Last Day in BA
Sunday January 25, 2015 (Argentina, Buenos Aires, South America)
It's time for us to leave BA and head south to Patagonia! We went out with a bang!
Morning run along the canal again. We included some sprints this time to make it more challenging! Some showers and general clean-up at home and it was time to head out to the Plaza Dorrego market.
The market is in the San Telmo area of the city and happens on Sundays. I was expecting a lot of "handmade" trinkets and general tourist stuff, but I was surprised to find it full of neat antiques, art, and more. Sandra picked up a mate straw. Mate is kind of a tea mixture that people drink a lot of around here. The straw is special in that it includes a filter for the tea, so Sandra can use it for tea back home. A neat purchase for about 3 CAD! We also found an amazing leather company by the name of AWAX selling gorgeous bags of all kinds. Of course we can't really carry any more weight with us, but I'm sure we would have picked some things up were we back in Canada. A bit painful to have to walk away from beautiful things! We also paused to listen to a great traditional tango band called El Afronte. I think their music would make an incredible soundtrack to a video game! We rode the Metro for the first time today. The stations were all full of hand-painted tiles, which was neat to see. And the escalator stairs were covered in wooden slats. Old school.
After the market we went straight to Plaza Italia to celebrate Aussie Dave's birthday/Australia Day! We had a frisbee, some meat/cheese/bread spreads, desserts… and a set of 1L Quilmes beers that make me feel like a Captain of Industry! You can't not feel like a hero drinking from a novelty-sized 1L beer bottle. After a few hours of good chatting and sweaty frisbee we retreated home to pack up and get ready to head back out for more dinner celebrations. Unfortunately the frisbee was sweaty enough that I was forced to toss a red shirt that we discovered was leaking dye all over me. I looked like I had a bizarre rash all around my armpits and neckline. Turns out it's just a bad shirt. So I'm down one article of clothing and saving weight as we go!
Late night empanadas and more drinks at the hostel. Then back home for a few hours of sleep before our flight in the morning!
We've just now gotten off the bus at the airport for our flight. Our shuttle bus driver collected everybody's baggage tickets when we got off. And promptly threw them on the ground before departing. I really don't understand why anybody thinks that's an acceptable thing to do! Littering still ain't cool, folks!
We're now headed south to El Chalten. It's going to be a long day with a connecting flight down there followed by a bus north to El Chalten. We're there for a couple of nights, then to El Calafate again, then Puerto Natales. It's going to be a bit more intense for at least the next week! Wish us luck!