Argentina, Brazil, and Ecuador

After New York our adventure continued in South America, where our first stop was Argentina....



Unfortunately, we only had time for the capital city, Buenos Aires – famous for being the birthplace of the Tango...



Buenos Aires is also famous for having the world's largest (widest) street. If I recall correctly, it is 20 lanes wide, and takes usually three "walking man" pedestrian light cycles to cross.



If any of you are of a certain age, you may recall the 1982 Falklands war where Argentina grew impatient with Britain's handing over of the Falkland islands, and so cobbled together a rather ill conceived invasion – which cost them dearly: many dead, military hardware destroyed, and Britian now refusing to follow through with the handover. Anyway, there is a permanent honor guard present at the Falklands war memorial in Buenos Aires.



Buenos Aires is interesting and seems a peaceful place to live if this picture tells the story



The city has a beauty despite its decay and is a bit like a living museum. Everything was once new and beautiful, but the clocks seems to have stopped in Buenos Aries and the city definitely shows its age.



We only had a few days in Buenos Aires, and soon we were on a flight to Brazil



... where we met up with our friend Carlyle who used to work with me in Edmonton.



He lives in the very attractive city of Curitiba, full of parks and green spaces, and this botanical garden

Following our visit with Carlyle we were off to a few of Brazil's better known cities – next stop: the megalopolis of Sao Paulo, home to 11 million citizens, and half of the nation's G.D.P. For all its size we found there wasn't all that much to see and do, actually. I think the hilight was the MASP (Museum of Art, Sao Paulo):

We didn't stay long in Sao Paulo, and soon we were back to our old tricks of taking buses, but wow – the buses in Brazil were awesome. In just six short and comfortable hours we arrived in Rio de Janeiro. The first thing we wanted to experience was Christ the Redeemer, the enormous concrete Jesus statue on the mountain top. Our timing was bad as the entire structure is currently covered in scaffolding so a crew can spend three months cleaning the it. So, this is all we managed for a photo of it:



However, the view from the mountain top was great. We could easily see across the Ipanema beach district to Rio's other recognizable icon, Sugarloaf mountain.



The next day we made our way over to Sugarloaf, and boarded the cable-car for a ride to the summit.



From here we got a view back to Christ the Redeemer.



We also went to several of Rio's grand buildings, such as St. Paul's cathedral



and the government's parliament building

The weather had begun to turn, but despite that who could resist a walk along the Copacabana beach? We saw a group playing, um, “headball?” - not sure what's it's called, actually. They were really talented...

It was around then that the rain really started coming down, and didn't let up for well over a day and at times was intense. Which led to the flooding in Rio that you probably heard about in the news...

The incessant precipitation eventually caused mud slides in some hill side slums, and last I heard the death toll was over 250! In the days following the rains the sea was violent and we were warned not to go into the water. Here's what the waves looked like at the normally docile Ipanema beach:

We had a (tame) close call of our own in Rio where we ended up on the winning side of an attempted robbery. No – it was nothing dangerous, but a kid tried to seal our camera. A few days after these rains we decided to have a nice lunch outside at a sidewalk cafe. I set my camera down on an unoccupied chair beside me and soon the waiter came out with a simple velcro loop. He put it through the camera's wrist strap and fastened it around the arm of the chair. Not long after, while my back was turned, a young man ran past our table and grabbed the camera, but the velcro held firm, and the camera clattered back onto the chair. He went for a second grab, but again came up empty handed and he then decided to flee. However, some good citizens hearing my shouts as he ran stopped him in the street. The camera was not damaged, and more importantly was still in our possession. And what did this young man get for his trouble? Amanda felt sorry for him and gave him the remainder of her lunch as she thought he looked hungry. I was pretty mad at him at first, but all's well that ends well.

Fortunately our remaining time in Rio was far less dramatic than floods, mud slides, and petty crime. We did a bit more sight seeing, such as the metropolitan cathedral. It's striking looking outside...

