Brazil and Uruguay

Hey, sorry I haven't updated in a while! I last talked about a pro of Buenos Aires, so I guess I'm supposed to talk about a con next, but since so much traveling has taken place since the last time I updated, I'm gonna have to save the con for the next post.

As you guys probably saw from my facebook photos over spring break, I went to Brazil and Uruguay with my mom (and if you haven't seen them, you should go look at them). Although I had a bunch of photos from Uruguay, and I don't know where they went. I think they're on my mom's computer, so when I get back to the US, I'll look for them again. The only photos I could find were the ones I took at the airport (also on fb), but that's lame.

Our first stop in Brazil was São Paulo, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and the commerce center of the country. On the first night, my mom's friend who lives there took us to a classy churrascaria (pronounced shoo-ha-sca-ree-a, this is an all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouse) where they had the absolute most delicious cuts of meat I had ever tasted in my life, no exaggeration. If you go through the whole visa process and then fly down to Brazil just for this one meal, I would tell you that it's worth it. In addition to an all-you-can-eat buffet on the side, waiters come around with these large metal skewers with huge chunks of meat, and they'll cut off a piece for anyone who asks for one, without limit. After dinner, we went to see the São Paulo samba parade, where different samba teams competed to be the best. Each team had I think one hour to show off all their fancy costumes and floats and samba skills. It was extremely colorful, the floats were really cool, the music was lively, and the place was packed with rowdy people cheering for their favorite teams and singing along to the music.

The next day we spent at the beach in the nearby city of Santos. We walked around and shopped. We had lunch at a seafood buffet, although it wasn't an all-you-can-eat buffet. You get a plate and grab whatever you want from the buffet, then at the cashier they weigh your plate and the amount you pay is proportional to the weight. This kind of pay-by-weight buffet restaurant is popular in Brazil (although the churrascarias I think are always all-you-can-eat). After lunch, we hung out at the beach some more, sipping on juice straight out of a coconut. In the evening, we took a ferry across to the city of Guarujá, where we had dinner.

The next day we flew to Rio de Janeiro (hyu-jee-zha-nay-ru). Since all the hotels in Rio were booked by the time we made reservations for that night, we ended up getting a hotel in the tiny city of Niteroi, so when we got out of Rio's airport, we had to take a ferry across to Niteroi with all our luggage. Having heard so many stories about the dangers of Rio, we were so scared we were going to get held at gunpoint and robbed. In fact, throughout our trip in Brazil we were constantly very cautious, but nothing bad happened in the end (although maybe it was BECAUSE we were cautions that nothing happened). After dropping off everything at the hotel, we walked along the beach at Niteroi for about half an hour, but there wasn't much to see, although the outside of the contemporary art museum looked really cool. So we decided to head back to Rio. It was difficult figuring out how to take the bus to the ferry station, but we managed it through my Spanish and extremely limited Portuguese skills. Once in Rio, we noticed all these people in costume walking in the same direction, so we followed them. And soon enough, we saw what their destination was. We had entered a massive street party crowded with people (including families with kids!) in outrageous costumes, vendors selling junk food, and tourists taking pictures. My mom and I joined in on the festivity, taking pictures. There was a guy on the streets selling colorful wigs, so we each bought one and paraded around in them. It was a ton of fun! After we were all partied out, we headed back to Niteroi, where we had dinner in a nice little restaurant overlooking the beach, and where I once again got to practice my broken Portuguese.

The next day we moved all our stuff once again across the ferry to Rio (we had managed to reserve hotels in Rio for the rest of our time there). We got lost trying to find our hotel and managed to bust the wheels of one of our suitcases. So finally we gave up and just took a taxi. After we were all settled in, we spent the day laying out on the famous Copacobana beach sipping on Caipirinha, Brazil's national cocktail. I didn't take a picture of it, but I grabbed this one off the internet to show you. At night, we went to one of the biggest malls in Rio to do some shopping. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that all of the stores would still be closed for the Carnival holiday. So we ended up doing nothing but eating dinner at the mall (it was delicious, though).

