BA is so BA

       Right off the boat BA amazed me.  It’s absolutely gorgeous and very European, reminding me of Paris.  This is probably the reason they have the nickname “Paris of South America”.  It’s really clean, and finally someone has a good metro system.  I would definitely put it in my top three stand-alone cities I have ever traveled to.  (Barcelona, Capetown, Buenos Aires).  Even in winter the weather is not bad; never lower than 45-55 in winter.  BA has so many pizza places its ridiculous and the pizza is nasty as shit.  The food in BA/Argentina is not good.  Well, the beef is the best beef in the world so steaks are amazing, but one cannot simply eat a giant slab of meat with potatoes for every meal.  There is only beef, potatoes, and pizza no other options all lacking any type of spice.  There’s a reason I went to Burger King for dinner one night during the week, even the beef at BK destroyed the US.  It was like a gourmet burger but at BK.  The clubs in BA are insane; some even stay open 24 hours.  They have huge discotechas holding 1,000-5,000 people.  People don’t go out here till 1:30am-2am.  Still people get up for work its unreal.  I went and saw Harry Potter by myself that shows how dedicated of a fan I am ha.  I always said how embarrassing it was if you had to go to the movies alone but I am in a foreign country and I love the films so I went.   My hostel was very nice, I stayed at Terreza Estoril in Palmero it had some incredible views from the rooftop terrace.   I had planned on leaving BA after 4 days but on Sunday night I left my only winter jacket, with my ipod in it at coat check.  The club didn’t open again till Thursday so instead of leaving that Tuesday I had to stay till Friday, as the club didn’t open till 1am technically on Friday.  It’s really easy to use BA’s metro to get to all the sites in town; it should only take about 2-3 days to see everything.  I randomly came across a huge Peruvian festival, which was so random considering I am in Argentina.  It was really cool though lots of food, live music, and hundreds of people.  For some reason everyone here thinks I am Brazilian, people keep trying to talk to me in Portuguese even if I asked a question In Spanish which is ridiculous.

Buquebus

      The travel agent lady charged me for luxury class without even telling me.  I guess it was worth it, they gave you a very nice reclining seat, free wifi, unlimited champagne, and flat screens everywhere and only about 100 people were allowed in there.  The regular class ferry had like 600 people walking around loudly sitting on the floor so it was cool not to have to deal with that.  It was a little over an hour boat ride to Buenos Aires.

Uruguay

            Uruguay is an extremely small country.  Not very much to see, they are famous for there two beach resort cities but its winter time so I had no reason to go to see them.  There is cool graffiti spread out around Montevideo.  The nightlife is horrible here.  I really wish I could’ve have been there during summer to visit the beach cities.  I was able to see Montevideo in a day then I took the bus to Colonia.  Unable to get a later ferry to Buenos Aires I was forced to immediately leave after arriving in Colonia missing out on the cool architecture there.  Not to happy about that because I could have taken the ferry from Montevideo and already been in Buenos Aires instead of wasting 3 hours on a bus to a city I did not even get to see. Then taking the ferry from there; I basically wasted a day and probably like $10.

Things I Miss

California Burritos

In-N-Out

A Good Mattress

Good Customer Service

Good Napkins

Fatt Matts Rib Shack

Fidels

Cell Phone

The Gym

26 hours of Travel Was Saving $300 Worth It?

My cousin once explained to me how horrible traveling over 24 hours was and I had never planned on doing it so I didn’t think twice about it.  Well it happened, I was stuck traveling for almost 26 hours on the same damn continent.  I think as an American I take for granted how interconnected our flights are and the same probably goes for Europeans.  It’s pretty simple to get anywhere you want without super long delays and it’s cheap (well cheaper).  My flight started in Santa Marta at 3pm pretty much just walked on the plane that’s how small this airport was.  There was literally no security at this airport; I walked on the plane with a large amount of liquids and a Swiss army knife in my bag.  I guess the Taliban doesn’t care about Colombia.  I got to Bogota an hour later and had to wait 8 hours till my flight to Sao Paulo at 11:59pm.  I got to Sao Paulo at 8am, which I had to sit in the smallest waiting area till 4pm for my flight to Montevideo, Uruguay.  If you are an American you have to have a Brazilian visa before leaving the country in order to visit, you cannot get one there.  So I was stuck in my terminal sitting with one sandwich shop for hours.  The only reason I didn’t fly straight into Buenos Aires is due to the fee they put on Americans of $140 if you fly into the country it doesn’t exist for land or sea travel into the country.  By flying into Uruguay I save that and also get to see another country on my trip.  The downside is I would’ve only had an 8 hour trip if I had simply flew direct to Argentina instead of this full day of travel.  I’m still trying to gage if it was worth saving the money.

 

I miss too many flights

            Stupid me decided to have my flight booked out of Cartagena to Bogota, which is 3.5 hour shuttle ride from Santa Marta where I was.  The flight was at 5 pm but all the shuttles were booked till 1230, which would’ve left me probably missing my flight.  So luckily “Shakira” my nickname for the front desk girl told me you were allowed to actually cancel your flight and get a credit.  It only cost $30 to cancel/change the flight to 5 days later thus giving me more time with my new found family and extra days of summer instead of my original plan to have my 5 last days in Bogota which is cold year round due to the elevation.