Our last stops in South America are two of the most glamorous places on the continent, the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina and the beach resort town of Punta del Este, Uruguay. Before moving into my experience and descriptions of the places, I must mention that we were happy to be joined on this part of the trip by our friend Kelly Hagan from Navarre, who is currently spending the next six months teaching english in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She definitely added a little excitement to our group since we were beginning to become very mellow after spending the past two months together. Anyway, Buenos Aires is an immaculate city with a European flair and a very rich culture of food (famous Argentinan wines and beef), sport (home of the country's idol, Maradonna, and its two best soccer teams Boca and River), politics (the classic story of Evita and the Casa Rosa), and music and dance (the world renowned "Tango" and its singers such as Carlos Gardel who apparently had two women that never met him commit suicide over him when he died). Along with these, the city boasts the widest boulevard in the world with nearly 20 lanes and standing in the middle is the giant "Obelisco," which is similar to the Washington Monument. The culture of the Buenos Aires natives, called Portenos, is also very unique. They are very image conscious, which explains why they have one of the highest rates of plastic surgery among both men and women in the world. They also have a very "machismo" culture, where the men are very aggressive; yet, even the men greet each other with a kiss on the cheek. This mix of masculine and feminine aspect is then perfectly portrayed in the Tango, where the man leads the girl gently around the floor before displaying his more sharp and passionate moves. The tango itself may not be as popular among the people as it once was, but the passion for dancing has not changed among the Portenos. The young Portenos generally go out to eat dinner at one of the many street cafe's at 10 pm before heading to another cafe to listen to live music around 12 pm, and then finally heading to the disco to dance around 2am and not returning home till 9 in the morning. Now, because it is summertime here in South America, many of these Portenos leave Buenos Aires for the glitzy beach resort of South America's rich and famous, Punta del Este, Uruguay. This beach resort is very accessible from Buenos, taking a boat to Montevideo and then a bus over to Punta del Este. The resort is very similar to Destin with its high rise condos, million dollar houses, and nice little beach towns surrounding it. We really only had one day to spend there, so we took a bus a little way down the beach in order to work our way through the beach towns before heading back to Punta. We began at Bikini Beach and then went to Barra Beach and the Casa Pueblo Resort. The Casa Pueblo resort was one of the most interesting buildings that I have seen. I was built in combination of Greek, Arab, and Adobe pueblo styles and was built into a cliff giving it the look of ancient people's cliff city similar to Mesa Verde in the United States. We were also fortunate to be there on the same weekend as their "candombe" festival, which is like carnival in Brazil but it a festival attributed to the musical rythms of the Afro-Uruguayan culture. When we returned to Buenos Aires, we went to the see famous River soccer team play San Lorenzo and were mezmerized by the energy of the fans waving their red and white flags, draping banners all over the stadium, and jumping up and down swinging their shirts over their heads. The fans have such an intensity that it requires a small army of police to control the crowds. In fact, the police are so afraid of a fights between the fans that they are separated by chained link fences and barbed wire, and at the end of the game the police lock down the stadium and only let the opposing fans out before they will open the barracades and let the rest of the fans out. Finally, we topped off our trip to Buenos Aires with dinner and a traditional tango show, which, in my opinion, is one of the smoothest and most sensual dances in the world. From here we parted with Kelly and my brother, Chris, and are now on our way to South Africa to begin our three month adventure across the continent from South Africa heading north to Kenya. Till next time, Cheers.