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| Buenos Aires |
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From Ushuaia I needed to figure out how I was going to get to Buenos Aires, it ended up taking me four days of bus rides before arriving in the capital city. One 12 hour bus ride to Rio Gallegos ,another to Riva Davia and then one more 2 day bus to BA. Obviously a very long trip but was comfortable enough and had time to enjoy the desert landscape and reflect on my trip thus far. I arrived in the city on a Sunday afternoon and noticed an endless herd of cyclists making their way down a main avenue running
though a busy downtown area and quickly realized that this was a critical mass ride that takes place on the first Sunday of every month. The BA critial mass is the largest in South America and consistantly draws more than 2,000 people every month. I couldn't beleive how many people showed up with their bikes to reclaim the streets and essentially shut down traffic. As I see it the whole point of Critical Mass is to advocate cycling as a viable means for urban transportation and to increase awareness about bike culture and safety. After riding for a couple hours through the streets with my fully loaded touring bike I had no idea where I was and thought it would be a good idea to find a place to stay for the night so I split off from the group in search of a hostel. I got lost several times and did not find anything so with a bit of resignation I stopped at a restaurant and had dinner to simply relax and reboot the system. It wasn't until after 1am that I finally found a room for the night.
The next day I arranged to stay with a Couch Surfer and when I stopped in a central plaza to look at my map I ran into my friend Alex from Brasil and Evan from Millwake whom I had met in Patatgonia. They were on their way to the port to purchase tickets for the ferry to Uruguay and invited me to go with them. I had been thinking about going to Uruguay and had a week before I was to fly out which was more time than I wanted for exploring BA so I happyily accepted their invitation so we got our tickets for the ferry that was to leave the next day at midnite.
The boat arrived at the port in Colonia at around 5am and then walked to the beach and slept for a few hours until the sun was higher in the sky. Later in the day we took a bus to Monte Video the capital city and spent the next 3 days hanging out with Isa, an immensely open and hostpitble CouchSurfing host.
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| Colonia, Uruguay |
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| Buenos Aires bike path |
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| Critical Mass, Buenos Aires |
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| Evan in BA |
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| Montevideo, Uruguay |
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| Alex in Montevideo, Uruguay |
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| Montevideo |
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| Ushuaia, Argentina |
