Landmines, Transvestites, CouchSurfing, and Chiropractic?!?!

Weird combo, right?!?! Well following my 5k/6 hour excursion around Buenos Aires, that evening I was invited by Ara to go on a midnight photo excursion and picnic with the CouchSurfing group from Argentina to some special places. Knowing few people in the hostel, I thought why not. Many may not know who Ara is, let me introduce you. I met Ara while on my mission trip to Fortaleza, Brazil last September. If I am correct he has been traveling around the world for like the last 7 years (or atleast that is the last time he has been back to his home country of Australia). He is this uber knowledgeable and worldy Aussie-Armenian Chiropractor, who essentially CouchSurfs and barters Chiropractic Adjustments for things he needs - neat right! Atleast, I think so - although I am not at that point in my life where I am comfortable enough to do so.

Apprehensive about venturing out at midnight with my Digital SLR, I threw my apprehensions and thought when else would I have an opportunity to do this. While I waited for the time to leave, the hostel was putting on a game night - I thought that was pretty lame, but since I had to wait for time to pass anyways, it was an opportunity for me to meet some new people. UNO was the name, winning was my game! In retrospect I am happy I did cause I met some really interesting people - although they were all younger than me; this was a first. ::tear::tear:: I´m getting OLD! As much as I did not want to leave this captivating game of UNO, the streets and my camera were calling my name.

1145 comes and I am outside in this dodgy neighborhood, standing behind the gates of my hostel waiting for Ara to fetch me. No Ara, go figure - as of recently he has a history of being late. So I get bold and walk out to see if I will run into him at the meeting point for everyone. With caution I walk the streets, being very aware of my surroundings. FLOP, FLOP, FLOP - I see hair flopping in the wind; IT´S ARA racing to get to my hostel. He thought I wouldn´t be able to recognize him and that I would be scared but then again, I´m the one who can blend in with the shadows so I thought he would be scared of me.

Waiting on a corner we meet up with 4 other individuals from the Couchsurfing community - apparently the community in Buenos Aires is one of the most active and biggest, which would be reason why they have an activity every night of the week. The coordinator of this event was running late in typical Argentinian fashion (everyone runs of CP time!) for she was getting food for the picnic. Casual conversations are being had and introductions are being made. It was brought to people´s attention that I was not a Couchsurfer and wanted to know how I knew Ara - boy did that open up a can of worms. As a result of me telling them I met Ara in Fortaleza doing Chiropractic, a discussion broke out about Chiropractic. Adjustments were given (woohoo, Jungle adjusting - mine was not as refined as Ara´s but I did what I could) and a brief Chiropractic Health talk was given by Ara. Next thing you know, Ara is getting appointments to give adjustments to people´s friends and family. Chiropractic just tends to follow me everywhere.

LIGHTS....CAMERA....ACTION. Time to take some photos. We embark upon this journey to Plaza de Palermo, which is one of the many parks in Palermo. As we walked we had to avoid the massive landmines that were on the sidewalk. LANDMINES = DOGSHIT. A brief history lesson ensued about the history of the park and how it was designed. As I said in the previous blog, Buenos Aires tries its best to mimic European countries by having lanterns and buildings imported to the city to make it not so South American. We come upon this beautiful lake under this starlite sky and magic happens out of my camera (well not really, cause I´m still working on learning how to use my camera). With some assistance of everyone there who was more experienced photographers I captured some pretty good photos. Although, I had expected for this excursion to take us to some remote locations or some "special places", not just a park at night; it was still fun.

TIME to eat. Umm it is 2 o´clock, I am not eating anything...just have a little bit of wine and soda (no high fructose corn syrup!). There you hear a mixture of English and Spanish talk about history, politics, current events, and how this park used to be filled with naked transvestite prostitutes. NAKED TRANSVESTITE PROSTITUTES! Apparently as a result of the community becoming more family oriented they got run out of the park and distrubted amongst the city by the government. Seriously...THE GOVERNMENT! Yawns are being dispersed amongst the crowd, I think it may be time to catch some sleep. Walking back, my eyes were seriously wandering trying to possibly see one of these streetwalkers, but to avoid being accosted I zig-zaged the street to my hostel. Coming soon....CARNIVAL!!! Can't wait!!