Blogs from Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America

The original title for this blog was going to be “The Boys that Lunch,” since that is basically all we did today, but after lunch and dinner it seemed this was a more appropriate title. Certainly, a large Spanish influence in South America makes more sense than French, but surprisingly other than the language there isn’t much that feels Spanish about Argentina. There are a large number of Spanish restaurants, but they don’t really observe siesta, and the culture is entirely different. Argentina seems to have completely shaken off their Spanish Colonial roots in their efforts to have their own identity. One of the interesting things about traveling here, is that the history is basically parallel to that of the United States New York and Buenos Aires were growing and thriving at the same time. Buenos ... read more

Today was supposed to be a day trip to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. It turned out instead to be a result day in Buenos Aires. We were scheduled for the 8:30 ferry, which meant we had to be up at 5 to get ready and get to the terminal in time. The alarm went off at 4:30, and it kept going off. When I asked Jerry to hit the snooze, he said from a dead sleep “I am trying.” He was not trying he was dreaming that he was hitting the snooze button, finally he did manage to wake up enough to hit it. In the meantime, my back up alarms did not go off, it helps if you use am instead of pm when you set it. The alarm went off again, it was now ... read more

We are now back in Buenos Aires. There really isn’t much to blog about for yesterday, basically just a travel day. The flight back over the Andes seemed much less than when we flew into Santiago. The mountains also seemed much steeper. We at least had more comfortable seats, it was a true premium economy two seats to each row. The food they serve on the plan (if you can call it that) is horrible. The best I can describe it is very bad grade school cafeteria food. I know that anyone who went to school in the Portland Metropolitan area will understand what I am about to say. On the rare occasion we go hot lunch in school, there was also a staple item on the tray. A butter sandwich. White sandwich bread (probably Wonder ... read more

Today I am doing a rare two days in one entry. Mainly, because not much happened yesterday, it was basically just getting back to Buenos Aires. A quick summary of the day, checked out, tried to find something worth eating at the hotel breakfast. Then returned the rental car. Travel Tip: More than any other country, you need to be extremely vigilant with the rental car. They do an inspection at the beginning and end. When they did our initial inspection they completely missed the crack along the front window, which I took a picture of and sent to them as soon as we discovered it. When we brought it back, the second inspection was trying very hard to find things to charge us for. Jerry finally chimed in, “they missed the crack in the window, ... read more

I am a few days behind in the blog posting as the website I pose on seemed to have been hacked and was unavailable for a few days. The issue seem to be resolved and now I can post blog entries again, and when my followers get a text that there is a new post, they should be able to just click the link without worry. Initial tests seem to indicate all is good. If I go from present to past tense it is only because I am writing this entry two days after it happened. It is currently Tuesday, and we are now in Iguazu to see the falls and park. This entry is about the events of Sunday. So, let’s begin. I started the day by checking work e-mails, thinking Sunday would be a ... read more