Buenos Aaaaaaaires

Sept. 28, 2007
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Calle Chile y Bolivar (at an internet cafe called "Chatrum - Ciber & Bar" a place that has free internet service and booze)

The past three days have gone by pretty quickly. Except for the 16 hour bus ride from Iguazu to B.A. Still not a bad way to travel - the buses here (you have to choose the right one) can be pretty sweet. I found a great one called Crucero del Norte. Check out my rig...Xibit pimped my bus:

The seats recline pretty much all the way back, so it´s like being in first class on an airplane. They even show movies. Although when I first got on the bus for my trip from Rio to Iguazu on Monday I for some reason had concerns of safety on such a long ride, where maybe at certain stops the people on the bus would be robbed, or maybe held hostage or shot at. I was tired when I got on the bus, my mind was coming up with crazy thoughts. However, my unnecesary nervousness was calmed when the movie Babel was put on the TV, and about 30 minutes in, Brad Pitt and his wife were shown on a bus, much like mine, and his wife was sitting on the first floor of the bus, in pretty much the same seat (window, left side) and was SHOT through the window from a sniper. Ah, terrific, NOW I can relax and chill out!

But actually the rides have been easy. The ride from Rio to Iguazu was better because we only stopped three times - once for gas and twice for food. We stopped at a Texaco for lunch on Tuesday. Texaco. For lunch. I have to tell you it was one of the best lunches Ive ever had- Texaco or not. It was a Brazilian Churrascaria - essentially they bring incredible meats to you on skewers until you roll out of there, paying $7 bucks. The meat rivaled any steak house. And did I mention this was TEXACO, the gas station?

Enough of the bus, I have to mention Iguazu Falls. This place was AMAZING. Highlight of the trip so far. If anyone comes to South America, this is a MUST SEE. Ive seen pics before and they all have the caveat of ¨this picture doesnt do it justice¨and its very true. The size of the falls, the sheer numbers, the sounds. Iguazu is a Guarani tribe word meaning big water. The falls range from 200 to 275 feet high.

The ancient Guarani legend of how the falls were created goes something like this: a powerful god was all ready to marry this beautiful young girl named Naipi, and she apparently was into this other young Guarani, the name translates to Morty Goldfarb, and she and Morty fled on a canoe...and the god was very angry at Naipi and Morty and dropped the river down causing Naipi to become a rock at the bottom and the lover to be forced to watch her from above as a lone tree at the top of the falls. Poor Morty.

It wasnt just the falls, but the entire park, which is in a protected subtropical forest. I saw toucans, monkeys, aligators, tortoises, and dozens of brightly colored birds and butterflies. Here are a few pics:






Below is a pic of the Garganta Del Diablo (Devils Throat) it·s 500 feet across and 275 feet down. The mist was so thick from hitting the rocks below that it felt like it was absolutely pouring as you walked the catwalk over to see it. Umbrellas and raingear everywhere.




So the pics above are from me visiting the Argentinian side. And I was the first one in the park at 8am, because I wanted to see it all before the crowds. And as I finished with Garganta del Diablo around 12:30, I was essentially done. And began to realize that I had an outside shot and seeing both sides in one day, and possibly catch an overnight bus to Buenos Aires, effectively saving a day by leaving Iguazu a day early. For those of you who havent traveled with my father before - Reg Lormon Jr, this is the sort of demented, yet traveler-efficient mentality that is ingrained into you at a very young age. As an example - after I graduated college back in the mid-90s, he and I went to Europe for 17 days. If any rational person is going, its a couple of main cities, a few days in each maybe and a few smaller towns to fill it all in. I think we went to every country and major city in Western Europe, and not just driving through, we saw it all. It was like 45 cities in 17 days.

So as I walked briskly back to the front gate of the park, I planned my attack.

I got to the front gate exactly at 1:30. I approached the only cab driver there, his name was Epifanio.