As much as I don't like simply being a tourist going around on a bus, we decided it was a must on our last full day in Rio, especially since there are so many things to see in the city and so little time. So we booked a full-day tour of the most famous sites in Rio. We got to tour a lot of cool places. We took a cable car up Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountain), and the view up there was gorgeous. There were a lot of stairs to climb, and the day was very hot, but it was worth it. Our next stop was the Cathedral of São Sebastião, which was a cool cone-shaped building covered with stained glass windows. The inside of the cathedral was amazing because you are surrounded completely by colored stained glass with the sun shining through it. After the cathedral, we went to the big football stadium Estádio do Maracanã. We had lunch at a cute little churrascaria. Then the higlight of the tour: the famous Christ the Redeemer statue (Cristo Redentor, pronounced kreesh-tu-hay-den-toH). We took a train up to the top. There were water droplets misting down on us, and at first, I was like, "oh that's so nice of them to mist water to cool down tourists on such a hot day", and then I realized that it wasn't man-made water mist. We were up in the clouds! It was so cool and refreshing I could have just stood there all day. We finally climbed to the top and saw that famous statue that is practically synonymous with Rio de Janeiro.

 

 Finally the tour was over, and we asked the bus driver to drop us off at the Copacobana beach so we could spend some time there again (we didn't get to have dinner there last time). We had dinner at this little outdoor cafe right on the beach. However, in the middle of our meal, it started pouring like crazy. We had gather up all our stuff and hide out under the umbrellas for a while. Luckily the rain eventually ended and we were able to finish our meal in peace.

We flew back to São Paulo the next day, where we spent a few hours shopping at the mall (since we didn't get to do that in Rio) before our flight in the evening to Montevideo. I love the airport in Montevideo. It is by far the classiest, nicest airport that I have been to in South America. I also liked Montevideo itself a lot, because it was very clean and nice and not at all crowded (or at least the district we visited). There were so many really unique, pretty beach houses. It looked like a very high-class suburban area on the coast. We took a midnight stroll on one of the biggest streets in Montevideo and through a cute little plaza, and we felt completely safe. The next morning, we walked around some more. The people there are super friendly. This would be a  really nice place to get a vacation house and visit every winter (which, don't forget, is their summer). I'm very sad that I can't find the photos that I took of this place. Then at midday, it was time for us to go to the airport to head back to Buenos Aires.

The airport is located about half an hour away by taxi from the rest of the city. When we were in the check-in line, my mom all of a sudden burst out crying and practically collapsed to the ground. Scared, I desperately asked her what was wrong. She had suddenly realized that she had left her passport and ALL her money back at the hotel. She hid them under the mattress in order to keep them safe, but ended up forgetting that it was there. And although it was unfortunate that this happened, out of all of the places in South America that this could have happened, I'm glad it happened in Montevideo. Everyone there was super nice and helpful. The lady at the counter immediately rescheduled us for a later flight, called us a taxi to take us to the hotel and back, gave us a free phone card to call the hotel, and when we were having trouble using the payphones, she called for us to ask the hotel staff to look for my mom's things. All this was done quickly and efficiently, without any hassle. The hotel manager himself went to our room to look for it, and then held on to it for the half hour it took for us to take the taxi back. While this sounds simple enough, we have to not take these kinds of things for granted in South America. Not every city would have been as efficient or as helpful. Although we ended up having to delay our flight and pay a lot of money for the hour-long roundtrip taxi ride, I was really thankful that in the end, everything turned out alright, and with relatively little hassle. Buenos Aires I knew for a fact would not have been as responsive to situations like this. Sure enough, when we got back to BA, we couldn't find my mom's suitcase, which had all our clothes in it. We asked the airport staff to help us, and it took them a long time to have anyone available to help us. Finally, they took down our contact information and our description of the suitcase and told us to wait back at the hotel while they looked for it, and that they would send the suitcase to our hotel as soon as they found it. My mom urgently needed the suitcase because she was leaving to Iguazu early in the morning the following day. We got back to the hotel and waited for them to call us. Several hours later, we decided to call them ourselves, but no one picked up at either of the 3 phone numbers they gave us, even though it wasn't yet closing hour. We asked the hotel staff to help us call them, and the hotel manager left a message on their machine. And they still didn't call us. Finally, late that night, they called us back. When I asked if they found the suitcase, they said, yes they found it a few hours ago. If they found it a few hours ago, why didn't they call us like they said that would???!!! Of course they didn't have a response to that. So I asked them to send over the suitcase to the hotel immediately because my mom was leaving at 5am the next morning. They told me it was impossible to send it over at that time because all of the staff had already gone home. They promised to send it at around 8am the next morning. Even though my mom will have left by then, I saw no other way, so I agreed. The next day at 8am, no word from them, and suitcase nowhere in sight. Finally, at 2pm, they called me to tell me that they were gonna send over the suitcase immediately and that it would be at our hotel in only half an hour. Then at 4pm, two whole hours after the phone call, the suitcase finally arrived. Broken. With a missing wheel. (This was the suitcase that we busted in Rio, but the wheel wasn't MISSING, it was slightly busted but still usable before we left for BA.) Now, if this infuriates you, wait 'til you read my next post, which is about the biggest downside (I promised you a con!) of Buenos Aires and other places in Argentina: the inefficiency and unresponsiveness, and the complete lack of this notion called time.

