dancing the tango in the San Telmo district
Dinner with Emilio and Natalia
Home at long last (well, almost...Vancouver BC!)
Saying goodbye to Marisa - thank you so much!!
Is the day really here? I still haven´t comprehended that we´re actually going home. We´ve been on the road so long that it seems impossible that the trip has come to a close. But here we are, packing up ALL (or at least most) of our stuff that fits infinitely better onto bikes than into boxes suited for loading into a taxi and onto an airplane. Bike tetris! I am really excited to see everyone when we get back (Andy will be the first - thanks for picking us up at the airport tomorrow!), but I´m also sad to be leaving. I have thought about living in Buenos Aires at some point, so it is a bit tough to say goodbye to the city. Plus, we´ll never pack up the bikes again like we have for the last 15 months. I´ll fondly remember our routine that was only ours for this one time in our lives.
A little bit about our stay here in Buenos Aires...I love this city! There is never a shortage of things to do, and a lot of them are free or close to it. A requisite at this point for us :c) We´ve seen a few museums, walked kilometers and kilometers of sidewalk, listened to lots of live music, got free hugs at a street fair, etc. I set out immediately finding a place to learn tango, and on the very first night in the city I took my first lesson. After two classes I went out to a milonga, which is like a tango dance hall, and managed to shuffle my way around the floor a few times. Yay!!! A big thank you to Nicolas for teaching me and to Sandra for always giving me positive reinforcement :c) We also had some down time at ´home´, which brings me to my next paragraph...
BA is a bit too big to be camping in our tent, so we´ve been staying with a family in Quilmes, a smaller suburb to the south of the center. We randomly met Marisa and Carlos earlier in the trip for about 5 minutes and they offered to let us stay with them when we arrived. They are really wonderful people, and we have felt very welcome and comfortable here in their home. Marisa is a librarian in public schools in the area and has been one of the most helpful, sincere people along this whole trip. She is always telling us how to get from point A to B, what to do, what to go see, and helping us out with whatever we need. Carlos has his own manufacturing companies and a fantastic sense of humor. It seems like whenever he´s around the whole world seems a bit lighter! We also got to know Alvar, Marisa´s son. He is a musician, and we had the chance to go and listen to live jazz with him a couple of times as well as see his band in concert. The kid can seriously play! Anyway, suffice it to say that they have all been delightful, and we will miss them.
Two other people that deserve a big shout-out are Emilio and Natalia, two Argentinians that we met in Chile. The did us not only the favor of leaving us food and water along a very lonely stretch of road way back in March, but also picked us up at the port in Buenos Aires and took us to Marisa´s house when we arrived. We met up with them a week later and spent a lovely evening with them walking around some of the neighborhoods in the center, eating pizza, and getting lost on one-way streets. They have some connections to Vancouver BC, so hopefully we´ll get to see them in the NW someday to show them all around Seattle!
As I write Eric is doing sit-ups and push-ups. Belive me when I tell you that we are miserably out of shape! Yeah, we can ride 100 miles on a bike, but when it comes to anything else it is a no-go. So, we´re slowly trying to get a bit stronger so that we can do things like go for a jog when we get home. It´s so hard and involves being sore all the time! OK, complaining over for now.
Thanks to everyone for reading along with us and keeping us company for so long. It was always great to read all the comments, hear about other experiences similar to ours, and in general feel connected to home. Don´t forget to check back for fundraiser info...July 16th potcluck in Vancouver and TBA date silent auction in Seattle. Un gran beso a todos!!!
