First off, you all might be wondering why, actually I am sure most of you have figured it out by now, the title of this Blog is Buenos Aires Round 5. Bluntly, we have now visited Buenos Aires 5 times; as you can probably tell Devon and I are both quite partial to Buenos Aires. Here is how the rounds went down.
Round 1-- January 9th- 21st: This was the first time we visited Buenos Aires.
Round 2-- January 26th: After spending 5 days in Uruguay we decided to spend one more night in Buenos Aires.
Round 3 --January 30th-31st: After going to Rosario, Argentina for 3 days we decided one last weekend in Buenos Aires would be a good idea.
Round 4 --February 4th: After going to Iguazu for four days we decided we wanted just one more night in Buenos Aires.
Round 5 -- April 6th- 13th: After traveling all over South America, we decided it would probably be a great idea to take a 22 hour bus ride from Santiago de Chile to Buenos Aires. Here is a list of the reasons why we thought taking two 22 hour bus rides during the last week of our trip was a good idea.
The BailaDancers: We met and extremely funky, spunky, nice dance master named Fatima Crespo in a club in Buenos Aires during Round 2, we unsuccessful exchanged information, she thought my name was Nicky, not Mickey, but somehow someway fate decided to jump into my life and we randomly saw miss Faty at a bar during Buenos Aires Round 3.After seeing her… Devon, Faty, and I talked for a while in the bar and decided we were going to create an amazing international dance team called the BailaDancers. Our creed was, Just Dance! After forming our amazing dance squadron she so kindly offered to let us stay in her flat during Buenos Aires Round 4. Sine then we have had a special bond with Faty: So the main reason for us coming back to Buenos Aires was to reunite the awesome, cool, international dance team known as the BailaDancers.
Parties: I knew once the BailaDancers reunited we would do what we do best which is dancing and partying throughout different clubs in Buenos Aires. The partying scene here in BsAs is fantastic.
Yellow Pants, Goofy Shoes, and Empanadas: These were all things I was hoping to purchase in Buenos Aires.
Bomba del Tiempo: A big percussion show held every Monday…. Devon and I really wanted to see this one last time.
Tom/ Robin: These are two guys we met during our travels who are living in Buenos Aires. Devon and I thought it would be a great idea to see them one more time before we went back to the states.
Also, I am holding out on one other reasonito, that means little reason in spanglish, for coming back to Buenos Aires. I may or may not had hopes of“randomly” running into a girl I had actually randomly ran into during Buenos Aires round 3, I put quotations around the first randomly because I secretly wanted to run into this girl… randomly or not, but let’s not focus on that.
Our last go in Buenos Aires could be summed up as a huge rage fest. Devon and I went hard, maybe even harder than Carnaval. Here is a summary of our Rage Fest.
The week Devon and I had in Buenos Aires made me feel a like I was inside a BsAs remix of Welcome To Atlanta because in this song, Jermaine Dupri, he is a producer who is also the best plug man in the rap game, anyways JD lists the days of the week followed by the different clubs he went to in the A-T-L. Although I won’t be rhyming or quite as baler as JD, I am going to use his method, From Welcome to Atlanta to describe the many epic nights we had in Buenos Aires.
Monday: After sitting on a nice comfortable Argentine Bus for 22 hours, Devon and I made our sweet arrival in Buenos Aires. We were greeted by our spunky, awesome, dancer friend Faty, because A. She was nice enough to actually greet us at the bus station and B. She let us sleep in her flat for the entire week.
This is how we slept
Monday night was Faty’s birthday so she had an All-Star partying night planned. First we hit up La Bomba Del Tiempo, which is an amazing percussion show held every Monday night in Buenos Aires. Thousands upon thousands of people fill a cozy outdoor theatre to Dance/ Groove to incredible drum beats. La Bomba Del Tiempo was just as amazing as always, and something happened that made it even better….
While I was grooving away with my boy Devon and a Rando girl from Croatia I felt a light tap and my back. Guess who it was??? The girl whom I was hoping I would, somehow someway, “Randomly” run into. My first night there I managed to complete my secret goal… How Awesome is That? I’ll answer that question: it is pretty awesome. She informed me that she would be out of town the whole week and returning Saturday, by saying something like: "I will be out of town the whole week and returning Saturday." From that information this is what I gathered: she would be leaving Buenos Aires the next day and would be gone for the majority of the week, but most likely returning on saturday. Sad Day.
Anyways, we grooved to Bomba for another hour, and then went to a pizzeria for Round 2 of Faty’s awesome birthday adventure. There were a ton of people there and the Pizza was really good.
