tour group, the others were 2 guys from Canada, and the personalities involved were all very different from each other so the conversation was really very interesting. You can´t ask much more than that as it makes things quite entertaining. I am glad that it worked out that we all got to meet in Iguazu and they were both really great ladies. They were on some kind of blitzkrieg 5 day tour of BA and Iguazu though, and must have slept for about 3 days upon return!

So the next day, we went to the falls. I am not going to really try to bother to describe them, because it is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen and words and pictures do not do it justice. I only recommend anyone who can go in their lifetime should do so! We had the most perfect conditions: The weather was sunny but partly cloudy to keep the direct sun off of you, temp around 68 degrees, no bugs, no humidity, and no tourists! This is the off season, although for the life of me, I can´t see why. Also, there was so much water in the falls that one of the islands was closed and some of the boating excursions were closed due to the embarkation points being under water.

I will attach the pictures here and let them speak for themselves:

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w190/sweidmann/Iguazu%20Falls/

We returned to Buenos Aires on another overnight bus, spent an evening there, and then got on another overnight bus--this one about 12 hours--to Mendoza, which is the wine capital of Argentina. Stay tuned for additional chapters in our continuing saga on why we loved Mendoza, the discovery of food other than steak, ham and milanesa in Argentina, and our attempt to get at the root of the good looking men conspiracy.

"No worries, you´re perfectly safe here"

So sayeth the man we rented the condo in Punta Del Diablo from......

Punta Del Diablo is a small beachside town in Uruguay about 50 kilometers south of the Brazilan border. Apparenlty in the summer it is full of tourists, and since it is mid fall here now, we were only 2 of about 6 tourists in town. Nice. We rented a 2 bedroom condo on the beach with a fireplace, cable tv and a kitchen for around $35 per day. Here we are, all set to enjoy some fine Uruguay wine ($2 for the boxed stuff that is actually decent), cooking some great meals, reading and writing on the beach for a few days, and in general chilling out and relaxing.

Should have known that first night when Shannon said "this is so lovely, perfect, and cheap, what a great time we will have here!"

Never tempt the gods by expressing your gratitude for something good as it all goes to hell after that!

So the next morning, as I am leisurely getting up, getting the coffee Shannon made, and stepping outside to check out the view and fresh air, I hear yelling from the beach. Shannon has left me a note saying she is going for a walk on the beach. I assume for a minute that the yelling is some people playing around and am about to sit down when it occurs to me that this is most likely impossible, since we are, for the most part, the only people in town. I step over to the fence to see what is up and see a small dark head moving and nothing else. I hear my name and recognize the voice as belonging to mi amiga. I run around the house and am getting on to the beach where I can see she is down on the ground with 2 dogs on top of her and a man is just arriving with a 2 by 4 to beat the dogs off her.

Shannon risked the wrath of the gods by expressing her appreciation for our oasis and was rewarded by being mauled by two dogs on the beach. The situation was pretty grave. She was covered in lacerations and there was blood everywhere. A few men showed up to help her, and I ran to find the owner of the apartment to see if they could call for medical help. When we returned a few minutes later the police were already there and quickly loaded her into the car to go for medical assistance. She was pretty much unable to walk, and understandably shaken and terrified. And trying to communicate what had happened in Spanish! Thank god she actually has the Spanish skills to be able to do so!

We went to the medical clinic where they dressed her wounds, which covered the entire backside of her legs and arms, and determined that she needed to go by ambulance to Castillos, the nearest town with a hospital. The ambulance is about a 1964 station wagon which was driven by one of the cops as there apparently is no one else to do so. We were accompanied by this woman Norma, who is some sort of elected official and liason for tourists. She is also the wife of the cop who was driving. In what has now been determined as typical South American behavior, she and her husband were all over each other in the hospital. I was tempted to tell them Shannon and I could wait in the hall if they needed to get a room. Sheesh. There are people making out everywhere around her. I am a little surprised that they even bother to sell clothes down here as presumably no one spends much time in them.

But I digress: We believe we are heading off for a tetnus shot and rabies treatment. Of course Latin America being what it is, we went to 3 different places before finding the right one where they then gave her the tetnus shot and argued about rabies. Apparently Uruguay has been rabies free for 20 years and so they simply don´t have the treatment. Shannon really wanted it for preventative reasons, as that is one of the first things one would do in the States if attacked by animals. After much arguing and discussion, she was told there would be no treatment and so she was left to further ponder whether or not this might be a problem, on top of the all of the bleeding wounds and fact that she could not walk.

