The Great Robbery and The Salt Lakes

Hola amigos,

I have just finished my daily Spanish class and have been meaning to finish off the stories of our Salta trip so I can start writing more about what's going on here in BA. We only have ~5 weeks left of our adventure and then I go back to becoming boring Mike (instead of latino superstar Miguel).

Day 3 of our Salta tour started off with a new edition to the tour as well as a major catastrophe. Christian decided to bring his wife along on the trip which was nice as she was a good distraction for him (he didn't chew as much coca leaves, smoke, or drink as much when she was around). We decided to start our day with a tour of the Salta brewery (I love this beer actually). We parked the car in front of the brewery but Christian needed to borrow a pair of closed-toe shoes (e.g. my cool shoes). Here is a picture of Christian posing with his (pregnant) wife [I honestly forget her name - let's call her Barbie].

At the end of the tour (which luckily included some beer sampling), we returned to the car and slowly realized that... THE CAR HAD BEEN BROKEN INTO. Yes, some theives broke into our car in the middle of the day by forcing the passenger door.

They took our day bags which, unfortunately, contained:
- Ariel's temporary laptop,
- 2 ipods,
- Ariel's glasses,
- Frommers South American guidebook in English,
- bus tickets (which we easily replaced)
- cookies and munchies we bought for the trip
- other invaluables.

What they didn't steal:
- Our gigantic suitcase (thankfully we are gay and pack heavily)
- Our wallets, passports, camera etc. (I am smart now so carry important things on me)
- Wine from the Cafayate wineries
- Our drive and determniation to finish this tour

Barbie unfortunately was worse off since her ID and clothing were taken. We felt terrible for her and Christian. We immediately went to the police station and filed a report using their modern typewriter technology (this killed approximately 1.5 hours of our day). An ironic note for me is that my bag and ipod were both purchased to replace items that were stolen from me in the Great Barcelona Trainstation Robbery of 2006 - yes I am a good target for theives apparently.

Disappointed and frustrated, we still pressed on with our tour to the north, and first stop was a sulfur hot springs where Ariel demonstrated our anger and the likely source of the smelly hot springs in one photo (above)...

We then continued north past some scenic mountain scenery and into Jujuy province. It was a little darker than expected at this time but we made the most of it and continued taking some photos..

Only one more landscape photo without us in it I promise...





The four of us continued on and had a great dinner in Humahuaca (again Christian and his wife kept eating on the house). We were serenaded by this Argentinian boy band, I called them the Empanadas. My dish was this nice corn stew. The food was super cheap in the north of Argentina which we totally appreciated!!

We ended up at a really nice lodge hotel that night and had a great room. At first we thought we were sharing the room with Christian and his wife, but luckily Christian was able to resolve that.

At the hotel, Ariel found a Ziggy-substitute named Pirato (right)and we both realized we miss the Zigmeister.

However, we pressed on...



We climbed up mountains and posed at one of the highest points. We were excited to be getting close to our main destination: The Salt Lakes. Look at the long and winding road behind us.

The salt lakes are a magnificent site because they are so flat and you really have no depth perception. It felt like we were driving forever and when we finally got there, it was really impressive. Here are some great photos of the salt lake, where you can do some cool special effects. I love these photos:

Of interesting note, we didn't find a lot of gay guys in NW Argentina (except the dude from the bus stop), but there were a few workers in this restaurant that were questionable, including the one who was wearing this cowboy hat, which I stole as I helped out with the serving in the local restaurant where we had a nice filling lunch...



On the way back to Salta, we passed the "Train to the Clouds" which essentially takes the same route as we did in the car. I was able to act out my favourite scene from Stand By Me.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Christian and Barbie. We bid a fond farewell and wished Christian luck in his new business and Barbie luck with the baby.

We spent our last night in Salta at a different hotel. Christian recommended one which we stayed at one night, but it had no COLD water which wasn't fun either. I had to find one that I could trust, and of course, who can you trust more than your mother. So we stayed at the Hotel Linda, named of course after my mom.

