Traveling up to Buenos Aires was our next thing on the list. Josh was heading out to go back home on the 2nd, and we wanted to have at least a day and a half with him in Buenos Aires. We left Tierra Del Fuego (Tierra of the Fuego), and started our expedition north. We bought some bread, jelly, and snacks, and went on our way.
In all honesty, this part of the trip wasn’t necessarily super exciting. So, I’ll skip a day or two of traveling (just imagine five guys in a red Subaru listening to music and painting our nails and sleeping). We knew our one stop was to see tons of penguins at Punto Tombo. Without really realizing the realization of our passing the realty of the real Punto Tumbo, we traveled about an hour north of the penguin paradise. Once realizing this (by this time, it was too late to see the penguins that day), we decided to travel south again and camp nearby the PP (penguin paradise) on the side of the road so we could get up early the next morning, hit the penguins (with a visit, not the back of our hands), and then get on the road before noon the next morning.
It worked!
The penguins were out in full swing, shouting their calls, sleeping, pooping, marching to the sea, waddling, and other penguiny things. This was by far the most we’ve ever seen in one place, and the even cooler part was that it was all natural, and you could see all their homes. Look for pictures later, so if you like penguins, you will think it’s cool. If you don’t like penguins, cover the upcoming pictures with your hands.
So, after 2 days of camping right beside the road, we decided to travel through the night and get into Buenos Aires. We had one contact there, a pastor friend, but we didn’t have an e-mail response saying we could stay at his house, so the first night we found a nice hostel with which to nap and eat. It had a sweet terrace lookout over the city. After looking around the city, we knew what our supper would be. Choripan, super pancho, milenesa, and then gelato would be our festy feasty. How feastastic.
The next day, we saw we had a reply from our pastor friend, so we packed up our bags, and after a couple hours of walking around the city, we started our drive to his house. Well. . . after quite a bit of confusion with the maps (which ended up making us drive for quite a bit longer), we found ourselves in the neighborhood of Sergio’s house, but. . we couldn’t find it anywhere. It was not necessarily the best neighborhood to be wandering around late at night in, and after asking a couple people about the house number, we found it! We were warmly greeted by Sergio’s family and friends, and were given a fantastic meal. Man, it was nice. Through broken English and Spanish, we became friends with those around us quite quickly.
On Saturday, for Josh’s last lunch with us, Sergio and his friends helped cook up a massive amount of choripan (think brots, but..goodness gracious, even way better than those. we are now ruined when it comes inferior meat). The award goes to Aaron, since he had 5 choripans (again, same size as sizably sized sizzling brots), one steak sandwich thing, and probably 3-4 cups of Coca-Cola. Then, came the dreadful goodbye. We drove to the airport, and about 7 other people tagged along to say goodbye to our bucko. We dropped him off at the airport by 7 (his flight left at 9), and then we told the people with us that we’re ready to go. Later, we found out that normally they stay around until the last moment, and then hug and hug hug. For us, it was a “cya later Josh, it’s been tons of fun! See you back in the states brodawg,” and then we were done. It’s not that we weren’t sad he was leaving, but I think we are quite less of an emotional band of brothers than the women of Sergio’s family/church.
That night we went to Pizza Libre, which was a pizza joint. I won’t say that Los Estados Unidos has the best pizza anywhere, but. . I will say that. Los Estados Unidos has the best pizza anywhere. Despite that, the pizza place we went to did have points for originality. It was basically a Cici’s Pizza, except people would come to your table and offer you pizza. The cool thing was that they had tons of kinds. Corn, french fries, egg, mushroom, spinach, clam, etc. We each had about 8-10 pieces. From going from suppers that consisted of some rice, lentils, and cabbage salad, this was a fun transition. I really am not sure if I have ever eaten more food than I had that day. We did the math in our heads, and made an imaginary ball of food. Make your hands into an O, now spread your hands (keeping the O shape intact) about 3.5-4.2 inches or more. If we mashed all the food we ate that day (which was a ton of meat, which we weren‘t used to), that’s how much. Gross. I may have been under the weather the next day, but it wasn’t fair. Aaron ate a lot more than I did. Life is unfair, I learned.
Anyways, over the next couple days, we hung out with Sergio and his family, and even met some other Americans who were staying in Paraguay, but needed to renew their visas so they visited Buenos Aires for a few days. We were given award-winning hospitality by Sergio and his wonderful family. When we had trouble getting insurance for Brazil (since, apparently, the Subaru Loyale isn’t made/sold/existing in Argentina), he called up his knowledgeable friend, and miraculously got us insurance (without insurance, you can‘t cross borders with the car). He fed us amazing meals, took our car to a mechanic, shared his house with us, and welcomed us into his church family. To all of those people who a part of our lives for those days, thank you. During our stay in Buenos Aires, we left one friend behind, but we gained a lot more friends, too. Now, we head to Igaucu Falls. Updaters to come. Thanks for reading. And if you didn’t read this, you won’t see me say, “Hey! You’re mean!!”
No comments:
Post a Comment