In this video I have compiled 4 months of footage from living in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Enough said.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Pre-gaming before going out is a universal activity whether in the United States or Argentina. I doubt it happens much in Saudi Arabia though. During my last few nights in Buenos Aires last July we played “Kings” before my friend’s birthday get-together. “King’s” is a drinking game where players must drink and dispense drinks based on cards drawn. Each card has a rule that is predetermined before the game starts.

The rules to our game

Oh and that one English speaking Gringo

My old Honduran, Dominican, and Brazilian housemates showed!

And like always Gordito somehow always makes stuff like this happen.

That’s also why I don’t have any more photos after this point. Soon after the lights went off and the music began playing a fight broke out.  Meanwhile, the floor was like an ice skating rink to slippery to really move which made the fight more dramatic than it should have been with people flying all over the room.  Someone insulted one of the guy’s girlfriend’s. The guy heard about it and punched the other until both were separated and the party ended like that. The birthday girl and I spent the next few hours trying to get everyone out of the apartment building and then spent another few hours cleaning up the terrace in the freezing cold to avoid pissing off the neighbors.

“I can hear you sputtering from here. What? Fly all night to Argentina to eat in a parilla when every big city in the United States boasts steakhouses promising (some even delivering) prime U.S.D.A. beef? Well, this is grass-fed beef, raised on the vast ocean of chlorophyll called the Pampas. It’s different. Some, including me, would say better, with a rounder flavor, leaner texture and sweeter fat. You eat in a handsome wood-and-leather room in the redeveloped Puerto Madero docklands area, and drink from a wine-wall stocked with fine Mendoza reds like those of Nicolas Catena.

Octavio Caraballo, the owner, supplies all the beef from his own ranch, or estancia. We flew there with him — big guy, bigger cigar, even at 8 in the morning — on his private plane, admired the spread and ate beef (what else?) for lunch. The selection was bigger at dinner back in town, with medallón de lomo (tenderloin) and cuadril (rump) and ojo de bife (rib-eye) covering every inch of the big grills. Little “bombon” sausages and sweetbreads, too.

Warning: They will ply you with so many delicious breads, so many salads and such superb cheese and olives and peppers, that you might not be able to do justice to the beef. Which would be tragic.”

A Despedida is a going away party. Yes, I was going away. My semester at the Universidad de Belgrano had ended (in June) and my travels were going to continue.
My last night, fortunetely a Saturday, meant we were going to the mega club Pacha. It’s a franchise with clubs in Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, New York City, etc. that hires some of the most famous DJ’s in the world. I had gone to Pacha my first saturday night in Buenos Aires back in February so it was only fitting I would go on my last night in June.

In February I paid 60 pesos entrance, but nothing this time thanks to my well connected owner of the hostel. A bunch of us from the hostel (10+) and some of my American friends came out and it was really a great time.

Me with some of my American buddies.

Check out the guy in the background wearing all white

My Brazilian buddy Alex enjoying himself as always. It’s one thing I really admired about him. He would have a blast no matter where he went. Whether alone or with friends, it did not matter.

And my other buddy Pedro from Mexico. He was always smooth with the ladies but for this time I managed to steal that cute Argentine away from him!

Here is Alex whispering in my ear, challenging me to go dance up on the platform.

Followed by be dragging two beautiful Argentine girls up with me.

Can you say…ladies man?

I think so!

Alex and I waited for the train that would take us to the Retiro, the main transportation center in Buenos Aires. From Retiro we drove in a taxi to Puerto Madero to purchase tickets that would take us on a ferry across the river to Uruguay.

Uruguay is a tiny country next to Buenos Aires and when you look at the two countries there really are only few differences. At least to a tourist like myself only visiting for a long weekend.

The view from the Buquebus ferry in Buenos Aires’s port

Leaving Buenos Aires, Argentina by boat to Colonia, Uruguay.

I thought this older gentleman smoking his pipe was especially classy!

At some point during the 2-3 hour boat ride to Colonia some on-board entertainers held a dance contest and Alex was the first to volunteer. They entertainers paired him up with hyper middle-aged women that looked way to excited to be dancing with him.

And what you can partially see now are the many people watching from upstairs.