Ariel and I celebrated our last night in Salta with a nice drink in the main square. It was the end of one trip but we have many more to look forward to (and you do too). Unfortunately this ridiculous economic crisis is getting in the way of many things since the USD is rising and making it expensive for us. Can everyone please try to fix that so we can continue our trip...


UPCOMING TRAVEL PLANS:
- Mendoza (Wine Country)
- Bariloche (Swiss-like village in the south, and maybe further south if we can afford it)
- Iguazu Falls - better than Niagara
- Rio De Janeiro!!! -- for New Years with Jodi, my friend and crazy party girl!!!

UPCOMING EVENTS:
- Ms. Madonna comes to Buenos Aires
- The in laws are coming!!!
- Mike & Ariel so long party (will someone plan that already!!!!)

HOPEFUL EVENTS:
- Night out with Andy, the landlord
- Mike habla espanol perfecto
- Photo shoot with all my friends in Buenos Aires, including the laundromat people

Thanks for reading!
MIGUEL

NW Argentina Blog #1: Christian, my new best friend

Editor's note: This blog has taken me awhile to write so I thought I'd split the trip up and write in multiple blogs so I don't make my fans wait forever...

HOLA!!!!

Ariel & I have just returned from an action-packed and dramatic week visiting the north of Argentina (Salta and Jujuy provinces). Of course, I can't wait to tell all my faithful fans about it and share some pictures. The north of Argentina has some amazing landscapes, including lots of moutains, winding road, and cactus-filled deserts. It is VERY different from Buenos Aires (a lot more like Peru) as there is a lot more poverty and simplicity in life. Salta also is the home of some delicious wine and its own beer (see picture of Salta beer, cleverly-named Salta).

To get to Salta, we opted to take a 20 hour bus ride since flights within Argentina are much more expensive for extranjeros. The buses are quite comfortable in Argentina, as we went for the 'suite' services with fully reclining seats.

As you can see from the picture, it was quite roomy and I made myself comfortable. I also wanted to point out that I am really becoming latino by embracing Argentinian fashion, namely my light blue jeans and my thug cap in this picture. No one is going to recognize me when I come home. Also big here in South American is long hair on guys which I have come to like but I really cannot pull that off myself, unfortunately.

On the bus, we were treated to several meals (including yummy alfajores), and some Tia Maria to knock us out before bed. You could not go #2 on the bus which is ok because I rarely go #2 in public.

We finally arrived in Salta and were supposed to meet up with our tour guide, Christian, at the bus station. Ariel was referred to Christian from a friend in his MBA program and Christian was organizing our time there including hotels, and driving us around. Unfortunately when we arrived, there was no Christian in sight, and when we texted him, his wife texted us that he had gone for the day and wouldn't be back until later. We were tired and stinky but didn't know what to do... I was starting to get a bad feeling about Christian... then some tour guy came up to us and told us that if we wanted he had a hotel we could stay at. It was 70 pesos (~25$) and it was clean with a private washroom. To help convince us he admitted to being secretly gay and told us that he would also tell us where to go to on the town. Ok I was sold... We got into the cab and arrived at our hotel....

The hotel was ok but was not exactly the luxurious hotel a VIP like me ought to be staying in. For example, I was taking a shower (see photo, not of me in the shower don't worry), adn when I turned the cold water faucet it fell off resulting in a stream of cold water flying at me and all over the bathroom. I screamed and covered up the hole and after calling over Ariel, the two of us managed to fix it...

We then decided to explore the main area of Salta. It was extremely pretty with cobblestones everywhere and we could just sit, have a coffee, people-watch, and of course have my shoes shined at the same time. My white shoes are sparkling clean now thanks to a hardworking young chap. Salta shuts down for siesta between 1-5pm so we really had nothing else to do then have a nice drink during the sunny afternoon.

