Buenos Aires y Pingüinos

Buenos Aires is an amazing city. I read in my guide book that I would fall in love with BA and I would not be the first or last to do so. I was a little skeptical before going since I was told that I would fall in love with it, but it has a certain charm and it is such a beautiful city that it´s hard not to fall in love. There are some amazing parks in the city. A whole chunk of the city is devoted to parks. They have several different kinds of parks like a Japanese garden, a botanical garden, a dutch garden and a zoo. I had time to stroll through many of these places on sticky summer days.

I was staying with my friend Zack from Spanish school. He and his girlfriend Cat just moved to BA for the next 6 months. I was so jealous. I guess that a lot of foreigners do the same thing, because there is a huge market for weekly and monthly apartment rental. But be warned-- it is VERY expensive. It costs the same as it would to rent a place in Boston. Even though Argentina is a much cheaper country, they know their own allure and know how to milk foreigners.

I also went to this amazing cemetery called the Ricoleta Cemetery. It holds the bodies of Argentina´s most wealthy families. It was amazing, there are streets and streets full of mausoleums. You can wander this place for hours. The weirdest part is that your family has to pay $18,000 each year for the upkeep of your mausoleum. If they run out of money for your mausoleum they pull out your coffin, cremate you and sell off your mausoleum! That´s tough. I guess there´s no forever even after you´re dead. Here´s a picture of an example of one. It has a stature of the angle of death on the top.

I left Buenos Aires and now I am in Southern Chile in a town called Punta Arenas. It is a jump off town for a lot of tourist activities like going to the near by National Park Torres del Paine or going to Antarctica. I am not going to Antarctica, but I am going to Torres del Paine. It seems like an amazingly beautiful place. But I´m sure I´ll report on that later on.

I went to the Isla Magdelina today. This island is about 2 hours off shore in the straight of Magellan in Southern Patagonia (in between main-land Chile and Tierra del Fuego). I took a ferry to the isla and on that island there are 75,000 pairs of nesting Penguins!! It was so amazing. Everywhere you looked there were penguins! (oh yeah, the word for penguin in Spanish is Pingüino). They were so cute. There were no babies because they left their nests last month to be off on their own. Anyway, you could get so close to them. One actually bit me! I was letting it cross the path to get to the water, and it walked up to me, looked me in the face, then bit me in the leg! But, I couldn´t stay mad at it for too long since it was so cute. Here´s a picture of me and my new ornery penguin friend.

I´m getting ready for a 5 day backpacking trip in the National Park. I hear it is one of the most beautiful places in South America. I bet you´ve seen pictures of it on any South American or Chilean advertisement. Anyway, I have a lot to do before then, rent gear, buy food, meet up with my hiking buddy Christina... I´m really looking forward to it. Hopefully the weather will hold out. Send me sunny thoughts!

Ciao!