After the pizza fun, our gigantic grupo followed the Birthday girl to a near by club. Background: The club we went to Monday night was the same club we met Fatima, pretty Sentimental. The club played Hip-Hop from The States all night long, so I managed to get at least 37 stares and blank looks from people coming from all over the world, because I know just about every chorus/ word to every top 50 hip hop song of the last 6 years. The BailaDancers danced our little hearts out until 4:30 in the morning and decided to call it quits.
Hip Hop Music Makes Me Smile
Tuesday Night: We accomplished another Goal… we met up with our Boy Thomas John Bush, a clever, charming, and well cultured English man who is taking a break from his successful political career in London, England to teach English in Buenos Aires. We ate dinner with Tom and a girl named Natalie, who hails from Australia, then we went back to Fatima’s flat. To stretch out and mentally prepare ourselves for another night of dancing.
Faty got us on the VIP list for a very posh, in proper English that means nice, trendy, hype, cool, fashionable etc., club called Hype. Devon and I spent the first 45 minutes sitting in a trendy black leather sofa in the VIP section talking about how cool it is to actually be VIP. After soaking up all the benefits of VIP such as, sitting in black leather Sofas, watching people dance, and thinking you are very cool, we decided it was time to do what we do best… Dance.
The Bailadancers danced until 5:30 in the morning then decided to head home.Unfortunately there are no pictures of this night, so just picture me and Devon wearing really hype clothes, sitting in really hype couches, in a really hype club...
Wednesday Night: Thomas John Bush cordially invited the Bailadancers and Natalie, our Australian Pirate Friend, to enjoy a nice dinner in one of his two apartments in Buenos Aires. Thomas has two Apartments in Buenos Aires because people easily fall in Love with him, and then they offer him nice things, like a weekend Apartment in Buenos Aires, a free bus ride from Rio de Janeiro to Salavador de Bahia, or a Job in a hostel. Nevertheless he has a house where he lives on the weekdays and an Apartment where he lives on Weekends, he is only paying for the one of the two places. We chatted for multiple hours and indulged in a very nice dinner composed of Pizza and Empanadas until we decided it was time to do what the Bailadancers do best… Dance.
Faty being the dance queen that she is managed to get us on the list to a club called Sahara. The club was full of middle aged salsa dancers, although I am a sub par salsa dancer, I tried my best to show up the middle aged salsa-ers by breaking down low to the floor every time a reggaetone song started pumping through the PA system.
Also, another exciting thing happened on Wednesday, after maybe two hours of convincing from Devon, Tom, and Nat-Dawg, I mustered up enough courage to dance with a nice young Argentine girl named Geovana. She taught me how to salsa and Cumbia, and I tried to impress her by yet again dropping it down low. After dancing with Geo for an hour our grupito decided to leave.
Thursday Night: Devon and I accomplished the other half of reason five for coming to Buenos Aires, which was to see our friend Robin. We had a nice dinner together, then went out to an ex-pat bar called Sugar. After sugar we tried to go to a club called Lost, which plays hip-hop all night long. Unfortunately the line was immense so we took a cap to a place called club 69.
Club 69 was quite a spectacle, people dressed as angels, devils, and other fantasy type creatures ran around the packed club while thousands upon thousands of people nodded their heads to intense house beats. It’s safe to say Robin and his lawyer friend from New York did not like this club, so we called it quits pretty early, @ 4:45 am.
Friday Night: Friday was a fun filled day. Devon and I met with Tom, Natalie, and her crew of Australian pirates at 3 o’clock in the afternoon and we managed to spend 5 hours at the same bar/ restaurant chatting the day away.
After our long chat session, we made plans to meet up later in the evening and parted ways. A few hours later Devon and I picked up Faty from a dinner party then went to a bar, for round four of Faty’s birthday celebration. We stayed at the bar until 2am then a group of 20 went to a club called Lansky, to do what the BailaDancers do best, which is Dance.
8 hours in bars/ restaurants?
Luckily the cute Argentine girl I had met Wednesday night showed up to the club so I spent the first part of the night trying to dance with her, aka mustering up enough courage to just do it and the second part of the night dancing with her. You might be able to tell that confidence is still a small problemito of mine. Unfortunately my dance sesh with the cute Argentine girl was cut a little shorter than I had expected, but we stilled managed to break it down to the floor at least 45 times.
Saturday Night: Can’t stop won’t stop can’t stop. Saturday night our international grupito went to an Asado, BBQ, then Tom, Devon, and I went to a punk rock club and danced the night away to Beatles, Beach Boys, and numerous Posh British Bands. We danced until 6 o’clock in the morning, left, and then talked outside on Faty’s porch until the sun came up.
