Buenos Aires, Argentina

Continuing with the tend of adding to the crew, we picked up a few more travellers on this Great White Hike in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Nick, Zack, and I flew on last Friday and awaited the arrival of Julie, Mike, and Jeff the following morning at our totally awesome apartment in the Recoleta. We were very fortunate to be hooked up with the place by a lovely lady named Anne Elizabeth, who is a friend of a friend and lives right in the building. The place is super rad probably too nice for a bunch of vagabond wanderers such as ourselves but it gave us a fantastic home base for a week of shenanigans in this great city.

Everyone had told us that we had to see a soccer game here in BA, either River or the Boca Juniors. Luckily, they were playing each other on the first Sunday we were there. Its actually one of the premier soccer games on the continent, known as he Superclasico, and we decided that there was no way we could miss it. Despite extreme hangovers after the first night in BA (in which the T Rex made an appearance that would bring a tear to Michael Crichton's eye), we piled onto a bus and bought our home team gear. We had been warned to sit under the overhang so that we could be protected from the River fans above who like to hurl objects below at the Boca fans, their speciality is cups full of urine. While the overhang protected us from recieving golden showers, it provided multiple flashbacks to 1989 when we saw the upper deck rocking furiously under the jumping and dancing River fans above. I assumed it was normal until I saw the wide-eyed locals wondering if the stadium might collapse on our heads. It didn't and the game ended up in a 1-1 tie, the star player for Boca scored the lone goal. Seeing that and the opening ceremony (in the pics) put this game in the top 3 live sporting events of my life (in case you care: the others were Warriors over Mavericks Game 3 of the 2007 playoffs in Oakland and A's sweeping the Twins in the 2006 ALDS at home).

We were in BA for about a week and were able to see all the major sites: the Recoleta Cemetary, La Boca (the colorful neighborhood on the postcards and covers of guidebooks), Tango, steak, and the San Telmo Street Fair among many others. The real sight to be seen is actually Zack.... with huge cans. Best 5 pesos I've ever spent. The days were filled with wandering the glorious city, stopping every few blocks for coffee and/or beer in every neighborhood cafe. The nights almost always involved steak and throwing Zack under the bus (good to have McDonnell around again) then throwing Mike under the bus (thanks Zack). Julie deserves a medal for putting up with us 5 guys, but at least she has a whole new set of good fart and poo jokes.

It was great to see McDonnell and Robinson, especially since it might have been the last time anyone sees them as they are currently enduring a 13 hour layover in Mexico City. Its cool guys, I hear swine flu aint really that bad. Zack, Nick, and Julie and I are in Iguazu, Argentina, home of Iguazu Falls. Nick has a friend who somehow lives in Paraguay nearby, so we have a local guide here for the next few days. Two days here then off to Rio!!!

More pics...