a few more hours till paradise.

So this tent smazzle is finaly comming to an end. We still dont have the tent but it is very close to us. Instead of delivering the tent they brought us a stack of papers that we need to take to the air port and pay twice the cost of the tent for customs fees! So we made some complaints to Fedex and with the help from the all mighty mom, hopefully it will get sent back to canada for free. Either way the boat company we used to get to Uruguay lost out tent poles so we are shit outta luck anyway. We are going to buy a new tent as soon as I am done this and be on our way to the countryside!

The last couple of days have been fun, despite the trouble we have been having. Nothing extremly exciting has hapened to talk about. Lots of hanging arround just enjoying this city before we go. We tried to leave yesterday but certin things got in the way. We are on our way to Cabo Polonia (not sure on that spelling) Its supposed to be some kinda old fishing goast town that is only accesable by jeeps. We are hoping to just pitch our tent beside some palm trees and relax for a few days. Apparently theres some realy neat things to see arround the area. Theres no power so I wont be blogging for a few days or so. Hope all is going well for everyone in canada i realy enjoy reading your comments. Im glad that someone was smart enough to send this link to the ¨Californians¨in the family. And im glad to hear from you guys. Isnt the warm weather great!!! sorry dad. Later Orin

Beachin It

Well yesterday morning started out to be another terrible day south of the equator. We were woke by ¨the devil¨ a.k.a the maid screaming at us in spanish, again I believe for the thrid time. No idea what she wants from us but knowone else seems to be concerened, so we ignored her. We wanted to get a wash done and there were laundry flyers in the hostel. I asked the man behind the counter were it was, and off we went. After some walking, the address on the flyer says it should be right infront of us.... nothing was there, great. It was realy hot and this was just another thing gone wrong. So feeling a little down we both seemed to remember seeing another place right by the hostel, so we wandered and wandered and atlast there it was. So we got our laundry dropped of and headded for the beach.

We made a stop at Ta-Ta and got some groceries and beers for our day at the beach, jumped in a cab and were off. When we got there we rented an umbrella from a man for 2.50 for the day. We then lathered the sunscreen on and just relaxed, very nice indeed. When we got back to the hostel Sage noticed a bright red spot about the size of half a sheet of paper on her hip. Whoops guess we missed a spot! Its quite helarious and looks like a spot on the side of a cow. When i laid down i noticed that my back was quite tender. ¨Sage did you put any sun screen on my back¨ I said. ¨I dont think so¨ she replied. Well my back is now quite burnt, and very itchy. Luckly we have a big bottle of aloe and arnt feeling the effects to badly.

Last night we went to the Carnaval celibrations down at the band shell right by the beach. It was quite a performance with singing and dancing and apperently some comedy that Sage and I didnt understand, but the crowds seemed to like it. It appeared to be a judged event with each group getting 45 minuates on the clock to do a perfomance. There where about 10 mics scattered across the stage and they just danced arround and sang into whatever mic was closest. We cabbed back to the hostel and went off to bed.

This morning we just picked up out laundry and now are at the internet place catching up on a few things and trying to figure out were to go next. I hope things are well for everyone in Canada. Talk to you soon. Later