This is the international grupito
Sunday Night: Sunday marked the end of our dance marathon… : ( , however one exciting thing did occur Sunday night. I decided tell the girl I wanted to “Randomly” run into, who I actually did “Randomly” run into, we will call her RRIG (Random Run Into Girl)from here on out,that Devo and I decided to stay in Buenos Aires until Monday and it would be great to see her if she was back from Mendoza.
Sunday afternoon RRIG, was nice enough to invite us out to dinner with her family and her. I accepted the invitation without much hesitation and we spent out last night in Buenos Aires talking and eating with RRIG and her very nice family. It was a great way to end our 5th and final stint in Buenos Aires.
Monday: We bid farewell to our friends and took a 20 hour bus ride back to Santiago de Chile.I am so glad we decided to actually return to Buenos Aires. Many thanks to Faty for constantly nagging us to come visit her.
When we finally left Buenos Aires it felt like a huge hammer shattered a part of my heat, I love that city and am sure I will be back there soon. Thanks so much to everyone that made our time there so special, Devon and I love you all.
Also, all my goals for Buenos Aires were accomplished minus the yellow pants. I could not find proper yellow pants in BsAs. Oh well.
Two new variables made their way into the Devon/ Mickey adventure. These variables have names so from this point forward I will call variable 1 Allison a best friend of both Devon and myself, and variable 2 Amanda Devon’s squeeze, that means girlfriend in somewhat hip terms.
March 16th Devon and I had a realization; two people were meeting us in Ecuador in the next couple of days and these two people were probably expecting us to have some sort of fun itinerary planned. I am not going to lie on March 16th two days before March 18th the day we would be meeting Allison we had absolutely no idea what we were going to do in Ecuador and I started to freak out. If you are an avid blog reader you probably know by now that Devon and I like to walk, whenever we go somewhere new we walk around a lot then decide to do things based upon what we see while walking around. For instance, right after we arrived in La Paz, Devon and I threw our bags down and walked around the city for 2 ½ hours because we had no idea what else we could do in La Paz.
Luckily we did a little networking in Brazil and on March 16th a nice British girl we met in Paraty, Brazil sent us a Facebook message about great Ecuadorian cities and activities.
By March 17th we had a rough plan of what we were going to do with our new variables.
Here is what went down.
March 18th we met Allison in the airport of QuitoEcuador. It was so great to see AlBalCanal. I have missed that girl a ton. Devon and I took Allison on a small walking Adventure, I paid my dues to my dad’s epic Stache and shaved a small mustache, after shaving my mustache we went out to dinner, then caught up on some ZZZZZZZ’s.
March 19th Thanks to the recommendations from our British homegirl, we decided to go to a little Adventure town called Banos. Our first day there we walked around, hung out with some Isreali’s, ate some Israeli food, then went to a dirty smelly hot spring on the outskirts of the pueblito.
March 20th Here is where things get a little more interesting. On our brief walkabout through Banos on March 19th, I discovered Adventure Tourism Agencies, that sounds so professional, offered an extreme activity called bridge jumping, Salta Puentes, this activity is kinda complex so I will break it down for you. The person who desires to leap from a bridge gets trapped into ropes, then jumps of a bridge. The fall is approximately 45 meters, and the bridge stands 120+ meters above the ground.
Since Devon and I are manly men we decided to fork over the 15 dollars to 2 seconds of exhilaration. While we were waiting for the Adventure Tourism Agents to set up all the ropes, Devon and I kept cracking stupid jokes, which meant we were both really nervous. Since I have less hair on my chest than Devon I decided to prove my manliness by jumping first.
The fall was amazing, the minute I left the platform adrenaline pumped through my veins as I fell freely for 1 second. Yes, the fall lasted for seriously 1 second, before I could take a breath and figure out what had actually just happened the fall was finished. Bridge jumping has increased by curiosity to bungee jump of sky dive by about 47 fold.
Devon jumped next and his experience was real similar to mine. After getting a small taste of free falling goodness, he wants more.
I am going to take you on a brief digression, remember when you were a little kid and you told your parents the only reason you did engaged in a certain activity was “someone told you to.” Generally your parents would combat this logic by saying, “Now if someone told you to Jump off a bridge would you do it?” You would think about that rebuttal for a second then respond no. Well Devon and I told Allison to jump off a bridge and she did it. Goes to show parents aren’t always right.
Allison was a trooper when it came to the jump. She strapped up, walked onto the platform and went for it. I was expecting her to sit on the platform for 5 minutes while we convinced her she was truly going to be okay, but no she just did it. Allison’s parents can breathe easy, because her bridge jump experience did not increase her curiosity to do more extreme falling/ jumping activities. In fact, I think I can safely say Allison probably has retired from extreme falling.
After the jump we went on a nice little hike.
March 21st This was a big day! March 21st was the day I met my BF’s GF. OMgosh it was so exciting.
