Happy Canada Day!

We spent the first week in Buenos Aires, where we were taught how to make mate and were introduced to the pleasures of Argentinean life (dulce de leche, alfajores, mate, coffee, facturas (aka pastries), chocolate, pasta, steak, beer and both wine and beef that is sinfully delicious and ridiculously cheap. And that's not mentioning the world's best ice-cream. I never felt so emotionally satisfied while eating as I did then. Right after my last bite (of a 1/4 kg tub all to myself) the euphoria left me feeling a little saddened and wondering when I'd get my next scoop. I'm telling ya, it was so good that Jordan brought it back to impress a girl. No jokes. He sealed it up and put it on his luggage under the plane. Like I said, the world's best ice-cream.

The second part of my time with Julio, Noemi and Jordan was in Neuquen - an oil city inbetween BA and the mountains. There we saw Julio rock the casbah playing piano and singing with his band at church. You bet Jordan and I were dancing up front too! Over the two weeks we got to know some of the younger crowd and went bowling with them and danced late into the night at the church.

Jordan and I were keen on snowboarding, so we went to Bariloche. It's like Banff, but in Argentina. And it's famous for killer chocolate. Their Johnny Walker chocolate is essentially a quater ounce of booze encapselled in chocolate. We pulled into town at 5am and took a few hours to find a hostel that wouldn't charge us an extra night to sleep for a few hours in the morning. In the main plaza there was a huge stage set up to celebrate the Festival of Snow. Kinda lame though cause there wasn't even a flake (of snow) in town. Which was an extra bummer cause the snowboarding trip turned into your typical "lie your way backstage as magazine photographers and then dress up as missle toe and crash another hostel's Christmas party which turned out to be a sausage party". Sheesh! Although, after all was said and done, I honestly had a great time in great company.

We also took an earlier trip up north to see Iguazú Falls and hopefully hitchike our way back through Uruguay. That was a bust too. Jordan thinks I'm bad luck. I think it was destiny cause our failed attempt led to the best bus ride of my life - in luxurious seats, with plenty of wine, pillow fights and the occasional mooning of oncoming traffic. Yeah, we really bring out the best in each other! ;)

Jordan is gone and I'm back in Buenos Aires. I'm trying to get a job teaching English for a month here, but haven't heard back from the boss lady yet. Really, I just wanna know if it'll pay enough for me not to finish the month with less than I started with. Otherwise I'm better off continuing on towards Chile. If I don't hear from her tomorrow then I'll prolly skip town the following day.

I can't lie here, my Canada Day was fairly lame. I slept in and hung out in the hostel with the other tenents. They really are more like tenents. Bohemian tenents. All of them are from either Chile, Colombia and Argentina and all are artists. ...so it probably goes without saying, but all don't have jobs either. Except the Colombian hairdresser who's selling dope until he finds a salon to work in legitimately. Then his wife can join him here. After playing darts and exchanging music in the lobby I took off to buy some groceries, then ate my sandwiches and drank my beer (yes, the beer was my part to celebrate Canada Day, as well as wearing my Trade Mulroney t-shirt) while watching Shaft with a Colombian rastafarian. I finished off the day reading "Hey Nostradomas!" (a book I got from Jordan) before bed. Definately not the most exciting Canada Day, so I felt a little inspired to do something more today.

And I did. I got up late again, but this time went for a walk in the city's ecological park. hehe, but not before grabbing a choripan outside the park. Choripan is a fat delicious chorizo sausage in a bun and this particular establishment has more condiments than you figured existed. Anywho, BA has a large chunk land near a ritzy neighbourhood that's officially a protected area for birds and unofficially for the odd stray dog too. Which, by the way, I need to tell you that Argentina has the world's best fed stray dogs. They eat beef scraps and have the fat rolls to show it! My walk through the park was nice and the sun helped soften the cold of Buenos Aires winter, which is more like Edmontonian fall. I left the path to sit on some rocks and listen to the waves crash in. I was looking for some solace, which I think I found. I started to think that being alone is no problem. Being lonely is what sucks. Not that I'm never lonely, but down at the waterfront I was alone, not lonely. ...later on walking past couples making out made me feel lonely. Or something else altogether.

Looking out at the sea the sailboats and tugboats were dwarfed by the humungous cargo ships. I lucked out in choosing the centre of the park to relax cause the crashing waves were drowned in the north and south of the park by the sound of industry. It's no wonder the park is located by the waterfront - otherwise the city would have to look at rusting steel sail away and disappear before the horizon into the brown smog. Plus, trees help counter pollution.

Alrighty, time to hit the grocery stores and make me some dinner! I hope everyone had a great Canada Day!

written by  ryanmyers on July 2, 2009 from Buenos Aires, Argentina
from the travel blog: Ryan's First Sabbatical
tagged Bariloche, Neuquen and EcologicalPark
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