Cordoba

I am currently in Cordoba and have been since last Wendnesday. I spend a little longer here because I didn´t want to celebrate my birthday on a bus, and because Cordoba has a great nightlife on the weekends because it is a student town.

Wendnesday I took a quick walk around on a free tour put on by the hostel. Thursday better aquainted myself with Cordoba and visited a few museums. Friday I decided to go on a hike into the Andes which was great. It was a two hour drive from Cordoba, one hour of which was on a dirt road. When we finally arrived and stepped out of the comfortable and warm van, we were hit by a fierce wind and it was much colder than I expected. Although it was only 1800 meters I definitely notice the lack of oxygen, considering most of the places in Bolivia and Peru are above 3000 meters, this is something I will have to get used to. We hiked for about a hour and a half then did some rock climbing. The wall was only 25 meters, but was a nice little climb. One of my favorite parts was when a Dutch girl fell (don´t worry, we were all properly harnessed and belayed), and she screamed some sort of curse in 3 different languages, Dutch, English and Spanish, in that order. On the way down the guide made sure we didn´t wake the sleeping cow around the next corner, which turned out to be a half decomposed cow so, a little Argentinian humor.

Friday night I went out with some people from the hostel. We played 21, a fun drinking game which was new to me. Of course we didn´t both to go until about 1:30 which turned out to be a little early. We didn´t find the bar that was recommended to us, but found one that was suitable, the criteria being the fact they served liquor. The drink of the evening for most of us was Vodka y Speed (similar to redbull). These were served in a 1 liter plastic cup with ice, a can of speed and the rest of vodka I think I only made it through one that night. The next night I started my birthday celebration and I found one of my roommates, a girl from texas, and I shared the same birthday. We hit a club, with a live band and the rest of the night was a blur. Sunday night I went to see Batman (again) with my fellow birthday friend and two girl from London doing a med school practicum in Cordoba. After the movie we went to a restaurant and everyone looked at us like we were the first tourists to step into the joint. I had a giant Argentnian steak which was extra delicious as always. Then a live band started and somehow they found out it was our birthdays, I think one of the British girls was guilty of passing along this intel. Everyone in the restaurant then sung happy birthday and we all sort of just sat there. A man sitting in at the table next to me held my arm up and people suggested that I stand on a chair, I politely declinded with my superb spanish by saying 'no gracias' and shaking my head. At the end of the meal they delived some birthday flan which was quite good.

Tonight I am hopping on a 12 hour bus to Salta, which won´t be that bad because bus travel in Argentina is quite comfortable. I have am booked on a 'Cama', which means the seats recline all the way for optimal sleeping. I am assured this is not the case in Bolivia and Peru.

Pictures:

1) Casa Rosa, Buenos Aires - This is the balcony where Evita Perón made her famous speech.

2) Plaza San Martin, Buenos Aires - A park designed by a famous French architect.

3) Rosario - Jorge and I drinking Mate.

4) Monument, Rosario - Me standing in the monument on an exceptionally windy day.

Rosario

Rosario, Argentina is the birthplace of Che Guevara, whos image has come to symbolize revolution, Marxism and awesome dorm rooms tricked out with ´that beret guy´ worldwide. It is also the home of a friend of my former Kung Fu teacher Dustin. Dustin´s friend Jorge has been nice enough to let me stay with him and show me around Rosario. Staying with Jorge has allowed me to get an authentic Argentinian experience and learn some Spanish, albeit slowly. I arrived here on Saturday after a 4 hour bus trip from Buenos Aires and called Jorge hoping he received my email I sent just before I hopped on the bus. Luckily he did get my email and answered the phone and arranged to meet me at the bus terminal. During the conversation I realized that we had never seen each other, which might make it difficult to identify each other in a busy bus terminal. I said I was wearing a red shirt and carried a large black bag and he said he was wearing ´grey dress´. I hoped this was the language barrier and a cross dressing Argentinian in a horribly colored dress wasn´t going to arrive, although this would have made him much easier to spot. His English is much better than my Spanish, but he actually meant to say green jacket. As I was looking out for basically anyone in grey, with or without a dress, he was the one who found me and he said I was the fifth person he asked.

After we arrive at his place and I set my bag down, he offered me Mate. This is a type of tea drank from a gourd and a common South American tradition. We enjoyed several gourds of mate while talking in a mix of Spanish and English aided by a translator program on his computer. I learned that Jorge is a psycholgist at a local insitution and has lived in Rosario for several years. A little later his friend came and picked us up in his car covered in the decals of a local radio station he owned. The pounding dance music, which was the station´s specialty, became the unofficial soundtrack of the evening as we raced around Rosario looking for a restaurant. When they asked me where I wanted to eat I said ´something Argentinian´ and that they said that something was ´Asolo´, which is basically assorted grilled meats. As it was eleven in the evening this was when everyone else when to eat too so it was hard to find a restaurant. This allowed me to see a lot of Rosario which consisted of North, South and a large shanty town in between. We finally found a restaurant and for dinner we all shared a wine, salad, various types of sausages and I had I giant steak to myself which I could not finish.

