Mar Del Plata

Hola.

This past weekend I went to the seaside vacation hotspot of Mar Del Plata. You might recognize it from the news footage of George Bush's recent visit during the Summit of the Americas. It was much more tranquil during my visit :)

Mar Del Plata was bigger than I had imagined. Miles and miles of nice beach coastline, though the water of the south atlantic was too cold for me to go swimming! We stayed in an apartment very close to the beach and enjoyed 2 great days of sand and sun.

Tomorrow my American friends are arriving for a 5-day visit. One of my friends, Mike, is traveling about 24 hours straight to get here. He's coming from Massachusetts and another friend is coming from Pennsylvania. It should be a great 5 days.

Today was 35 degrees in Buenos Aires. I spent about 3 hours basking in the sun (and shade) on my rooftop terrace. Tomorrow is supposed to rain, but I think the hot weather is here to stay now.

Las Cateratas del Iguazu y la garganta del Diablo (Iguazu Falls and the Devil's Throat)

Well, another weekend, another weekend trip :)
This past weekend I visited the wonderful natural paradise of Iguazu Falls. The town of Puerto Iguazu is about a 17 hour bus ride from Buenos Aires and is located at the Brazil/Argentina border. As such, it was warmer there than in Buenos Aires, which made for a nice weekend of touring the falls and chilling in the pool.

Iguazu is a series of 275 separate waterfalls, which is, in total, about four times the width of Niagara falls. Combined with the fact that the falls are situated within a beautiful rainforest setting (no casinos or tacky hotels for miles!), it's safe to say that Iguazu is a more impressive sight than Niagara!

We arrived in Iguazu on Friday afternoon and, after checking into our hostel and going for a quick dip in the pool, we set off for the falls. The falls are located within a national park and we opted to take a package tour of the park which included a jeep ride through the rainforest (kinda boring) and a speedboat ride under the falls. The speedboat ride was incredible! The boat held about 30 people and had twin-200HP motors! We got so close to some of the falls that the spray came with such force that it actually hurt! We also got completely drenched, which explains why I don't have any pictures of those exact moments.

The falls really do defy description. I wish I had a panoramic camera to try to take in the entire vista. All said and done, it was truly one of the most impressive natural settings I've ever seen.

On to the pictures:
- the first picture is Gene and I in the pool at the hostel. Ahh, the beautiful Brazilian sun!
- the second and third pictures capture most of the falls (as much as could fit in!). The Devil's Throat (la garganta del Diablo) is in the extreme left and is the most intense part of the falls
- the fourth picture is of Gene, Tim and myself after we'd finished the speedboat ride under the falls.

Livin' Large

Each week in Argentina brings more fun.

This week I moved to my new pad. I've had a perma-smile since the move-in day. This place is even better than I expected. It was about 25 degrees celcius today so if I hadn't had so much to do I would've had my first dip in the pool!!

The building is quite nice.. 11 stories, about 50 units. The doorman knows me as 'the Canadian' and he's been quite friendly to me. Our neighbourhood is great too - we're only a few minutes walk from everything and my spanish lessons are about 20 mins away.

The new lessons have been going great. My teacher's name is Hugo - he's about 50ish, and a really patient, genial guy. I guess that goes with the territory of being a language teacher. Anyway, the difference between private classes and classes with a group is truly night and day. At the end of each class with Hugo I'm completely exhausted and I'm learning new things every day. I think I'll have a really good grounding in most of the grammar I'll need to know in Spanish by the end of my term here. After that, the tough part will be getting enough practice to be able to speak and understand more than just very simple things.

This weekend is shaping up to be great (as they always are here!!). We went to a tenedor libre restaurant last night. Tenedor Libre translates to 'free fork'. Essentially it's a very nice restaurant with a menu, but no prices. For the heavenly sum of $14 pesos (6 dollars or so) I ate mass quantities of steak, chicken, sausage, pasta, barbequed provoleta, and the list goes on and on. I went with about 7 of my friends and we made a night out of it..

Tonight I'm heading to an expatriate party. A friend of mine named Lloyd runs a non-profit organization called 'Help Argentina'. Essentially he connects charities in Argentina with foreign donors and organizations. Quite an interesting guy. Anyway, he also runs the 'young expatriates society of Buenos Aires - YES BA). Tonight's party is held monthly at an art gallery and is sponsored by a great argentine winery - it's canilla libre (all you can drink) for ten pesos. It runs from 8 till 11 tonight -after that, we'll probably get dinner and then head to a club for about 2-3am. Man, I really love the schedule here.

On Saturday we're all heading to a rugby match between Argentina and South Africa. Should be an excellent game.

I guess that's about it for now.. Oh, in case my life seems like all play and no work I should mention that I've actually been getting a bunch of stuff done for work back in Canada. I have a deadline of Monday for the current phase of my project, but that should pose no obstacles. I've also been running lots and hitting the gym too.

Well, gotta grab a bit to eat before I head out.. Tomorrow my plan is to visit a travel agency to price out a trip to Iguazu Falls (Brazil/Argentina border) - a bunch of us are heading there next weekend.

Chau mis amigos. Suerte!!