Bife de Chorizo

We met up knowing it was going to be the last day together as a group. Unfortunately, James had been feeling under the weather the last few days so wasn't able to accompany us for most of the day. A group of us decided to head over to the Palermo SOHO district for lunch and to walk around a bit. Palermo SOHO is an artsy district filled with designer shops and restaurants up and down every sidewalk. We went to one of the squares and sat down at a table in the sun for lunch. Several of the boys had hamburgers which weren't the best burger I've ever eaten, but considerably better than the burgers we ate in Uruguay. I've also noticed people aren't drinking beer with lunch anymore but ordering Coke or Coke Light (Diet Coke), coffee, or just water. The boozin' is definitely catching up. We finished lunch and the group split ways to do different things. Some of the girls went off shopping, some went off looking for gifts for our "GAP Awards Ceremony" that was scheduled to be held that night, the rest of us went off to explore the neighborhood and check out some of the local sights.

One of the sights we set off to see is the "Plaza Naciones Unidas" and the famous "Floralis Generica". The Floralis Generica is a HUGE metal flower build by Lockheed Martin that opens when the sun rises and follows the sun across the sky. At night it closes. We had passed it in the taxi on the way to Palermo SOHO so we had an idea of where it was. Unfortunately, our ability to measure distance was crap so we walked for over an hour trying to find it. We only even got the direction right after I asked a Portuguese couple for directions. But when we finally did find it, it was a treat. The flower itself is huge. It sits in a beautiful pool surrounded by a park. We sat in the sun on one of the lawns just talking for an hour while we rested our tired feet. We knew we had a ways back into Buenos Aires Centro and to the hotel so we cabbed it the rest of the way. Speaking of cabs, I don't know if I've mentioned that the cab drivers here are CRAZY! Now that I think of it, I believe I mentioned it when I wrote about our first day in Rio, but other than that, I haven't really revisited the subject. Probably because I'm trying to repress it. I can't even recall the number of times I've held my breath or grabbed the seat in front of me readying myself for a crash. But amazingly, I've yet to see a crash or be involved in one (knocking wood). Defensive driving doesn't even come close to describing how you need to drive here. Neither does offensive driving. They say defense wins championships. I suppose the same theory applies to driving because if you can make it through the streets of South America without dying or trading paint on the roads, consider yourself a champion. One night Gary even told our cab driver "MAL" while holding his hands up like he was holding a steering wheel. The driver looked at him...and downshifted. I think I prayed. My tendency was to get out of the cab as soon as we reached our destination and pay from outside the cab. I just never knew if the crazy bastards would take off with me still in the backseat after I paid.

We got back to the hotel (with me jumping out as soon as the car stopped) and had a few hours to rest before we were to meet up again for dinner at La Cabrera (supposedly the most famous and best steak restaurant in Buenos Aires). Coincidentally, when speaking with the 2 Canadian girls way back in Ilha Grande, they had told me where to go for the best steak in Buenos Aires and I had written it down on the back of a business card. I was getting dressed and remembered the card so went to my wallet to look. Sure enough, La Cabrera. I was stoked. We got to the restaurant and the waiter warned us "the steaks are meant to be shared" so Andrew, Thom, and I shared 2 Bife de Chorizo's. A 700 gram steak cooked medium rare and served with about 5 small sides and a tray of 6 different sauces. 700 grams is about a pound and a half times 2. 3 pounds of meat for 3 grown men. I wish I had done the calculation prior because I know I can eat a pound of meat myself. But as soon as the food came, Andrew started feeling ill. All of sudden he had to excuse himself and get some air. Next he excused himself and actually took a cab back to the hotel. I knew he had to be feeling terrible to walk away from the group and especially a meal. James, the trooper that he is, came out just because it was the last meal, but he was also feeling terrible so he and Sarah went back to the hotel with Andrew. 3 down on the last night. Definitely not how we envisioned the evening. The plan was to go enjoy the meal, then head over to Barbara's place for some after dinner drinking and the awards ceremony. Well, it looked like that was not going to happen. Instead it was decided that the awards would be held at 8am the next morning at the hotel. But I was enjoying the food and kept eating…and eating…and eating… I'm pretty sure I ate all of 1 steak myself and most of the sides. It was a great piece of meat and I'm not even that big of a meat eater!