The GF of my BF is on the left, my BF is on the right
Earlier On March 21st our little grupito took a nice hike in Banos, then headed back to Quito, so my BF could pick up his GF from the airport. While my BF was getting his GF, Allison and I decided to make a gourmet dinner for our group. Not much else happened that day.
Alright I am going to stop doing the activities corresponding with the days and just go over what happened in more prose style wiriting I guess.
Amanada’s arrival made me pretty nervous, that might seem odd to you, because Amanda isn’t my girlfriend thus her arrival should not have been that big of a deal, but in the past I have not done the best job of getting a long with my BF’s GF’s. So this time around I wanted to make a good impression thus causing me to become slightly nervous to meet my boy’s girl. Our first night went well, and minus one very large pothole, the rest of the week went quite smoothly.
The day after the arrival of Devon’s GF we decided, well actually I decided I am a small control freak so I generally make group decisions before consulting anyone, going to a La Mitad Del Mundo, would be a good idea. La Mitad Del Mundo translates to, the center of the world, I am not sure the area we went to is the exact center of the world, because finding the center of a sphere on its surface seems impossible, but I am not a mathematician. La Mitad Del Mundo put more correctly is the equatorial line. After taking a series of buses for a little less than two hours we finally arrived. First we did what everyone does at the Equatorial line which is snap as many cheesy pictures as possible. I also jumped, hopped, skipped, danced, and leaped over the border between the northern and southern hemisphere. Then we went into a stupid museum, if you decide to go to the equator in Ecuador don’t go to the museum. After the museum the chicas decided they were hungry so we looked at a few menus, but me being the economic person that I am decided the food offered on the equatorial line was far too expensive so I made everyone leave and we went to a locals only Dive right outside La Mitad Del Mundo. I guess the girls can say they got a cultural restaurant experience.
This is proof we were truly at the equator
After our really awesome experience on the equatorial line we returned to our hostel, and then took an overnight bus to Puerto Lopez, a nice little Port in south eastern part of Ecuador.
The girls really did not have a good bus experience for numerous reasons.
They couldn’t really sleep.
The Bus was dirty
The Bus played really loud reggaetone the entire trip
The Bus stopped every ½ hour to let people off
Somewhere between the time we left Quito to the time we arrived in Puerto Lopez Amanada’s cash, cards, and cell phone went missing. (This will be elaborated on in just on second)
We arrived in Puerto Lopez at 5:25 in the morning, and I decided that we should take another bus straight to a little touristy surf town called Montanita where the waves were big, the sand was soft, and the Bananas and drink specials were plentiful.
During a nice breakfast Amanda realized her cards, cash, and blackberry were no longer in her purse. After 15 minutes of internet investigation, she found out an Ecuadorian man used her cash and cards, to purchase some tires from a place called Hot Wheels. Luckily her bank said they would take care of it and everything turned out A-okay.
Despite the missing cash, cards, and phone, we had a great time in Montanitas.
Here is a breakdown of what we did everyday.
Woke Up
Ate Breakfast, at the same restaurant
Got Changed
Sat out on the Beach/ Read a book from the Twilight series
Ate Lunch
Sat out on the Beach/ Walked on the Beach/ Took Naps/ Read
Watched the Sunset
Showered
Ate Dinner
Went to Bed/ Went out/ Watched Twighlight
Other than the sun burn I obtained on my shoulders, which has now peeled, thus making my back look like child’s first attempt of a white splatter painting on brown canvas. Life in Montanitas was easy breezy.
After three days of, paráiso, we bid farewell to the surfy, toursity, soft sanded beached town, and took another long bus ride back to Quito.
We spent our final day in Quito on an epic hike around the great tourist attraction of TeleferiQ. TeleferiQ is a large gondola that takes locals and tourists up a mountain side, so they can take nice “view from above” pictures of Quito. I decided I wanted to hike up the mountain behind the big tourist attraction, so that is what our group did. I thought the trek would be a walk in the park, at high altitude, but this was no easy hike our starting altitude was 4,100 meters, roughly 13,510 feet, and the ending altitude was 4,700 meters, roughly 15,510 feet.
The views were cloudy, the ground was muddy, the air was thin, and the temperature was cold, but it was definitely an enjoyable experience + I think that was the highest I have ever hiked.
We ended our last night together with a nice meal, after stuffing our faces Devon and I decided it was time to show off all of our Latin Feva Dance Moves we have acquired during our travels. Our moves are a mix between Tango, Salsa, Cueca, Samba, BialaFunk, Amerian Hip Hop, The Fox Trot, and B-Boy. I am proud to say the girls were dazzled by our multicultural moves.
named Fatima Crespo in a club in 
This is the international grupito
