Earthquake in Chile, poll results, Happy Purim, and my Birthday

Just a few quick things...

1) We are not currently in Chile, although we were planning on beginning our trek up the Chilean/Argentinian Border in less then 2 weeks.  Personally, Emily and I were sleeping when the Earthquake occured.  However, our friend Isaac (who we are currently staying at in Mar Del Plata, which is along the Atlantic coast of Argentina and well over 1,000km from Chile) told us that some of his friends who were out in Mar Del Plata when the earthquake struck felt light vibrations and even police came to check it out before they realized it was a result of the Earthquake in Chile.  As of right now Emily and I don't know how much this will effect our plans.  It seems most of the damage has really occured along the coast and we were not planning on spending much, if any, time along the Chilean coast but mainly going through the mountains along the border.  But we will keep you all updated about any plan changes.

2)  The results of the Carnaval Costume Contest are in, and shockingly 9 people voted (so minus Emily and my votes), evidently at least 7 people read our blog.  With 8 out of 9 votes the extravagent costume with Emily wearing a green wig wins.

3)  Happy Purim to all...we will be celebrating tomorrow night in Buenos Aires at a large party advertised at the Israeli Hostel we stay in during our first stay in Buenos Aires.

4) Tomorrow is also my birthday so twice the reason the celebrate, and if the US National Hockey team beats Team Canada in the gold medal match yet another reason to celebrate!

Buenos Aires: Toto I don't think we are in South America anymore

As we got off our 20 hour bus ride from Iguazu Falls to Buenos Aires, which was in an amazing ride with English movies, hot dinner, breakfast, comfortable air condition, free wine, beer, and champaign.  It was basically per hour half the price of the busses in Brazil and way nicer.  We constantly read about how much Buenos Aires gets so many reviews that it is like Europe.  And they were all correct.  The city really makes you feel like you are in a European city full with avenues, coffee shops, etc...and the best part is it is half the price.  Overall my impression of Buenos Aires is that it really reminds me of the European cities I have been in.  And people from Buenos Aires really do think they are basically Parisian, including their hours of operations for business, dress, croissants, and their love for mass protests.  However, at the same time when you do really feel like you are in Europe, there is still that feeling the country has had its fair share of political and economic problems.  There is reminders throughout the city of political struggles through the past 60 years and even though everything is very European it seems like nothing has been improved since the 1970s.  Sidewalks are in major disrepear, the subway (though it works great) still uses cars from the 1940s, and grafittee litters many buildings throughout the city.

View of the old Spanish Town Hall in Avenue de Mayo Plaza, with a great view of the European Architecture and wide avenues in the background

The Congreso Building, modeled after the US Capital Building in Washington.  A magnificant building although in a major need of a cleaning.

We spent most of our days in Buenos Aires (once it finished raining most mornings) just walking around checking out the sites as you would in most cities.  The first day we walked around the city just to get a feel of everything.  We visited and took a free tour of the President's offices, Casa Rosada, which is famous for the famous picture of Evita Peron talking to a large crowd.  The house's name translates to the Pink House, which it was named because it was originally painted with cow's blood to protect the building from mold because the main river going through Buenos Aires use to pass through its backyard basically.  Even though the river has been moved about 2km they still paint the house pink (now with paint) to keep up tradition.  Additionally, we also stumbled upon the main national memorial for soldiers who fell during the Falkland Islands' War.  As mentioned in the previous post Emily also finally got to enjoy an Argentinian steak as we headed down to the main Jewish neighborhood of Buenos Aires (which numbers around a quarter of a million people) for dinner. 

Picture of Emily and I outside of La Casa Rosada in Plaza de Mayo (in Argentinian Spanish the 'y' is pronounced as a 'j')

Emily looking out from La Casa Rosada from the porch where Evita gave her famous speech to the Buenos Aires crowd in Plaza de Mayo

Memorial to the fallen soldiers of the Falkland Islands War.  Really Argentina what were you thinking attacking a British stronghold.  Evidently Britain again is pissing off Argentina by doing more then regulated oil drilling off the coast of the Falklands

Our second day in Buenos Aires was dampened as we waited for it to stop raining.  As that really wasn't until the evening we decided to do something productive with our day and headed to a Tango Show.  We researched online, read a bit about them in Lonely Planet, and asked the hostel staff about them.  Our general impression we got was that the shows are for the most part for the tourists.  But there are two main types: Small more personal ones that are given in special theatres in Coffee Shops and large ''Vegas-like'' shows given in much larger theatres.  We decided to take the some what more authentic route and go to a cafe and watch the less glamerous show.  We decided to head to the cafe early and grab some food before moving downstairs to the small stage with tables (about 40 people total could watch).  We later learned the one we went to, Cafe Tortoni, was the oldest cafe that is styled like this in Buenos Aires.  The show was very nice to watch and was not exactly what we expected, but more of a small/short musical lasting a bit over an hour and including a nice little plot (which we didn't completely follow because it was all in Spanish), live musicians, and an excellent bartone singer.