READ THE LOWER ONE FIRST

I cut if off so not to loose all my typing so you gotta read the lower post first for this to make any kinda sence. Montevideo has been great, the poeple here are so much nicer than across the river. The hostel is a little crummier but still is alright its realy loud so sleeping is a little tuff. The vibe here is a little more like vancouver were people move a little slower than B.A and arnt so creepy. Plus its way claner and way cooler (its always got a nice ocean breeze.) We have been planing to rent bikes for a few days but still havent got arround to it. Yesterday we went for a big walk down along there seawall and ended up at an ammusment park. We even rode the swinging ship, a few crazy spinny things and I even got Sage and some young local girl whos mom wouldnt go with her on the roller coaster, and Sage hates roller coasters. We both had alot of fun but it definatly made us feel a little wierd. We got some water and continued walking till we hit the big main beach, we just wanted to badly to see it but the time we got there we were so tired we jumped in a cab and went back to Plaza Indepencia, got some dinner, played some quater football on the table and went to bed. This morning we woke up a little late and decided agin to rent bikes tommorow (hopefully that will happen). We took a walk down to some restuarant and has some lunch. Eatting out here is way cheaper than buying grocerys, and it shows since the grocery stores are so tiny and tehres sooo many little places to eat. After that we walked out on the breakwater for the shipping yard. Today it was absolutly covered in people fishing on either side. No oil in the pan needed for cooking these fish! After that (i know this is getting long) we headded to the beach to just chill and thats exactly what we did, just sat on the beach for a few hours soaking up some sun. Sooo nice to finaly just relax outdoors in a clean environment. Im now sitting in a little cubicale in an internet center after making a lunch of salad bread, cheeze and meat, and im very tired of typing so im going to try to put some pictures up then go to bed. Good night all.

sorry its been so long...

Well i finaly seemed to find some time to be able to blog. The hostel we are staying at for now only has one computer and its hard to get some time on it. Were to I even begin. Well Buenos Aires as I saw it was a bit of a bust. To big a city for me and just full of garbage and smog. We walked out to what we thought was the ocean (turned out to be a river) and looking back on the city it had a dence yellow fog above. This may have been why we were feeling so sick, not to mention that EVERYONE smokes. So we continued to hang arround a little and didnt realy get up to much. Messed arround with the tent situation wich im glad to hear is on the way!!! thanks mom. We had a realy good lunch with a man who took realy good care of us and lifted our spirits a bit on the city. As soon as we walked into his resturant he shut the door behind us and cranked on the AC. Considering it was smoldering out, that felt fantastic. He sat us down on some nice leather coutches and got us bugers and drinks. After we were done eating he came over and started chatting. Mostly with sage but I could throw a word in here and there. He grabed the newspaper and went through the whole thing with us, informing us of thing happening in Argentina. On the back there was a map so he coverd the country from north to south telling us some hot spots. After this he kised out cheeks and we were out the door. Thats there way of shaking hands. Anyway after that we headed to Plamero wich was supposed to be a nicer part of the city. We got there kinda late, of course, so everthing that we wanted to see was closed...so we took the train back to our part of town. Arround this time is when we met Lucas he was the night shift guy at the hostel and he spoke english fairly well so we picked his brain a little on Argentina. He also busted out a map and showed us were we should be headding. He also taught us alot about the difference between the Buenos Aires people and the rest of the country. Apparently its like night and day. Good news for us. So we stayed up till about 4 in the morning chatting with him that night and then we headded off to out room. When we woke up we went out and grabed some Empanadas (delicious) and walked arround a little more worked on the tent a little more and tryed to get our camera fixed. Again not that much luck. So that night we were hanging out with some people at the hostel sharring knowlege of the world, and getting even more tips on were to go and were not to go. Lucas showed up arround 1 to tell us to get off the balcony cause the people next door tend to complain. The whole time on the balcony we could hear someone playing dums but we thought it was comming from the next building or something. We quickly learned that they were comming from inside the hostel bar, and it was the owner of the hostel, drunk out of his mind beatting on these drums, while most of the hostel was trying to sleep! So Sage and I wandered downstairs to check it out and heres Lucas (who has been an employee of the hostel for about a week) trying to get his own boss to stop playing the drums! Finaly after about 20 minuates or so he was sucessful. So the boss and his friend stayed in the bar side and Sage, Lucas and I hungout on the Hostel side. The boss would make an appearence once and a while, but only to try to stand up straight and not say a word then run back into the bar. Lucas was not happy and he decided that that night was going to be his last shift. We said our good buys to Lucas and headed upstairs at arround 6am to Grab some sleep before we left town on the ferry for Uruguay. We had also made prety good friends with a slyvakian man named Oggy and when it was time for the ferry he hung onto us till the bitter end, waking up from his sleep and flowing us right down to the taxi and seeing us off. He was a super nice guy, who hopes to come to canada so we might see him agian. Anyway we made it to the ferry without much trouble, got our tickets and set sail for a new country. The water of the river has about 1 inch of visability and we were headding to a beach community that on our map looked like it still could have been on the river. Not very exciting. After about 2 and a half hours af scooting along I could see a line in the water where one side was dirty and the other side was clear and just like that we were into the atlantic! We started getting closer to the shore where we could see beaches and golf courses and small communitys. Finaly we caught a shot of Montevideo. When we went thru the break water they seemd to be expanding there port which looked like quite a project, there were excavators lining the shore shoveling fill into the water. At the start the water just looked dirty, but with a closer look all you could see was oil on top of the water in the whole port and surrounding bay. It was super nasty. Wow this is getting long I will not be putting this oiff for this long ever again. So we seemed to get through the oil fine and docked, asked for a pen at the customs claim and isted of a getting us a pen the guy told us just to go thru. Sweet deal. We got a cab to a hostel in the middle of Plaza Indepencia, were theres a huge statue of a man on a horse. Im going to cut this off here so if the computer quits all wont be lost.