... and cavernous inside ...

From Rio we flew to Ecuador.



and went straight to the Galapagos islands.

This is where Charles Darwin visited in 1831 and began to develop his theory of evolution.

The Galapagos are famous for the fragile ecosystems it plays host to, and the fearless animals present there. There are few, if any, predators on the islands, so the animals living there have very little fear of humans approaching, and you can get quite close without distressing them. Knowing this would really be something to see, we played a risky game of “find the best last minute deal” and booked a room on this boat (the Queen Beatriz) for about half price the night before it sailed...

Check out the boat's captain...

The Galapagos animals were stunning. Of particular note was this famous fellow...

This is Lonesome George, and he is the very last of this subspecies. There are no females of his type, so it was sort of sad to acknowledge that we were witnessing the extinction of a species – mostly due to human interference.

One curious thing we came across on the islands was the "pirates post office". Back in the pirate days, boats would stop at the Galapagos for the abundant fresh water at its springs, and to stock up on giant tortoises (like Lonesome George) as they would remain alive for many weeks without food, and thus supply the ships with fresh meat. Anyway, ships that stopped would drop off mail in this barrel...

and then sort through the letters already in the barrel. There was an unwritten rule that if the route of your intended journey would take you near any of the addresses listed on the envelopes in the barrel, you were to deliver them, knowing that others would do the same for you. The tradition lives on, and tourists from around the globe leave mail in the barrel for other tourists to deliver. We found a couple addressed to people in Calgary, and so next time we are in the city, we'll try to deliver them.

But the highlight of the Galapagos was certainly the wildlife that calls this area home. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

All too quickly our time in the Galapagos came to an end and we returned to Ecuador's capital city, Quito, which is just 20 km for the equator, so a day trip was necessary...



Also, Quito is where we met up with Stuart and Anita. They were just finishing their one-year long honeymoon. In fact, it was their wedding in Australia which was the catalyst for our year long trip. However, being much tougher than us, they have spent their year cycling around South America. Now that's impressive! Here we all are together enjoying the natural hot springs in Papallacta (about a two hour drive out of Quito)



And that was it for Ecuador. We get on a plane tomorrow and head for Lima, Peru where more friends and adventures await...

New York City

Following China we were on our way to South America, but first we had to transfer in New York city. Rather than suffering a four hour layover we had made arrangements for a 170 hour layover, which is to say that we spent a week in NYC

Amanda's family met us there and spent a few days with us before they headed back home.

NYC has so much to see and do, and we saw and did a lot. I had been there once before on work, but I only had a weekend off to explore the city (at least that's what I told my boss!). This time I was able to take it all in. Of course there are the iconic New York images such as the Chrysler building ...

... and the Empire State building

We went up to the viewing deck on the 86^th floor – and wow – that's quite a view...

Some of you who know me might recall that I really enjoy fine art and so I had to drag Amanda to some of the world's best art museums here like the Met, the MoMa, and the Guggenheim. Here we saw works by some of our favorite artists such as Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, Modigliani, Jackson Pollock...

... Georges Seurat, Paul Cezanne, Marc Chagall, Kandinsky, Edvard Munch, Gustav Klimt, Giacometti...

... Matisse, Diego Rivera and his (ex) wife Frida Kahlo, Jasper Johns, Degas, Damien Hurst, Rodin, and of course my favorite of all time Vincent Van Gogh...

Of course the Guggenheim is known not only for the art it contains, but also the building itself is a masterpiece. Designed by Frank Gehry (arguably the world's most renowned architect) it is another hallmark of New York city.

And who could miss mentioning the Statue of Liberty – donated to America by the French after WW II.

The citizens of NYC have a reputation for being, shall we say, a little terse. But we found the locals to be very friendly, actually. Many times if I had a map open trying to figure how to get somewhere a nice person would just come up and offer help. That's not to say New York is only full of smiling happy people. I did feel pretty safe there, but there were signs (literally) suggesting the contrary:

As we blitzed our way through the city, we visited Times Square...