Tango Show (flash photos were not allowed so most the pictures didn't come out so great)

Our third day we decided to take a free tour of part of the city (the entire tour was going to cost a little bit) provided by the hostel.  The guide gave us a nice general history of both Argentina and Buenos Aires going back from the Spanish colonial period all the way until today and showed us some nice sites and small things we would have never known.  He mentioned the influence of the Jesuits on Argentinian culture, which is something we also learned about at Iguazu which was the region, Misiones, most of the Jesuits lived.  He also gave us a short history of Argentinian independence from Spain which began in 1810 but did not fully concluded until 1816, and mentioned a slightly humerous story about how Argentina's founding father, San Martin (who is also considered the founding father of Chile and Peru), is buried next to the main Cathedral in Buenos Aires and not inside because he was not a Catholic.  However, because the Catholic Church wanted to still have a connection with him they decided to build a small building in the courtyard of the Cathedral to bury him.  The tour guide also talked about the Peron's, the reoccuring theme of military dictatorships, the repressive regime through the 1970s and and until 1983 (including talking about a movement started by the Mother's of missing Argentinians who were killed by the regime), the Falkland Islands War, and the 2001 Economic Crash and the resulting protests and police reaction which killed several dozen protesters.  Overall, the tour which lasted 90 minutes was quiet informative and really gave us a grasp of the politics in Argentina.  After the tour we visited the historic distric of San Telmo and walked around looking in a few antique shops, checking out the menus at street cafes, and watching tango dancers outside the cafes give performances.

One of many tributes in Plaza de Mayo to the 'Mothers of Plaza de Mayo' who all had sons kidnapped and later murdered by the former Military Regime (which fell in 1983 after the Falkland War).  The white scarf was a sign of mothers whose sons went missing (the Spanish is easily translated).  Still to this day people come once a week to protest other issues, including the prosecution of the former generals of the Military Junta.

Outdoor Tango dancing in San Telmo

Wednesday, we decided to head over to the large amounts of parks, gardens, zoo, etc. in the city.  We strolled around the cities Botanical Gardens and a large park, before stumbling upon a very beautiful Japanese Garden which was built by the local Japanese population a still well mantained including a sushi resturant.  When we were there the resturant was only serving tea and sweets but we enjoyed the view and walked around the gardens.

Emily and I in the Japanese Gardens

Very Large Japanese Fish who were really hungry

A view of another part of the Japanese Gardens

Besides that an additional update will be given on our day visit to Uruguay and our weekend stay in Mar Del Plata.

Funny Picture of Em

-Brett

Kosher Delight of Argentinian Steak

Sorry forgot to bring the camera but, Emily would like to inform the world that her 6 week drought of not eating any meat has ended and she had a delicious Argentinian KOSHER Steak and Ribs tonight in Buenos Aires.  We found (courtesy of some people my sister knows) a great website full of Kosher resturants in B.A.

If you are ever in Buenos Aires and need kosher food just go to this website.  It is in Spanish but you can open up translate.google.com and it will translate the whole page...

http://www.mapakosher.com/bienvenidos.html

-Brett

Iguazu Falls: LOTS O´ WATER

Visiting Iguazu Falls was truly amazing. Possibly my favorite thing so far, especially since you all know how I love fresh water in large quantities. This was a lot of water. I was very impressed that it was surrounded by a nice national park, which probably helps the water quality, although I´m not so sure about the land management further upstream... ok, I´ll stop being a dork... Anyhow, we went to the Brazilian side first, which was cool because it had better vistas of the entire falls. It also had a walkway that went over part of the falls and the mist from the falls gets visitors on the walkway very wet. We were very impressed with the falls, but it didn´t quite compare to the Argentinian side.