Sunday Jorge and I went to the famous monument that honored the heros of Rosario which included the man who created the Argentinian flag. We then went and sat by the river and drank Mate and were surrounded by hunderds of people doing the same thing. Sunday evening Jorge and I decided to go to Batman with his friend. As Jorge kindly paid for dinner the night before I said I would buy the tickets and dinner after. One thing I have noticed about Argentina espcially outside of Buenos Aires is how cheap everything is. Tickets for the movie were $4 each and a large pizza and three beers were $13.

I mostly hung out today as it was raining in the morning, then I went for a walk in town. Tomorrow I think I will do some laundry, charge my camera battery and check out the local shopping mall as I have been told everything is on sale here. I know this is very unlike me, because as most of your know I hate shopping, but I think it will be more of a cultural experience than a shopping trip. Wendesday I think i will head to Cordoba which my Lonely Planet mentioned is called ´The Cultural Capital of the Americas´, quite the title, so I will be happy if the city is half what people say it is.

Winter in Buenos Aires

Yes it´s winter here, but you wouldn´t really know by the temperature. The last few days it has ranged between 15 and 25. The strange thing is other than the temperature it actually seems like winter, the leaves are off the trees, the sun goes down at around 6pm and everyone is bundled up. Everyone except for me that is, which leads to weird looks on the street because I am walking around in shorts, sandels and a t-shirt while some people have scarves and winter jackets on.

Another thing about BA is the traffic, which I guess is true with any large city. Being a pedestrian here certainly isn´t like Canada though, as the crosswalks are more like suggested crossing areas than any indication that the cars will actually stop for you. Someone from BA said it´s best not to run across the roads as the drivers will take this as a challenge. I don´t know what sort of challenge that would be, in a duel against a car i´m 83% sure that the car would win, that is just a rough estimate and I don´t really want to find out if those odds are actually higher.

Someone said that Argentinians are Italians who think they are Spanish living in England that they think is France. I´m not sure if this is the correct quote, but i´m sure it is just as confusing, that is unless you have actually been here. It basically tries to sum up their culture and all the influences the different countries have had on it. This seems true because Buenos Aires has a very european feel to it, but as if it was all mixed together with it´s italian cafes, parisian parks, spanish language and english infrastructure.

Yesterday I did a walking tour and learned some interesting history which always makes the city seem more than just buildings, traffic and busy people. Then last night I had dinner that someone cooked at the hostel, splurged on a $5 bottle of wine (this was far from the cheapest, and it was good wine) and had a multi-lingual jam session (lucky for me everyone´s common language was English). Today I wandered around town by myself and did a preliminary investigation of my exit strategy, which will be by bus, now all I have to do is pick and town, a day and choose from one of the 20 different bus lines. Tonight is Friday night and i´m told Argentina is much like Spain where people go out for dinner at 11pm, have a few drinks and pack it in early at around 3 or go to a disco until about 7. For myself I don´t really know what the night has in store.

Arrived in Buenos Aires

I have arrived in Buenos Aires after a rather uneventful trip, or perhaps i´m just jaded by long distance travel and it doesn´t seem exciting anymore. I flew from Vancouver to Houston, enjoyed a 3 hr layover and then was off on my 10 hr flight to Buenos Aires. The only thing I found interesting about Houston was that everything was larger such as walkways and bathroom stalls and they had defibrillator stations all over the place, just in case for example you were eating ribs, had a heart attack, but hadn´t finished your ribs.

On the bus from the airport into town I started talking to a guy from the US but had family in BA. He asked me what I did and i mentioned I was starting with PWC in Sept. He said his brother worked at PWC in BA for years and just retired in June. He pointed out the PWC building and I thought it might be fun to check it out. I walked around Buenos Aires for a while and half heartedly tried to find the PWC building since it was in the direction I was going anyway. I think I found the right building, but decided not to go in because there was a security guard waiting to shoe away backpacking trouble makers such as myself. I couldn´t have really done much there anyways other than stare at the logo in the lobby, or maybe I could have tried to jump in on some audits, but i´m sure i´ll get enough in Sept.

Tonight I have signed up for a tango lesson so I should probably stretch before that. I also have to find some dinner, perhaps i´ll try some of that Argentinean beef. I´m not sure how long I will spend in BA as it just seems like a big city, but perhaps that is the jetlag talking.

Note: I am not going to spend a lot of time proofreading my posts because I don´t want to spend all my on the computer, so everyone will just have to ignore any bad grammar and spelling. Dad and Frank this means you should refrain from posting "helpful" comments.

Pre-trip post

So I've decided to write a blog for my South American trip. Hopefully I'll keep it up not only to update people to what i'm up to, but also as a record for myself.

Apparently I am not the first person to use blogspot and I had to chose a unique name for the URL. I chose "The Idea Recorder" for a name because there weren't many options left and on the off chance I really like blogging and I want to continue when I get back.

So tomorrow I am leaving Vancouver airport at 11am, flying into Houston and then flying to Buenos Aires. The total flight time should be about 15 hrs, which is much longer than I thought. Okay check back soon for an exciting post.