A long 48 hours in transit

Well, getting out of Lima was a piece of cake at 5 am. I left the Hostel (you must stay at Pay Purix Hostel if passing through Lima) around 3:30 am and started my journey to Buenos Aires. This involved an 11 hour lay over in Bogota, Columbia. I arrived around 8:30 am and started to scout out my plan for the day. I started by heading to La Candelaria which is the old historic distic. While in route, the taxi took me through the sketchier parts of town to show me the contrast, Holy Prostitution!! Once I arrived, I found the city to be fairly clean, very friendly, and full of local eateries serving up fried goodies (empanadas and other treats). After sightseeing on foot, I decided to check out the monserrate by cable car. Many people recommend this because of the fantastic views of the city. I really had no idea how to get there, but I could see the cable cars ascending the mountain in the distance; I went that way. After an hour or so of walking and snapping photos of the pastel colored buildings, I found the launch point for the cable cars. 7 bucks got me a round-trip ticket. The view from the top was gorgeous. The huge city at the base of these beautiful foothills reminded me of my days spent in Boulder, Colorado. The next task was to start making my way back to the airport with a short stop at the US embassy to get Pages added to my passport (I am running very low). I thought I was sooooo clever by taking out a certain amount of bills from my stash and desperatly asking a taxi if they would take me to the embassy for 13,000 pesos ( only a few dollars). Well the taxi thought about it for a sec and then agreed. Ha, I win, a cheap ride for about a half an hour worth of driving; Not so fast Eric. I knew was getting close to the embassy when I spotted the American Flag waving in the distnance. Excited with the fact that I knew I was on home turf, I paid the driver and told him he could leave. Within 30 seconds of arriving, I found out the embassy was closed, CRAP! Now I don´t have the new pages I had hoped for, and I don´t have a ride to the airport, which is about 5 minutes away. So I flag another taxi. This guy had a meter running and he spoke some hybrid form of Spanish and Louisiana Bayou English. I get to the airport and this guy said I owed him around 30 US dollars, What!!!? So after I almost lost it with this guy, he dropped it to around 16 dollars. Damnit. I lose. Since I didnt get anything accomplished at the embassy, I arrived at the airport way too early. It was 4:00 pm and my flight was at 10:00 pm. Sweet, the airport has free wifi. Not so sweet, my iPhone was stolen in Lima.

I arrived in Buenos Aires in the morning around 5 30 am. I expected palm trees and a nice 70 degree welcome. What I got was a frigid 45 degree punch in the face. Cold and wet, I made my way to the busstop. I picked up the public bus to the city and it only cost about 50 cents US. Well, what I dint not realize was that it was going to stop every 30 seconds and that EVERYONE in Buenos Aires rode it. It took me 2 hours and 15 mintues to finally reach the city center. I checked in to my Hostel (Sabatico, very cool) and immediatly went to sleep. Once I woke up I plotted my route for finding copias amounts of steak. Well, What I found was a 70 year old joint named Pippos. I order a large 14 0z filet, about 2 lbs of papas fritas, a small piece of butter (yes they charged me for this) and a bottle of water. All of this was around 13 bucks US, Score! After stuffing myself silly, I walked the 30 minutes in the rain back to my hostel, and packed it in for the night. Finally some quiet rest.

Now I am off to explore the city. More rain, Great!

At the top of the Monserrate in Bogota

A picture of the base of the foot hills in Bogota

Insanely cheap steak dinner in BA