I told him in broken spanish, my plan. Take me about 5 miles to the hostel where my bag was. Pick up my passport. Drive to Brazil (about 8 miles away), go through the checkpoint, see the Brazilian side, maybe fly in a helicopter, drive back across the border, back to my hostel to pick up my bag, go to the nearest ATM to get money to pay him and for the bus ride to Buenos Aires and drop me off at the bus station in time for the 3:30 bus.

He laughed, shook his head, and said get in. We were absolutely flying in his car, it was ridiculous how fast we were going, passing cars, buses and trucks on the left and the right. We even went through the wrong way going across the border from Brazil to Argentina to bypass a line of cars (surprisingly the guards at the border were okay with this).

We even got to fit in the 10-minute helicopter ride.



Approaching the falls. All of this is thick jungle.

The falls.




It was a really fast-paced 2 hours, but we did it and I made my bus with about 2 minutes to spare. It was as much fun talking to Epifanio as it was seeing the falls. It was a race against the clock. A quest for fun. And as I told some people at my hostel here in Buenos Aires last night - that I saw the falls in one day, they said no way. I say thanks Reg, my training is complete.

BUENOS AIRES is a really cool city. Very friendly people, everything is dirt cheap, I feel extremely safe walking the streets at all hours (unlike Rio), and the steak here is unbelieveable.

A few pics from the past 24 hours:







They say that Buenos Aires is famous for leather goods, great steaks, friendly people. My guidebook didnt mention that this city is also famous for being the Southern Hemisphere`s capital for sweaters tied around your neck.

This is a nice thick wool one.


This one was so thick on this guy it looked like he was giving a small child a piggy-back ride.



...but I dont want to be a snob. I`ll just shop there.


Thats it for now. Its time for steak.
Met a couple of cool dudes...Andrew, a 23-year old from Australia who is traveling for 5 months, and Mike, a cool guy from Baltimore who happens to be Derek Jeter`s cousin.

Long blog. Enjoy the weekend everyone!

Ar-hen-tee-nah

Sept. 25, 2007
Puerto Iguazù, Argentina
Hotel Esturiòn

Hola todos.
Estoy en Puerto Iguazu, Argentina.
Let me translate - I´m in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina.

By the way, notice the colors of the blog change to the colors of the country I am in. What a huge nerd.

I´m in a hotel just across the border from Brazil and Paraguay.

The rivers Piraná and Iguazu converge just a couple of kms from here to the Iguazu Falls, which I will see tomorrow.
Also tomorrow I will upload pics from the past few days...I am unable to access the usb port here, as the CPU is handsomely encased behind a locked wicker door.

Since a picture is worth 1,000 words, let me give you 2-3 pictures worth.
Where did I leave off - oh yes, so Sunday morning I woke up around 5:30am again (thanks to the mosquitos and the heat in my room), and walked along Ipanema beach for an hour or so...then I tried to plan my next plan of action - one of three choices: stay in Rio one more night and fly to Iguazu Falls Monday morning, take a taxi to the Rio bus station and take a bus to Paraty and Ilha Grande (which apparently have incredible beaches), or go to this place just south of Rio called ¨Surf n Stay¨where a husband/wife from Brazil/New Zealand lived and ran a hostel. This was a place where I could take surf lessons and hang with locals. That was my first choice and I had emailed them three times asking for availability with no response.

So after breakfast I decided to check my email one last time. If I hadn´t heard from them I was going to Ilha Grande, which was going to be a trek (a taxi, a bus, and a 2-hour ferry on some gnarly waters). I log on....no response. Oh well, so I log off, jump downstairs to finally say goodbye to this hostel and I go to the desk. The girl there is on the phone and says to me äre you Daniel? The phone is for you.¨She hands me the phone - it´s the surf hostel, they have a room. Fan-tastic.

It was about a 40 minute cab ride southwest of Rio to a town called Recreio, home of the largest mall in South America...I ended up taking surf lessons from Mauro, a Brazilian dude in his early 30s who with his Kiwi wife Kat - two surfers who met in a bar in Pacific Beach and 5 years later realized their dream - to get married and open up a surf school/house in Brazil. Such a great story. They even have a 3-month old son, Taj, who they say will grow up to be a world champ surfer.