Jet Legged.

today was a fairly dull day, trying to sleep last night was hell, hot, humid and just didnt feel like the right time to go to bed (could have been the esspresso shot the waiter at the resturant gave me and i felt guilty so i drank it) Sage was still up to see the sunrise and i dont think i was sleeping much before that, so it was arround 3 in the afternoon before we got out. We were both still feeling a little wierd so we took it easy again today, went out and found a bank got some pesos and then went and got some food at a little market. Its amazing how diferent the fruit is down here i have never tasted a banana like that before. We ate breafast in the street then wandered back to the hostel where we lazed arround a little more and worked on figuing out were we wanted to go next, and a little on getting the tent. Made some good pasta and squash at the hostel tonight and thats about it. looking forward to going out into the city tommorow and seeing what we can find. adios

We made it!!

Well we made it. It took what felt like forever but were here. Here being Ostinatto hostel in San Tablo (i think thats how to spell it) anyway its the "working class" area of B.A (Buenos Aires) The flight was long and cramped and extremly bumpy from Atlanta to B.A. the only real hightlight was seeing miami, cuba and a columbian city on the northen coast of south america other than that it was cloudy. We landed at 6:45am B.A time and i just recently learned that that is 5 hours ahead of P.S.T. We also learned that it was 12:30 pm when we were eatting dinner so its now 1:30am, no clocks to be found anywhere down here. After we landed getting through customs was a breeze, we then jumped in a taxi and headded straight for the hostel that looked the best in the book. The cab driver had no problem getting us here in half the time it should have taken, apparently speed limits, lanes and even stop signs dont matter down here. The landscape is very flat with lots of large fields that are very green, with thick thick brush stuck arround between firelds. The city is quite a sight to see, havent ventured to far from the hostel yet but what i have seen is quite unreal. The sidewalks are all beatup, falling appart with quite alot of garbage kickin arround. The streets are very narrow and made of cement or stone. Every car here has been in atleast one accedent. The buildings are tall and all concrete with the power lines just slung over the side of the building and little balconys everywhere. The room we are staying in is quite nice its got a bed and a bathroom with a shower, the only problem for me is the celing is very low in the bathroom and theres a beam running down the center of the room that hurts my head alot. Hopefully i have learned my lesson with that tho. Alright im going to go to bed and hopefully slip into the time change with ease. Talk to you soon. Orin

A few more photos...

Well its only been over a month since i posted on here so i thought i would humor you with some stuff (mom). Just some pictures that sage or I took with the new camera. 2 weeks till flight!