 Overlook from the Brazilian side

Overlook from the Brazilian side, with a view of the bridge over the falls

 

Pretty nice Panoramic from the Brazilian side

 

Last pic from the Brazilian side

In Argentina, the park was bigger with lots of walking trails through the jungle (on both sides there were tons of butterflies everywhere) and a train that you could take to different parts of the park. There were lots of walkways that went over or next to the falls, so we had some great close-up views. It was pretty crazy looking down from a walkway to see huge amounts of water crashing down into an abyss below us, or looking up at falls coming out of the jungle and spraying us on their way down.

 A view from one of the walkways over looking a huge semi-circular fall

View from the Argentinian Side

Yeah, Brett is pretty good at taking pics

 The best part was the boat ride we took. For those of you who have been to Niagra Falls, this boat ride made the ´Maid of the Mist´ look like a stroll through some kids sprinklers. It was a motor boat with about 30 people on it and it took us around to get some good photos of the falls, then everyone put their cameras into waterproof bags (they provided) and the boat went under the falls. We were soaked by water crashing down on us, but it felt great on a hot day.

View of the Argentinian Falls from the Speed Boat

 The Speed Boat we took

I am sure that I will be asked how Iguazu compared to Niagra. The answer is that Iguazu is much better. It is surrounded by jungles, more spread out, has more water, and there are multiple levels of falls.

-Emily

Other random things that were cool from Iguazu that I took pics of include...

1) This butterfly which decided to land on my hat for 30 minutes.  I walked, got on a train ride, walked some more, entered a building, purchased lunch, went back outside to sit, removed my hat from my head several times and finally after a half an hour it flew away.  Evidently, butterflies like sweaty hats.

 

2)  Look at this ant, now look at my big toe.  That is a huge freakin' ant!

 

3)  More butterflies...Emily got this one to land on her hand.

-Brett

A wrap-up of Brazil

This is just a few things I feel the need to to tell all of you about our time in Brazil...

1) I ate probably over 300 chicken hearts, no joke, it is a Brazilian delicousy and delicious.

2) As our friend Jose said, ´´He can´t understand how Brazil can´t fix all of its social problems, but Brazilians are for sure experts on how to clone credit cards´´

3) This country has two national food habits (besides the touristy all-you-can-eat buffets, see post from Belo Horizante).  The first is Coco Gelado, which is basically where Brazilians pop open the top of a coconut and drink the water inside (and yes it is water not milk).  The second is Açai, which is a delicious fruit from a type of palm tree that is served as a smoothie usually with granola and banana.

4)  Brazil I am pretty sure is the only country in the world that has a dual system for there cars gas.  Almost all new cars in Brazil can now mix both regular gasoline and alcohol gasoline, which was invented by the Brazilians (so they claim).  The alcohol gasoline was invented when gas prices started soaring and Brazilians found it cheap to produce I believe from Sugar Cane.  Now less Brazilians use it because the price of gasoline as dropped and even though the alcohol is still cheaper its cost to mileage ratio is not as good.

5) Brazilian hot water shower heads.  I was told many of times to not expect many hot showers in South America.  Well as most houses in Brazil (including nice apartments) are only built with cold water lines, every place we stayed in Brazil used these attached shower heads which had three options: cold, hot, and medium.  The shadyness of this is that they need electrical wiring to them, and because most of them have been added in recently it is usually just two electric cords running pretty much wide open above or next to the shower.  I cannot completely explain the number of times I was electricuted in Brazil.  Not many words can truly explain these things, but the picture below speaks truly a thousand words.

That is it for now, I know we owe you pictures and updates about the Falls and we will do it soon, I promise.

-Brett

Breakfast in Brazil, Lunch in Paraguay, and Dinner in Argentina

This will not be the update (which I will let Emily write) about the Igauzu Falls, but more of an update about our 3 meals in three countries today.  After spending yesterday afternoon at the Brazilian side of the Iguazu Falls (the name of the town is Foz do Iguazu in the State of Parana) we woke up this morning had an enjoyable breakfast (our last) in Brazil.  We then decided to take a city bus over the river to the town of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay (which according to Lonely Planet is named after Paraguay´s late dictator).  It is quiet a fitting city to be named after a dictator.  There is absolutley no border control when you cross the bridge from Brazil.  The entire trip takes on about 10 minutes from when we got on until we got off.  There seems to be either at one time a border control/passport check area which looks like it was bombed out in a war or just was never finished being built.  But besides that the town in Paraguay lives up to its name as the most corrupt town in South America.

