Buenos Aires - the home of tango and good steaks!

After the exhausting Mexican heat, arriving to rainy and a bit chilly Buenos Aires on an early Wednesday morning was a relief, although I immediately realised that leaving most of my warm clothes behind to Mexico city was a mistake (I'm blaming you, Mike...). I wasn't in a hurry so instead of taking a direct airport coach (45 pesos, 9€) or a taxi (120 pesos, 24€) to the centre about 45km away, I chose the local bus number 8 which took 2 hours but cost only 3 pesos (0,6€).

Instead of couchsurfing I stayed at my old friend's, Pia's, place in their beautiful flat right in the heart of Recoleta. For once I knew I wasn't in a hurry to get to anywhere, so I took some time just chilling in their home, reading emails and news on that goddamn Icelandic volcano and just washing some dishes, which is an activity I've noticed I've started missing. Probably because I feel like a lazy bum for not doing any work or housework in the past 6 weeks; how on earth will I be able to slack off for 7 months...?

On Thursday I took a walk on the famous Recoleta cemetery shedding a few tears on the memory of some people I don't even know but seeing the sorrow of their loved ones in the beautiful statues and writings on their graves touched me. I also shed some angry thoughts towards the tourists posing happily in front of the camera on Evita's grave – yeah, she's famous, but she's dead too, so show some respect, will you?!


The Recoleta cemetery is an impressive but also a very sad place which shows you that no matter how much money you have to build a palace for a grave today, it doesn't mean you won't be forgotten tomorrow, or at least within the next 50 years.


Buenos Aires is a wonderful city for taking long walks (I walked hours and hours every day) and for shopping. If you know me, you probably know I don't really like shopping that much, at least not spending a long time doing it; I buy what I want and escape. But if I'd ever decide to take a shopping trip to a certain city, Buenos Aires might just be the one. The markets are full of completely unique, astonishingly beautiful hand made objects of all kinds and even though the prices are not ridiculously cheap, they are certainly bargains in relation to what you actually get for your money. We went to Recoleta market on Saturday and to San Telmo and La Boca on Sunday, and I had to hard time stopping myself from buying a lot more than I could carry or afford.

One of the strangest coincidences in Buenos Aires was a Argentinian guy called Christian contacting me on CouchSurfing: he had been to my tiny home village, Kerimäki, which 90% on the Finnish population have never heard of! He wanted to practise his Finnish and we went together to a tango concert with another Finnish friend of his, Masi. And just guess where Masi's parents were on the very day we met? Oh yes, in Kerimäki celebrating his grandmother's birthday!

Surfing
I've had a different style of couchsurfing on this trip. Normally you send 5-20 requests per city a week or two before your arrival, but so far I've only sent one to every city and most of them less than a week before showing up. The idea hasn't been to find a couch ('free' accommodation) but to get to know a cool person. And in only one place I haven't succeeded in that: the girl I send my request to in Guatemala city still hasn't logged in to read my message.

Most of the hosts I've chosen to contact have been very experienced ones, because having hosted quite a few people myself I'm interested to see how they host and hear their thoughts on CS. Perhaps surprisingly almost all of my hosts so far have been males, women don't seem to be as active CS hosts or log in on the site as often in this part of the world. Since I've been sending request so late, I don't really want to select hosts who might not get me message in time. Also it's been interesting to notice that most active CS people, who probably get the most requests, are also the ones who appreciate good, personal requests the most. I know how they feel, 'cause I've been there; after reading 10 copy+paste requests an original one really stands out.

Budget
I had planned my budget with the help of some guidebooks and online forums and idea was to get by with around 20-25€ a day including everything; food, accommodation, travel and entertainment. In Guatemala and Mexico this wasn't very difficult even though I was travelling pretty fast, and prices mentioned on my Footprint guidebook from 2009 were pretty much accurate. I think I even succeeded in finding cheaper options every now and then. But I made a horrible mistake when it comes to South America by buying a Lonely planet guide from 2007 from a friend and assuming that the information would still be more or less accurate. Somehow I've managed to miss all the news about the terrible inflation in South America, which has increased prices in for example Argentina with about 50-100% in the last couple of years. (I'm painfully aware of what sort of a ignorant twat that makes me.) So, in a nutshell, I'm fucked.

Or well, I can still get by in Argentina, and in Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru I hope, but Uruguay and especially Brazil are going to be tough. Worse case scenario will be having to come home a couple of months sooner than expected, which would definitely also have it's benefits when you think of how much I'm missing all of you and especially a certain Swedish gentleman right now. And then I'm going to come eat at your place...

Being alive rules!
On the first of May, on Walpurgis day in will be exactly one year since my stroke – so the day before will be the perfect day to celebrate being alive! In here they organise big celebrations exactly one year after somebody's died and I'm planning to pop open a bottle of Dom Perignon since that's not the occasion in this case. It's also been exactly one year since I had the last drop of my favourite drink, alcohol, because the doctors recommended a one-year break since consuming alcohol with a brain damage isn't exactly good for you. The original idea was to celebrate this day in Uppsala where I had the stroke and invite my best friend Minna to join me, but this trip made that plan a bit hard to accomplish. So the plan B is getting drunk on the best Champagne we could find on Skype. Minna's bottle was only 140€ but surprisingly mine is going to cost a bit more here in Argentina, about 180€. This might sound strange after what I just wrote about my budget on the last chapter, but since this is the biggest celebration of my life and if you compare these prices to the amount of money I've saved not drinking alcohol in the last year, minimum 50€ per week, it's not that bad. Now all I need to find is a good place with good wifi connection and I'll give you a report on the hangover in the next blog entry.

In the last year, I've talked to so many of you on the importance of enjoying every day of your life, not waiting for the better days. For me, taking this trip was part of that. Not waiting for a better time, but going now. Yet, I've noticed this wasn't really the right choice if the idea is to live every day as if it was your last one. Travelling alone is exciting, fascinating, educational and certainly good for me is so many ways, but how could I ever be happy without having you, friends, the most important thing in my life, to share these moments with?
I'm jealous of every single CS friday meeting and stupid Adlibris office joke I'm missing, not to mention not seeing some precious kids growing fast so far away. In the last year, I've realised I love my life and in the last two months I've come to understand where that life is. There, with the people I love.