A Hick-Up.....

So I've been MIA lately and not writing much about my aventuras...... and here's the reason why.... 2 weeks into my travels (which started in the middle of January) I was informed that a member of my family was ill. As soon as I got the news I caught a flight to Buenos Aires (to pick up all my things) and then headed straight to California to be with the fam..... After 2 months of being in Cali, the circumstanaces have improved and I returned to Brazil to pick up my adventures where I left off..... so now I'm in the concret jungle that is Sao Paulo and heading up north for the beaches, for the food and for the new adventures....

Waterfalls

I arrived in Iguazu past 12 and as soon as I got off the overnight bus I was overwhelmed with the humidity. The bus had the AC going full blast and luckily I had a long sleeve shirt to keep me worm, but I did have a huge head ache and felt like I had a brain freeze from the cold air.

The main attraction in Iguazu are the cataratas—the waterfalls. So my plan for the following day was simple: get up early in the morning and head out to see the waterfalls in the national park, which was an all day event. While having breakfast I met Eunice, from Catalunia and Roni from Israel. They were also traveling alone, so we decided to spend the day together. Eunice was studying in Chile for a year and was doing some traveling during her summer vacation (South America has reversed seasons so many people have summer vacays during US winter time) while Roni took some time off and was traveling for 4 months in Chile, Argentina and Brazil.

We spent almost 8 hours at the park looking at waterfalls and walking every trail we could find on the map. The waterfalls were breathtaking and powerful. The national park also contained beautiful birds, massive butterflies and rodents resembling raccoons. These rodents were not scared nor were they ashamed to beg for food or try to get in your bag.

Roni’s primary love in the national park were the butterflies. I think it triggered some childhood memory, because that’s all he talked about--how beautiful they were and how much he loved them. He didn’t have his own camera because he lost it in Chile, but every time he saw a butterfly, he instructed Eunice (she had a really fancy SLR camera) to take a picture of it. Or, he would borrow her camera and chase the butterflies to get the perfect shot. It was quite a site.

At the end of the day, we returned to the host absolutely exhausted. Roni insisted on making dinner for all of us…. I didn’t put up a fight. While he was cooking, Eunice and I were drinking beer and downloading all of our pictures from the day. I had close to 60 photos while Eunice had almost 300. As we were looking through all of our pictures, we realized that it was nothing but rodents, waterfalls along with tons and tons and tons of pictures of insects and butterflies. We hardly had any photos of us, but plenty ideal shots fit for a nature magazine or National Geographic.

Lesson learned—more pic of people and less of water and bugs.

Busting a move...

I’ve been living in Buenos Aires for almost a year now. It’s amazing how fast time flies. There were times I felt things were moving very slowly, but now that I’m leaving, I feel as thought I arrived here only yesterday.


I truly enjoyed living here, getting to know new places and people, receiving guests and having new experiences, but my time here has come to an end. I’ve studied Spanish, volunteered and worked, but now I feel it’s time to bust a move again.

I came to Bs. As. with some money saved up, but sooner or later I knew I had to look for a job. I didn’t want to do corporate-type work so I decided to teach English.

I wasn’t interested in being an English teacher in the beginning, but I wasn’t left with a lot of options since I was living in Bs. As. illegally. With hesitation I emailed a contact for a teaching job that was given to me by a friend from US who was also living in Bs. As. and teaching English.

And so I started teaching. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it. I liked “majority” of my students and learned a lot from them about their work, Argentine history and current events. Teaching was also very flexible so I worked as many hours as I wanted.

Teaching definitely did not pay the bills but it paid for my expenses while savings subsidized the rest. As the end of the year approached and my savings has dwindled significantly, I realized I had two options. Option one would be to remain in Bs. As and continue teaching until my money ran out and the second option would be to leave Bs. As. before I depleted my savings and pursue traveling all around South America until my bank account had $0.00. I chose the second option.

I decided to travel as much as my savings would possibly allow me, starting my adventures in Brazil and then moving onto Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile. Whether I’ll be able to explore all these countries remains questionable, but that’s what I would like to do.

I’m staring my trip by taking an overnight bus to Iguazu Falls (I’m actually writing this on the bus for I accidentally discovered that the bus has wifi) to see the waterfalls, from there, I’ll cross over to the Brazilian side where I’ll start my adventures.

I don’t have my tip planned out. As I get to one destination I’ll figure out my next one.

So that’s the plan...

I’ll do my darnest to write in my blog and document as many adventures as possible…