Pequeño update

Ok, first off, let me just say I love, Love, LOVE having the ñ keyword again. Somehow, I've missed the little bugger and seeing it on all the keyboards here makes me smile. Cuz I'm a sentimental nerd like that. :)

We got to Argentina this past weekend and it has been an amazing trip so far (barr a little mishap with Hubby's credit card, AGAIN!!! grrr!): Anyway, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and part of Tuesday were spent stolling along the streets of good ol' Buenos Aires. We've walked so much in the past couple of days that I feel I have a map of the city burned in my mind now. We saw the impressive Plaza de Mayo and Casa Rosada, visited the Evita museum, walked around the pretty San Telmo barrio, visited the Boca Juniors stadium (home team of a so called Diego Maradona), catched some street tango improv in Caminito, checked out the spiffy Recoleta, Retiro and Palermo neighbourhoods, walked along the 12 lane 9 de Julio avenue and ate like there was no tomorrow (yes, I have been cheating here, but only because it is absolutely impossible to resist those incredible parrillas!!! How can people eat meat anywhere ELSE in the world when Argentina is the only place worth doing it???)

One of Buenos Aires' many incredible apartment-building skyscrapers

La Casa Rosada, home to President Christina Kirchner

La "Bonbonera", home stadium to the mythical team of Boca Juniors

One of many gorgeous little terraces out in the streets of San Telmo

Tango anyone?

Oh, ok, you meant the real thing....

Nope, not at the Louvre, this is a Shopping Mall!!!

The colorful (and I mean it literally) barrio of Caminto!

I've been having a very funny thing happen to me while being here. I keep seeing things that remind me so much of Mexico, things that are so reminiscent of my culture, my country, my home. Things that I don't see in France or feelings that I don't get in Paris. Sometimes I'll be feeling so confident, like a fish in the water, like I understand things here, like I can grasp how such and such is done ..... and then I'll bump into a totally european building or hear a "oshe, che! tenés un cigarrillo?" and I'm suddenly hit with the realization that this is a whole other country.

I'm not trying to denigrate Argentina, nor their culture by saying it's the same thing as Mexico. This country really is so beautiful and intriguing and amazing on its own. You can really feel the European influence here, Italian, Spanish and French mainly and for nothing in the world would you be able to confuse a Mexican with an Argentinian.

But there's just something about being back on this side of the world that somehow makes me feel at home.


Anyway, moving on.

Got to Puerto de Iguazú yesterday afternoon. This is a tiny little town perched high up on the border with Brazil and Paraguay. The impressive Iguazú waterfalls are a few kilometers down the road from Puerto Iguazú and Hubby and I were dying to go see them.

We were a little worried about the "it's a little going to Disneyland" comments we kept reading in the guides about Iguazú and I have to admit that Puerto Iguazú really is crawling with tourists. But it's nothing like Disneyland. At all.

First of all, the town is pretty all on its own. The soil in this part of the country is red, brick red. So everything is red. The roads, the houses, the sidewalks. Add to that the beautiful contrast of the green luxurious vegetation that grows here and you've got yourself a very pretty town. You don't even notice the tourists.

Hubby, strutting his stuff in Puerto Iguazu

And then there's the falls.

There is no words to describe how amazing they are. We were under the (wrong) impression that they are the biggest in the world (they aren't, the biggest apparently are in Guyane, guess what frenchman turned blue with pride upon learning this, lol) but you would never guess this when you're standing there looking at them.

I'll be sure to post pictures when I get back home, but in the meantime I can tell you it took us 7 hours to see the entire set of falls. We got soaked, twice. We saw them from above, from the side, from underneath, from below and even from a little boat that takes you right under them!!!

It was simply magnificent!!!





Anyway, we're back at the hostel right now and getting ready to go out and have dinner (parrilla anyone??). Will post again soon!!

Saludos amigos!!
Fned.