The night I got my hair done was a painful one. Then on the whole bus trip to Iguazu Falls (minus eating and sleeping time) Tyson and I had to keep pulling the frizzies through the dreads. Since I have never had any hair upkeep problems in my life and I dont even own a hair comb or blow dryer, dreads are not the easy going hairstlye I had envisioned. We went back to the street dread guy who had originally said he would do my hair and took all our money only to do one third of my dreads which looked like a horrible mess. Tyson asked for our money back but as we had expected he did not have any money but rather a fresh pack of smokes, bottle of beer and likely a few joints in his pocket. Tyson even got the police who were quite kind and sympathetic but couldnt not do much since we did not have a reciept and he had no money on him. On the other hand the second guy from our hostel who ended up doing my hair was from Columbia and did a great job. He was very kind and even gave me dread tools as a souvenier.
We have made many friends at the hostel in Buenos Aires. Many of them are vacationing from other parts of South America, many are students from Europe or the States here to learn Spanish, an Irish guy trying to find work, a guy from Egypt, but still no Canadians to be seen. We have been staying up late hanging out, playing music and chatting with some very interesting people.
I have a friend that I met while volunteering in Haifa who is from Argentina but she does not live here right now so she put us in contact with one of her friends from the Bahai Community. We went to a dinner with him and several of his Argentine friends to his cousin's home. They were all young people living in Argentina. One guy was from the States and had moved to Argentina about a year ago and actually cooked Persian food which was cool because it tasted like home. We also had home made apple pie and fancy ice cream. It was a nice night and even though we had to take a night cab (more expensive) it was well worth it. They invited us out to a soccor game on Friday night but we are not sure if we will be back from Iguazzu by then. They also invited us to the birth of Baha u llah holy day celebration on Friday night at the Bahai center so we will see if we can make it back to attend. Additionally one lady and one guy there were obsessed with tango and wanted us to go to a local tango event with them so we will try to do that too although I have never danced in that style in my life.
We then spent another day at the bank because the HSBC ATM screwed up and gave us 1000 pesos instead of the 200 we had asked for, and since we had already paid for our hostel, food and bus trip/entrance fee to Iguazu we did not need that much cash before we will be leaving Argentina. We tried to get them to reverse the withdrawal which took all day between talking to our home branch and the Argentine one. Every time we withdraw money we are paying an extremely high exchange rate to the bank to exchange Canadian dollars for the currency we need. So to transfer the money back to Canadian we had to pay the exchange again plus a fairly high service charge. So all in all their ATM's mistake cost us over $50. Not impressed.
We ran to catch the bus to Iguazu falls because even though we bought tickets to the later bus we somehow managed to lose track of time again. The bus tickets cost us 1800 pesos equivalent to about $500 which is a significant amount of money here in Argentina. However, doing tourist activities means agreeing to be gouged for all your financial worth so we expected it. It was a long bus ride but we slept for most of it so it was tolerable.
We are now in Peurto Iguazu, we are staying at a really nice hostel that is ripping us off a bit but we are letting it go. My new hairstyle has brought with it a new relaxed me...We cooked a huge dinner, ate it, and then spent the rest of the night looking for "lost keys" to our bags which were never really lost at all. They were under our groceries, but at least now we know that picking the locks to our bags is not easy at all.
Tomorrow we go to the National Park where the famous Iguazu falls are located.
"If we are not happy and joyous in this season for what season shall we wait"
We have made many friends at the hostel in Buenos Aires. Many of them are vacationing from other parts of South America, many are students from Europe or the States here to learn Spanish, an Irish guy trying to find work, a guy from Egypt, but still no Canadians to be seen. We have been staying up late hanging out, playing music and chatting with some very interesting people.
I have a friend that I met while volunteering in Haifa who is from Argentina but she does not live here right now so she put us in contact with one of her friends from the Bahai Community. We went to a dinner with him and several of his Argentine friends to his cousin's home. They were all young people living in Argentina. One guy was from the States and had moved to Argentina about a year ago and actually cooked Persian food which was cool because it tasted like home. We also had home made apple pie and fancy ice cream. It was a nice night and even though we had to take a night cab (more expensive) it was well worth it. They invited us out to a soccor game on Friday night but we are not sure if we will be back from Iguazzu by then. They also invited us to the birth of Baha u llah holy day celebration on Friday night at the Bahai center so we will see if we can make it back to attend. Additionally one lady and one guy there were obsessed with tango and wanted us to go to a local tango event with them so we will try to do that too although I have never danced in that style in my life.
We then spent another day at the bank because the HSBC ATM screwed up and gave us 1000 pesos instead of the 200 we had asked for, and since we had already paid for our hostel, food and bus trip/entrance fee to Iguazu we did not need that much cash before we will be leaving Argentina. We tried to get them to reverse the withdrawal which took all day between talking to our home branch and the Argentine one. Every time we withdraw money we are paying an extremely high exchange rate to the bank to exchange Canadian dollars for the currency we need. So to transfer the money back to Canadian we had to pay the exchange again plus a fairly high service charge. So all in all their ATM's mistake cost us over $50. Not impressed.
We ran to catch the bus to Iguazu falls because even though we bought tickets to the later bus we somehow managed to lose track of time again. The bus tickets cost us 1800 pesos equivalent to about $500 which is a significant amount of money here in Argentina. However, doing tourist activities means agreeing to be gouged for all your financial worth so we expected it. It was a long bus ride but we slept for most of it so it was tolerable.
We are now in Peurto Iguazu, we are staying at a really nice hostel that is ripping us off a bit but we are letting it go. My new hairstyle has brought with it a new relaxed me...We cooked a huge dinner, ate it, and then spent the rest of the night looking for "lost keys" to our bags which were never really lost at all. They were under our groceries, but at least now we know that picking the locks to our bags is not easy at all.
Tomorrow we go to the National Park where the famous Iguazu falls are located.
"If we are not happy and joyous in this season for what season shall we wait"
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