Trip to South America: Day 8 Colonia, Uruguay

On this day, which was a Monday, we took the Buquebus (which is a ferry) from Buenos Aires to Colonia. We uneventfully boarded the ferry, and in order to sit by windows, the four of us split up on different rows. Some guy ended up sitting with me, which was fine, he was very enthralled with the books that he was reading. When the boat landed, everyone was lining up to get off, and like all other passengers, I got my stuff together and was ready to leave. The guy was a little awkward at this point, he knew that I was ready to get off, but he just kept sitting there reading and I couldn't get out. Eventually Andrea saw me stuck and yelled for me so that he had to let me out. So we landed in Colonia, and were supposed to meet up with a tour bus. We couldn't find the right bus, so we left the ferry terminal and walked a ways and didn't see anything, so then we walked back. I found someone who looked official and asked them about our tour, and our bus had already left, but there was a "Spanish" bus of the same tour, so we got on that bus, and got dropped off at a restaurant for lunch. Lunch was pretty good, I had chicken and mashed potatoes, one of my favorite meals. After we finished eating we had a little time before we were supposed to meet up with the "English" tour, so we walked down the street and went into a couple shops. Finally it was time for the tour. We boarded a bus and went for a drive. We saw the old bullfighting ring and made a stop at the beach for about 10 minutes. Next we went make to the main street, and got off the bus and walked towards the old city. I love the old part of Colonia! There are cobblestone streets, and there is a city wall, and you can walk through the gate. So our tour continued, and the guide pointed out the oldest street, the lighthouse, a museum, and the church. We went inside the church, the guide kept talking and I stopped listening. Eventually the tour ended and we had a couple hours of freetime. We meandered our way back the way we had come in, stopping in every shop that we passed. I bought a bookmark, and I have no idea what everyone else bought. I really wanted to climb the lighthouse, so Grisham went with me to climb the lighthouse and when we got half up we yelled to Colette and she joined us. We then climbed to the top, which had a good view of the town and the river. When we climbed down, we kept walking and went in some more little shops, ending up at the first shop we had gone in after lunch. There I bought some post cards and crosses for Jess and Lanae - normally crosses are easily found, but these were the first ones that I had seen so I just bought them. At this point we had about an hour left until our ferry left to take us back to Buenos Aires, so we went to a cafe to have a snack. I had some alfajores and hot chocolate...the hot chocolate was good, the alfajores weren't really all that spectacular. Grisham and Colette got a meat-olive-chip board, and fed some of their stuff to a dog that was lingering at our table. After our snack we met back up with our bus, boarded the ferry, and headed back to our hotel in Buenos Aires and went to bed.

Trip to South America: Days 5-7, Buenos Aires

Day 5: Overall, this was not a fun day. We awoke fairly early in order to eat breakfast and head to the airport for our flight from Rio to BsAs. We got to the airport on time, without a hitch, and found out that our flight was delayed by a minimum of 30 minutes. Ok, no big deal.... we all had a few reals (Brasilian money) left, so we spent a little time in one of the shops. I didn't see anything that I wanted to buy, so I sold my reals to Grisham for $10. I am happy with my decision. We sat at this little table for a while, but our chairs were in the way and people kept trying to get by, so we finally moved to our gate, and our minimum 30 minute delay eventually turned into a couple hours. However, for our entertainment, there was a large group of Hell's Angels from Germany waiting with us...a few of them were pretty scary, but it was fun to watch them. One of them opened up a coke and it exploded, but Lanae wasn't there to clean it up. We finally made it to Buenos Aires around 3 or so, I think, and made it through immigration and customs. We went to our hotel, and we were all pretty tired and cranky, so we stopped at the reception desk place and booked a tango/gaucho show for that night and made reservations for our trip to Colonia, then napped for a couple hours until time for the show. There was a shuttle that came to pick us up for the tango show, and we got on. Grisham and Andrea sat in the front, and Colette sat in the back with me. Eventually the little shuttle filled up, and we convinced a couple guys that I was Colette's daughter. It was a fun game. We arrived at the show place, and we had dinner, which wasn't bad. Colette ordered bread pudding, but it turned out to be flan with raisins sprinkled on top. This was funny to everyone, but I don't really know what bread pudding is, so I just laughed along with everyone else. The show was ok...the tango got a little old after a while though. The best part was the gaucho guy.

