Tuesday, February 10, 2009

El Tren de La Noche y Mi Primero Encuentro con Bahia Blanca

This past weekend, my family invited me along on a trip to Bahia Blanca, my host parents' home city, for the 70th birthday of my host grandma. Most of their family lives there. We traveled by train (not recommended for tourists!). If my gym is on the "ghetto" side, then the train was Ghetto, with a captial G!

The train took about 14 hours from Buenos Aires to Bahia Blanca. Going, we went on a local, so very slow, and somehow, the ride was bumpy. How? I don't know. Coming back, we went on an express and it took 16 hours. The train hit a woman, seriously. She ended up being ok, only a broken ankle, but it added some hours to our journey. Interesting experience!

Thursday, my family took me around to meet the family (taking mate at each stop) and on a city tour (not too much to see, not a recommended tourist stop). The port is the second largest in Argentina, but no beaches, only factories - mostly for petrochemicals.
after the "protest" with biosfera, i felt a bit Erin-Brockovich-esque taking these photos

Then they took me to the nicer neighborhood and I saw some gorgeous houses - the nicest that I have seen in Argentina. They reminded a bit of Westchester...

2 comments:

  1. ok when I saw the picture of the train I thought ohhhh come on Liz, that's not much worse than ny metro north. Then I continued reading. I can't believe you spent 16 hours on that train, dear lord. Did they have asado reststops?

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  2. haha! much worse! on top of that, argentines don´t quite have "train-etiquette" down yet. there were 4 men, right across the aisle from me, non-stop talking the entire 16 hour ride home, even with the lights off and everyone else trying to sleep. luckily, i had my handy-dandy ear plugs :)

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