South America So Far!

So we have been gone a month! Hard to believe it has been that long already it feels like a week or maybe two! Here is the recap - I do not know how to use all the puncuation marks so I am trying not to use them, and if I miss some please forgive me!

Buenos Aires was GREAT! We saw La Boca Juniors play Mexico Independecia, and La Boca won, the crowd was crazy the entire game, singing and dancing and jumping for the full 90 minutes if not longer. We ate more steak than I thought was possible in one sitting and it was SOO good! The whole city, almost all of Argentina smells of grilling meat and it is wonderful. We have also rediscovered house wine and it too was a blessing - easy to drink and easy on the bank account! We saw tango in the streets, saw Evitas grave, hung out in the street markets and walked and walked around the city just taking it all in.

Then we made our way to Uruguay, our first stop was Colonia del Sacamento and it was a really cute small town with a very well preserved old town, many of the houses are exactly as there were hundreds of years ago and I would still like to live there if not for all the tourists walking through all the time. We found a great little restaurant off the main street and went there both nights, so they were pleased with us and our attempts at Spanish. The next day we found the beach and hung out for far longer than we thought and got FAR redder than we thought, bought some aloe and some cream on the way back to hostel and applied and re-apllied. Next up was Montevideo and while we were excited to visit this city, Denis got sick and so we stayed in the hotel, which was really nice, it was nice to just relax, and watch TV and order in pizza (which I actually had to go get but close enough). I ventured out one day and went to the market, the port area where the old train station has been turned into a GIANT parrilla (grilled meat restaurant), found great empanadas where locals were lined up so I bought some and took them back to Denis. Then we were off to the beach bum town of La Paloma farther east along the coast - although I seemed to have caught whatever Denis had and I stayed in bed while Denis ventured out to hang on the beach and eat empanadas and tortas. It was a really nice place, very casual since most of the tourists had gone for the season - our hotel had THE best cafe con leche (cafe au lait or coffee and milk) with a jar of coffee and a jar of steamed milk to mix as you liked - DELICIOUS!

Then, we found La Coronilla (the ll is pronouced j - the guy on the bus thought it was extremely funny the way I pronouced and really pointed and laughed everytime he walked past us) and found Karumbe which was to be our home for the next 15 days and where we would volunteer with sea turtles. To sum it up it was awesome, even the 23 km walk completely hung over (thanks Deborah and Michelle) was great, well maybe not great but it was amazing to see gorgeous beach for 23 kms, nothing but gorgeous beach and a few dead, bloated sea lions, which we had to take pictures of, did I mention I was really hungover? The majority of our time was spent capturing turtles - so much fun and Denis is a natural. After we catured them we would peel off all the epibiones, measure them, weigh them, tag them and set them free! If Gus was really mean he would make us carry a 8kg turtle the 5kms back to the centre, usually in the dark. But it was great, everyone was really nice, we met a ton of great people and got to eat vegetarian style for almost two weeks straight and we survived! But there were cornflakes and bananas for breakfast! Its amazing how much we got to learn about turtles in two weeks and are very greatful to everyone at Karumbe for the oportunity!

Then we were off to Iguazu - to get there we had to take a 5 hour bus back to Montevideo, a 7 hour overnight bus to Salto (we spent a few hours at the hot springs here) before our 12 hour overnight (again) bus to Iguazu! But so worth it - the falls are amazing! We have spent two days wondering around the huge park and marvelling at the falls from every angle they are spectacular.

Tomorrow we are off to Salta (another 26 hour bus ride) and then off to Bolivia!

If you are not on facebook - here is a link to the pictures from Iguazu (it takes awhile to upload so we had to pick a few only):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=45881&l=15c3f&id=570536549