Day 6: This was sightseeing day in the city. First we went to El Caminito in La Boca. We walked around, went in the little shops, look at the artist stuff, and hungout for an hour or two. From there we took a taxi to Plaza de Mayo where we saw the Casa Rosada, and then we had a great conflict. Colette really wanted to ride the "hop on-hop off" bus, and Grisham and I didn't. So Andrea went with Colette and me and Grisham went off on our merry way. The first thing that we did was go to Calle Florida, which is a pedestrian street with shops and restaurants. We made our way along, stopped at McDonald's for lunch, and kept going until we reading Plaza de San Martin, which is my favorite place in the city. It's n0t just a plaza, it's like a little park. We walked around for a bit, then we took a taxi to Recoletta Cemetery. We had a crazy taxi driver - he was really into music and kept playing songs for us and telling me about them. He was funny. We went to the cemetery and saw Evita's grave, once we found it after getting lost in there. Next we went to the Evita museum, which wasn't too spectacular. A delicious thing happened next - we stopped at a bakery and bought Alfajores - my favorite cookies!! It was funny because the lady wrapped mine up like a present and tied a ribbon around them, and they just put Grisham's in a bag. They were so yummy!! We walked to an art museum, which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. They had a couple paintings by my favorite artist, Botero, who paints all the fat people. Our last stop of the day was the obelisco on avenida 9 de julio. We took a couple of pictures, walked and took a picture of Teatro Colon, then made our way back to the hotel. We met up with Colette and Andrea and went our for pizza and sangrias.

Day 7: This was my day by myself because the other 3 went to Iguazu. I didn't go because I have been before, and that little jaunt cost them about $400 for the day. So, I saved my money and stayed behind in Buenos Aires. It was Sunday, so I made the long walk to San Telmo to the famous antique market. It was pretty cool...there was some neat stuff. I didn't buy any antiques but I bought a sign painted by an artist there. After walking through the market, I stopped at a small cathedral and attended mass. I then made my way back to Avda 9 de julio, had lunch at a restaurant at a good locale for people watching, then headed to another pedestrian street that crosses with Calle Florida. I walked past a move theater, and thought hey I'll see a movie, so I saw Up, which I really liked. After the movie I hurried to Plaza San Martin so that I would have time to hang out before it got dark. On my way I stopped for ice cream, then I just spend some time enjoying the ambiance at the plaza. It was fantastic!! When it started getting dark I walked back to the hotel and met up with the others and we went to dinner. This was probably my favorte day of the trip.

And so was our time in Buenos Aires.

Trip to South America: Days 1-4, Rio de Janeiro

Day 1: We weren't actually in Rio on this day, it's the day we left Dallas...flew to Atlanta, ate Chinese food and a McFlurry, then 9 hours to Brasil. I don't remember anything funny from this day.

Day 2: We arrive in Rio. It was really exciting because I just had 20 new pages added to my passport because it was all full, and I got my first stamp on one of my new pages!! Copacabana beach was right around the corner from our hotel, so the first thing that we did was go to the beach. We took our shoes off, walked in the sand and it was wonderful! We still had our clothes on, so we didn't actually swim, but as we walked along the shoreline, a huge wave came and got Grisham pretty good - she was soaked!!! If you don't already know, I don't like museums - and where did we go next?? National History Museum. But don't worry - I made sure that we ate lunch before we went inside. This museum was very boring...I don't think anyone liked it. Next we wandered about downtown....saw a couple churches....and then ate a very large amount of meat. It was pretty good, but my favorite part was the french fries. I had wanted some at lunch, but even though they were on the menu, they didn't have any :(. Everyone was tired, I was the only one that slept on the plane, so we all went to bed at 6:30. Oh! And before bed we stopped at a pharmacy and bought drugs.