 A look at the dirtiness of Kabul, oh wait I mean Paraguay

The region of Paraguay is a tax free zone so many Brazilians, Argentinians, and foreigners go over there to buy cheap things.  The main street and most of the side streets look like an extremely dirty Arab Shuk.  Selling everything from socks to sunglasses.  Along the main street are also several ´´shopping centers´´ which are mainly just filled with electronics stores run by Arabs (I´m pretty sure most of them were Palestinian) that sell everything electronic from nice cell phones, to knock off iPhones, to stereos, etc.  Emily and I didn´t really need to buy anything so we kind of just went there for the experience and looked around for a bit.  I did want to try to find a decent Arab food place, but we didn´t really feel like wandering to much off the main street so we just ate some french fries (which for these purposes I will say was lunch) and decided to head back on a bus to Brazil.  Like I said there was no passport control or anything, not even police.  Evidently if you are planning on staying in Paraguay there is a small office near the bridge to get the proper paperwork done but as we were´t we just hopped on a city bus a headed back to Brazil.  Reentering Brazil also wasn´t to difficult.  If you have´t already been in Brazil you do need to get off and deal with passport control but if not just customes agent comes on the bus checks your bags and lets the bus go.

Entering Argentina!  Actually this is a flag from Iguazu, not the border crossing.

After this point we headed back to the hostel grabbed our bags and took another city bus to Argentina.  Which crossing the border took a little bit more time but was also pretty simple.  We took a bus to the border and because we were leaving Brazil for good we took care of getting exit stamps in our passports.  The bus driver didn´t wait for us as, Brazilians and Argentinians dont need to deal with it (although the driver gave us free bus vouchers for the next bus from that company).  We got on the next bus that came which drove us over the bridge to Argentina and we again had to get off the bus and go through passport control and customes checks.  This time as all citizens of all countries need to go through passport control in Argentina the driver waited for us.  After going through all the checks (and learning Americans as long as they cross a land border in to Argentina don´t need to pay $130 reciprocity) we headed to our hostel in the town of Puerto Iguazu, Misiones Province and enjoyed our third meal in three countries today (a nice buffet the hostel had).

Besides that we are off to see the Argentinian side of the Falls tomorrow and the day after that heading down to Buenos Aires (a beautiful 20 hour bus ride, though we hear busses in Argentina are amazing...free food, fully reclining chairs for only $15 more, working AC, clean, and all for half the price of the Brazilian busses which usually are the opposite.)

A more detailed explanation of Carnaval

All of our (and our friend Eitan's) Carnaval Pics click here...http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2861229&id=13900087&l=c1dde39e28 (you shouldn't need a facebook acount to check them out)

Brett didn't give you too much detail about our carnaval experience, so I will try to explain it a bit more. For starters we went to a huge street party (they seem to be all over the place). Everyone was dressed up in crazy costumes like it was Halloween, with the most popular costume being men dressed as women. There was lots of music and dancing, my favorite being when people started dancing and singing along to the song "Its raining men", even though they dont know english, so they had no idea what it meant and all of the men there were dressed as women. Ironic.

Guys Dressed as Women

After that we went to the big parade which was at a huge permanent stadium, called a Sambadrome, that was built special for Carnaval parades. Instead of a having big field in the middle, it was like a normal 2-3 lane city street with bleachers and VIP boxes on either side lining the street. It was also pretty long and had a building and parking lots at the end for set up area. The parade didn't start until 9:30 or 10PM. At about 1:30AM we realized that we had only seen two fifths of the parade, since each samba school puts on its own parade that lasts about an hour or more with about a half hour intermission between parades and we had only seen 2 out of the 5 schools by then. This turned out to be a very long night. It didn't end until after 6am and by the time we got back to the hostel it was nearly 8am and time for breakfast before going to sleep for most of the day.

Parade Arena, called a Sambadrome, from the Outside

The parades themselves were increadable. Before each one there were fireworks, which were pretty cool. Each Samba school had approximately 3-5 huge floats and probably a thousand dancers total throughout each parade broken up into different groups. The parades all seemed to have a theme or tell a story as they went with one concept flowing into the next. The floats were enormous works of art with lights, moving parts, smoke machines, glitter flying, water cannons, etc. They shook under the dancers that were all over them wearing elaborate costumes and dancing samba like crazy. The dancers wore costumes including huge head-dresses and 'wings' made from all kinds of glitteryness, feathers, etc. with the women wearing enormous high heals as well. Between the floats there were various groups of about 100 dancers (actually many of them seemed like regular people that just liked grooving along with the parade). The groups wore matching costumes that were very beautiful and eccentric (more glitter and feathers) and the costumes represented different aspects of the theme of the parade. There were also professional samba dancers performing in the parade (again, amaizing costumes) which were really impressive to watch. Each parade also had a band of percussionists and singers who were mic'ed into the stadium speakers and and sang for the whole parade. Everyone was dancing and singing and putting on quite a show. And samba is tough - although I am proud to say that I picked up a few moves, but am not quite up to parade standards.