While Alex did not win he still received a free beer for participating. The next photo is off the boat where the staff herded anyone going to Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo into buses.

Finally in Montevideo we are dropped off ear our hostel in one of the city’s many plazas.

Each year during March the Argentine people hold a Día de la Memoria in remembrance to commemorate the victims of the military dictatorship, Proceso de Reorganización Nacional. It is held on 24 March, the anniversary of the coup d’état of 1976 that brought the military junta to power.On that day, a military junta overthrew a democratically elected government. Over the next 8 years, up to 30,000 ‘dissidents’ were disappeared.

The dictatorship systematically terrorized its citizenry on ideological grounds. The government closed congress, banned political parties, abolished freedom of speech and freedom of press.In what was claimed to be a war against terrorist and communist groups, the military government persecuted, tortured, and killed citizens who opposed or questioned the dictatorship, expressed leftist views, or simply appeared in the address books of people considered subversive.

In Buenos Aires  I went to the city center with thousands of others to watch concerts, speeches, and other events commemorating it. While I learned a lot about the dirty war in my classes at the University of Belgrano what I witnessed that night was a people proud of their country, having defeated that military dictatorship.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Upon seeing Iguazu, the United States’ First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt reportedly exclaimed “Poor Niagara!” As for me, upon seeing Iguazu, I said “Well this is pretty cool”. But Eleanor was right in that Niagra Falls or even Angel Falls in Venezuela pale in comparison to this shortlisted world wonder.

“Legend has it that a god planned to marry a beautiful aborigine named Naipí, who fled with her mortal lover Tarobá in a canoe. In rage, the god sliced the river creating the waterfalls, condemning the lovers to an eternal fall.”

So now we have this!

One friday evening I left with friends from my residence. All together we were a strange bunch representing the United States, Mexico, Honduras, Austria, Germany, and Holland. We took the most luxurious 18 hour bus ride complete with a server pouring us wine on demand and being served meals and snacks. The movies weren’t that bad either.

We arrived in Iguazu, a small town close to the waterfalls 18 hours later and found our hostel pretty easily.

It’s not just the gigantic drops of water that make this place special. It’s also happens to be located in a tropical paradise.

This was the closest I had come to an actual beach despite having been in South America for over 3 months at that point.

Mind tricks

I mentioned earlier that Brazil was close by. Close enough that we crossed the border the next day to visit Brazil.

Over there in the distance is Argentina

The Brazilian side definitely offered  better views  than the Argentine side.

A few hours later we crossed from Brazil back to Argentina

for another 18 hour bus ride back to Buenos Aires.

If you missed part 1, part 2, and part 3 you can read them at those links. Continuing with part 3 “…When it was almost half a basketball court away it stopped and a man appeared in the darkness.”

Instead of feeling frightened I felt nothing. I did not expect anything. He continued walking closer and that is when I could see that he was a taxi driver.

As he spoke I only understood the basics. He asked if we needed help and we certainly did. He walked back to his taxi and turned on the light so we could actually see what we were doing. In the meantime, Alex continued working on the bike and at one point we reattached the chain to the moto.
We rode off only to stop a few seconds later after busting the chain another time. That’s when the taxi driver casually mentioned we were better off walking it a few blocks to a gas station.

Just our luck. We break down in what seems like the middle of nowhere, yet only a few blocks from a gast station. Perfect!

It was quite a scene at the gas station. At nearly 3AM more than 10 cabbies were hanging out next to their cars joking around. I still will never understand why they were out with their cars at 3AM; off-duty.

Each driver offered to help us and looked at us like the morons we were for driving over 12 hours in one day on a moto. For the next 2 hours they fiddled with their tools inspecting and trying to fix each part. While they were doing this Alex managed to convince the cute gas station attendant to let us store the bike there overnight.

As expected, the cab drivers declared the moto busted and one offered to take us to find our hostel that we had no address for. Like our original plan, we drove around towards the center looking for a hostel and easily found the exact one we had wanted originally.

At 4:30AM we checked in and I went straight to bed in the most exhausted state…only to wake myself up 4 hours later for a telephone job interview. After the interview I was already up so I wandered the city a bit.

Welcome to Cordoba. The view from my bedroom window in the hostel.

