Day 37, Family History

(Sunday, the 14th of February, 2016)
I woke up and had a late breakfast as usual a d then headed out to meet my uncle. I was dragging along with me a heavy bag of all of the extras that I couldn't fit in my backpack. We met at Parque Rivadavia, at a coin and stamp fair that runs in the park on Sundays. We walked a bit and he showed me where my grandpa had a stall in this fair 40 years ago, and where he and my mom had a s all stall selling magazines and stuff. That was quite an interesting piece of family history that I didn't know. We had drinks and an early lunch type thing at a cafe across the road and we caught up.

After that, I took the Subte to San Telmo and I explored the antique market there and I ended up buying a few souvenirs for my friends. After that it was planning time. Planing trips online is quite stressful, because pretty much every website says that they will keep your money even if you make a mistake with the booking or anything. Also, Patagonia is supposed to be supper busy this time of year, so I had to make sure I had a hostel in the town I was going to before I bought the bus and plane tickets, otherwise we'd have a problem. I finished up planning about a week in advance and the next leg of the trip started on Thursday with an early morning flight to El Calafate.

I really should trace out my trip on a map, because I think it would be quite interesting to see. Dinner was pasta today and it probably will be tomorrow as well.

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Day 36, Planning Patagonia

(Saturday, the 13th of February, 2016)
I woke up pretty nervous today. After a month of travel and after talking to other backpackers, it turns out that I really didn't pack well. I mean, I'm headed to Patagonia to hike and the best I've got are some Nike running shoes. I did some research on the weather down there and it seems like it will be close in temperature to what Ontario feels in spring. Temperatures from 0° to 17° C and perhaps some snow on the ground near the top of the mountains.

So I went out and decided to buy some hiking boots. After that I was faced with the real challenge of trying to fit them in my backpack. This lead me to doing a full inventory of the contents of my bag. There were definitely some things that I didn't need, after a month of travelling I hadn't touched them. So I pared down the contents of my backpack and I was left with the dilemma of what to do with the extra stuff.

I definitely have it lucky because I can pass the extra stuff off to my family to hold on to while I travel. Other travellers have had to leave their stuff behind or give it to other backpackers. My uncle is in Buenos Aires right now, so we made plans to meet tomorrow and I'd hand over the extra stuff to him.

After all that it came to dinner time (Argentine dinner time, ~ 10 PM) and I had fried granola and some beer with a guy from Santiago and we talked a long time about the differences between the Spanish in different countries. That capped off the evening and then it was time to sleep.

(I only took two pics today, so here is one of them. Estación Pueyrredón)

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Day 35, No Rush

(Friday, the 12th of February, 2016)
The first morning back in Buenos Aires was spent catching my breath. I feel like I've seen a lot of the things that I've wanted to do here. Now there is no pressure to feel like I need to be constantly on the move, seeing something new. All of the people that I met in Montevideo wanted to be friends on Facebook and up until now, I had largely abandoned that platform. So today I tried to get back in the swing of things and I dusted off the old account and did a bit of cleaning out. Lunch was fun, I decided to make fried granola, a recipe that I learned at camp. It's works perfectly for hostel food as well because its fast, simple, and it can be taken with you as a snack. Dinner was the same and I got to meet some new hostel mates from Chile, Portugal and France. Other than that, not much else happened today.

(Shot outside the window of the Lime House down Avenida Rivadavia)

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Day 34, Sitting All Day

(Thursday, the 11th of February, 2016)
Today was a travel day. The whole day was spend sitting, waiting for some form of transportation. And when it arrived, boarding and then sitting some more until we arrive at the destination. The odyssey begins with a city bus ride to the inter city bus terminal, some waiting and then I get on a bus headed for Colonia Del Sacramento. After a bit of waiting around there, I take a ferry to Buenos Aires and then finally a taxi to my hostel. It begun at noon and I finally got to the hostel at 11 PM.

Pretty much only one interesting thing happened to me the whole odyssey. As I was fading in and out of sleep on the ferry, I heard a familiar sound through the music in my headphones. I take the headphones and listen again. There it is, the unmistakable sound of someone drumming a lick on a practice pad, here, on a ferry to Argentina. I spent some time just listening, appreciating the playing. It reminded me of the long rides to Ohio that I spent on the Drumline bus, listening to kids practice for hours and hours. What an interesting sound to hear in South America, because it wasn't Candombe or another South American genre, it was good old drumcore.

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Day 33, Museums

(Wednesday, the 10th of February, 2016)
What a day today was, with the national holiday over people are begrudgingly returning to work and the museums are finally open. I spent the late morning after breakfast planning the best route around the old town to hit all of the museums I was interested in.

With the battle plan ready and all of my water bottles full, I headed out. First stop, the mausoleum of General Artigas, the founder of  Montevideo. The mausoleum is located right under the giant statue of Artigas in Please Independencia, and it was quite a sight to see. A giant ceremonial urn, a timeline of the General's life on the walls, and two soldiers standing ever still, guarding the remains of the general that created their regiment. It was quite a lot to take in.