But stay tuned, because after that post, I'll be continuing on about my travels to El Tigre and Mendoza!

Nightlife

Pro: Vibrant Nightlife

• Yes, I know, big cities in general have a great nightlife, but there are some important things to mention about the nightlife in Buenos Aires. The clubs here are called "boliches", and they're generally open after midnight. However, that doesn't mean people go at midnight. In the US, most people are heading home from the clubs at 2 or 3 in the morning. Here, the boliches don't start filling up until 3. People have really late dinners here, so often, they'll have dinner at 9 and enjoy a glass or two of wine at a restaurant or at home, then they go home to take a nap. Then at around 12 or 1, they meet at a bar and order a few drinks. They'll sip on their drinks and just chat with their friends, order another round and continue hanging out. Many Americans have the mentality that they must get drunk before or at the club. But in Argentina, they don't have to get drunk to go dance. Most don't. (This contributes to the porteños thinking of Americans as loud and obnoxious. Not only does speaking a different language make you stand out, but you're also in a huge group of very obviously drunken foreigners. When you see drunken people out at night making a scene or throwing up, they're generally not locals.) So anyway, the porteños often leave the bar at 3 or 4 to go to the clubs, and they stay out late into the morning. The latest I've stayed out is until 7am, but many porteños don't get to bed until 10 or 11 in the morning. Obviously, every night varies, but from what I've seen so far, what I described above is a typical night out.

• Depending on the club, the entrance fee is generally cheaper than in the US. Which is why foreigners are so eager to pay to get in, not realizing that if they take the time and did some research, they can find always find out ways to get into clubs for free. After staying here for about a few weeks, you start realizing a lot of little tricks. (Useful info if you're planning on visiting BA some day!) Most clubs will either have a list of people who emailed the club beforehand (and all you have to do is find out the email address from a flyer and email them and you don't have to pay!), or a list of VIP names, and if you can find out one of those names, you can mention that you're with them (even if you don't actually know them! you just need their name) and you can get in. If you tag along with porteños who know people at the club, not only can you get in for free, you can also get into the VIP section (unlimited drinks, holla!). Some clubs will partner up with a bar on a certain day of the week, so if you go to that bar first, they'll hand you fliers or tickets that will get you into that club for free later that night. There's also a website I accidentally stumbled upon, infoboliches.com.ar. This website has a bunch of ppl who work at clubs who give you info on who to contact if you want to go to that club. It also gives you info on when a certain club has ladies night or nights when everyone gets in for free, and general info like the address, which nights are the most popular to go, etc. Once I wrote a post on the website saying it was my friend's birthday and that we were looking to go to a certain club. Within a few hours, 3 ppl who work at different clubs had facebook messaged me about letting my friends and I into the club, including a girl who works at the club that I specifically mentioned I wanted to go to. If you come to BA, definitely utilize this website.