Inside view of the Parade Arena from Ground Level near the end of the route

Inside the Parade Arena with the route in the background

It was truly a fun and exhausting time. Check out the pictures that Brett posted to get a bit of a visual on this.

One word is needed: CARNAVAL

As Emily and I sit here trying to reflect on Carnaval we really do not know where to start.  To say the least Carnaval is AMAZING!  Street Parades, Parties, Samba, Music, Guys dressed up as girls, Parades of floats, general feeling of excitement, etc.  Really we have absolutley no way to describe it all so we decided to just upload a few pictures as a preview on the blog and even though we weren't planning on uploading any pictures to facebook until we got back from South America, we decided to make an exception for Carnaval Parade Picture.  The rest of our Carnaval pics somewhere near 150, I think, can be seen here... http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2861229&id=13900087&l=c1dde39e28

-Brett

Street Party in the city that was about 6 square blocks big (aka HUGE)

One (of many) amazing floats during the parade, note: it is covered in dancers

Another Amazing Float, and yes that is an actual working fountain in the middle and the lions arms all moved

A sample of the many groups (probably more then 100) that danced in crazy costumes between the floats. 

One of the couples of Samba Dancers which also went along in the parade

Each Samba School (Emily will explain in her post) had a band who walked the parade route and sang the whole time for their Samba School (usually around 1.5 hours) and accompanied by a large drum corps. 

One of the used costumes that Emily found discarded after the parade (about 6:30am)

Emily's Carnaval Costumes

Vote Above...

a) Green Hair Carnaval Look

B) Piggy Mask

C) Simple Butterfly Antennas

First few days in Florianopolis (pre-Carnaval)

So Emily and I have been enjoying the past few days on the island of Santa Cantarina continueing to be lazy beach bums, going to some natural ocean pools, watching beach soccer, and surfing.  It has been a bit rainy here the last few days which really seems to put no hamper on people's willingness or ability to still go to the beach.  As even though it was either drizzling or downpouring all day yesterday, their were plenty of people out on the beach and surfing. 

A highlight of some time in the hostel though last night was that on the TV in the Hostel Bar was ESPN which was showing the Minnesota vs. Michigan Basketball game last night.  So Emily and I watched (mainly I watched) but we got to see the likes of Goldy the Gopher!!!  And also a great panning shot of the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis. 

Photo I took of the TV with the Minnesota symbol at The Barn (Brazilian Flag to the left)

I would like to make a comment about the wonderful snowful the East Coast has received so far this week.  I know it might sound a little mean by saying this but I am mad jealous.  I know I should be enjoying the beaches down here (and don't worry I am) but I do miss the snow.  I haven't had a true winter in like three years and would love to see a great snowfall (espicially 36"+ ).  Which when some Canadians even saw my father's photos from NJ they were in shock about the amount of snow.

Well in reality I have little to say, ust some great photos to share so here we go...

So we will start with pictures from the porch of our hostel, which is about 100 meters from the beach and overlooks a canal...

View from the hostel

View at night from the hostel.  Of the beach soccer field which is packed with fans to watch two nightly games everyday full with fights and great goals.

Cool small little beach 2 minutes from our hostel, a great place to hang out at night (they also hold night parties here but we haven't seen one yet)

We went to some great rock formations with an ocean swimming pool...

The rocks

Emily climbing through some of the rocks

A huge wave came in and almost washed me out to sea

The highlight of the trip so far...SURFING LESSONS for Brett (I'll spare the world the photos of me falling off the board, however Emily did get some good shots).  Emily because she already had two surf lessons in Australia decided to just rent a board (she wasn't so succesful).

Surfs Up Dude (I originally put on the wet suit backwords , which I after fixing it found it more comfortable the wrong way)

Brett riding the waves...

I'm pretty sure I whitewashed shortly after this photo

Emily after surinf with her board (I got no photos of her because she was surfing during my lesson, according to her there wasn't many pictures to take though)

Like I said not much else.  The first night of parades are tonight so Emily and I are going to head in to town to see them, followed by some street parties in Florianopolis and then back to our village from some beach parties.

Love,

Brett and Em