Feliz Navidad in Argentina

One Feliz Navidad in Argentina
…and a Happy New Year

One only goes to Argentina from Bolivia once…so we were told. That’s because most of the Bolivians don’t return to the “lesser life” in Bolivia but rather stay in Argentina for job opportunities and a better life all around. So Charles and I found ourselves on the “cochecama” double-decker bus to be the only ones with a return ticket. The bus seats are much like a lazy boy that recline to a bed. We left for the 40 hour trip to Buenos Aires Dec. 21. We met our friends, Laura and Kevin Baggett, at the terminal on Christmas Eve and continued what had already started as quite an adventure. The bus ride was better than we expected since we had the front seats in the top floor looking out the wind shield and great seats for the (bad) movies.

After a special Christmas Eve dinner with the Baggetts and some close friends, we watched fireworks from their 13th floor apartment balcony. It was quite a site to see the sky fully lit with assorted colors. It was a little scary when one bottle rocket shot past us within arm’s length. And also scary when Charles joined us on the balcony and accidentally locked the door behind him. Fortunately, after everyone freaked out, he found that one of the other doors was open. We spent a large part of Christmas day at the pool with a picnic. It seemed like another 4th of July more than anything.

During our week’s visit we did more shopping and enjoying the city than actually siteseeing. A few nights we stayed in a hotel downtown on South America’s widest avenue, Avenida 9 de Julio (July 9th Avenue). It was so nice to be back in a large city! The streets seemed immaculately clean and the people extremely white and tall in comparison to Bolivia. One of Charles’ major highlights was the steak he ate on more than one occasion. He felt a little queasy after eating so much but said he would do it again given the opportunity. I got to spend some time with Laura, who is 8 months pregnant, doing prep things for the baby like going to a yoga class and shopping around for last minute baby needs. The weather itself in Argentina made us feel on vacation. Charles and I both decided we could feel the temperature difference when we passed the border. We also enjoyed the green grass and parks that don’t exist here in Santa Cruz. It’s amazing what it does for the psyche to see the big trees and parks that are absent here.

Probably the most adventurous part of the whole trip was getting back. We left Laura and Kevin’s Saturday morning for the bus terminal at 6am. The bus was scheduled to leave at 8. We started asking questions when we didn’t see anyone else waiting for the bus with us. After a lot of hooplah, we discovered our bus was actually leaving from a different bus terminal. So after jetting across town to the other terminal we went to the ticket office to find out the bus had had some mechanical problems and wouldn’t be leaving until Wednesday (4 days later). This is so Bolivia for you. The company was nice enough to book us on a different bus line that left that night. We spent another day in the city and left as planned that evening. We came to find out that this was not in fact a “cochecama” bus, but more like a school bus. We did find some comfortable seats and they actually played decent movies. We arrived after 35 hours in Santa Cruz at 2am New Year’s Day after sleeping through the 12 o’clock hour. It was less than celebratory but we were content to be back and to have the day off. Another adventure to add to the list….