I finally made it to my last continent, South America…Antartica was not on the list this time…but who knows, maybe someday. Of course when I arrived in Buenos Aires it was cold…I don’t like cold, so maybe I’ll pass on Antartica but I hear it’s spectacular.
Sometimes when you’re traveling you hit a wall. My wall occurred in Argentina. I’m not sure why but the weather was a turn off for me…even though I was well aware (for once:) that it would be winter in South America. I was tired and kind of went into a vegetative state so I feel like I did not really give Argentina much of a chance. So please don’t make judgements on it based on my writings here. Most people I talk to love Argentina. My first stop was Buenos Aires, a big modern city with some great architecture and one of the coolest cemeteries I’ve ever seen. Yep, it’s true, the highlight for me in that splendid city was dead people:) The mausoleum’s were massive and decorated with elaborate sculptures and reliefs. It felt like being in an art museum with the added potential of ghost.
Top on my list to see was Patagonia which due to my usual poor planning, I did not get to. It was just too cold at the time I was there. Garrett had been there and raved about it. I did make it to Iguazu Falls and it was spectacular! Of course, I ran into my usual blunders getting there. Iguazu Falls is on the border of Argentina and Brazil. I went on booking.com and booked a hostel. I get to the Iguazu Falls Argentina airport and ask for a taxi to my hotel. They inform me it’s in Brazil. I assure them it is not and then they point to the address on my ipad. Sure enough, I have booked a hotel in Brazil. I tell them it’s not possible for me to enter Brazil because I do not have a visa for that country. They shrug and that’s the end of that:( Now I am tired and have no hotel. I try to get on the internet at the airport to cancel the hotel in Brazil and to hopefully book a new one, only to find that their internet is not working. I ask for a phone and am directed to various points by no less than 15 different people…only later to find out the phone had been ripped out. Exasperated I finally just took a taxi to town and walked until I found the only hotel with a room available and it was ridiculously expensive. I thought to myself, that after today one night of luxury wouldn’t hurt. I was horrified when I saw the room…which I would have felt I was being ripped off if I had paid $15 for the night…and I paid more than 10 times that:( I guess the worst thing for me was that nobody cared and no one was willing to help…
Okay on to more positive notes:) Iguazu Falls was amazing! It’s a huge national park area. Lots of great hikes and little trains that will take you to the top of the falls. You walk through the rain forest and there are lots of birds, weird raccoon looking creatures and monkeys! They even have a boat ride you can take. Unfortunately I was there over 5 hours and missed the last boat. If you ever go, go early:)
Next I went to Salta for a couple of days…I got there by googling the warmest cities in Argentina:) I simply walked around and explored their city…nice and relaxing. Then I headed back to Buenos Aires. I did this because it said one of the requirements of entering Argentina was to have some type of exit out of Argentina. I hurriedly booked a flight to Santiago Chile from Buenos Aires to have the proof of an exit, which I was never asked for:(
I did get lucky though…I found a flat on Airbnb that was reasonable and awesome. The guy who owned it, Ruy, was great too! As I told him upon leaving, the only problem was, that the flat was too wonderful, I didn’t want to leave it…hence my vegetative state. I never even experienced the tango which is a must do in Argentina. This was totally on me:( Sometimes traveling you just get tired…so again, please don’t judge Argentina by me…everyone else I’ve talked to raves about it.
Argentina….Sorry, I was the wall flower while everyone else danced the tango:(