The beach I surfed at was called Praihna...this cool little cove (just around the corner from the beach in this pic below).

I also met some great people who at the house - a young Aussie named Matt who had surfed all his life in Australia and while traveling here decided YESTERDAY on a passing inquiry from Mauro that yes he would stay at the house indefinitely and help out and teach surfing to beginners so he could stay for free. And local named Leo who has traveled the world, but returned to his home in Recreio - he helps Mauro and Kat out with promotion of the business, with their website and photography. Over a beer Sunday night I told him about my travels all over South America. We were standing up, next to a tree in this small tented front yard down the street from the surf house - this place was actually the beginning of a favela - this front yard had been converted into a bar called ¨the Hut¨ More on that later - so Leo puts his beer down on this nearby tree stump and says to me: ¨traveling alone is very important. All the places you see, the people you meet...what is the one constant? You. You must find home. Not home like where you want to live. But home (and he pointed to my heart) - wherever you travel, and wherever you may be, you must be able to be at home.¨ Then he went to this jukebox and he played one of his favorite songs which was this techno-samba Brazilian song. It was called ¨Chicanic e Veeyaga¨ - at least that´s how he was pronouncing it when I asked him...i asked him three times ¨WHAT´s the name of this song??¨Chicanic e Veeyaga. What was it about? Leo said it was about being down and back up again with a girl - basically an on-again/off-again relationship. I asked him to spell it, instead he motined me to come to the jukebox instead. I look...it´s ¨Titanic and Viagra¨- you see, down and then up. Horrible, but pretty funny after a couple of beers. Maybe even without the beers.

Dark pic - but right to left: Auzzie Matt, Brit Sam, Kiwi Kat and baby Taj, Brazilian Mauro, y yo

Mauro, Kat, Taj and I. Dont ask what their dog Icey is doing please.

I spent less than 24 hours there - but it seemed like weeks. I definitely miss that place and those great people.

Blah blah blah...so fast forward to now - I´m in my hotel - a resort basically for $60 (you people need to come to Argentina) and I´m having a glass of Malbec, and typing on a computer. One thing about South America - internet service everywhere, cell phone service everywhere. I was on a 23-hour bus ride from Rio to here, and everytime I looked at my phone, I had 4 bars of cell service. Granted, it´s $2 a minute, but there´s cell service in the middle of Brazil, and I can´t get a signal in certain spots in San Francisco. What´s the deal there???

Time for dinner. Pics tomorrow. Hopefully of Iguazu Falls. I keep hearing this place blows people away.

Ciao peeps.

Blame it On...my feeble attempt at catchy Rio phrases.

Sept. 22, 2007 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Ipanema

It´s 9:30pm here and I´m sitting on the second floor of the Che Lagarto Hostel...there´s a sweet jazz quartet here. Although they are playing SexyBack by Justin Timberlake, didn´t know you could make that into a jazz tune. Who knew.

The past two days have gone by pretty quick. SO, I´ll be quick in describing what happened.
In short, I didn´t sleep much (thanks to the noisy jazz quartet playing until 3am right below me, an open window where a brigade of mosquitos and gnats flew in and took a beachhead that was my face and neck, and the humid heat - I feel like I´m in New Orleans or Miami here - Oy!).
But I did wake up refreshed today for some reason and went to the beach - common occurence I guess when you sleep about 50 yards from the sand and are on an extended vacation.

I was up around 5:45am and walked out to the main street and this is what I saw - amazing - Brazilians must sleep in. No cars at all on the road. No getting hounded to buy arts or crafts or ¨purple haze¨This is one of Rio´s busiest roads and look at it. One thing about Rio is that you are constantly playing Frogger with cars. They don´t really obey any rules of the road, and if they see you cross the street ahead of them, they literally SPEED up to try to hit and/or scare the bejesus out of you.




So after a walk through Leblon, I went back to my hostel to read, until about 10, when I walked out to Ipanema beach and found this (below) - where did everyone come from? The beaches were PACKED.

