What's new, Buenos Aires?

Due to popular demand (from my mother) I decided I better update this thing. I'm getting lazy in the last days. The pictures, on the other hand, may just have to wait until I get back.

I've finally made it to Buenos Aires. My last stop. Starting in Quito and ending in Buenos Aires is not too shabby. I arrived yesterday via boat from Colonia, Uruguay. Colonia was built as a Portuguese smuggling port in the 17th century, and it's full of cobblestone streets and cute old buildings. Luckily, I had a much nicer day in Colonia than I had had in Montevideo.

After arriving in BA, I decided to stroll around the center of the city to get a feel for it. I like it. A lot. My hostel is named after Carlos Gardel, the inventor of the tango, and it has a very tango decor. (What is a tango decor? you ask. I don't know, it just is.) During my walk around the city, I grabbed a slice of pizza for lunch. It was, believe it or not, the Best Pizza I've Ever Had. And I have eaten a lot of pizza in my day. Definitely more than the average human being. It's going to be hard to avoid eating that pizza every day I'm here.

While I was walking back to my hostel that evening, I noticed a group of people gathering around something. When I got closer, I realized they were watching dancers. My first tango show! At first, they just seemed to be posing with tourists for photos. Finally, they got around to actually dancing. Now I'm hooked. I must learn how to do that in a week. Later, a police officer growled at me. That was a first.

Today I toured the Recoleta neighborhood. Recoleta is the Beverly Hills or the Upper East Side of BA. It's also where they bury dead people. So naturally my first stop was the Recoleta Cemetery. It's not so much a cemetery, but a small city. It would be very easy to get lost in there, as well as spend hours and hours just taking pictures of all the fancy tombs. I opted not to buy a map, but instead followed the crowd of people in order to find Eva Peron. Sure enough, the largest group of people was standing in front of her grave. I paid my respects to Evita, snapped a few pictures, and wandered around the necropolis for awhile, until I kept asking myself Have I seen this one yet? Didn't I already take a picture of this one? And moved on.

On Saturday, one of my other halves (wait, if there are two others, does that make it a third? I was always bad at fractions) in Cusco, Maribeth, will be arriving. v. v. excited for the reunion.