Last day in Argentina.

Last night will forever be remembered for two of the craziest cab rides I´ve ever had.

I hailed a cab for a ride to the Ushuaia airport and quickly realized that learning Spanish for "LESS TALKING WITH THE HANDS AND MORE STEERING OF THE CAR!" would have been extremely helpful.

This guy was yammering away and talking so fast with his hands that he looked like an Italian (or Julie Thomason) on speed. I was able to pick up a little bit of what he was saying and he was talking about, of all things, a car accident. The problem I had was that I didn´t know if it was one in the past, or if he was giving me a preview of our impending one. It was crazy, but it didn´t stop there.

While I was hanging on for dear life in the back seat, I happened to notice we were at the airport. Thank goodness. I also noticed the speed limit, 20 km/hr. We pulled in, not at a leisurely 20 km/hr, but at a speed closer to that of, oh, I don´t know....SOUND.

I thought it was absolutely insane...and then I got to Buenos Aires.

This cab driver was apparently out sick the day they taught stopping in driver´s ed. He didn´t stop...for an-y-thing. I stopped counting the red lights he ran...at seven. He also drove like a maniac, but at least he didn´t talk with his hands. Oh no, he did something more intelligent while he weaved through traffic, he was text messaging someone from his cell phone.

My guess is the recipent was a cab driver in Ushuaia that couldn´t believe the coincidence that he too had just had a freaked out gringo in his back seat.

So, that brings me back to my final day in Argentina. I decided to take things easy today and just strolled around through town. I headed over to the Palermo district and walked through the very charming, and under-appreciated botanical gardens. If you go to Buenos Aires, it is worth a walk through there.

From there, I grabbed a light lunch and a short while later found myself in front of the zoo. It seemed like a perfect day for the zoo, and since I hadn´t been to one in a very long time, I stopped in.

It´s not very big, but I really enjoyed it. I also got one hell of a highlight as a pigeon found it´s way into the tiger cage and promptly got swatted down and devoured, all about 15´in front of me. I couldn´t help but smile. I hate pigeons.

After that I had the afternoon to kill so I walked around town with no purpose. I checked out their National Congress building and took a ride on the historic A line on the subway. It still uses the original wooden cars and is quite a neat experience. The windows even open, which was cool.

So, I´m now back at the airport. It´s been an awesome experience and one I´ll probably be talking about for a long while. My apologies in advance.

Well, better run and catch the flight. Talk to you all tomorrow from the good ol´USA.