An Itch for Exploration and Festing

I should start with the zoo experience.

Zoo Lujan is one of the most controversial zoos I know of (and the most seemingly dangerous). It's located about 2 hours away from Buenos Aires, and I took a bus there with a group called BAIS (Buenos Aires International Students). The group designs events and notifies international students among the several universities here of upcoming things in the city that should be taken advantage of.

Some newly-met friends of whom we met the night before at an BAIS welcoming party went to the zoo as well.

When we got to Zoo Lujan, it appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. Soon enough we saw the cages that people were allowed to enter. Inside was a sleeping dog, a young tiger and lion. They let us go in 3 at a time to actually pet these usually dangerous creatures.

The lion was distracted by licking a toy of his, and there were employees making sure that they remained calm. I pet him but he was irritated and slightly jerked his neck. Well that was enough large-cat touching for me for that day so when Juli and I entered the tiger cage, I decided I wasn't going to touch them.

The zoo was cool, though. I don't know when I'll ever get a chance to touch lions or tigers ever again (or bears, oh my.)

There were also baby lions there, seals, bears, deer, tropical birds, monkeys, a chimpanzee, and geese. Well, the geese were just wandering around all over and weren't technically a part of the zoo, but they added an annoying touch.

A couple friends we've met so far,

Liborio (from Chile)
Charlotte (from Belgium)
Mario (from U.S.)

There are other nice people we met, like Charlotte's roommates from France and Peru, but these three were who we are hanging out with the most.

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A few other fun things we've been doing is going to delicious pizzerias and visiting museums. The area in which we live, Recoleta, is filled with cool cobblestone streets, cafes, bars, and restaurants, and parks & plazas.


Yesterday afternoon, I played football (soccer) with Liborio and some other guys in a park near Juli's apartment, and later on at night, we went out to see the various light shows and performances during "Noche en Vela". From 7pm to 7am Sat-Sun. there were tons of free activities around the city. We went to this techno concert in a park where a guy was somehow playing gameboy Classic and his game was showing up on a huge screen and there was crazy trance music blaring with flashing lights and dancers.

It started out with me, Juli, Charlotte, and Mario. When we went to see other buildings being lit up by colorful lights, we met up with Liborio. The five of us went to Juli's apartment around 9 to have some instant Colombian coffee to stimulate us for the late night.

An hour or so later, we took a bus to the Obelisque, the famous pillar in many photos of Buenos Aires, where there was a live orchestra outside and about 50,000 people watching. They played Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" and a couple other well-known tunes.

There, we met up with Liborio's friend Willy who is from BsAs and the six of us went to find a place to eat.

After dinner at 10:00pm, we went a few blocks over to this outside dance lesson/bash/i have no idea. There was this lady full of energy with a whistle, leading a group of people (95% women) in a dances that incorporated exercise movements. Juli and Charlotte joined in right after we surprisingly ran into Juli's friend Carola and her two roommates. Our group ended up being more than 8 people and after we got our groove on, we went to another free concert.

The guy that was playing was fantastic, and everybody was getting into the music. There were a bunch of hippies dancing in a circle, and later on when a Gaucho-type band was playing, people in the streets started dancing Samba, and the night turned into a magical festival that I'll never forget.

p.s. I filmed a lot of it and will be posting the footage on the internet in the future.


It was about 2am when we finally went back home, but it was a great finish to a long weekend filled with spontaneous adventure and new friends.


besos,

R.A.P.