We were still wondering what happened to Christian and whether we would, in fact, be going on a tour the following day. Finally, Christian called and wanted to meet us for a bite to eat and to talk. So we met up with Christian and finally met him...

When we met Christian (right, eating a typical lunch of meat potatoes and no veggies), he had something very large in his mouth on the side which made it difficult for him to talk, and we could smell a faint smell of marijuana. We proceeded to talk with Christian who told us about our route over the next 4 days drawing it out on a napkin in the diner. Christian told us that it was just the three of us on this intimate journey and that this trip marked the beginning of a new chapter in his life - he had recently quit his job for a tour operator when they found out he was taking us on a tour outside of the regular tour company (unbeknownst to us of course) and he was now going solo and giving private tours. He had been doing his last tour today, which is why he didn't pick us up from the bus station. In his mouth was a gigantic mound of coca leaves which, he said, he would explain to us the next day. We eventually paid Christian, and went to our hotel for some sleep.

The next morning we began our road trip in a VW Gol that Christian had rented. Our first stop was a beautiful lake where we could start to see the mountains in the background. From there we went south towards Cayafate, a part of the province known for its wineries.

On the way, we drove through the desert. As you probably can tell it was very beautiful hot day. The scenery was quite stunning (including me of course in my new Latino shorts)...

The first stop was a very wide gorge that was formed in some rocks that we could climb if we wanted. Ever since my great time at Machu Picchu, I decided I could do anything. So I decided to climb the steep gorge. Ariel got mad at me as I was was screaming that I would fall but I blame my cool shoes which kept slipping on the steep slopes. That is not a lizard in the photo - it is me? Can you find me?

After we finished climbing the gorge, we went to look for Christian but we couldn't find him and the car (I'm not the best listening to directions, I admit it.) We were worried for awhile that we wouldn't find Christian and that we would end up left in the desert. At this point, I decided that I would need to practice my hitch-hiking skills.

We finally located Christian sleeping in the car and were on our way to Cayafate, a town full of great wineries. In fact, even the ice cream in Cayafate was made of wine. This nice old man in the photo makes the best (and only) Torrontes white wine ice cream that I've ever had. And it even makes you drunk. We had to get a picture of this man. We also realized that Christian knows EVERYONE in this town. He received free ice cream (and pretty much ate his way free on the entire tour).

It was then time to tour the wineries... we went to 3 wineries, and tasted the delicious Malbecs and Torrontes. Each of the wineries gave us a tour in Spanish, and I realized that I still can't understand when people are speaking fast... It is frustrating but is motivating me more. I knew when I was drunk when I started asking for a refill of "Merlot" by accident instead of malbec. At that point, I was cut off. At one of the winerires, as you can see I put Ariel to work in the fields simulating how they harvested the grapes.

We made a very important stop on the way to our cute hotel: an alfajores shop. I was in heaven!! We bought 10 different alfajores to try and had a bite of all 10 before feeling sick and throwing the rest out.


The next morning I woke up to find we, again, had no hot water in our hotel. I used my Spanish and new-found latino 'thugness' to demand some agua caliente. We had breakfast an waited for Christian to come out of his room. After waiting 15 minutes, Ariel decided to check on him and sure enough, Christian was still sleeping soundly in his room. Christian then woke up and quickly got into the car, not changing or having time to brush his teeth. Here is a picture of Christian and I the next day as we were bonding...

Day two of our tour had a lot of driving through great scenery in the desert as we made our way back north to Salta. There were windy bumpy roads, cool rock formations, and mountain views. Here is a picture of Ariel and I posing in the desert.

I will not bore you (much more) with the many photos we took of the scenery... however we really did enjoy the drive through the desert. Look at me feeling free and confident at the top of this viewpoint (this viewpoint also served as a washroom moments later).