Tensions from the night before were still high and boiled over once again after dinner. What is surprising to me is the fact that it is the youngest AND the oldest member of the group (and NO, I am NOT the oldest member :P) that are the highest maintenance. Both are bratty and whiny. The only thing that was missing was footstamping or holding their breath until they passed out. I finally had to tell one of them to "stop being such a whiner." That shut her up but then she started pouting. Wonderful... but at least she wasn't whining anymore. We finally made it to a bar and the guys went inside for a drink and the girls stayed outside. The guys had 1 round (which consisted of 4, 1 liter bottles of Stella Artois. A liter is basically a quarter gallon. The other night at the percussion show, Thom had 4!!! Liters! Or a GALLON of beer!) before calling it a night. Another interesting night in Buenos Aires, check. Tomorrow is the end of the journey (well, at least as an "official" tour.)

Staying

I woke up this morning and the first thing I did (after going to the bathroom) was called up Continental Airlines on Skype on my iPhone. Skype BTW, FRICKING ROCKS. Free domestic calls over WIFI compared to $2.29 a minute on AT&T. I was able to change my flight for only the $250 change fee. I didnt have to pay anything for a new ticket. BOOYA! The next thing I did was text Justin and asked him if he could ask Barbara if I could sleep on her couch. She had practically begged me to a few days before when I said I wasnt sure if I was going to stay so wanted to check to see if that offer was still on the table. I got the confirmation so am staying here for no extra accomdation charge. DOUBLE BOOYA!!! Justin asked me when he got back to the room what made me change my mind. I told him that there was more that I wanted to see the city and I knew doing it in 1 day would be rushed. I preferred to have the luxury of doing it on my own time. That was only half true. The other half is I just didn't want to go back to the states just yet. So I'm staying an extra 5 days.

Paris of the Americas

We exited the Catamaran and took taxis to our hotel, the Hotel Carrson in Microcentro Buenos Aires. It is considered a 4 star hotel and is super nice compared to some of the accomodations we recently stayed at in Uruguay. We dropped our bags off and split into a few groups. The women went shopping, the men went looking for food. Luckily Barbara came with the men. She had a place in mind so we followed her out to the waterfront and started walking. And walking. And walking. It took us about an hour to finally arrive at our destination. An all you can eat meat restaurant that serves up some of the tastiest BBQ ever. Including all kinds of meat including Bife de Chorizo (ribeye steak), pot roast, pork, sausage, blood sausage, and kidneys and intestine. I tried both of those and quite honestly, they weren't bad. Texture was a little funky on the intestines, but quite edible. The all you can eat includes a liter of whatever drink you want (we chose beer so we got 6 liters of beer for the table. That's a GALLON and a half!) and also includes dessert. I got a chocolate lava cake. We ate our fill and took cabs back to the hotel (we didn't want to walk another 30 minutes back) to get some rest before heading out relatively early to see a special show. We reconvened at 6 to head over to a special percussion show by a group called La Bamba de Tiempo. This was a group that had been travelling for a year and this show was the last one before they took a break.

It was awesome.

Unfortunately, one of the girls had a little too much to drink and caused some problems within the group by acting quite bratty. It was an embarrassing display that caused quite a bit of tension within the group including a few threats by the tour leader that they were about to be kicked out of the group. Me, being one to never quite keep the filter on, had some choice words for the guilty party as well. Despite this, we managed to get her into a cab and back to the hotel and into her room, then the rest of us went back out for another few drinks at a local hostel. On the way back we stopped at a minimart that's open 25(!) hours a day! WOW!!! That's amazing! And when we were there we heard Thom sneeze. We turned and said "where is she?" and he goes "No, you fuckers, your theory is flawed, there is noone." Just as he said that, a girl walks up behind and to the minimart. We all just about threw up laughing so hard. We returned around 1am with the first day in Buenos Aires in the books. It was a great day/evening but interesting day that would spill over into the next evening as well. I think the time together is starting to get to a few people and though it's going to be a sad last day, some are ready to move on. But we also knew that the last day meant the final meal, and that final meal was going to be the steak of all steaks. The famous Argentine meat cooked to order we've been hearing about for weeks. Would it live up to its reputation? We would have to see.

The end is near

There is a sadness starting to pass over the group with the realization that the tour is ending in 2 short days. There is a group staying onboard in Buenos Aires but there is also quite a few people that I've become quite good friends with that are leaving. Knowing this, we obviously will try to take advantage of the next 2 days, but just knowing that most of will be going back to our normal lives is quite sad. I hope to see each and everyone again at some point. Hopefully not too far into the future as well.

I love first class!

When Barbara told us we were taking a ferry to Buenos Aires, she also laid out the options.

A. A 4 and a half hour ferry that left Colonia at 4:30 AM

B. A 1 hour high speed catamaran that left Colonia at 9:30 AM but cost $10 USD more since the only seats available were in first class.

