30 by 30.

I'm a pretty bad goal setter. Actually, that's not true. It's not the goal setting that's the problem, it's the follow through. 

But I've finally set a goal that I think I can achieve. I've finally set a goal that I can crush.

Visiting 30 countries by the time I turn 30.

Also known as "30 by 30".

Which is, quite possibly, the best goal I have ever set for myself. Ever.

USA. Canada. Mexico. Honduras. Costa Rica. Brazil. El Salvador. Nicaragua. Argentina. Taiwan. Guatemala. Belize. 

As of today, I have visited twelve different countries, so I clearly have some work to do in these upcoming years. 

The twelve countries that I've visited, for varying lengths of time, have all been awesome in their own way. Vastly different, yet startlingly the same. Some of them have only fed my addiction for travel, some of them fund my addiction for travel. 

30 by 30-- let's goooooo.

What's New, Buenos Aires?

Once upon a time, I was on Facebook reading scholarly articles and came across one that said that the Honduran and Argentinian soccer teams would be playing a friendly match against each other on May 27 in Buenos Aires. Which just so happened to be during one of our long weekends (shout out Corpus Christi) and flights just so happened to be less than $300. So we looked for a flight, looked for a hostel, and less than an hour later, we had booked both.

Kenny, Kelly, and I stayed at America del Sur Hostel located in the neighborhood of San Telmo. I'm not a hostel connoisseur or anything, but I have stayed at a number of them within the past year or so. America del Sur definitely wasn't the fanciest hostel that I've ever stayed at, nor did it have the most amenities, but it was, by far, the hostel with the best environment. The hostel had a great staff and a great common area, as well as daily activities such as tours and excursions, that was really conducive to hanging out with the other hostel guests. We did a handful of tours, but we also spent a large portion of our time hanging out with other hostel guests, both inside the hostel and around Buenos Aires. 

Our first 24 hours in Buenos Aires were nuts. We arrived in BA at 1:00am, stood in line for way too long to convert reais into pesos, and didn't arrive at our hostel until almost 3:00am. At which time we fell face first into our bunk beds and were dead to the world until morning. We went on a walking tour of Recoleta which is one of the historical and affluent neighborhoods of BA. We wandered the aisles (rows?) of the Recoleta Cemetery which is unlike any cemetery you've ever seen in your life. Seriously, it's like art and mausoleums and tombs, all rolled into one. To top it all off, you can see where Eva Perón is buried. I'll be honest, I didn't know anything about Eva (AKA, Evita) before going to Buenos Aires, but I left basically an expert. 

Once our walking tour was over, we decided to become our own tour guides and went in search of the Floralis Genérica, AKA, the giant metal flower. Apparently at one time the flower was mechanical and opened during the day and closed at night. I think it's broken now though, but that's okay because we were saw it during the day anyways. Our self-led tour made a little pit stop for some lunch (oh hey, empanadas) and then we continued onwards to walk down the widest avenue in the world in search of the obelisk. We were successful in all endeavors which basically means we're all prepared to be tour guides, am I right?

Clouds for days.

I wear my sunglasses at night. Or in the rain.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was when we went to see the Casa Rosada, which is Argentina's verison of the White House. Minus the fact that the president doesn't actually live there. A fact that I know because I asked some of the guards. Uneducated North American much? Anyways, the Casa Rosada in located in front of the Plaza de Mayo. It's in the Plaza de Mayo where a group of mothers, called the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, gather every Thursday. Why? Because in the 70's, their children "disappeared" under the military dictatorship during the Dirty War. During this time, there were also babies that were stolen and given up for adoption illegally when their mothers were killed in the Dirty War. Originally the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo were getting together to get answers and to find their loved ones. Today they are still fighting for human, political, and civil rights throughout the world. 

