I can fly!

We arrived in BA before 7 yesterday morning. Bus rides are so much easier in Argy, much less windy. The weather is pretty average and we are both really tired. 2pm before we can check in.

Sex really sells in South America. All the billboards are complete with almost naked blonde, large chested women. Rather entertaining and uncreative. It also reflects the decision making role in a South American relationship. Males making all the decision. :p

We finally brought some Mate cups in Villa Carlos Paz, where we stopped on the way to La Cumbre for paragliding and horse riding. Totally wicked by the way. 

Maxi, our guide (who drove us to La Cumbre and took the horse riding) was really awesome. He shared lots of facts with us along the way and had a good laugh. Some interesting facts from Maxi:

• -          The ratio of men to women in Cordoba is 1/5. Men have it good here. Lots of women come to study university here and take the majority of the professional roles (unlike BA where it is mainly men).
• -          People were scared of the first car
• -          Inflation has been 53% over the last 2 years, 33% in the last year. For example in one day Maxi would drive through the checkpoint in the morning and it would be 3 pesos and in the afternoon it would be 4. This has happened twice in the last few months.
• -          1200 pesos per month is the average salary (and a city apartment costs 1500). Lots of shared homes.
• -          When you have had enough Mate you say grassis and pass it to the next person to indicate you are finished and don’t want anymore.
• -          There are Walmarts in Argentina.
• -          In Argentina you learn English in the last three years of high school and only for three hours per week. Almost everyone who can speak decent English thinks their English is bad.
• -          There is a Krusty burger and Duff beer in Cordoba (we forgot to go).
• -          40% of the coins in Argentina are fakes (coins are 10c, 25, 50 and 1 peso)
• -          The title for the song The final countdown gets translated into Spanish but the lyrics remain in English. This is very common in South America.
• -          A popular (and expensive sport) in Argentina is pato (literally translates to duck). In this game they ride horses and throw a duck around (the duck is alive when they game starts). These days it is legal (animal cruelty) so most people use a ball with ropes attached rather than a real duck.
• -          Every city seems to have a 25 De Mayo street. On the 25^th of May in 1810 Argentina gained independence.
• -          Huerta Grande, a town we passed through has a hotel where Albert Einstein and Hitler (1941) stayed.
• -          A church on our journey was nick named the ‘church of fuck you’ as from the road it looks like someone pulling the fingers.
• -          ‘Che’ (as in Che Guevara) is used as an informal greeting, kind of similar to ‘bro’.
• -          Driving through check points with drunk and drinking gringos is really funny for Maxi and he kept warning us to hide everything and calling the guards stupid for not noticing.

I got an extra long flight paragliding. The guy said the wind was great and the flight was going really well, so did I want to fly to La Cumbre. Of course I wanted to fly longer! I ended up getting 37mins (were told 20-30). The fasted we went up was 4.3m per second and the fasted we descended was 5.5m per second. Well at least I think that’s what the numbers he was trying to explain to me in his limited English. We had to wait about 10mins after we landed for the guys to come pick us up. It is a really easy sport to set up and pack up. It took all of 30 seconds to put the shoot away and be all packed up. The whole thing was much less scary than I expected. I was only slightly nervous waiting to run off the cliff as the wind was too strong and it felt like we were waiting 20 minutes to take off.

I have most defiantly put the weight back on I lost. Everything in Argy contains duche de leche (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-dulce-de-leche.htm) which is incredibly sweet. Amazingly I am well over this already. There is also lots of bread and seems to be very very little vegetarian options close to our hostel in BA (there was an amazing buffet in Cordoba... which also led to increased eating). I have also forgotten what exercise is. It is so much harder to do anything travelling than I realised it would be.