The next stop is another depressing place, the Museum of the Andes; 1972, a museum dedicated to telling the story of the plane crash that left a Uruguayan soccer team stranded deep in the Andes mountains for over two months. That might have been the worst description of the event ever written, but the museum really told the story well, I suggest people at least read the Wikipedia page for the incident, its quite riveting. The museum was great and it really highlighted how dire the situation was at the top of that mountain.

The National History Museum was up next, and it was a flaming bust. On the outside it looked pretty beautiful, housed it a regal old building but that vision was soon ruined. It seemed like every single window in the whole museum was open, which let in the noise of the traffic outside, but it also let in so much light that it was nearly impossible to see the paintings on the wall. The light reflected off of the oil and painting would be obscured. Add in to the mix some noise guards arguing, cleaning staff yelling, and a whole wing that smells of piss, and you have a winner for the worst museum so far. Sorry Montevideo!

I finished off my tour at the Museum of Precolombian and Indigenous Art, hoping for a better experience than the previous one. This museum was quite large, and yet seemed to house and display not much at all. What was present was interesting stuff and I ended up with some great pictures from that museum. And that concludes my whirlwind museum tour. I have to say, the caliber of museum was just so much higher in Buenos Aires and I'm not sure why, although I still enjoyed my time at three of the four locations I visited today.

I stopped for some groceries on the way back to the hostel and I made myself a super late lunch of pasta, and consequently a super late dinner. Nothing much interesting happened after that, so that concludes the day.

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Day 32, Murga

(Tuesday, the 9th of February, 2016)
This morning started off nice and slow with a good breakfast to boot, there was still coffee in the pot this time. I heard out for a walk after breakfast with quite the multicultural crew, Pablo from Argentina, Kelly from the US and Sam and I from Canada. We headed out to the "Ramblas", or the waterfront promenades to have a nice walk by the riverside. We had a great time and we took a lot longer than I expected, I get great shots of the riverside and some good ones of the graffiti around town. I'm not sure if I mentioned, but as usual, everyone present was older than me, it was the 30's club except for me, all of the young 20 somethings left about two day ago. Regardless, it was fun and I got to talk about stuff that I don't normally get to bring up such as white hat hacking, bug hunting, the singularity and virtual reality.

The walk took us all the way to lunch, which was a sale for me this time. I always thought that the salad down here was overpriced, then I saw someone order one, a mountain of shredded greens arrived to their table, about twice as tall as the bowl. So it seems like you get what you pay for.

After lunch a few of us decided to head to another Carnaval event that was happening tonight in a velodrome, I didn't know what to expect. We killed some time until about 7:00 PM and then we headed out to the velodrome and what we got was pretty awesome. Performances from drum and dance groups like the parades of the past few days, but also troupes of men that sung songs and made political jokes and just general comedy, it was a real blast. Granted a lot of jokes flew over my head because I didn't understand everything they were saying but it was still a great time. We stayed from 8:30 PM to about 12:30 AM and we had dinner there, which was surprisingly great. We did leave before the whole show finished because we were all getting tired. A short taxi ride back and then is was time for bed.

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Day 31, Walking Tour

(Monday, the 8th of February, 2016)
Today I woke up just in time to catch a free walking tour across the oldtown neighbourhood of the city. I took the tour with a few people from the hostel, including a fellow Canadian that I met. The tour was great, we had a great tour guide and I got to finally see the old town of Montevideo. I bought my country ring for Uruguay during a break in the tour, we also met an American traveller named Kelly who joined us for lunch after the tour.

Speaking of lunch, we met up with three Brazilians from the hostel after the tour and we had lunch down by the port in a "market", which is just a missive amount of similar restaurants in a giant open air building that was supposed to be a train station, weird right? The group was hell bent on eating "parrilla", which is another name for the asado I was having with my Uncle in Mendoza a few weeks ago. I have to say, that this each of my Uncle's asados have been better, this restaurant really dropped the ball. We ordered a "Parrilla por 6" and what we got was pretty pitiful, very little meat maybe for a party of three definitely not for six people. Believing that we got ripped, we headed back to the hostel.

Most of us chatted or had a siesta until dinnertime, we found a more suitable restaurant that was cheaper and actually served us the proper amount of food. I ended up having a "chivito", which is a unique Uruguayan sandwich that was super delicious. Beef, lettuce, tomatoes, mayo, ham and a fried egg all in-between some bread, delicious. After that satisfying dinner that balanced out that poor lunch, we hit the hostel and stayed up until 2:00 AM drinking and getting to know each other. I seem to have a little fascination with beer, as each time I try a new one, I feel compelled to take a picture of the bottle, so I'll be adding that to the list of pictures I'll be taking. Anyways, that was it for the night.

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Today marks one full month out abroad, 31 days, and the time has flown by. I've shared a song every day for that past few days and to be honest, I'm running out of suggestions, these were my favorite I hope you liked them. The last song from Congahead for the foreseeable future is a jazz piece called "On a Tin Floor" by the "Daniel Ori Quintet", enjoy.

