Where IS everyone!?

We are leaving Buenos Aires today and unforunately I can´t say I´m upset about that. For a couple reasons: We are going to Iguazu Falls on an overnight bus (so I´m really excited to spend two and a half days there!) and nothing has been easy here (to be continued..). I think maybe a big attraction to this city is the night life, that doesn´t start until after midnight, but Lynne and I are grannies and don´t feel like staying out drinking until 7am.

When we arrived at Hostel Clan our first night, they told us that Monday night is the best drum show EVER. I don´t know if he really said that, but it is a popular local thing to do. Even though we weren´t staying at Hostel Clan, he invited us to go with their group and we accepted. We mentioned it to Agustin the next day and he had never heard of it. We couldn´t remember the name, la bamba del...la bumba de..still Agustin looked at us like we were making it up so we started thinking that guy from the hostel was making up the drum show. That day we got lunch at a great place and Lynne ordered lomo which is a super delacacy here for less than $10! We ended up getting more info on the drum show so we decided to give it a whirl. I´m SO glad we did. It is a group called La Bomba de Tiempo, with about 15 guys, mostly different types of drums but other instruments as well. Most importantly, the cow bell, you always need more cowbell. The coolest part was that it´s improv. They have a leader who flashes some hand signals but other than that it was just amazing talent. It was an outdoor, covered stage that felt like a gutted warehouse. I´m sure everyone was on drugs and loving it even more than us and I´m also sure we looked a bit out of place but that really didn´t matter. We had a good time and saw a great show in Argentina!

Over the past few days we have been deciding on a plan for the upcoming week. We originally wanted to take a boat to Montevideo, but we were told to go to Colonia instead. It is a shorter and cheaper bus ride and took the advice. We strolled around Tuesday morning before our departure in a desperate search for milk. Why was it desperate? We bought some cereal and milk in Rio and while I thought it tasted like hay, Lynne made a sad face and said it tasted like barn. I am not sure what either taste like really, but you can imagine, not good. So, all the little corner stores carried leche entera (whole milk) but I have a hard time drinking cream. We were killing time so it was worth it to us to fulfill our craving. Of course when we decided to go over a block and head back in the direction of the boat, we found it. Ice cold, leche parcialmente descremada, bingo! We were obviously pretty excited so we took a picture in front of a flowe display. Oh the simple things in life that make us smile. So, back at the boat headquarters, we increased the number of stamps for our passport, Lynne passed out on the amazing couches while I watched a Victoria Secret like photo shoot on their 16 flat screens. Very strange choice if you ask me. What do they think? Small children and women don´t go to Uruguay I guess. Well, minority or not, we boarded the luxurious boat full steam ahead to Uruguay. We really were full steam because there is a slow boat that takes 3 hours, and OUR boat that takes 50 mins. Lynne passed out again and I finished my book, onto book number 2! (The frequent comments about Lynne sleeping is so my lovely friends who think that is all I do can realize that other people, Lynne, enjoy sleep as much as I do. And that´s how we became friends...)

Colonia, Uruguay. Love it. We were told, ´go for the day, love it. Two days, start to hate it. Three days, find a gun and shoot yourself.´I did love it and I agree that three days would be too much. We sat by the water to eat the sandwiches we made and then did our standard ´walk the city.´ We went up the lighthouse (picture attached), went to an amazing hand craft market where I wished I could have bought and bought. It was just a SUPER cute town that is much much cleaner than BsAs even though there are stray dogs everywhere. Cobblestone streets, tiny old cars, scooters seem to be the main form of transportation and just very different from BsAs (in a good way). We walked forever and stumbled across a huge cemetary. I have probably only ever been in one or two cemeteries when I was young, so it was pretty creepy and cool at the same time. We had a great dinner with an amazing blue cheese toast appetizer, salad and pasta, AND a bottle of wine for 14 dollars each, total! The one thing I could NOT figure out was why the streets, shops, and restaurants were soo empty. Total ghost town (May/June is their slow season) so it was actually a nice change of pace from Rio and BsAs, but we sat at dinner for almost 2 hours and were the only ones the entire time. Question of the day: Where IS everyone!? End of the day, I highly recommend Colonia, but remember not to stay there more than a day!

The other nice thing about spending the day in Colonia was that we were able to forget about the stress of getting to Peru. We were planning on flying into La Paz, Bolivia and taking a bus through the towns along Lake Titicaca. Then we heard you now need a visa to enter Bolivia. We got visas in the US for Brazil and it wasn´t THAT easy so we figured it would be the same process for Bolivia. Agustin called the Consulate for us and found out that we would need a copy of our passport, our itinerary, a hotel reservation confirmation, flight confirmation, a photo, etc. We also talked to someone who was on a bus going from Peru to Bolivia and he just had to pay $100 on the spot for his visa so we wanted to go to the Consulate ourselves and see if we couldn´t just get it. Like I mentioned earlier, nothing is easy here. Without getting into the last couple days, I will just describe to you our morning.

We got the addres to the Bolivian Consulate from a travel agency. We wanted to go at 8:30am this morning when they opened, in order to look extremely punctual, reponsible, and smart, but most of all TIRED. We left the house at 8 to catch the the subway line C and transfer to line A. Once we got to line A, it was closed from a power outage, of course, so we started walking. I wish we had a pedometer. We got to 1886 Aldolfo Alsina at 8:26. No Bolivian Consulate sign, pretty standard for BsAa, but we buzzed anyway...nothing..again..nothing..waited about 10 minutes. We went across the street to make sure that was the right place and a guy said they moved to 2300 block of another street like 3 blocks away. More walking..get there..nothing..we ask..no one knows..we find a call center so Lynne calls the number we got from the travel agency and of course the phone number is wrong too. We find out how to call information and Lynne gets through, yes! They are on the 2800 block. We were chasing a goose all morning. More walking. We find it..yay! We wait our turn and the lady says we absolutley cannot get it that day (totally expcted) but still bummed. Lynne said something to the effect of, ´we are flying into La Paz and continuing to Peru. The lady said ooh so it´s in transit? Ok well you just pay at the Airport. $100 dollars. We are a little shocked that after all that it could really be that simple? Then what´s all this paperwork? She explains to us that is more formal, so if you have all the info great but you guys obviously don´t so you will have to pay at the airport. As if it was a bad thing. Umm, no, much better! So we jet home to buy our tickets online, saw Barney on the way, and the web site we have been using won´t allow us to buy a ticket within 4 days of departure. We went to the airline website itself (a South American airline) and after entering all our information is just sends it to their ´people´who contact their ´people´and some other ´people´will get back to us in 24 hours. Weird. So, we may or may not be flying to La Paz in 4 days. I´m hoping for the former.

Off to catch a bus. Hope to blog from Iguazu Falls, can´t wait! I don´t really have a choice though since the bus is 16 hours..woo hoo :)