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Full Day Drive into Buenos Aires

We got up with the dawn since it’s still a long drive to Buenos Aires. I killed the travel time by talking to some of my new fellow travelers, especially to Juri, a woman from Japan. Juri was born in Taiwan and during her studies in the US she met her future husband from Japan. Since a few years she is widowed and travels all around the world. She is also a passionate hiker and has climbed most of the mountains in Japan.

Since Rio the group of travelers has changed significantly. We are not only a larger group of 20 people but there is a larger amount of couples too. This brings a different dynamic to the group and it’s not possible anymore to have close contact with everyone. Most of the new people are from Australia, fewer are from the UK, the US, Canada and Japan.

We drove more or less all day until we reached Buenos Aires. When driving into the city I noticed most of the major roads since I have spent quite some time in Buenos Aires during a previous visit in 2009. Our hotel was located close to the Obelisk at the Avenida 9 de Julio, a very wide street with 20 lanes or so. When we arrived at the hotel we found out that our reserved rooms are actually not available and we needed to move to the more posh sister hotel two blocks away. I knew the neighborhood very well since during my last stay in Buenos Aires my hotel was only 200m away.

When checking into the hotel Juri left one of her bags unattended for a few seconds and so it happened that it got stolen. We actually noticed a local guy hanging out in front of the hotel and in the reception area pretending to be on the phone with someone. Probably it was him stealing Juri’s bag. In general you should be very careful with your stuff in Buenos Aires especially when you don’t look like a local. During my last stay someone tried to steal something out of my backpack. I also experienced people spilling liquid on me while walking in a park. At first I thought it was a bird making a shit on me but got alerted when a couple came to “help” me cleaning up. They were very keen on me removing my jacket and backpack but I just continued walking so everything turned out well.

Due to the theft Juri and our leader Anki needed to go to the police station resulting in the group dinner getting cancelled. Therefore, not much was going on tonight. I just had some quick dinner and an early night since I need to get up early tomorrow to catch the ferry to Uruguay.