In Argentina, Buenos Aires, people tend to greet each other with a small kiss on the cheek, or a simulated mock kiss, on both cheeks. This is very cool.
I will need to return to this place called Buenos Aires just because I didn't get the city tour as I was expecting. I can blame GAP Adventures solely on this.
Speaking of GAP, my first tour with them, Bolivia Crossing, was a blast, though not quite what I was expecting. I found that I totally welcomed the occasional luxuries familiar to me (hot showers). Boy am I getting soft - I like such luxuries.
- Highlights of Bolivia Crossing -
1) A stroll along cosmopolitan Buenos Aires.
This was familiar territory as I've seen such "craziness" before in other cosmopolitan mega-cities.
2) Uyuni Salt Flat Solo
Spending time away from the tour group was cool, standing, sitting, and walking, and pondering all alone in the middle of an ancient salty seabed, surrounded by glistening, blinding, snowy salt crystals; nothing but me, the white salts, the blue sky, the whistling wind, and the cold, deafening silence.
3) Atacama Sand Boarding
Exotic scenery, miles of dirt, crazy sand dunes. Need i say more?
4) Death Road
Surviving "the world's most dangerous road" was easily the highlight of the Bolivia Crossing even though it was completely optional. I'm not the kind of person that easily puts his life on the line like this. But for some reason this one was calling my name. Like with many things I fear I can block out the cause of the phobia and deal with it, because dealing with it is equivalent to surviving it. Except for spiders. I can't deal with spiders. And snakes too.
5) A Stroll Along Potosi
Potosi, Bolivia is one of those places you can't believe you're in. It's remote yet is bustling with energy on certain parts of the day. Walk thru the main streets in the Potosi if you want to easily experience that feeling of discovering the world that relatively few will see at first hand.
Addendum:
I don't know why i didn't include this in my journal, but Potosi is a huge silver mining community. During this silver mine tour we were warned of the terrible conditions. I'd say this is accurate to truth. Interestingly I went thru the active mines with 2 sticks of dynamites strapped to my belt. While down in the wet darkness I witnessed miners, and miles of eerie mined canals. We crossed over a huge black hole in the ground which was used to hoist buckets of rocks (it was being used during our jump!!). The man-made caverns are not just muddy arteries with railroad tracks. Some of the mines go deep, very deep, straight into the abyss, the darkest reaches of the silver enriched mountain's bowels. When I used my head lamp to see more I could only see more tunnels. Some of these were so tall and so deep I couldn't see the ceiling nor the floor. And the farther I looked towards the horizon, the more the darkness swallowed the light.