Also enjoying the drive was Christian (right)who would shove 15 coca leaves or more in his mouth at a time and add dabs of 'bica' [sodium bicarbonate]. Bica apparently activates the coca leaves in your mouth. Watching him do this reminded me of 'Lick-M-Aid' when I was a kid. Here Christian is demostrating his coca chewing with a dash of bica.

We drove through a national park and Ariel wanted to get up close and personal with a cactus.

On the way, we ran into a gaucho (Argentinian cowboy - definitely not from Brokeback mountain) who let both Ariel and I try out his horse. I realized I am likely getting old when I pulled a muscle getting up on the horse.

Eventually we arrived back at Salta, but before dropping us off at our hotel, Christian decided to show us the 'other' side of Salta, the red light district. Christian showed us the women in the windows which apparently are available for 5-10 pesos (he told us not to mention this to his wife if we met her the next day). We also were able to see some true Salta local activity - Christian buying drugs from a pregnant woman to sell to a friend of his. All and all, a truly eye opening experience.

Ariel and I had a nice dinner that night and looked forward to the next day when we would explore the north of the province...

Love, Miguel (& Ariel-Jose)

Entertaining Natalia

Hello faithful bloggers! Wanted to give you another update of how things are going here. Well as I mentioned in my previous blog, we have had a houseguest, Natalia (see right hiding behind her hand), staying with us for the past couple of days. So we had to show Natalia the city and even do some things we haven't done yet.

The first interesting experience was seeing a play from the perspective of a blind person. It was a really neat concept - you watch the play in the dark so you can only hear and smell things (yes they actually pump out smells into the audience - nice smells like flowers and bad smells like the stinky sea). It was quite hard (ie. impossible) for Natalia and I to understand what the play was about given that we couldn't understand Spanish so we had to cope with sitting in the dark and smelling things. Even Ariel was having a bit of trouble but luckily he could give us a sense of what was going on... The really neat thing happened at the end of the play when the lights came up and we saw that most of the actors were blind. All and all, a really interesting experience...


We also had a walk around the city and went to Puerto Madero. It was roasting hot and we all developed farmers tans. For lunch, we stopped at these cute Choripan carts and had some delicious chorizo sausages on a bun... YUM! Chorizo sausages are extremely delcious and we often have them for an appetizer at the start of a large steak dinner... The man working in the cart was very interested in posing for the photo.

We took Natalia on a night on the town to "Plop" this alterna-club night in a suburb of BA. It is apparently the place to be on a Friday night if you are approximately young and gay-ish. We had a great time at Plop and took a photo with two members of the Mike & Ariel fan club, Latin American division. The drink of choice at Plop is Vodka + Speed (redbull) which is necessary since it runs from 3am - 7am.

We have also introduced Natalia to our friends here, including our spanish teachers, Paula and Jose Luis. Jose Luis really does not like getting his photo taken as you can see but I made him pose for this one. I have been getting a bit frustrated with my Spanish progress so I think I'm going to really crank it up for a couple of weeks and go back to the Spanish school. I took a break from the Spanish school after Hayley's wedding but I think it may be time to be going back if I'm ever going to understand these portenos. Time is really starting to tick and I'm realizing that we really need to make the most of our trip here as it will be January before we know it.

Speaking of January, we have recently looked into flight prices back home (1-way) and have realized that it is super expensive to fly home. Of course this means that we must stay here forever!! Seriously though, we are coming home but we will need to look carefully for cheap flights home or else we may come home in the luggage compartment of the plane!

Ariel and I are leaving tonight on a 7 day trip to Salta, a beautiful area to the north of Argentina. We have our own tour guide who is going to be driving us around places (how luxurous!) and I can't wait to take a bunch of photos there. There are wineries, mountains, and desert scenes (notice how I prioritized the wineries first!). Less luxiourous (and definitely not VIP status) will be our 20 hour bus ride to get there! However, we have opted for the 'suite' bus service where our chairs recline and become beds. I am looking forward to this experience today.

