Adventures in ARGENTINA

Lost

On Wednesday, March 19th Little Katy and I made our way from Montevideo down to Argentina to spend a couple of days in Buenos Aires. Our adventures started IMMEDIATELY when we got off the boat and realized that we had lost the little paper which had the address and phone number of our hostel on it. So there we were, at 11:30pm walking around Buenos Aires like two lost tourist fools with our backpacks, trying to figure out where we were supposed to stay. We stopped at 2 internet cafes, hoping to look up the address of the hostel, but for some reason the internet was out in both of them. Shoot. Finally the internet came back on and we were able to find our place...


Touristy stuff in BA

Thursday we got up early and spent the whole day walking around the city. We didn't have a map, so we just walked around hoping we would bump into important things, just kind of deciding along the way which way we should go. We saw the Casa Rosada (Pink House, kind of the equivalent of the White House), the Plaza de Mayo where the mothers of the desaparecidos from the dictatorship in the '70's march every week to demand information about their children who were taken from the government some 32 years ago, we saw soldiers from the Falkland Islands war demanding recognition from the Argentine government, we saw the Rio de la Plata which separates Uruguay from Argentina and flows out into the Atlantic Ocean, we went to Barrio Boca (which is where the soccer team Boca Juniors is from), and we went to the obelisk located on the widest street in the world.


Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo

This was definitely an incredible experience, and probably the highlight of our trip to Buenos Aires. Little Katy and I both had classes which covered social issues in Latin America, so this was one of the topics that we studied while at CSS. One of my loves of traveling is being able to be in the places that used to just show up in my homework... We talked with a couple of the mothers, and their stories were heartbreaking. During the dictatorship in the '70's, there was not a lot of freedom of speech, and many who spoke out against the government wound up disappearing, hence the name "desaparecidos" (disappeared). In Argentina alone there were more than 30,000 who disappeared, never to be heard from again. Most of these were college students in their early 20's, just like me and Little Katy. One particular mother we talked with lost her son and his wife in 1976. They were 23, and their only reason for being taken by the government was because they wanted a better world for their two children (at that time 1.5 years and 8 days old). This hit hard because Little Katy and I are 23 and 22, and we too are working for a better world, and can't imagine living in a country which doesn't allow dialogue among its citizens. If this mother's son and his wife were alive today, they would be 55 years old, yet they were taken in their prime, just when their lives were starting... None of the desaparecidos have surfaced since they were taken, and it is suspected that they were killed and dumped far into the ocean. Since 1976 many of these mothers have been marching in the Plaza de Mayo, which is right in front of the Pink House, demanding information on their sons and daughters. However, the number of mothers is diminishing as they are rapidly aging, with most being over 80 years old now. However, every Thursday at 3:30pm a group of mothers and numerous tourists show up to march for a half an hour, all the while yelling "la plaza es de las madres, y no de los cobardes!" ("the plaza is for the mothers and not for the cowards"...I'm assuming the "cowards" are the government workers since the plaza is situated directly in front of the pink house).


A night out on the town

Argentines and Uruguayans are CRAZY when it comes to nightlife. If you show up to a club at midnight you will be bored for the next two hours because it will be pretty much empty. Their nightlife starts between 2-3am, and ends any time between 6-9am. Thursday night we decided to go out with some friends we had met, but they were taking their time getting ready...Little Katy and I were getting impatient because it was already 2:00am and we still hadn't left. We didn't realize until we got to the club that this is ok. We arrived at 2:30am and it was pretty full, but didn't completely fill up until after 3am. It was a good time, lots of rooms with different types of music we could choose to dance to.

Throughout our entire trip we were constantly being approached by Argentine men trying to hit on us, and if we ignored them they would just try to hit on us in English. This got really really annoying and when it happened again at the club Katy and I decided to tell them that we don't speak English. So they asked us where we were from, and, having to think fast, I said the first country that popped into my head; I said we were from Germany. I didn't realize that this was a bad idea until the guy was like "hey!! my friend here is from Cologne!! Wait I'll get him for you!" Realizing that I'd have to defend myself in German if I stayed there, I quickly grabbed Katy's arm and told her we should scram, which was kind of funny because she was talking with someone else at the time and didn't know what was going on...Next time I'll tell them I'm from Slovenia or something (I mean, who's from Slovenia anyway?)


Zombies in the city

When we finally left the club, we walked outside and saw that the sun was already up...in fact it was almost 8am by that point. We returned to our hostel and crashed, only to be woken up at 11 by the hostel worker telling us that we had to check out. The only thing we wanted to do was sleep...but we no longer had a bed...so we walked around Buenos Aires in a daze, like zombies...everything was closed because it was Good Friday, so we just looked for a small patch of grass we could lay down on....we couldn't find one so we ended up going to a little park and sitting on the benches until we saw that in that park the police were apprehending a couple of guys who were doing drugs not too far from us, so we left....