When I was in Spanish 3, we watched a film called La Historia Oficial which was all about the Dirty War. I highly recommend watching it. Even though it's been ten years since I saw the film, I have never forgotten about it and when I realized that I would be heading to Buenos Aires, where La Historia Oficial was filmed, I knew that I had to see the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. And I did. It was like history coming to life. It was heart-breaking, but it was real. 

Since we didn't cram enough stuff in the first day, we decided to go to a tango dinner show that evening. And we ended up sitting front row. For about $95 dollars, we were treated to a tango show (obviously), unlimited wine and non-alcoholic beverages, four choices of appetizers/ main course/ and dessert, andddd transportation. It may have been the best $95 that I have ever spent. If you ever find yourself in Buenos Aires, head on over to Café dos los Angelitos, you won't regret it at all. 

Front row to the dinner show.

Apps: Crisy Philo with Duxelles of mushrooms and sautéed vegetables in curry carrot coulis

Main Dish: Angus beef with rustic style potatoes and caramelized onions

Dessert: Cointreau's chocolate mousse, strawberry coulis and chocolate, dried fruit praline

Seriously. Who knew that I would even food with names like that? But I did. And I loved it. 

We did another walking tour on our second day which took us to the neighborhood of La Boca. From what I recall, La Boca is where people who used to work in the port lived, so they took left over materials and paint from the port to make their homes. So it's the beautiful, colorful hodgepodge of buildings. It's also home to this cross-eyed statue of Messi who just so happened to be playing against La H the day that I saw it. Photo ops all around. 

We took a break from walking tours, but not a break from walking, on our last day in Buenos Aires and went out in search of El Ateno. It's an old theatre that has been changed into a bookstore and it's freakin' beautiful. In all honestly, it's just like a fancy Barnes and Nobles. The books aren't fancy or anything that I couldn't find at any other bookstore, but the theatre part was incredible.

Argentina, that's a wrap.

Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls

Due to a serious of unfortunate events that ended up really working out in my favor, Kelly and I decided to spend a couple of days traveling in Brazil after school ended for the Christmas holiday. Next thing we knew, we had booked our plane tickets to jet on over to Foz do Iguaçu for a couple of days. 

Foz do Iguaçu is awesome. It's one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World (depending on which list you read). It's where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay all meet. It's home to waterfalls that put Niagara Falls to shame.

We left late, late, late on Friday night and arrived early, early, early on Saturday morning. We also stayed at the coolest hostel in the entire world-- Tetris Container Hostel. It's as interesting as it sounds, I promise. The whole hostel is constructed from old shipping containers-- the hostel itself, the pool, the bar. Really. We didn't appreciate it when we rolled on up in the wee hours of Saturday morning, but we did appreciate it later. We especially appreciated it during "Caipi O'Clock" AKA free caipirinhas each night. 

Before coming to the falls, we didn't really research much about what to do in Foz do Iguaçu because we wanted to just go with the flow. Hang out. Relax. It is vacation, afterall. The one thing we had heard is that the Argentinian side of the falls is more impressive so it's better to check out the Brazilian side first as to not be disappointed. Check. Done. And we definitely weren't disappointed.

Kelly and I spent about 3-4 hours at the park walking along a very easy trail that provided us with so many GORGEOUS views of the falls. It was also pouring rain the entire time we were there. My water-resistant raincoat didn't even stand a chance. The sub-par weather didn't make the experience any less incredible and beautiful, though.

First view of the falls. Obviously channeling my inner Lebron.

The trail dumps you out at the Garganta do Diabo/ Garganta del Diablo/ Devil's Throat which is basically where a bunch of waterfalls come together and there's a ton of water. (That's a horribly simplified explanation.) We were already soaked, so we passed on the rain ponchos. Poor choice, should have definitely bought the ponchos. It was so rainy/ windy/ misty; we left DRENCHED. But smiling.

At the Devil's Throat.

So excited that I couldn't even keep my eyes open. 