Here's a final picture of the Recoletta cemetary, part of our tour with Natalia. It was our second time in the cemetary but the cool tombs really are impressive.

Anyhow, will write you more after our trip to Salta!!

Hugs and kisses,
Miguel

Can't beat the HEAT!!!!

Wow it's getting HOT here in Buenos Aires. It's not summer yet but it may as well be-- it's about 30 degrees C each day. We are really taking advantage of these warm days to explore the city, work on our tans, and just have fun. One of the best ways to beat the heat in Buenos Aires is by eating ice cream (helado). We, on average, eat one ice cream cone per day per person. The ice cream in Buenos Aires is absolutely amazing. You can even get it delivered to your house!!!

Today was no exception - we had to have our ice cream fix... And who is that in the photo with me enjoying her Dulce de Leche flavoured ice cream? Natalia - a friend of ours from TO who is visiting us. It is great having a visitor to show around the city. I had to show off for Natalia by wearing my honorary yellow employee hat as they know me at the ice cream shop across the street. Of course the people who run the local ice cream shop across the street know me well as you can see they have made me an honourary employee (with the yellow hat). If things don't work out with my job at home, perhaps I can work in this ice cream shop. In the tub are some dulce de leche treats for us to enjoy back in the apartment.

The good weather is also the perfect time to enjoy outdoor Sunday brunch at Olsen, the uber-trendy Scandanavian restaurant in our Palermo neighbourhood. Note: This picture is a bit dated as it's from when Ariel's brother Mike was visiting us a few weeks back. However, I have fallen behind in my blogging and wanted to prove we actually were doing trendy things so I have included it.

This is probably THE hippest restaurant in Palermo and reservations are a MUST! We may take Natalia there tomorrow.

An AMAZING spring/summer outdoor tradition in Buenos Aires is Creamfields, an all-day/all-night electronic music festival that we went to recently. Some of the hottest international DJs were spinning there including David Guetta, Roger Sanchez, Satoshie Tomiie and Argentina's own Hernan Cattaneo (who was great!). It was an incredible afternoon and evening of dancing, and as you can see I definitely definitely gave my favourite shoes a workout. It was hard to keep up with these Argentinian partiers. I believe there were around 10,000 people there with us.

You may be wondering why I have no photos of Creamfields (as it would be natural for me to take many photos of this sort of event). I blame only one person: Martin (see guapo above trying to look better than me in this photo). Ariel & I decided to go to a pre-party prior to Creamfields (we were the only extranjeros at the pre-party so I understood none of the conversation). At the party, our new latino best friend Martin told us that you can't bring a camera into Creamfields. Martin is minorly hot so we believed anything he told us. It was funny though when I got there and EVERYONE had a camera except me, Miguel. Oh well... as you can see Martin is sporting the very trendy jean shorts which are extremely popular here. I will do a future expose on the Argentinian fashion scene.


Of course, there are some portenos who choose not to wear shirts in the heat which we don't really mind...

The only negative aspect of the warm weather is that my allergies are driving me insane. Look carefully at this seemingly beautiful picture on the right... This purple tree looks pretty but it is actually the root of all my allergic problems here. For those of you who know, I have been doing my crazy allergy sound where I scratch the back of my throat and sounds like my mating call. Luckily Ariel loves that sound!

Anyhow, must run but wanted to share how much fun we are having in the SUN! I have to write another blog soon as there's a lot to tell...

Here's a cute picture of us under the Argentinian flag.

Miguel

Whirlwind wedding weekend...

Hola Amigos,

Have you missed me? (Better question: Is anyone still reading this blog?)... I know, I have not been as faithful as a blogger lately. However, I really do have two good excuses. First off, last week we were entertaining Ariel's brother, Michael, who was visiting. Second, this weekend we flew/drove to Detroit to attend my sister, Hayley's, wedding. Hayley is my oldest youngest sister (does that even make sense?).