Day 30, Crypt Walking Pt. II

(Sunday, the 7th of February, 2016)
I woke up today just in time for breakfast. I had to say goodbye to my friends Casper, Axel and Francis as they all head out, I also decide to take more pictures around the hostel, because it has some awesome posters on the wall. After that I ended up at another cemetery (I know, I have a morbid curiosity), I wanted to see how different it would be compared to the cemetery in Buenos Aires. I ended up going with this German girl named Leena after asking around if anyone wanted to go to a cemetery and a theatre today. This cemetery definitely bad a different feel to it, more statues and less mausoleums, great nonetheless.

We headed over to the Solis Theatre afterwards and payed about $2.65 CAD for a short guided tour in English. The theatre is quite the beautiful sight, it feels small for its size, its regal yet accessible at the same time. I learned that the National Comedy and the Montevideo Philharmonic both put on $3 CAD shows a few times a year so that everybody can have the chance to see a show at the theatre.

Those two activities took up most of the day, so we stopped to pick up some groceries in the way back to the hostel and we cooked dinner at the hostel. After that I just chilled around and then went to bed, the parade part of the Carnaval is over and we didn't plan on a night activity today.

See all of my pictures here! Full size here.

Today's video feature is "Cocomama" performing a medley of songs.

Day 29, Great Views

(Saturday, the 6th of February, 2016) (Picture Heavy)
This morning was a little less fruitful than the afternoon, I headed out after breakfast in the direction of the old town, to scout out the area and to see where the museums are. Following in the South American tradition of having super restrictive hours on museums, the museums I tried to check out were rather closed or hosting private functions. I ended up at a bookstore and I bought a couple of books to help me improve my Spanish.

I went back to the hostel to cool off a bit and then I headed out to visit the Museum of Art History (MUHAR) when it finally opened at 1:30 PM. This museum turned out to be quite nice, they had exhibits on ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, South America and the Middle East, they focused on the sculptures a d art that those cultures created. My favorite piece that they had was an Olmec head, of course, it was a plaster replica because those things weigh tons, but it was an awesome sight regardless.

Just outside the museum on the same city block is a municipal government building that had a free 360° viewing platform on the 22nd floor. I headed up the the top and I really enjoyed the view of the city, I took plenty of pictures. The evening was spent at another parade and dinner was another street food affair, really tasty. Apparently it rained last night after we left and they had to cut the parade short, that is why they had a small make-up parade tonight. I went to this parade with an American named Francis, it was really fun. There were a lot nless people at this parade so we got better a better view of the performers. We ended up heading back earlier than last night because we were both tired and stuffed full of food. Here's to hoping for a great day tomorrow.

Here is a video big brother Google stitched together for me from my clips and pictures, enjoy.

See all my photos here! Full size here.

Today's video feature is "(U)nity" back for a third time with "Horizons". They just have so many great songs.

Day 28, Accidental Carnaval

(Friday, the 5th of February, 2016)
The morning started off with a simple breakfast, reminiscent of the Hostel Tango. I packed last night so all that was left to do as get on the bus. The trip to Montevideo took us about three hours, but once we got in to the bus station things got a bit harder. The bus station was quite far from my prospective hostels so I had to hop right on the bus system. I tried to get a map from the tourist information desk but they said that they don't have paper maps of the bus routes, also Google maps hasn't really got around to getting the transit options working right in Montevideo. But with a short jaunt on the 188 bus I made it to where I needed to be.

It turns out that I wasn't really paying attention to the calendar and the current events happening in Montevideo, it's Carnaval for pretty much the whole week and the hostels are packed. I had to check a few before I could find one that could take me for 3 of 4 days. I ended up at a hostel called Loco Caballo, which is actually a really beautiful hostel. The vibe here is great and the art on the walls is amazing, it is probably the best hostel I've been to so far. They did have to put me on a waiting list for tomorrow night because they are booked full, but that's tomorrow, no need to worry about that today.

I spent the rest of the afternoon meeting other guests in the hostel and playing pool with them. We ended up all going out at 9:00 PM to see the Carnaval parade and had some nice street food dinner and some 1L. beers. Our very choice dinner ended up being chorizo on a bun with chimichurri sauce and some Argentine pastries called "alfajores". We were quite a weird crew, it was me from Canada, Casper from Denmark and Axel from The Netherlands. We also ended up meeting up with some guys from Switzerland and Germany later after the parade, which I have to say was a lot of fun. Great music, great costumes, great dancing (obviously) and it was really interesting to compare how the parade compared to the parades in Canada, I did a bit of parading with a Drumline in Ontario so seeing the different drums being used and the different styles of playing was really great. We ended up heading back at midnight when our beers ran out but the party continued on in the streets.

See all of my photos here! Full size here.

Today's video feature is " Pequeño Johnny y El Cartel de N.Y." preforming "Obsesión".