Last day of my 3-month trip

I visited a famous book store in Buenos Aires and touted the congressional building.

The El Ateneo book store was originally a theater (Teatro Grand Splendid), and it becomes in one of the top 5 most beautiful bookstores in the world.

No show of the "ladies" in Palermo park, Argentina

Buenos Aires’ main lush greenery park transforms into an outdoor brothel for transsexual prostitutes. The “ladyboy park” is a bizarre phenomenon, the result of a government legislation passed in 2005 that forbade prostitutes from offering their services within 200 metres of any school, church or residential building. This cancelled out pretty much everywhere in the city such that the prostitutes, most of them transsexual, moved to Bosques de Palermo and shown up after midnight.

I missed the opportunity to see transsexual prostitutes in San Rafael with my two girlfriends from San Francisco who told me about the transsexual prostitutes. I was looking forwards to see them last night in the park. We took two buses to there and almost lost our way back yet did not see even one of them. Did they take Sunday's off?! Very disappointed, since the Argentina ones are prettier because the plastic surgery is more affordable here.

I found an interesting link about a man had sex with the a transsexual prostitute twice and his emotional struggle.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080313234920AAaRX99

Almost got robbed in Buenos Aires, but actually got ribbed in Miami

I traveled in south america without incident until Buenos Aires. Before this, i thought Argentina was safer than Colombia and Peru.

The incident involved distraction theft and then backpack snatching. There were three policemen chatting just 50 meters away.

I first felt the back of my thigh was wet and thought that I stepped onto standing water on the sidewalk. However, I turned back but saw nothing on the ground and some bird shit looking stuff on my pants. I took out tissue paper from my backpack to clean it. A lady stood nearby tried to give me tissue to wipe them off, and another man pointed at the pants of my friend and the sign of a store front as if showing where the source of the white stuff.

My friend was experienced and already noticed that a third person snapped away my backpack crossing the street and shouted at him. He run towards the third person when he dropped my backpack on the street. The whole incident happen in minutes before I saw my backpack shown up across the street. I failed to keep a close eye on my backpack.

The first man spray something on me and my friend like hand cream mustard or the like. The lady pretended to help us, and to distract me from my backpack and, in the chaos, the third person stole it from me.

I should have Ignored their help, and focus on my belongings and extracting myself from the scene ASAP. I read the exact scan info on wiki travel but simply did not recognize it until after the incident.

Fortunately, my friend reacted timely, and the third person dropped my backpack to avoid confrontation. I am grateful that I got to keep the gifts I bought at San Telmo Sunday street fair and flea market. The incident happened after the market and our Chinese buffet. My palm was snapped by a restroom door and cut open. I did not expect such causality in the big city and right before I go home. The restaurant receptionist looked terrified by the little cut gushing out with blood and gave me bandages as soon as she could. My attack to the food was a little impaired by the cut but not much. They had BBQ and other typical buffet items.

I was told that the Argentina government control exchange AR pesos into US dollars, so I would have to change unused pesos in US. I budgeted 300 pesos to pay for one extra day in Argentina beyond my 30-day visa. However, the AR customs officer did not charge me the fine.

I tried to change pesos within the terminal of BA airport, but the exchange denied me since I had only ATM receipt but not bank retail receipt. To spare my time to find a bank in DC to change the money, I exchanged my pesos with an exchange within Miami airport which charged almost 25% as profit. I did it in a hurry without thinking. I was literally robbed 25 USD.

Casa Rosada (pink house), Argentina

Is the Argentinian president's office. It is open to the public only during weekends. The following link has photos of most of the rooms inside the pink house. I like the room of women and the room of scientists. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Rosada

I run into two concerts in town today. The 1st one was next to the praza de mayo and played traditional and tango music, and the other one was right in front of the congressional building and played rock music for AIDS awareness.

One thing I noticed again was argentians' hobbit of cutting into lines. O hand-gestured a lady that should get in a 1st line to get a number than my line to get in the tour. She simply ignored me and other people and sneaked into the tour. Most of the time I warmed the offender and deterred them, but not this time. I had an even worst experience in a supermarket checkout line. The old lady not only ignored me but also gave me a "so what" look.

I think it is an ego issue. They think they are more important than others so it is ok to save their time by cutting into lines. Argentina men have big egos. One even commented that American women are fat and disgusting. Im fact, I see quite a few fat Argentina women as well.

What gifts to bring home?

I found a good item: the Calafate jam which is 4-5 times more expensive than other jams yet ver tasty and only available in Patagonia. I ate a loy of blue berries and raspberries when hiking in summer in virginia, but they are not as tasty as Calafate berries which are available in spring.

I am bringing them home although the glass jars are very heavy. I could not find any photos of the jam online, and the stores told me the jams are available only in patagonia, not even Buenos Aires.

Here is some online info about it.

"The Calafate is native to the south of Argentina and Chile and is a symbol of Patagonia.

The bush grows to a height of 1.0 to 1.5 m (3 ft 3 in to 4 ft 11 in). It has many arching branches, each covered in many tripartite spines. The bush has many small yellow flowers in summer. Its edible blue-black berries are harvested for jams, but are eaten fresh too - a legend tells that anyone who eats a Calafate berry will be certain to return to Patagonia.