Some stuff from yesterday (below) - I tooled around Ipanema yesterday as well as the surf beach (Arpoador), both really cool beaches.

I also went to El Centro to check out some history.
This below was an area where they had kids costumes out and kids came and could put on whatever they wanted and dance like banshees to some Brazilian kiddie-pop. I don´t know what that dude in the yellow was doing.


Below is an older part of Rio. Pretty cool streets, not the cleanest, but with character. They were selling everything on the streets: candy, hats, records...


Here´s a shot of something...I see Black Uhuru, good stuff, and Rocky III - who could forget Ëye of the Tiger¨by Survivor....But they actually made a Rambo III soundtrack? What songs are on that? I was this close to buying it.



I have seen alot while I´ve been here though - Copacabana, Ipanema, Leblon, some old guy in a speedo walking a beach chair across the street in the middle of town...



I did see a ridiculously stretched out farmer´s market yesterday - tons of fresh fruit and veggies. I had to sample a couple of tangerines, and jabuticabas. Very delicious.

Bananas - not so much.

These pics bounce around but this is a pic of my exciting subway trip to El Centro (see above). The metro is actually very nice but my favorite part (which I didn´t get on film) was about halfway through my ride to El Centro - these two Brazilian women were sitting across from me in the car and this middle-aged fella comes walking on at one of the stops. He was carrying a paperback book with some sort of image on it. He sits down BETWEEN the two women and crosses his leg and starts in where he left off, which looked like about three-quarters in. I wonder how the book´s storyline went, because the book was tattered and definitely from the 70s and had a naked woman´s torso on it with the title emblazoned as big as possible: ¨Let´s Get Laid.¨


Anyway, back to today, I actually had the highlight of my trip so far - I did a touristy thing and went to the top of Corcovado (below) and to see Cristo Redentor, which was voted as one of the new Top 10 Wonders of the World. It really is incredible. It´s 390meters up, it really does look over Rio. It was built in 1922 and actually stands 38 meters high, with 8 of those dedicated to a small chapel. It´s really one of the most breathtaking views I´ve ever seen. And I´ve been to see Eddie Money at Konocti Harbor.

One of the top 10 Wonders of the World, with and People Magazine´s Top 10 Worst Dressed on Corcovado.

l

We toured one of the samba schools as well, this was a junior version. The kids really are great dancers and their parents absolutely go crazy for them. Carnaval isn´t for another 4 months too, this is serious business...

The 2nd best highlight of today was seeing a mugger get fully apprehended.
We were all in this 10-person van driving around this well-to-do district - the guide (who was facing backwards in the van said ¨this area is where the rich people live¨- right then we hear horns screaming behind us, and the guide moves to the side of the car - we all turn to our right to see this kid - no more than 15 - speeding down this cobblestone street alongside of us on a bike. He´s pedaling as fast as he can - which causes him to hit a bump and bail pretty bad over his handlebars. He doesn´t even get a chance to get up, because our guide has jumped OUT OF OUR MOVING VAN, and has both his hands behind him. Then another guy comes (apparently from the car behind us) and throws him down yelling, and places his foot on his throat. The kid gives up and hands over a gold chain, just as a very tan and leathery old man shows up, shirtless and in blue running shorts. He got his gold chain back.
I felt like I was on COPS. Only sadly, no taser action.

Well it´s time to turn in - going to move on and leave Rio tomorrow for either Ihla Grande for some hiking, or a small town just West of Rio which is a surf school for beginners. Gotta try it.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

Ciao!

Her name is Rio and she dances on the...

9/20/07 - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Ola! The trip has officially started. I´m in Brazil. Rio de Janeiro. Which is portuguese for ¨Rio of the Janeiro.¨Check out my portuguese! Carlos´book is coming in handy.

I´m in an internet cafe in Aproador, which is between Copacabana and Ipanema. Rio de Janeiro is a small city of 6 million, not the largest city in Brazil, but 6 million sure does feel huge right now as I hear cars speeding around out front.