We left BA last Thursday around 7pm and boarded our plane to Washington. The flight is around 11 hours to Washington and we would connect in Washington to Toronto, and arrive in Toronto at 9am on Friday. It was necessary for us to fly to Toronto as it wasn't possible to use my points to get to Detroit. I figured that it would be fine as we have our car in Toronto and we could drive it from Toronto to Detroit (typically a 4 hour drive). However, a couple of things happened that messed up our plans. First of all, our connecting flight was late into Washington and despite racing to the gate (similar to the Amazing Race style) we were denied entry on to the plane. As a result, we ended up waiting in the United Lounge for 5 hours. As you can see by this photo, I was not happy in the least - and LOOK at that grey hair. Adding to this, when I went to the washroom there was a 'surprise' piece of poo on the floor waiting for me there. It is always a mystery how people can miss the toilet when they are doing the "#2"...

Finally, we boarded our flight to TO (5 hours late) and landed around 2pm. Next stop, to Andrew's house to get our car. I called Andrew to let him know I was on my way and he told me that he needed to tell me something about my car. This troubled me a little but I was still feeling optimistic. When we arrived, Andrew came out and told us that the car wouldn't start. He actually had been trying to boost it (he know about cars he told us, as he's Italian). So Ariel and I eventually went down to the car and tried to boost it. Unfortunately it didn't start. Andrew told us he had been taking the car out every so often, but I guess it wasn't enough. In the picture, Ariel and I are strangling Andrew as we are frustrated. Andrew appears to be enjoying the attention.

The good news about this scenario: I learned a bit more about boosting a car (but I'm too scared to do it myself). The bad news: car didn't start, so we rented a car from this friendly Hertz company. They were very accomodating of the last minute rental, which was much appreciated. So eventually, we were on our way (through Toronto rush hour) driving to Detroit.

When we finally got there (after 28 hours of commuting), we were in the midst of a jam-packed weekend full of dinners, speeches (there are 4 sets of parents so a lot of speeches), and lots of food. Here is a picture of my 3 siblings (including bride, Hayley) and new brother-in-law, Jeremy. Welcome to the family Jeremy!! Unfortunately I missed the bachelor party at Hooters which I am deeply depressed about.

There are a ton more pictures which we hope to get soon. In fact, there were 4 sets of photos taken and I think we may have given the photographer an ulcer. Eventually he loosened up after he realized that there are many rules about who needs to be in which picture.

After the ceremony, the party and drinking began. A highlight of the wedding was definitely the band, who came on to the dancefloor and danced with the guests. Here is a photo of Ariel and I busting moves with my cousins Sara and Kate. People loved our funky moves, especially when Please Don't Stop the Music was playing. My sister Lindsay danced so much that she actually broke her foot! Yes, there is always an injury at a Silverberg wedding.

A great part of the wedding was being able to see my parents and entire family. Here is a photo of my mom and dad which I may sell on eBay. They haven't gotten along this well in over 20 years (they are both happily remarried) so this was a really great occasion!!! People generally say I look a lot like my dad so I know what my future holds for me....

Stealing the show of course was Caleb Silverberg, cutest ring bearer.
People have been asking if Ariel and I will ever tie the knot. Of course anything is possible and I would never reveal these things on a blog. Ariel and I danced together at the wedding which was very nice (and may have surprised a few of the guests). It was great that he was there to celebrate with. All in all, the wedding was a great time which goes to show that there is definitely stuff in Toronto worth flying back for. We also saw some friends on Monday night who came out to see us. It was a work night and we really appreciate those who came to get a piece of Mike & Ariel while we were in town.

Coming back to BA, it is balmy (30 degrees celcius) and we have a lot in store for the next 2 months, including a visit from Natalia, travels to the north of Argentina and wine country, and this weekend, a crazy electronic music festival Creamfields (God knows where they come up with these names). Definitely will be taking my camera to take pictures of these CrAzY latino party kids!!!

Hasta luego,
Miguelito