The Calafate is grown commercially for its fruit, potential medical uses and as a garden plant or bonsai. Its wood is used to make a red dye. The cultivar Berberis microphylla 'Nana' is widely available as a garden shrub, and is also used in commercial plantings as a low spiny hedge to discourage intruders, but it does not fruit.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berberis_microphylla

A blog with amazing photos of Patagonia mountain range which I miss already.

http://lostdeviations.com/2011/08/01/effects-of-the-calafate-berry/

Another gift I picked was a mate set. The mate is a cup made from different materials, commonly from a dessicated vegetal core (a gourd), sometimes with silver or gold ornaments; which is used to drink mate. The mate is a traditional social non-alcoholic beverage drunk in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and southern Brazil.

The same gourd (cuia) and straw (bomba/bombilla) are used by everyone drinking. One person assumes the task of server and fills the gourd and drinks the mate completely to ensure that it is free of particulate matter and of good quality. When there is no more tea, the straw makes a loud sucking noise, that is not considered rude. The ritual proceeds around the circle in this fashion until the tea becomes flat. You can read the following link for more information.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(drink)

Tango milongas, Argentina

My trip to Buenos Aires finally included a sort of experience of the Tango, the national dance of Argentina, under my tight budget. I and my new friend from france went to a milongas occurring between 11 pm to 2 am, as recommended by our hostel. Inside the milongas, many locals dance. We bargained for half price (10 AR pesos) since we did not plan to dance.

I warned my girlfriend to avoid any eye contact with men so we do not have to dance. The tour book said that if you don't want to dance be careful of the eye contact you make.

However, at least three guys approached us. My friend told them she did not know how to tango, and I only had to point at my sport sandals and hiking outfit. The last guy was from New York and he insisted that I should try at least one dance. I could barely remember how to tamgo since Last time I did it at college. So there I was, tangoing with my sport sandals and hiking outfit.

Later a local couple joined our table and chatted with us. They even kindly shared beers with us. Right before we planned to leave, a visiting band started live tango music which was quite good. So we stayed for a few songs. Since my I-pod touch has no flashlight, the photos are dark.

Buenos Aires part 2

The weather is perfect for sightseeing here. I am taking a 2nd free tour. We came across the ceremony in front of a war memorial for 649 innocent teens died for Argentina against UK due to poor training and insufficient equipment. The war last only two months and 10 days and it took the UK fleet two months to sail to Argentina.

The tour covered a lot of 'palaces' of rich families (not royalty) which owned the big farms, ports, etc. The rich in Argentina keep low profile, and they would rather own valuable paintings than expensive cars. Some of them only take taxis.

The tour ended at the outside of Cemetery built in 1822. Here, among sculptures by Lola Mora, fantastic mausoleums, statues, and marble edifices, lie the remains of many illustrious Argentines, national heroes and renowned politicians including Eva Perón. The graves are as lavish as the palaces on the city streets. Since each lot has a fixed size, each family staged coffins at versus levels below ground.

BA is a combination of the better parts of dc and NYC. Its streets are well organized as NYC while it's capital hill and pink/presidential house are directly opposite to each other like those in dc. Its streets are much wider than dc and NYC and full of high and green trees．in addition, it has many parks and open space which provide breathing room for the 13 millions people living in it.

Argentina has cheap national health care yet long waiting time for medical procedures. Most people purchase supplemental private health care plan with 1/4 of the cost of US. The coverage usually include denial, mental health, and even plastic surgery. it I'd pretty common for locals to have plastic procedures. Foreigners visit Argentina as a part of a vacation package.

Beautiful Buenos Aires

Right after my 18-hr bus arrived from iguazu falls, i rushed to a free city tour which was pretty good. The tour guide shared with some facts and secrets not available in tour books. Such as that the locals are proud of their widest street in the world (29 lanes and 140 meters wide) which in fact narrower than the widest street in brazil. The guide also recommended tours to the pink/president house on weekends, to the congressional building and the pores house, ad well as the oldest subway in Argentina line A.

In the late afternoon, I tried to check out the port front park but it was close at 6:45 pm. I will continue the other trails later.

Iguazu part 2, Argentina

Not in a hurry to jump into the 18-hr bus back to Buenos Aires, I assembled a quick travel plan for my 2nd day in puerto iguazu: the hito tres fronterras mirodor, the bird shelter guira oga, and the Wanda mines.

My morning walk from the town center to the hito tres fronterras mirodor was pleasant. Local people use the same route for exercise. Here the rivers intersect to form the natural borders of Argentina, brazil, and Paraguay.

the guira oga is a rehabilitation center for endangered species, abandoned house pets, trafficked animals, injured animals, etc. So they can return to the nature later. Unfortunately, some of them may be too injured to return back to the nature thus become permanent residents of the center. The center breeds rats, chickens, worms to be food of the animals. This place reminds me of the wildlife center in Alaska which performs the same functions yet with much larger animals.

As to the Wanda mines, I waited over 40 minutes for the bus, then decided to give up because it was so hot to wait without any shad.