The consensus within the group was option B (THANK GOD) so she booked the first class tickets for $10 USD more. We got up with a decent 7 hours of sleep and headed off to the ferry terminal to catch the catamaran. Upon being seated in the 50 seat First Class cabin, we were immediately served a glass of champagne. Andrew's eyes literally lit up when he saw the stewardess walking towards him with his glass. After champagne, we were offered to choose from a selection of newspapers. As we sat finishing up our champagne, I heard Andrew say "This is the life". Yup. Indeed.

BUGGIES!!!

We arrived in Colonia around 11am and took a short cabride to the hotel. The hotel is a cute little thing reminiscent of Paraty. 2 story complex, nice little courtyard in the middle. But with nicer rooms. We dropped our stuff off and headed out to get some lunch and see about renting some scooters, quads, or buggys (go carts) for the afternoon. We ate lunch at a little street cafe. I ate a plain grilled (emphasis on plain) chicken breast with mashed potatoes. It was just perfect after the really greasy food of Montevideo. While we were sitting outdoors, Andrew got "shat" on by a bird 3 times and Barbara twice. Andrew has now been "shat" on 4 times on this trip and each time it happens, it's hysterical because he can't believe it keeps happening to him. After lunch, we walked down to the water and colonial sections of the city. It's a beautiful city. You can rent buggies, golf carts, or scooters for $16.75 USD an hour. We got 1 for 2 hours. Andrew and Elizabeth, Tom and Gary, Suzanne and Hannah, and Lydia and Amanda also rented buggies. We all zoomed off following each other for a bit then separating and exploring the city on our own. Justin and I took off down the waterfront at pretty good speeds. We passed quite a few slow moving cars and scooters. I'm guessing on some of the downhills, we hit speeds of 40-45 miles an hour. It was pretty damn fun. Road traffic is minimal, especially on a Sunday so we had little to contend with. When we felt like stopping, we stopped at the futbol stadium and Andrew and I paid 40 pesos to sit and watch the match for a bit while the rest of the gang walked around the local market. It was quite nice though Suzanne and Hannah got backed into by an old man in a little Festiva. Luckily nobody was hurt, just their pride. They were actually more concerned with the buggy because the security deposit was a few thousand pesos.

At 5pm, we returned the buggies and headed across the street to the Colonial portion of the city to take a look at the ruins and some of the old architecture. I'm quite enjoying this city. We stopped for ice cream, coffee, and tea though I didn't have any. It ended up being the most expensive ice cream we've come across so far. 225 Uruguayian Pesos for a gelato sized cup of ice cream. Or about $11.42 USD. To put that into persective, Justin and I ate lunch in Montevideo for 185 pesos COMBINED. My chicken breast and mashed potato lunch earlier in the day was under 200. Still, it was a quite nice afternoon and we still had dinner to look forward to. There was another GAP group again heading the opposite direction that we were going to be meeting so we had that to look forward to as well. Meeting new people is still one of the most appealing parts of travel. I really enjoy it. We ate a few blocks away at a restaurant that had a foozeball table so we got into some heated foozeball games first amongst ourselves (coed teams, then guys vs girls, guys vs guys, girls vs girls, then we invited the other group over and got group vs group games going). It was a good night. I wish we were staying in Colonia a bit longer. I would have loved to see the rest of the city including the bull fighting ring ruins (Andrew and Elizabeth saw it) and just spending a leisurely afternoon here. Instead we are taking a high speed catamaran in the morning to Buenos Aires which really isn't a bad thing. A lot of the group is really looking forward to BA, myself included. Bring on the meat and Argentine red wine!

WIFI on a bus!

Strange that the worst bus we've taken so far (it smelled like feces and disinfectant, the AC didn't work, most of the seats were broken) is the only one so far to have WIFI on board! It wasn't the best WIFI and slowed down considerably at times but it worked! AMAZING! Though we were sitting in the back of the bus and after 2 hours to Colonia were pretty high from bus fumes. We spent most of the time passing around our computers and looking at each other's Facebook pages. Fun times! Thom was the only person with a free seat to start and after a few stops, a REALLY beautiful girl got onboard and started walking towards the back of the bus. I was three rows from him so saw her get on and walk by. Then all of a sudden I hear uncontrollable laughter from Justin and Andrew behind me. Turns out, as the girl was sitting down next to Thom, he sneezed right in her face! Way to make a good impression Thom. It would become a good joke for the rest of the trip. Thom sneezing around pretty girls and it almost ALWAYS happened like clockwork.