Things I learned in Argentina...

A few little tidbits I picked up on the way...

1. All toilet paper goes in the little trash bin next to the toilet, not in the toilet. The water pressure isn´t that great, so you can´t put TP in the toilet. Now imagine what gets into that trash bin and having to look at it while you´re in there.

2. According to our 4x4 tour guide Sebastian: if you´re corrupt, go into government. If you´re not, but you really like politics, still do not go into government. You cannot do the job, unless you´re corrupt.

3. When riding the bus cross country, it is completely acceptable for the bus driving to dump all garbage on the side of the road. They also dump out the bathroom tank on the side of the road. Good times. Also, only go Number One on the bus. If you spend too much time in the bathroom, the attendant will come by and yell at you. I was waiting one night to brush my teeth and the attendant was banging on the door telling a woman, "Senora, no po po". It was funny.

4. I am so afraid of getting sick on this trip. I´ve met two British girls that have had to go to hospital in Brazil and Peru (one for an intestinal infection/parasite and another for typhoid fever). They both described lovely doctors and nurses but dirty, bloody, awful facilities. One girl saw a woman walk in and literally start to give birth while standing up on the floor, with blood everywhere. Gross.

5. I´ve met quite a few British and one French married couple in their late twenties and early thirties who are in the midst of their around the world trips. This is a pretty common thing now and I think more people in the US need to do this. One British girl told me the most entertaining/horrifying story about getting food poisoning at base camp in Everest. Skip the next paragraph, if you don´t want to know...

They were camping at the base camp, in the midst of a blizzard. Their guide was cooking with her bare hands, while also moving yak poop with her bare hands. So, obviously, the girl got sick from about every hole in her body. There was no toilet, and she had to go in the pitch black, in a blizzard, behind a rock ALL NIGHT LONG. This same couple also hiked through the jungle in Malaysia in waist deep water by themselves and got lost there. There were leeches and giant bugs. Their trip is hopefully a bit different than ours.

Anyway, that´s what I learned, and here´s what I observed after half a day in Ushuaia and 15 hours on a bus to Puerto Natales...

3 pink flamingos on a lake in Patagonia
1 glacier
2 countries
7 penguins
50+ emus
1 Irish girl pounding a liter of beer at 5:20A before boarding a bus

And that´s me!