Getting to South America from San Francisco has been a game of patience. It´s been about 24 hours of traveling, including many delays, food court meals, a potential OJ sighting, and on my flight to Rio from Miami, one smelly foot in the row behind me, apparently trained to turn on and off the overhead light at will. More on that later.

I´m pretty darn stoked to be here - although it´s a bit strange that I´m not meeting someone here later or tomorrow or Sunday. That´s the getting used to part that I need to, well, get used to over the next 35 days.

I´m going to try to add in some pics now from today. This is a first for me, so patience people. I have to confess. The real reason I´m on this trip is that a couple of weeks ago I stole a bunch of OJ´s football memorabilia and have flown to South America to hide from him here.

My backup plan to coming to South America was to check in at the Palace Station Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas for a few weeks and hide from OJ there, but I think I made the right choice. It was pretty funny though, last night in Miami as I was waiting to board my flight to Rio, I heard that OJ was flying in from Vegas. Must have just missed him. Everyone please keep me updated on this story. Not.

On to cooler stuff. My flight to Rio was pretty uneventful, although....Below is a picture of a very talented foot, belonging to the sleepy Brazilian gentleman behind me. You can see the armrest and the red blanket, and between the two you will see a gray sock, toes upturned. He had the entire cabin buzzing when at about 4am the entire cabin of the plane, which was completely dark, suddenly became Studio 54, complete with a very bright flashing overhead light and every 8-10 seconds the ¨BING¨ of the attendant call button. Everyone was ticked and wanted to move the foot, or wake him up. For 5 minutes this debate went on, all the while more flashing and binging. I chose the third option, which was to laugh and take a picture.

¨DJ 90/10 Poly Blend in the heezy!

Who here has had too many pretzelllls?!¨

As I got into the Rio airport, I hailed a cab and started this way - it´s quite a ride - very smoggy, beautiful mountains, very poor favelas visible everywhere, and then - Corcovado (shown), and Pao de Acucar and the ocean. My hotel (Martinique Copa) is on the West side of the sweeping Copacabana beach, about 30 yards from sand.

I got in and immediately went for it - a fantastic 2-hour nap. I fell asleep flipping channels in my room - the one that I got a huge kick out of was this Jewish Evangelist. He was going bananas on the crowd. They were Brazilian too. Pretty cool.

But then I woke up and took a nice walk on Copacabana beach. A few cool pics.

These dudes were playing some mean games of cards while maintaining a tan a shade of the Coppertone bottle.

This guy below was just hangin, reading the paper. The guy on the right, don´t know what he was doing.

Tomorrow, I´m going to explore a little more, maybe climb Corcovado and hit the beach. I´m going to check out Ipanema and have a capirinha now. $1.50 each. I´m buyin whoever wants to come down!

September 4 - In a Starbuck's in SF

Here I sit in a Starbuck's in San Francisco, on a warm September day, wondering - will this trip to South America happen? Where will I go? What will I see? Will this be the trip that changes my life? Will I descend upon Macchu Picchu or paddle out on Lago Torres and decide that I want to work at Cinnabon in the mall for the rest of my life? Or will I return from my 30 days with the possessions that most American travelers bring back to the States with them - a collection of stories about locals, 500 photos or churches and cemetaries, an appreciation of the hospitality of randoms you met along the way, and of course, a cool beard or thick mustache?

Whatever it is, I'm psyched to move on this seemingly 10 year impulse to travel abroad for an extended period by myself.

For all this I have to say, Thanks Cordis for laying me off. Today is the first day of my unemployment and I'm sitting here in the Starbuck's on Union and Laguna, across from my buddy David Falato, who is typing away quotes and ordering chocolate samples for a client.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting here trying to decide if I'm going to visit Macchu Picchu or the Amazon Jungle in less than 30 days from now.

My working life seems so far away....I struggle at the moment to either look for a job, or look for places to stay in Patagonia while I'm there. For now, I choose the latter.

Now I must go back to the planning of the trip. My bud Andy Slakoff has a cousin that went on a trip for three months to S.A., going to many of the places I've earmarked to visit. I must chat with him.