Travel Day and Buenos Aires

Today was a transition day. We started off the morning by taking a walk along the Iguazú River. Once we ran into a problem with flooding, we made our way back and one of the students had the wonderful idea to sing in the theatre along the three borders. After some wonderful presentations, we made our way into town for lunch before having to say good bye to the Iguazú area.  After returning to Buenos Aires, the students were very much happy to see our bus driver Eduardo who took us back to the hotel. The students had the chance to go shopping in the supermarket today buying lots  of chocolate and food to bring back to the U.S. We passed  Plaza San Martín and through Calle Florida while heading back to our hotel. We have an early night tonight as tomorrow, we will make our trip to Uruguay for the day.

Guiraoga and Puerto Iguazú

Today, we went to visit a rehabiltation center for animals at Guiraoga. This is an indigenous word for ¨the house of the birds´. Inside this rehabilitation center, we saw toucans, monkeys, alligators, coatíes, macaws, and eagles. This place is amazing because they take in animals and then prepare them to go back out to the wild. Afterwards, we took a trip to the point where the Iguazú and Paraná Rivers come together as well as the countries of Paraguay, Brasil and Argentina meet. This is only one of two places in the world where this happens (with the other in southeast Asia).  After some time here, the students had a chance to do some shopping in Puerto Iguazú for their friends and family.

Iguazu Falls

Today, we had an early morning and took a flight from Buenos Aires up to the state of Misiones. The landscape has changed quite a bit from Buenos Aires to Misiones. We are now in the Mesopotamia region of Argentina. In this region, there are three states in the northern part of the country that are in between the Uruguay River and the Paraná River.This area is home to Iguazú falls. The word Iguazú is an Indian word for Big Water. The Falls border the countries of Argentina and Brasil and is made up of 270 seperate waterfalls.







After meeting our tour guide Juan at the airport this mroning, we went right to Iguazú national park. Today we walked the upper trail and the lower trail of the the falls. Unfortunatly, due to 15 straight days of rain, the main attraction which looks right over the falls, la garganta del diablo is closed due to it being damaged during the incredble amounts of rain. However, because of the heavy rains, the water hasn´t been this heavy in over a decade! Tonight, we are staying in the hotel Esturion where the students had time to relax in the pool or in the tennis courts this evening after having a long day.

La visita a la Estancia Santa Susana

On day four of our trip, we made our way out early in the morning to the Pampas. The Pampas is a Quecha word for flat land, however, we stayed in the state of Buenos Aires. The students had the chance ride in a carriage ride and ride a horse during their stay.  hey were greeted by one of the main guachos at the ranch along with an empanada. After the horseback ride, the students had a chance to eat an incredible bbq which included steak, chicken and pork tenderloin. The BBQ was followed by enternatinment of local music and tango dancing. Following the performance, the guachos showecased their skills at getting a small ring that was hanging from a string while riding their horse. It is tradition that if the guacho does acheive this goal, he then gives the ring to a girl in the crowd. Many of our girls had a chance to receive the ring!!! After our trip to the ranch, the students had the opportunity to go the movies and watch Monster University in Spanish!

 

City tour

On our third day of the tour, we had a chance to take a bus/walking tour of the city of Buenos Aires. We learned today that the name Buenos Aires was named after   Santa María del Buen Ayre when the Spanish came in 1580. We passed by many sites that include the Plaza de Mayo, la Casa Rosada (where the president works), la Palerma and La Recoleta. La Recoleta is a mausoleum where there are 4,000 residents and where Eva Peron's tomb can be found. In addition, we learned that the casa rosada is pink for two different reasons. The first was because the people of Buenos Aires needed the houses to withstand the humidity of the summer. Therefor, they mixed the blood of animals with the lime of the buildings and it created a pink color. The second reason was that during the civil war, there was one side that had a white flag and the other side which had a red flag. When the war ended, they mixed both colors to have as sense of unity in the country. In addition to our other travels today, we went to the neighborhood La Boca which is home to the soccer club Boca Junior as well as to some of the most colorful buildings in the city. The weather has been beautiful with temperatures in the 60's and sunshine! Our dinner tonight was at an Italian restaurant where they ate pizza and pasta dishes followed by an ice cream dessert!

arrival and tango

After an 11 hour light, we landed in Buenos Aires at around 1015 in the morning. We met our guide Marisa who will be with us for the whole trip. We checked into our hotel which is located around the corner from calle Florida. As we got to walk around our section of town, we stopped to eat an incredibly good deep dish pizza. It may sound strange but the Italian culture plays a big .role In the Argentine culture. We them took a brief walk to the port of Buenos Aires Where we saw the impressive puente de la mujer. Later this evening, we went to el viejo almacen Where the students first learn to dance the tango. They did a remarkable job in learning the eight step tango. After a delicious meal of steak, pasta or chicken, we went back to watch the tango show and there was a lot of great music and dancing. Tomorrow we will take the city your of Buenos Aires

Final Preparations

Spain (check and check)
Peru (check)
Costa Rica (check)

It is June 24th and as I look at the ACIS website, the website shows me that there are 0 days before our trip 5th student educational trip. This one will bring us to Argentina!!!

The final preparations have been made at my house with the most amount of clothes ever packed for a 10 day trip! The temperatures are supposed to range from 37 degrees at night to 62 degrees in the day time! Well, it is the third day of winter, right? 

Boarding passes for 18 students and 3 adults to travel to Buenos Aires, Irazu ( the boarder of Brasil, Argentina and Paraguay), and a day trip to Uruguay awaits us over the next 10 days! Please stay tuned for pics and updates! We will be riding horses, dancing the tango and also taking a trip along the Rio Parana!

Enjoy your first week of Winter!!!!!!

Good morning everyone!! We are less then 2 weeks from leaving for Argentina!  Please follow our blog as I will be updating it daily with a picture or two as well as a description of our daily activities! Don't forget to wear your green shirt the day we leave and check out the temperature to Buenos Aires in order to see the future weather!