We spent the next several days in our little condo watching bad American films, which I must admit was probably good for my Spanish to watch so many subtitles, as she started to recover. She was in a lot of pain and was really considering going back to New York instead of continuing on with the trip.

When we went out for the first time, about a day and a half later, it was raining and windy. Every stray dog in town, which were numerous, came around us and it was really freaky. In fact, ever since then, no matter where we go, she seems to attract dogs like she is carrying a steak around in her pocket. Creepy. Somewhat amusing though was her newfound fame in the town of Punta Del Diablo. People were constantly warning us that a tourist had been attacked by dogs and they could not understand what had happened, although they admited that the tourists feed the dogs all summer and now had been gone just long enough that the dogs were starving. They were simultaneously shocked and secretly thrilled (I think!) to find that they were meeting the victim in the flesh. Shannon´s most frequest phrase for a while became "yo soy ella". I am her.

There was also this political undercurrent of the fact that the police do not have the jurisdicition to get rid of the dogs and there are two opinions of the townspeople: one that they should get rid of the dogs, other that it is cruelty to kill them. We did hear though that they had gotten rid of the two dogs. I guess a posse went out in the middle of the night and made the problem go away...unofficially, that is.

We left PDD and went to Colonia, which is a small conlonial town across the river from Buenos Aires where people go to get their passport stamped when they need to extend their stay in Argentina past the 90 day limit. It is a lovely litte town, and we spent the night there an spent an obnoxious amount of money on a dinner that was average and had no alcohol. Colonia is a weekend getaway destination for porteños, so the prices are understandably inflated. It was lovely though and we are glad we spent a bit of time there.

Shannon decided to go ahead and stay after all as our next plan was to go to Iguazu falls and knew that if she returned to NY, she would no doubt feel better quickly and be really upset that she missed Iguazu. This turned out to be true, and maybe tomorrow I will write about that portion of the trip. For now I am going to act like a local and go take a sietsa!

Here are some photos of Uruguaÿ:

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w190/sweidmann/Uruguay/

The verdict is in

So we have assesed the situation and at this point have come up with a mutual decision. All the hot guys in Argentina are noticibly missing in Uraguay. Not that they are dogs, but it is much like being home in good old NYC where more often than not you are not going the check out the guy crossing the street towards you.

Yes girls, in case you are wondering, Buenos Aires is where all the attractive men in the world are living. We have decided that we have not seen one ugly one yet, even down to the little old men. We have decided that further investigation into Argentina is called for, so stay tuned for an update.

In other news, Shannon arrived about a week ago and we spent the time kicking around the city and me mostly stressing about my evening Spanish lesson. No studying during the day makes for more than a few dirty looks at night when I reach IBL and attempt to communicate in what passes for Spanish. Shannon is having a field day with all the new words down here though and the Catellano Spanish, assuming I am even spelling that right...but I digress. Yo is pronouced jo, and ella is ejja which to most Spanish speakers is completely foreign. Over several glasses of wine tonight we are going to need to consider whether the pronunciation contributes overall to the attractiveness of the people. Anyone with an opinion on that should feel free to weigh in.

So here we are today in Montevideo, Uraguay. We got here yesterday on the ferry-bus combination to be warned within the first half hour of our arrivial--both by the taxi driver who then ripped us off, as well as the woman at the hotel--to not leave the hotel with our purses and to only walk on certian streets. Today we can understand why. It is primero de Mayo, which is basically Labor Day to all you on the other side of the Equator and NOTHING is open. There are some shady people on the streets though, so at least we were not totally alone. We have found this internet cafe to be open as well as a couple of restuarants. The requirement for open restuarants seems to be that they must sell pizza. We are OK with this and so will probably head off for a pizza in a little while. We need to be heading to the bus station at 5 manaña, so will make it an early night....which is OK since there is nothing to do. Montevideo is cute and interesting, and perhaps it being all closed may contribute to our feelings, but we have decided we have seen all there really is to see.

Tomorrow we are off to Punta Del Diablo, a beach town near the Brazillian border that has come recommended by both my Spanish professor and my compañero, Fabian. It is off season, so we are assured no one will be there and that will be lovely as we want to spend a few days kicking back, reading, and staring at the waves. There will probably be very little email access and no food, so it should be an interesting time. We are looking to lose some weight anyway, and so will send pictures after our time at the beach!