Tiffany and Co. and Saks 5^th Avenue, as well as Christie's auction house – where you can actually buy a VanGough (if you've got about $50,000,000 USD to spare). We walked through Grand Central Station to the Dakota building right beside Central Park. This is where John Lennon lived and where he was shot on December 8,1980.

I asked the door man which apartment John Lennon used to live in and he replied that we was not allowed to say because his widow Yoko Ono still lived there. We quickly saw the cavernous NYC public library, and went to the NBC studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. We walked past ground zero where the twin towers of the World Trade Center were brought down. America is now getting on with building the Freedom Tower in their place.

Nearby is the New York Stock Exchange on Wall street – the very epicenter of the planet's finances. By the time it takes you to read this sentence there will have been about $4,000,000 dollars traded there. And speaking of stocks and finances, I was quite surprised by the conspicuous presence of Canada's TD bank in NYC. They have an office directly beside the NYSE, one in Times Square near the Nasdaq stock exchange, and indeed many branches throughout Manhattan. Who would have thought a Canadian bank would have such a presence in NYC?

We took in some New York culture by seen a play off Broadway. Unfortunately we were badly time zoned and slept through about half of it :-(

We also bought tickets to a Knicks NBA game from a scalper outside Madison Square Gardens...

We went to the Musuem of Natural History, and went through St. Patrick's cathedral...

... and walked several times through Central Park

One curious thing we saw was a “national debt clock”. It ticks off every second, showing each American their share of the national debt...

Wow – now that's a big number. 12,000 BILLION dollars. Ouch.

Nearing the end of our week in NYC we visited the Intrepid – an old WW II aircraft carrier that is now on display. You can walk all through it and see first hand the hardware that America used to project force up until 1990 or so...

Among many other planes on the flight deck was an A-21 blackhawk – predecessor to the SR-71 blackbird.

The SR-71 has the world's fastest PUBLISHED top speed. Of course the performance characteristics of current military planes is top secret, but you can guess they're even faster than than this plane's mach 3. This plane was designed as a spy plane to take photographs over sensitive areas in Russia. It was not a fighter at all. In fact, it had no weapons – nor defense systems. If its radar picked up an incoming missile, the defensive strategy was simple: accelerate. These planes were so fast, and flew so high that they could outrun anything Russia could shoot at them. These planes make a bullet from a rifle seem slow! Imagine firing a rifle at the same moment this plane passed by – this plane would easily pass the bullet. Like not even close – it would be maybe 200% faster than a bullet! Cool!

Anyway, there were many other planes and helicopters on display as well as the ship itself. Beside the carrier was the USS Growler, a retired submarine armed with nuclear capable cruise missiles. There was also a BA Concorde on display. Pretty cool....

And before we knew it our week in NYC was just about over. Unfortunately, there was still one more “adventure” to come. We headed off to the airport with plenty of time to spare, but somehow managed to take the correct subway but in the incorrect direction – we were going AWAY from the airport. For some reason the good folks who manage the NYC subway system decided to save money by NOT putting subway maps in some stations, nor in the subway cars themselves, so we didn't realize our error until we got off the subway at the end of the line. And now there wasn't plenty of time before our flight – in fact it was pretty limited. Too limited to take the subway all the back to where we started from, and then on from there to the airport. So we decided to hail a cab. But out there on 207^th street in Harlem there weren't taxis roving around that you can just jump into. So Amanda went to a store to use their phone and call for a cab and they told her that right across the street was an airport transfer cab company. Wow – just the stroke of luck we needed in the midst of our bad luck. So for the low low price of $70 our driver raced through the rush hour traffic and got us to our airline check in desk just before they closed. He got a nice tip for that bit of driving! I think we'll go back to our old ways of not giving ourselves too much preparation time ahead of flights and trains – we seem to do better that way.

Anyway, we made the flight and are now in South America! Yay!