Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Well...not our favorite couple of days. We arrived in Buenos Aires in the morning to pouring rain. It was early, so we couldn't check into our hostel, but we found our way on the subway to the area & then walked through the rain for a while before finding the place. They at least let us store our bags & use their wireless before we set off again. The rain let up a bit, so we explored the city some. It is huge!  About 1/3 of Argentina's entire population (over 40 million at last count) lives in this city. There are some beautiful buildings and the main boulevard is meant to remind you of Paris. It is definitely very European in feel. Unfortunately my foot is really bothering me, not quite sure what I've done, so all the walking was not too enjoyable. We had a yummy pizza for lunch & went back to our hostel, where our room was finally ready.

My mom mailed us a package here that included guide books for Africa and lots of other little things. We tried to go pick it up in the afternoon, but they were holding it at the post office, since it was over a certain size. Jonathan's name was on the package, so he had to be the one to pick it up. He went to the downtown post office, where he took a number and waited almost an hour. When they finally called his number they gave him another slip of paper & told him that he had to go to the "other" post office across town where the packages were held in order to actually get the package. 

So the next morning we set off for this other post office. We stopped first at the bank, since no one seems to take credit cards here, including our hostel. The other post office was back in the bad part of town by the bus station, where we had arrived. We took the subway back there. It was incredibly crowded, and we all bumped into each other the whole way. 

When we finally got to this post office we took a number and started to wait. It was then that we discovered Jonathan had been pick pocketed on the subway. His wallet was gone, including all the pesos we had just gotten at the ATM, his credit cards and his license. At least we still had other credit cards and our passports safe. But I don't think there's anything worse than realizing you've been robbed while you wait endlessly in a giant government institution for your number to be called. Not the best day. 

We finally had our number called and got our package. At this point it was early afternoon and all we wanted to do was go back to the hostel and have lunch. We stopped at the same subway stop where we thought he had been robbed, and we checked all the trash cans. We knew we wouldn't find the money, but we figured maybe we'd find the wallet with his license. We didn't, but we did find 2 other wallets in the first two trash cans we checked. I think they have a little problem here!  We handed them over to the police officer standing nearby who seemed totally uninterested in the whole situation. 

We've repacked our bags so that we are carrying on all our essentials for our flight tomorrow. We fly from Buenos Aires to Sao Paolo, Brazil, to Johannesburg, South Africa, to Cape Town. All of that is supposed to take 20 hours.  We are not counting on our checked baggage making it, but it sure would be nice if it did!!

We're off to bed early so that we can get started on this crazy journey at 6 am tomorrow with a taxi to the airport. Next time you hear from us we'll be in Africa!!!