The Year with No Summer

Buenos Aires - Tigre - Colonia del Uruguay - Montevideo

Tigre, a suburb of Buenos Aires along the Parana River delta.

Totally loved this building. I would love to have a party with top hats and canes here.

Colonia del Uruguay was beautiful.

That is a plant growing out of that car.

Alex insisted on getting a buggy.

Badasses.

But we also had a golfcart.

"Dude, I'll bet this place is totally awesome in the summer," or how about "Man, I guess that's why they call it the off season," or finally "this place is dead." Sometimes I want to strangle Alex and his never-ending quest to find the ideal nightlife. I'll admit it though, this trip has been cold, and at times desolate. We have walked into bars in prime vacation spots, like Colonia del Sacramento, that look like they have the capacity to hold 200 people where we have been the entire party of customers. Our hostels have not been raging, but some have been filled with some rather curious characters.

The truth is, I don't feel the way I did touring around Europe in the summer. I didn't come here for the same trip I had last time, however, and there are many things that make this trip even better than that one. First of all, it's great to have company. Sure, Josh and Alex are bigger into food than I am and are more prone to take taxis. Josh insists on using the porteño Castellano, which infuriates me so much because it gives him an excuse to apply an Italian accent to Spanish. Alex is, as always, driven by a need to spread his seed to all parts of the world, leading to complaints about being in beautiful, if tiny towns. Without a doubt, though, they're great travellers, and we have been on the same page on almost all fronts, both in terms of practical matters and fun matters.

Secondly, I really feel like a baddass. My Spanish is far better than I thought it was, and I'm learning a lot every day. While cold has been an issue, I've become entirely used to the idea of it being winter and like layering up every day, enjoying hot showers when they come as well as fireplaces and the rare heated restaurant, and cannot wait to buy one of those big hairy sweaters so that I can embarass Josh. Lastly, I like the kinds of things we're doing. In order to cross into Uruguay, we got up at 6 in the morning to catch a small river vessel which brought us through a mist covered bayou of the Parana River. The boat deposited us somewhere in Uruguay where we had to catch a large car that was generously labeled a bus, where we squeezed in with a bunch of other passengers and talked about nothing with two 60-year-old brothers who happened to be the sons of a previous ambassador to the U.S. and had lived in Bethesda. That's the kind of thing I live for. Quality, when pulled out of humble circumstances, is all the more gratifying.