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Date Written: Feb. 9, 2002 9:50 a.m.
Current Location: Sao Paulo "International" Airport
Subject: Last day in Buenos Aires...on the buquebus
Sunday Feb. 3, 2002
Back in the airport waiting for Tony. He lands in under an hour. I love
it when a plan comes together. Just quickly want to try to wrap up the
Buenos Aires leg of the trip from last week. The next morning after leaving Penelope
Cruz and Vicki, we got back to the hostel around 10:00 a.m. That morning
, I met one of the coolest guys that I have met on the trip so far. It
was this guy, Tim, from London who had arrived the night before and was
now sharing a room with me at the hostel. We had an amazing discussion
about what life was like for him being on the road for over a year. He
was VERY intelligent and experienced and it was great to be able to pick
his brain a little bit...I really learned quite a bit from him. Of course,
that's part of the purpose of this whole trip, which has really worked
out well. I probably stayed up an hour talking to the guy. I told him
the Penelope Cruz story and he thought it was pretty cool. Finally, I
caught some much needed sleep. I woke up only a couple hours later though.
Tim and I ended up talking for another hour or so. Then it was about 2
and I had to get up because it was gonna be my only chance to go and see
the Sunday markets in Buenos Aires. Johanna, Bernie, and I hit the San
Telmo market. It was pretty cool. There was people selling pretty much
everything but the kitchen sink. I mean, some totally useless items were
out there. Old rusty keys, a piece of string, old dusty books in horrible
condition...it was funny. I think I saw what must have been the first
polaroid camera ever made there. We had a great lunch at this place in
San Telmo and watched some of the street performers. It was a great way
to spend the afternoon. I looked for a cool necklace to buy but didn't
find one that jumped out at me. During the afternoon, it was officially
decided that Johanna and I would leave together the next morning (YES!!).
I had originally planned to go to Montevideo from there but after talking
to Johanna and a few others in the hostel that had come from that direction,
we decided to go to Punta del Este...a popular beach resort city in the
southeastern part of Uraguay. That sounded good to me. Anywhere Johanna
wanted to go, I was willing to go. That's the beauty of being on the road
like this. I can change my plan whenever I want. Perfect.
So after hanging in San Telmo for a couple hours, we headed back to the
hostel and Bernie left. Then it was just me and her. Man she was looking
amazing that day. I took a few minutes and sent
an e-mail to the folks back home and one to Tony tell him that we
had a new partner for the Rio leg of our trip. From there, Johanna and
I decided to head out to another area in Buenos Aires called La Boca,
that was supposed to be good on Sundays. We watched some street Tango
on "Caminito Tango" while we sat at an outside café and
had a drink. We actually ran in to Tim from the hostel out there by complete
coincidence. Anyway, it was a great time but in the back of my mind I
was still thinking of calling up Penelope Cruz. As, I said though, I never
got a chance to call her again because of what happened next. Plus I was
leaving early the next morning so what was the point of liking her even
more and then having to leave. It was okay though, because I was really
happy to have that evening with Johanna who just became cooler and cooler
by the second.
So on the way back to the hostel, we took a bus. We missed our stop by
like 30 blocks. Getting a bus back the other direction proved to be quite
difficult so we decided to walk. It was a nice night anyway. We walked
quite a way and talked a bunch. We decided to stop and eat and so we didn't
get back to the hostel until well after 11. By the time I showered and
stuff and got ready to go out, it was just after midnight. I figured that
was way to late to even try and call Penelope Cruz. On top of that, Johanna
decided she was too tired to go out which kind of pissed me off. Oh well.
Matt and Patrick were up so after I tucked Johanna in, the three of us
hung out and drank in the hostel for awhile. They were awesome guys. We
listened to music and talked, recounting all that had happened over the
past two days. We already felt like we had been friends for a long time.
They were headed for Chile the next day and I was off to Uraguay. They
couldn't believe that I had somehow gotten Johanna to go with me. That
night, we all went out to Recoleta to a club called Sahara. The actually
played a bunch of merengue there. It was once again another quality night.
There was this one hottie there with a sugar daddy that kept asking me
to dance. It was funny because I could tell she was wishing she had somebody
young and fun instead of old and rich. That guy was a bump on a log. I
danced with her a couple times but then she had to get dissed. There was
also a group of about 10 chics there, apparently celebrating something.
They were a blast to dance with and we had fun together. They loved Matt!
He almost hooked up with one but it didn't work out. I got back to the
hostel around 5:00. I packed all my stuff and went down to Johanna's room.
I told her to wake me up at 7:45 so we could catch the Buquebus
at 9:15. Well, she didn't wake me up until 8:25 which meant rushing and
we just missed the damn Buquebus (a hydofoil that takes you across the
bay from Argentina to Uraguay) . We were supposed to take the Eladia
Isabel, but it was okay because 3 hours later we caught the next boat,
the Patricia
Olivia. The ride was a lot cooler than I thought and it was actually
pretty short.
So that was it for Buenos Aires. It had been a fanastic beginning to a
great trip. I did so much in those three days that looking back it is
really tough to believe. So much had changed. I was now on my way to a
city I had never heard of with a beautiful girl I had just met...and I
couldn't have been any happier.
Miles traveled: About 6000
Drinks consumed: less than miles traveled
Countries conquered: 2
Regrets: ZERO
AC
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