Before Chris left Cape Town he decided to donate his wallet to a cab driver. It was not an intentional donation, but it was not too painful either. We have only been carrying one day's money in our wallets, so he lost about $30 including the price of his wallet. Thankfully, there were no credit cards or anything that needed to be cancelled. This loss made us realize that we needed to list the donations that we have made so far.
Bill - $60 cash at the Kenya Boarder, one Fisher Space Pen (~$20) at the Brazil Boarder.
Chris - One wallet, one Daili Lamma book(sorry James).
Rob - One sleep sack (a sleeping bag but made out of a sheet), one hi-tech towel.
Rob finished out our stay in Cape Town, South Africa with one last night on the town. Failing to recruit either Bill or Chris to head out with him, Rob decided to venture out on his own. Walking down the main street in Cape Town, he ran into two girls and asked them where the hot spot was for the evening. It turned out that one of the girls was from L.A., so he tagged along with them. After a half hour or so and a few drinks, it finally dawned on Rob that the girl from L.A. looked quite familiar. He asked her what she did for a living and she replied that she was an actress. Interestingly enough, Rob was in Cape Town having drinks with Kari Wuhrer, the actress from "Anaconda" and "Ford Fairlane". She was also the MTV Remote Control girl for a while. Crazy to run into her half-way around the world.
Leaving Cape Town meant saying good bye to our travel partner (of 2 days) Liz. Liz is the British gal that is in the Thanksgiving picture with us on the front page. We mentioned her in our last journal entry, but we all agreed that she deserved another mentioning. The day before we left, we were all talking about our favorite movies and Liz claimed that her favorite was "Peewee Herman's Day Off". We could not stop laughing at this Fruedian slip. Turns out she meant "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" which we all agreed was a top notch movie.
At 8 am the next morning, we headed off to Buenos Aires. We ended up booking a really bad hostel the first night in the Boca Bario. We awoke to random periods of gun shots and yelling the following morning. The noise would go on for 10 minutes and then subside only to go off again 30 minutes later. It turned out that the Argentina National Soccer Team was playing in the final game of a world championship that morning and we were hearing the celebration around the town after each goal. In the States we simply yell and scream, but in Argentina, shooting off fireworks and guns seem to be the things to do. They ended up winning the game that morning and the town turned into a madhouse. It was quite an experience.
We decided that a good way to see the city would be to take a bus tour. Our tour guide was a master of the city and of annunciating. We were cracking up at his animated facial gestures. One of the stops on the tour was at the Casa Rosada which is Argentina's version of The White House. Translated literally, it means pink house. It was from this building that Eva Parone addresses the people in the Movie "Evita". We decided to get our picture in front of this building, so we asked some folks near by to do the honors. Turns out that the lady that we asked to take our picture was a reporter for CNN named Kalin. She and her crew were in Argentina to do a show about traveling to Argentina. At first she mistook us for crazy Americans that quit their jobs to travel the world. She asked us for an interview (which in retrospect we should have declined). It was great to get in front of the camera and just really have nothing interesting to say. It would be worth watching the show to see how funny we look. Chris was wearing his Norte Dame Basketball T-shirt, so hopefully they will just show us standing there. Kalin said the show would air on CNN on a saturday in May during the travel hour(?). We are guessing that our interview will not make it past the video edits, but if someone could tape it, we would appreciate it. One other highlight from the tour was seeing Eva Parone's grave.
Besides its beautiful women, Buenos Aires is also known as the birthplace of Tango. On Wednesday we decided to experience the Tango first hand and we went to see a Tango show at The Almecal, the oldest Tango house in town. We were joined by our newfound Peruvian friends, Paola and Jimena. The show was similar to seeing a play in the states, except that dinner and drinks were provided. The dancing was amazing to watch, and we fully enjoyed the unlimited drinks and fancy foot work.
After the show Chris and Rob decided to hit the town with Paola and Jimena and went out in search of the most popular club. Since most people in Argentina don't eat dinner until 9 or 10pm and don't go out until midnight, it took a couple of stops and a couple of taxi rides, but we finally found the place we were looking for. This club was right on the water and the place was packed, but there was one big problem... the club was rented out for the evening by a big Argentinian television station, Azul Television. After about 10 minutes of talking with the bouncers we were in. Paola and Jimena were convinced that the reason we were let in is because we were Americans. Chris and Rob thought it was because of Paola and Jimena, but the important thing was that we were in. Amazingly, we walked right into one of the craziest parties. We were handed glasses of champagne as we walked in and a few minutes later the fireworks show began. We had an open bar all night and the party was sponsored by Baccardi. We danced for a while, and took a break when the company raffle winners were announced. Unfortunately we didn't win anything. We danced until about 4am and decided to take off, and as we were leaving we were handing complementary goodie bags with Azul Television t-shirts. Thank you Azul Television for a wonderful, free night out! (We have decided to add Azul Television to our list of sponsors due to their graciousness.) We left the party and of course the night could not be complete without a good taxi story.
A couple of miles from our hotel a group of kids in a car side swiped our taxi, and a high speed chase developed. A few blocks later our driver had caught up with the other car, swerved and had them cornered. Rob and Chris looked at the girls and said "get ready to run". As soon as the taxi came to a stop we were off, but we decided to be nice and leave the driver a few dollars on the front seat. What a crazy night. Three crazy cab stories in two months - we can only wonder what will happen next.
We had a funny thing happen this morning. We crossed the Argentinia/Brazil border at Iguaccu and stayed on the Brazil side so that we would be ready for the 7am flight to Rio. We found a hostel that had one double room and one bed in another room. Chris and Rob took the double and Bill went into the other room. We told the lady who ran the hostel that we needed a Taxi at 5:30 am to the airport. Shortly there after we went to bed.
Iguaccu is very buggy and thus we were forced to use all of our repellant and bug nets. One of the challenges of a mosquito net is not to lean against it while sleeping because the mosquitos can get you right through it. This can be especially challenging if you are taller than the bed is long. Due to the heat and the location of the fan in the room, Bill was sleeping with his head at the foot of the bed. That combined with the limited visibility due to mosquito net and darkness will help you understand what happened next. The hostel lady (not that she was hostel, but rather she ran the hostel) burst into Bill's room saying that the Taxi was there and that it was 5:30 (all of this was in broken English/Spanish/Porteguese). Bill woke up to this chaos and this woman speaking to his feet. When she realized that he was laying the other way in the bed, she was confused, but continued to persist. Bill looked at his watch and said "It is only 4:30" and he showed her his watch. She looked confused and apologized and left to tell the Taxi driver that he was an hour early. Bill returned to slumber only long enough to be woken again by the same lady. Turns out, there was a time change between the border town on the Argentinian side and the Brazillian side that we failed to notice. It was indeed 5:30 and the cab was waiting outside. The next big challenge was to wake Chris and Rob who had absolutly no intentions of getting out of their mosquito nets at 4:30am to hear what Bill had to say. It took about 5 minutes of continuous pounding on the door until Bill heard Rob say "This better be good" and he came to the door. We did make our plane by about 15 minutes.
Now we are in a dodgy(British term for sketchy) hostel in Rio where it is pretty hot and people of all shapes and sizes are wearing tight cloths. It is not uncommon to see a guy ride by on a bicycle sporting nothing more than a Tangerine Speedo.
We will be posting pictures in the next couple of days, so stay tuned.