We closed out our first day in Foz do Iguaçu with an hour long wait for the bus, a bus ride to no where, and a 20 minute uphill walk to see the Marco do Tres Fronteiras, or the point where all three countries come together. Which ended up being a big fail because it was actually closed for construction until the day after we left. But using our pathetic looks and heavy breathing from walking sweet charm, one of the workers offered to give us a ride back into the town. Which, of course, I assumed was safe because he and I were speaking in Spanish. We had to wait about 10 minutes before the end of his shift was over, so we all hung around speaking Spanish and I asked what was actually happening down at the monument. And since we're so charming, he took us past the point where everyone else had to turn about and let us see what was happening. It was definitely still a letdown, but we technically saw the monument.

After conquering the Brazilian side, we obviously had to see the Argentinian side of the falls. As if there was even a question as to whether or not that was going to happen. I mean, the $160 that we each paid for a visa to Argentina pretty much confirmed that we were going. So we hopped on an all-day Argentinian tour and I was beside myself with happiness from hearing Spanish all day.

Our first stop on the tour was to see the Marco de las Tres Fronteras in Argentina. So we weren't able to get up close and personal with the one in Brazil, but we did get to see the one in Argentina. Worth the hype. We could also see the Brazilian one that they were working on and Kelly and I were both a little bitter when we saw it. Too soon, I suppose. 

After stopping at the Marco de las Tres Fronteras, we made our way to the falls. Where two parts of our tour were closed because the river was too high and the water was too strong and the bridges had broke in different places or were underwater. I was bummed, but listen, I'm not messing around with water that powerful. We walked A LOT and saw the falls from almost every place possible. I'm currently creating a flip book of all the photos where my hands are in the air, don't worry.

Salto Dos Hermanos.

Blue skies and sunshine came out to play.

Lesson learned from the day before.

Since I'm a wild party animal and I love the cold weather (HA!) , I basically HAD to visit the Ice Bar in Puerto Iguazu while we were in Argentina. Unfortunately, I was ill-prepared and only had shorts and flip flops, but being from the snowbelt must have prepared me for the cold temperatures because I didn't die. We suited up in our parkas and gloves and spent 30 minutes in the ice bar (which was a balmy 14-20F) drinking unlimited drinks. Money well spent.

As a Christmas present to myself, I didn't set a budget for the trip. If I wanted something, I was going to buy it. If I wanted to do something, I was going to pay for it. It's likely that I won't make it back to Foz do Iguaçu and I didn't want to leave with regrets. Because of this philosophy, I forked over some cash and took a helicopter ride over the falls. I was SO excited that one of the workers had to tell me to calm down. I am not ashamed. It was worth every single penny that I spent on it-- one of the coolest things I have ever done.

After seeing the falls via bus, trails on the Brazilian side, trails on the Argentinian side, and helicopter, Kelly and I figured that we might as well go big or go home and see the falls by boat. We donned our beloved ponchos (which was the best R$5/ $1.25USD that I have ever spent) and hopped into a speed boat into the falls. I may or may not have squealed like a little girl. I will neither confirm nor deny. 

Each thing we did in Iguaçu was better than the last and Kelly and I were frequently proclaiming that "THIS is the coolest thing I have ever done!" We packed A LOT into two and a half days (Brazilian falls, two trips to Argentina, accepting a ride from a Spanish speaking stranger, a helicopter ride, the Ice Bar, and a boat ride-- just as a recap) and everything about the trip really was some of the coolest stuff I have ever done. Living so far away from home and my family and my friends and American food can really stink sometimes. But then I do something like this and realize that this is my LIFE. And while it's difficult at times, it's also really, really awesome.

Since no adventure is complete without a little travel SNAFU. While we were preparing to land back in Rio, the pilot told us that the runway was crowded so we had to circle a bit before landing. No problem until it was an hour later, we were still circling, and we were running low on fuel. So instead we flew to  Belo Horizonte, which is a city in another state, to re-fuel and then fly back to Rio. But we got a second helping of snacks, so it's all okay.