Sunday, February 21, 2010

Latitude 36°30' S : All the Rest: Puerto Madryn and Buenos Aires and

February 10, 2010
Buenos Aires, Argentina

After the bitter lemon/lemonade day we spent two delicious days at sea. I´d begun to take for granted that we were floating on the Atlantic, on calm seas, with no land in sight. There was no end of things to do on board the Norwegian Sun. We took tango lessons, I went to the gym,and walked the promenade as long as my knee would allow. (I´d torn the meniscus in my right knee in July and it was, at this point, very painful.) I spent way too much time at the casino and in the 12th floor bar. And I slept! The final round of antibiotics was doing the trick, but the effects of pneumonia lingered. I was tired often. And...because we´d rented an inside windowless cabin, it was dark as a mausoleum. Perfect for sleeping late and in the afternoon.

We spent one final day on shore in a lovely city called Puerto Madryn, at the far north end of Argentinian Patagonia. From there we sailed to Montevideo for a day then disembarked in Buenos Aires on a cloudy, deeply humid, January 31st.

We sadly bid farewell to Kirk and Marc, who had to get back to work.

Glenda and I spent the next two weeks living in the city, in Palermo, in an ultra-modern two floor apartment on the 8th floor of a high rise. I speak only for myself that the two weeks were easily unforgettable. I have this love/hate thing going on with BA. I love it because it´s modern and easily navigable, but I hate it because there is absolutely no diversity. One block is just like the rest. There´s more diversity in one square mile of Montreal than there is in the whole of Buenos Aires. I may return. I may not.

Glenda left for home on Valentine´s Day. After the buzz of four wonderful weeks with three great travel companions, it was hard to be alone. I shut down the apartment the next day and set off for Uruguay.

For me, this trip was only half over. There was still Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru in front of me before I´d leave on March 18th.

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