Americas in 71 days - Argentina & Brazil

Last Argentinean Tango and Brazilian Work-out

Exec Summary

Argentina and Brazil were a highly pleasant finish to our trip around Caribbean and South America. Choking on out-of-this-world steaks and dancing tango in Buenos Aires, working out on Copacabana beach in Rio, feeding South American coatis under beautiful Iguazu waterfalls or exploring finest beaches of Brazil with my classmate Felipe. We will be back! ;)

Click for more photos - Argentina
Click for more photos - Brazil

Piazzolla Tango
Buenos Aires breathes tango - whether on streets or in dedicated theatre shows. After posing with street tango dancers, we saw the most fantastic and very-local tango show called after my favorite composer Astor Piazzolla. In the end, Klara was "luckily" picked by one of the dance stars to dance a tango with him on a stage. Don't know whether it was her fear of total humiliation or yet-undiscovered genius, but she ended up coming up with pretty creative steps making her look like she was dancing tango since early childhood. At least to a total layman like me, I was speechless... ;)

Tarantino Car Ride

We have done quite a solid logistical job on this trip. Other than about 20 flights, we have also set a new personal record by a 40-hour bus trip from Bolivia to Argentina. Not far into Argentina, we were supposed to change buses with only 30-minute time gap. After being through bunjee jumping, ski diving, and Peruvian death-road trip, I would never believe this will turn into the craziest adrenaline experience of my life. The whole setup was uncomfortably strange. After arrival, were picked up by a guy who could easily be a part-time drug dealer. After losing 15 minutes by wondering around and messy conversation, he called a car connection. A guy from Tarantino movie showed up in a wrack. It took us a while to decide whether we get in or not. Once in the car, I started to doubt if was the right decision. I mean our Tarantino guy again barely got off the phone, the car was a major mess and he just entered the most dubious industrial parts of the city. Our pathetic Spanish only added confusion. Once I realized the back doors and windows were locked, I started to think about the fastest way to break the guy's neck before he drives us into an industrial backyard full of his amigos with magnums and kalashnikovs. Fortunately, before I managed to finish my thought-through plan, he found the bus and we soon safely arrived to Buenos AIres.  Checking my pants in the evening, I remembered my good friend's words: "the worst death is from being scared".

Steak Equation
We were super lucky that my classmate Nori sent us to what is allegedly the best steak house in Buenos Aires - Cabana Las Lilas. We tried a local T-bone and Japanese Kobe steak. Until this day, I was convinced that picanha is the best, but after tasting Kobe steak, I established Rasto's steak equation "kobe steak = picanha^2" When I tried it, the outside world has shut down and all I could feel was Kobe's out-of-this-world taste. Supposedly, Kobe steaks comes from cows who are fed beer and get daily massages to maximize tenderness of the meat. You almost want to believe it to justify the hefty price of close to $100 per piece.

Hunting Shemales

My classmate Felipe and his lovely wife Karen did such a fantastic job of hosting us in Florianopolis we thought we will never leave. Just during our stay, Karen who is a moderator of evening TV show, did a research on shemales.  One evening, we went for a car ride like FBI agents to the darkest corners of Florianopolis. We investigated price/service offer  and did about 10 rounds around the block as we could not get a good photo of them. Even somewhat retarded pimp would realize something stinks here. Thus other than wondering how come these hotties are really males, I could not stop thinking when their pimps starts chasing us while shooting at the back window. I guess I should have watched fewer action movies on the flight here. ;)

Brazilian Body Culture

Other than surprised how economically developed Brazil is, it also struck us how much Brazilian care about their health and bodies. When you wonder around Copacabana or Ipanema beaches in Rio on the weekend, what appears like a triathlon race is just usual weekend workout. Hundreds of people - many with amazing bodies - running and on bikes or just working out in a public beach gym. It makes some sense as the dresses and swimming suits, especially on Brazilian girls, are often ridiculously scarce. On a sidetone, although I found Brazilian ladies the hottest, Argentinean girls get the prize for the most beautiful of the countries we have seen in Latin America. 

Americas in 71 days - Bolivia

Endless Surreal Faces of Bolivia

Exec Summary

Bolivia which reminds anything from Mongolia in Latin-American setting to Salvator Dali’s paintings was the biggest surprise of our trip. Despite spending only a week here, we have managed to party with locals in La Paz, race downhill on Death Road, jump like bunnies on the largest salt flats in the world, gaze at lakes of surreal colors, run between gasping geysers and bath in natural hot springs with breathtaking views – and not only because of the altitude of ~4,000m (13,000 ft) ;)

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Death Road Madness

One of the biggest attractions around La Paz is mountain-bike downhill on Death Road. Our bike agency was called “Madness” for a good reason. The trips starts at elevation of 4700m (15,000 ft) on snowy mountains and finishes 60km, couple hours, and sometimes couple dead bodies later at 1200m (3500 ft) in a jungle. At its infamous peak, ~400 people died here annually. To raise the stakes, I partied with another crazy Slovak and couple locals until early morning hours the night before. Although we eventually found it safer than our trip to Amazon, this adrenaline ride would probably still qualify as insane for many people. In our book though: Definitely worth it!

Hitting the White Route

Other than being the highest capital in the world at 3,700m (12,000 ft), La Paz has another rarity. A bar called Route 36. Lines here are formed on the table rather in front of the bar. A gram of the white powder can be allegedly bought for as low as $15. It is probably for a reason some call it THE bar of South America. As you can imagine, getting in is not exactly easy - the bar moves around the city. We only listened with a dropped jaw to stories of the fellow travelers who managed to find it ;)

True North

In Bolivia, I decided that the last missing piece for me to qualify as an old sea wolf is a compass. So I installed one promptly on my android. To my surprise, it seamed guys from Google did not get it right this time. When I looked up to the sun, it was always exactly on the north according to the compass instead of south. It took a while and quite a few rounds of diligent step-by-step recalibration, before it struck me that on a southern hemisphere, the things work somewhat differently ;-)