Walking around

Still walking

But a few days later we were back at it again. On a mission to fix the moto. While I slept on the floor of the shop the mechanics got to work.

These are the nice but incompetent mechanics.

See, after fixing the moto it constantly made a noise like something was dying. But they assured us it was normal. Here we are setting off again for a quick hour journey.

And we made it! Just in time for a saturday night out with 2 Argentine guys we met at our new hostel.

And on Sunday afternoon I opted to go back to Buenos Aires on a bus. Alone.

There is no worse feeling than pure excitement, as I explained in part 1 and part 2 of our moto trip from Buenos Aires to Cordoba, to then feeling the extreme. Suffering. Sure I wasn’t locked up in some maniac’s dungeon but i’m going to put it out there that riding on the back of a moto has got to be up there in awful experiences.

The wind blowing in my face that used to feel relaxing now felt like it was trying to push me off the bike for a fast death. My playlist of music that used to feel invigorating now felt irritating, especially as the headphones now caused physical pain as it was plastered into my ear from my helmet’s tight fit. Not only was my back aching but it was dark and the once interesting scenery became nothing but a straight highway marked with dotted white lines.

The only moments I looked forward to were our hourly stops at gas stations for either more gas or to ask for more directions.

I was quietly hoping that we would get lost so that we could ask for directions more often; that means more rest.

Normally I might complain a little but where would I go? We would either make it to Cordoba and have a pleasant party filled weekend or we would spend the weekend on a motorcycle to who knows where.

It was many hours into our trip and even closer to Cordoba that the gas station we stopped at actually happened to have a motel next door.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/g9ErI4PV75s&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0I wanted to call it a day. It was obvious. It made sense. We were both exhausted. Even Alex was driving 50+ mph on crap roads with only one hand. Of course what seemed like the right thing to do meant that we would not make it to Cordoba as planned.

We discussed it some more but we had both already been through enough that day that there is no way we could not finish the trip that day.

I was miserable.

We rode on. We could see the signs to Cordoba and it was only a matter of time before we would arrive. It was on the outskirts of Cordoba that Alex asked me to pull out the address for the hostel we were going to stay at.

I stared at him blankly. He stared back.

“I thought you printed out the address”

“No, that was your job”

At 2am we were entering an unfamiliar city trying to navigate the roads inside the city with no objective. Our plan was to hopefully find the city center where a hotel must be.

We nearly drove into the highway barriers trying to choose which exit to take. It was all guesses. We chose left and no less than 5 minutes later we found ourselves on the outskirts of the city driving along an unpaved road with very few lights, unfinished houses built up scrap materials, and multiple dogs barking.

We kept riding.

That’s when we heard a pop as the motorcycle’s spun out of control swerving left, then right, and so on for a good 20 feet until we came to a grinding stop with the two of us gently falling off the bike, unhurt.

“Jeez, what the hell”

We picked up the bike and I shone my cell phone light on the motorcycle where we saw the busted chain. On cue, we removed our helmets, pushed the moto to the side of the thin rode, and got to work.

Alex instructed me to hold the bike steady as he would try and reattach the chain to the moto. We took o We began to argue as I was not holding it properly and he was having trouble getting the chain reattached. This went on with some back and forth bickering until a yellow car appeared driving down the road.

When it was almost half a basketball court away it stopped and a man appeared in the darkness…

Note: This will be continued in part 4, the final part of the story.

We were finally on our way to Cordoba after loading the moto with our bags and gear for the long weekend trip. Without a map or directions we drove out of Buenos Aires asking directions along the way.

Riding on a moto has it’s advantages. We were able to weave through traffic with no problem and asking for directions is a cinch when you can pull up directly next to any car. After a quick stop for gas and some more directions we moved on until we hit the highway.

Highways in Argentina are better than most other countries in South America. While it’s only a one lane highway going in each direction (2 lanes in certain parts), it is completely paved and follows a straight path for the most part. Far better than Bolivia’s dirt roads that cure around mountains if you ask me.

The first few hours were exciting. I was really riding on the back of a moto on a road trip through Argentina complete with my favorite music blasting through my headphones and the wind blowing my face.

This long rush of excitement continued while the sun began setting, ending quickly afterward.

That’s it for now. Check back in the next few days for part three!