Braving a storm in the Rio de la Plata

Friday evening we boarded our boat back to Montevideo, but we were held up at the port in Buenos Aires because there was a storm traveling through the Rio de la Plata. I had a huge headache at the time, so Katy told me that I should drink water, since I was obviously hungover from the night before. I drank a lot of water, which didn't help, so I went and bought a ham sandwich, which helped me feel better.

We finally left an hour or two after we were supposed to... The first half of the trip was very easy going and smooth, but once we got closer to Montevideo we hit the storm. The boat, which was fairly small, was being thrown this way and that, knocked around by the high winds and torrential waves. And of course here we are in the boat, tired, hungover, and dehydrated. I started to feel sick as the boat begin to go up and down, up and down, up and down, side to side, side to side, side to side, until suddenly, SPLAT! There went the ham sandwich.... And Katy, being the good friend she is, sat there and laughed, because at the same time she was also feeling sick but was being hit on by two workers on the boat. So I'm there vomiting, Katy's laughing and two Uruguayan guys are asking her for her number while we're being tossed every which way in the Rio de la Plata. What an adventure...

Impressions of Argentina

Argentina is Italy. That's really all there is to it. It's full of people with Italian descent. And Buenos Aires is CRAZY. It's like the New York of South America. In fact, the way I see it, Montevideo is like DC and Buenos Aires is like New York...Montevideo being much more laid back and smaller like DC, but then Buenos Aires which never sleeps and has huge buildings and famous monuments, with the same hustle and bustle and fast-paced craziness that New York has. I could definitely go back to that city.....

And now it's back to the early mornings in cold Bogota....

Uruguay

My impressions of Uruguay...

I've been in Uruguay for 5 days now, and here are some of my observations:

-Montevideo is a very low-key city...very calm and quiet.
-It's like some type of mix between Southern Europe and Eastern US. Definitely lacks the typical Latin feel.
-They party LIKE CRAZY! People usually go out to the club around 2am and come back at 6am. You can't find anything going on before midnight.
-There is meat EVERYWHERE. Uruguayans eat more meat per person than any country in the world.
-People from this part of the world like to drink something called "Mate" (pronounced MAW tay). They take some type of plant and crush it up and put it into a little cup, then pour hot water (which they carry around in a big thermos) into the cup and suck it with a long metal straw. It tastes kind of like tea, and looks like this:



Tomorrow, ARGENTINA!

CHIVA! CARLOS VIVES! POLITICAL TRANQUILITY!

Writing now from the airport in Bogota, on my way to Montevideo...

CHIVA

About a week and a half ago I helped to celebrate the birthday of a friend in a CHIVA!!! A Chiva is a big Colombian bus that you can rent with a bunch of people and it takes you through Bogota while everyone inside drinks and dances. Traditionally the Chiva has been used to transport people through the countryside, and it is commonly packed with people...like this:

Dangerous? Hehe...

CARLOS VIVES

This last weekend I went with Cally and a couple of my roommates to a FREE CARLOS VIVES CONCERT in La Plaza de Bolívar (main plaza in Bogota). Carlos Vives, from the Caribbean coast, is a musical god here in Colombia, and is easily one of my favorite musical artists.

You can listen to a sample of his music here: http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=25o3XdgSSjY

POLITICAL TRANQUILITY

Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador resolved their little military dispute. Stop worrying.

Next stop...URUGUAY and ARGENTINA!

Tension in Colombia

As you all probably know already, on Saturday the Colombian military killed a high-ranking FARC official just 1 mile inside the border with Ecuador. This has caused heightened tension in the region. Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, and Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, have sent thousands of troops to the Venezuelan and Ecuadorian borders with Colombia in an effort to prevent another occurrence from happening in their countries. Chavez states that Colombia violated the sovereignty of Ecuador by using military tactics inside the country without first consulting the Ecuadorian government. Neither Venezuela nor Ecuador have very good control of their borders with Colombia, and as a result there is a lot of movement of FARC forces back and forth over the borders (the FARC usually cross into Venezuela or Ecuador to rest or practice or to simply escape the Colombian military).

Both Ecuador and Venezuela have recalled their ambassadors from Bogotá, with the Venezuelan embassy in Bogotá being completely shut down. Chavez said that if a similar occurrence happens in his country, Venezuela will declare war on Colombia.

I'd like you all to know that I DON'T LIVE ANYWHERE NEAR THE VENEZUELAN OR ECUADORIAN BORDERS. There has been tension between Colombia and Venezuela for years, and war is highly unlikely between the two countries. But if anything does happen, Rotary has a policy to withdraw all scholars studying in any areas considered too dangerous. Rotary keeps a close eye on the political situations in the countries where they have scholars, and if this situation spirals out of control I would have no say in whether I can stay or not; I would be immediately evacuated. Rotary had to evacuate their scholars in Israel and Lebanon a couple of years ago when war broke out in that region, so they know what they're doing.

Ooooh such excitement!