Day 3: This was the day of awful, boring tours. Before the tours, we had breakfast, which was very yummy!! My favorite thing was waffles, with warm chocolate syrup. The first tour was to Corcovado, better known as the big Jesus statue. Not much to mention there...we rode the train up to the statue, took some pictures, used the facilities, and went back down. Then our tour guide took us to the shop with the "best prices in town", but I think that it should be better known as the "smallest shop in town". It was so tiny that you couldn't even move in there!! Lunch was included in the tour, and it was okay, but nothing to really write about and describe here. After we finished eating, we walked down to Ipanema beach, which was just a couple blocks away. As always, I was in the mood for dessert, so Grisham and I went to a bakery and bought a snack. I had a nutella tart, and it was oh so yum, I ate it as soon as we got on the bus! For the next 3 hours or so, we rode on a bus all around Rio - I think that the tour guide was showing us stuff, but I'm not sure because I slept the whole time. Finally we made it to Sugar Loaf, which is a mountain-hill place that you ride a cable car up to the top so you can see the whole city. By that time it was starting to get dark, so we didn't have much of a view. Also, when we got to the top, it was super windy. And since we were on a tour, we didn't really even get to hang out and enjoy it because we had to rush back to the bus. We ate dinner at this place where you fill your plate up with food at a buffet and then pay by the weight of your food. This place also had all you can eat pizza. The lady there liked us, so she gave us a special deal and let us eat all the pizza and all the buffet that we wanted for pretty cheap. She didn't even charge us for our drinks. And we went to a market on the beach. I bought a really cool map of South America that's on leather...Grisham got one just like it, only hers isn't as cool, because mine has blue on it. We both liked the blue one best, but luckily for me, Grisham is nicer and let me have it. So it's mine now.

Day 4: Last day in Rio. Two more tours, but these weren't as bad as the day before. The first tour was a Jeep tour, which took us to the Tijuca National Park, and I love parks!! It was raining at first, but that didn't stop me from enjoying it. We saw a little waterfall, and some other stuff, then we went to a big waterfall. It was pretty fun playing with these little velcro balls and just walking through the forest. Our Jeep tour was a little late returning, and we didn't have much time before our next tour, and lunch was quite a pressin matter - I refused to go without!! So, Colette and I decided to make a run for McDonald's, which I thought was only a couple blocks away down the beach. We had exactly 30 minutes to go, get the food, and get back. We walked really, really fast for about 20ish minutes, and still not McDonald's. We had no choice but to go back, and at this point I was really hungry, and felt like I had burned a lot of calories, so I really wanted to eat. On our way back, we stopped at this place Bob's Burgers to get food, everything seemed okay, so we rushed back. We opened up and began to eat, but we were one burger short. Poor Colette, being the kind souls that we are, Grisham and I tore off a small piece of our burgers to share. Then our next tour began. This was my favorite of the tours, I think...we went through the favelas, which are the slums there. The guide told us some pretty cool drug lord stories, and I found that to be pretty interesting...the drug dealers pretty much rule society in the favelas and do whatever they want.

And so were our days in Rio. Overall, a pleasant experience, although I have to say that I was a little disappointed in the city in general. I'm not really sure what I was expecting or looking for, but it definitely wasn't a favorite city. I did love the the beach and the rainforest, though.

Trip to South America: A Brief Description

I just returned from a trip to South America, and there is so much that I could say about the pas 12 days, I don't even know where to start. I travelled with three other ladies - all of them older than me...they were approximately 20, 30, and 40 years older than me. I had the privilege of being part of several conversations about bowel movements and bladder control, something that I generally don't talk about all that much, so it was a new experience for me. I ate a lot of food, and didn't work out once, and from what I can tell by pinching my tummy, I didn't get a whole lot fatter, just a little.
The things that we saw were pretty amazing, even if we had to see most of them on guided tours while riding buses...and I didn't even see everything because buses generally put me to sleep.
I have lots of stories, and I hope that I will share them later on, but right now I'm tired.