Buenos Aires, and a first taste of the raw South America

I noticed I have no pictures to illustrate this post, so here's Evita, passionately giving a speech or singing "Don't cry for me Argentina"

What do you think was the first thing I did as soon as I went through customs in Buenos Aires international airport?
I'll give you a hint: I cried.
Was it the happiness of being back in my childhood country after almost a year?
 Nope.
My backpack (and all of my journals of Australia plus pretty much all of my earthly belongings) had "dissapeared" and never made it to the luggage belt.

Once I wiped my tears, I left Chey taking care of both our daypacks and his backpack  and started walking around trying to fix things (his sleeping bag was missing too, but I guess I was too much of a drama queen and he didn't feel like complaining) .
 After filling some forms at LAN's office, being harassed by at least 5 random men, finding out that everything was double the price than when I left, and discovering that none of the places that charged bus cards had a functioning system to do so, I realized that yes, I was back in Argentina. I told Chey 'Toto, I think we're not in Straya anymore'.

We had to take the bus to get to our hostel because a taxi would've been so expensive that it would've made our trip five months shorter, and also I thought it's better to do the things the way locals do. But mainly it was the money, of course.

 The way buses work in Buenos Aires is this: either you pay with your SUBE card or you pay with coins.
 BUT it is extremely rare to find a place that charges the card, and pretty much impossible to get shops to give you coins. Not even the bank. Seriously.
The good thing is that every Argentinian person knows the SUBE/coins struggle, so when we were getting on the bus we got nice people paying for us with their card and refusing to take the money for it. Thank you, random strangers!

 Two and a half hours and many ugly suburbs later, we arrived in the hostel, dropped our stuff and went hunting for dinner: a massive pizza and the first (of oh-so-many) 1 litre beer bottle.

We had a private room for most of our stay in Buenos Aires (it was almost the same as paying for two beds in a dorm!), which we managed to keep reasonably tidy, and where we did a fair bit of Spanish practice and chilling. The hostel was not very social or english-speaking.
 The neighbourhood was not one of the fancy touristy areas, but a more "real" kind of place, as Chey would call it. We saw the "normal" Buenos Aires people, doing their every day things, and had a bus, the always reliable 39, that took us to most nice areas and sights.

More of the real city that never sleeps, tomorrow.

Note: in the end my backpack arrived to the hostel the next day, which was a lovely and very unexpected surprise. The lesson is: after the first shock you realize you could live without all your stuff. Still I'm happy I don't have to.

December 8 to December 8. 48 hours from Brisbane to Buenos Aires.

A very fresh and healthy Chey finishes stripping his room.

It all began at 3 in the morning (THREE IN THE MORNING), when our bags were finally packed and our spirits ready (though our brains might have been still asleep).
With approx 11 kilos of baggage each -more than double the weight I went to Australia with... it's insane the amount of rubbish one collects in less than a year- we had a pleasant ride to the airport with my favorite taxi driver.

Once we arrived, the first thing that happened to us was a pretty stressful situation with a Quantas lady who was sure Chey couldn't get on the plane to Argentina without a plane ticket out of the country. We started to panick and try to defend our case -since I happened to know what she was saying was not true- but were getting more and more afraid that he would actually have to stay. Imagine that.
As it turned out he could get on the plane, and all it took was a manager who actually knew his stuff to say "pfff! that's nonsense! Do your research, lady!" (might not be his actual words)
Not particularly tempted to fly Quantas again, by the way.

The flight was as smooth as could be expected. I listened to some music, slept, woke up to eat, slept, had pleasant chats  with Chey, slept, eat a bit more and then slept. I remember I watched a movie, but I couldn't say which. It made me very sleepy, so I took a nap. I think Chey didn't get more than 2 or 3 hours of sleep, which made me feel a bit guilty.

After one connection in Sydney and one in Auckland, and 11 hours  flying over the seemingly endless Pacific Ocean, we landed in South America, at the airport of Santiago. Chey was a big ball of jet lag and tiredness, and incredibly managed to take a nap on the not-too-comfy seats while we waited for our plane to Buenos Aires, where the adventure would really begin. For real.

Napping at Santiago airport.

The view from the window. It was going to take us almost three months to see Santiago for real.

Emperor Meow was very grumpy after the long flight.
(And look at my daypack, because you'll witness its slow decay)

The first post

The view from Hostel Mariposas' terrace

As I write, dozens of white little sailboats peacefully float on the blue of the Pacific Ocean in the Valparaiso bay. From here I can see the port, the crazy patchwork of tin roofs of the city down the hill and -on the other side of the bay- the tall buildings of the rather ugly beach town of Viña del Mar. This is the crazy amazing view that keeps everyone awake and outside until late in the chilly Chile evenings.
(can anyone tell I'm madly in love with Valparaiso?)

 As soon as I started writing I realized it's been almost 3 months of this trip already. So many stories of the road, the wild outdoors and the people we met.

So I decided that since not much of interest is happening here while we stay in Valpo for a while, I'll start sharing stories from the start of the trip.

Some of them I wrote about on the road, so they'll be more accurate. Some of them I'll take out of my memories, so they might be already a bit mixed with the emotions and happy/not so happy memories of the places we visited.

 But basically this will be a summary of what has happened so far since that early morning in December when we left Brisbane, until now while we stay at this home away from home that is our current hostel (the one with the crazy view).

Stay tuned for many random adventures.