Iguazu Falls

Last weekend I went to Iguazu Falls! It was my first time outside of Buenos Aires since I got here. Here are some of the highlights of my trip. These are only a few of the photos. You can find the rest on my facebook. I will also have videos up soon on facebook.

On Thursday evening, I got on the bus with the rest of the people in my program. The bus ride was really long, but it was fun because we all got to chill and watch some movies. The bus arrived in the region of Misiones (the region where the Iguazu Falls are located) on Friday morning. The dirt here is red, and it stains clothes and shoes and will never wash out, so I brought my clothes that I didn't care about. It was pouring when we got there, and so everyone rushed to buy these cheap flimsy raincoats that rip after the first use. We visited a Jesuit museum that showed what things were like when the Jesuits missionaries first came to the Guaraní people (the indigenous people of this region). It was kind of boring except for some cool Guaraní artifacts and some recordings of the Guaraní language.


Then we visited some ruins of an ancient city, which was cool. After the ruins, we went to an estancia (a farm) that grows yerba mate. Mate is very popular in Argentina, but it is especially popular in the region of Misiones because there are a lot of estancias that cultivate the yerba. Here, people drink mate multiple times every day, and in a way, mate is like a staple here. Mate contains a lot of mateína, which like caffeine, helps you stay awake. At the estancia, we had a delicious lunch (soooo much food) that the people at the estancia prepared for us. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out, playing card games, and drinking mate, which was a lot of fun. We also got to try some tereré, the "summer cousin" of mate. With mate, you put the yerba in the mate cup and add hot water (well, there's more to the technique than that). Tereré is very popular on hot summer days because instead of putting hot water in the yerba, you put cold juice (usually orange juice or lemonade) in the yerba. The drink is cool and fruity but it still retains its original mate flavor. After the estancia, we drove for a couple more hours to our hotel, where we had all-you-can-eat buffet for dinner (although I was already so full from lunch).

All day Saturday was devoted to our day tour of the Iguazu Falls. The Falls were enormous. And breathtakingly beautiful (no photo can ever capture its beauty, you have to see it in person). We walked all day through it and still didn't get to see all of it. But of course one of the things we got to see was the famous Garganta del Diablo (Throat of the Devil). We also visited various other falls in the Iguazu National Park. There were a ton of butterflies there who weren't afraid of people. A lot of these butterflies will just randomly land on you and stay there for a good 15 minutes while you walk through your tour, as if you're wearing the butterfly as an accessory. There were also a lot of other wildlife there, including these cute opossum-like creatures that are native to that region of Argentina. During a tour of Iguazu Falls, we took a ride on a speedboat which took us to areas were the water fell, and we all got completely soaked. It was a lot of fun. In the evening, we returned to our bus, which on the way back to the hotel stopped at the point where Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina almost meet (although they don't actually meet, since there is water separating them). Each of the three countries have an obelisk of its flag colors near the edge of the water. You'll have to go to my album to see them. Anyways, afterwards we went back to the hotel.

The next day, we got to visit a Guaraní village, where the indigenous people have preserved their way of life. They showed us a bunch of cool animal traps that they made. They also showed us a type of fruit that they grind up and mix with water to make a tea used for contraception. Then a group of Guaraní people performed a few songs in the Guaraní language. At the Guaraní village, I bought a bow and arrow, a blow dart, lots of necklaces and bracelets made from a native plant seed, and feather earrings. After we left the village, we had some time to hang out and eat before we headed to the airport.

It was a really fun trip, and you definitely can't go to Argentina without visiting the Iguazu Falls.

This is the last week of my current class, and then after my final exam on Friday, I have a week of spring break before my next class starts. So of course I'm taking this opportunity to go to Brazil for Carnival! So excited. The only that that disappoints me is that I will be leaving for Brazil the day that Shakira comes to Buenos Aires. Oh well, I'll have a lot of fun at Carnival, and I'll be sure to write all about it when I get back!