Best Day Ever

I have said the phrase time and time again throughout this trip, but I truly did have the best day ever on my last full day in South America.

Los porteños: Maxi, Marcelo, y Omar

Bonnie and I reunited with Omar and Marcelo, our porteño amigos we met in Bolivia, and hung out with bit last time we were in Buenos Aires. Their travel buddy, Maxi, picked us up and we went to a park for an asado (barbeque), and Argentines love their meat. That's probably an understatement.

El asado

A sunny, warm fall day, tasty meat/potatoes/fried cheese, a car trip to Tigre where we sipped mate along the riverbank and walked around (mostly looking for the car), followed by pizza (who knew we could still eat again the same day as the asado)... Wow.

Lost in Tigre

Omar, bless his train-loving heart, even gave Bonnie and I magnets to remember Buenos Aires, and hopefully come back to travel some day (the guys want to rent a motor home and go through Patagonia in 3 weeks. Sounds like fun!). Best day ever.

Learning Guitar

Downside of living in a hostel dorm for a week: Dumb Dutch-bag roommate who snores and smells, and claims it's the fault of anyone else in the dorm.


Perks of living in a hostel for a week: AMAZING staff (JuamP, Facundo, Nacho, Jugo) who invite us to lunch with them and are even willing to dar una vuelta for a mate, and the street performer who is super nice and is teaching me how to play guitar. Thank you, Adrian.

A Lazy Day

We took one or two days easy, including a day hike to Lago Gutierrez and la Cascada de los Duendes, as recommended by the cook. The lakes really remind me of home, with all the pines and other trees, and pebbly beaches (minus the mountains, of course). I found the greatest, most twisted tree in the world, and we napped by the beach.

Circuito de los 7 Lagos

Bonnie and I befriended the Argentine and Chilean dudes in our dorm, rented a car with them, and proceeded to drive through the common lake route near Bariloche.

Let's just say, Bonnie and I found a bridge. May or may not have jumped...

San Carlos de Bariloche

Bonnie and I came to Bariloche hoping to go fishing with two Argentines (including Tad, who gave me the Yerba Amanda thermos) we met in the hostel at el Bolson (hence the picture in the previous post), but it was too windy to fish. Bummer.

So we drank mate and hung out at the lake. Buena onda.

Bonnie and I planned to only stay for two nights and head to Mendoza, but we have reached the conclusion that our funds are running low, we are tired of moving, moving, moving, and this lake district of Argentina is bomb dot com.

Plus, I need a reason to return to Argentina.

Yesterday we rode bikes for the day around several lakes, the day before we ate AMAZING ice cream (thank you Helado Juaja) and today we're planning to be vagabonds and just wander.

What better way to wind down the trip?

Bariloche

Tadeo is my gaucho.

El Bolson

Recommended el Bolson by several Argentines, we headed north from el Chalten and wound up in a slightly warmer mountain town where we did several hikes and experienced a great Feria, artesian fair, where I ate many strawberries and raspberries.

We did some hiking, but once again spent a large amount of time in the hostel, this time chatting it up with a Mexican, Costa Rican, more Argentines, a dude from New Zealand, a Canadian, a Swede and another Israeli. Lovely.

We even roomed in a closet, no joke. It was the side room where the roof slopes down on the house, and only had mattresses, but we stayed for cheaper by sleeping in our sleeping bags (it is the end of our trip, you know). The hostel worker referred to it as Narnia. We were sold.

Some hiking was done, some ping pong was played, we even decorated for a birthday party and ate tons of homemade pizza and other delicious food made by the mother of the birthday boy (who was actually the hostel owner).

One amazing Argentine gave me his Yerba Amanda thermos as a gift since I told him I've been searching for one. Gracias, Tadeo!!

El Chalten

The next town, El Chalten, was more or less an alternative to an expensive Chilean National Park, because in el Chalten we could hike for free, which is what we did when weather was nice.

We even camped one night. We may or may not have set up the tent in a non-camping zone, followed by us seeing no reason to pack up the tent and sleeping bags when we only needed to walk 100 meters or so, resulting in us carrying an already set up tent. Maybe that happened.

We did hike to Cerro Fitz Roy, good ol' Fritz, which was quite the hike, might I see. It's a nice jaggedy mountain with a glacier lake at the top of the trail. All water being potable, I drank some of that deliciously pure glacier water.

The hostel experience might have been the best part of our stay, because during a miserable rainy day or two we sat in the kitchen and chatted it up with people from Argentina, Switzerland, the US, Israel and Puerto Rico (which is also the US, albeit without a star as we mercilessly teased the dude).

El Calafate

Going north from Tierra del Fuego on the Chilean side, we took a bus ride to el Calafate, home of the Perito Moreno Glaciar in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares.


This Glacier National Park is a bit different that the one in Montana. As in, the Perito Moreno was ENORMOUS, the pictures just can't give you the best impression of it's 60 plus meter height. No joke. And when the ice randomly fell off the side, the splash would be huge, also.


It was a lovely day, and Bonnie and I traveled with an Israeli girl from the hostel who insisted we could also be Israeli (and actually initially spoke to me in Hebrew, as did the hostel worker and our roommates, because apparently I could really be from Israel. Masseltov!!!).

Getting to el Calafate

We flew to Ushuaia.

We took a bus to el Calafate (also in Argentina).

We had NO idea we would pass through Chile on the way to el Calafate (across the Magellan Straight, believe it or not).

But.

This meant we had to throw away nearly ALL our food. I had just gone shopping in Ushuaia in order to avoid the more expensive stores in el Calafate!!

Thankfully, the busdriver took pity on us and literally helped us hide our bag of groceries, moving it around under his jacket as customs police took a peak through the bus.

Thank you, bus driver.

And, yes, I officially visited Chile.

Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego

Bonnie and I went to the end of the world's last national park, and incidentally ran into both (hilarious) George Clooneys from our hostel (they rode bikes from the hostel, and continued to see the park by bike...It was a 30 minute ride by bus. golly.), and the president of the United States, and a chill porteño, Javier. I'll let the pics say the rest.

Note, we are moving on to el Calafate tomorrow, so once again, no clue when I'll update this again. Chao!!

Glaciar Martial

Our second day in Ushuaia we spent talking to two porteños about possible routes as we proceed up north on Route 40. We received great advice, and it was entertaining because they enjoyed our humor (sometimes there is a boundary between American humor and other cultures) and they both somehow looked like George Clooney.

After our conversation I mentioned Glaciar Martial, and a different man at the hostel, Luis, wanted to join us. So he grabbed his thermos of hot water and mate, and we left.

We chose to walk the 7km to the glacier, because a taxi is expensive, and it was still a nice day for a walk (despite going up hill the entire time). We found several short cuts along the way, then finally made it the base of the glacier. Here we chose not to take the chair lift up to be closer to the glacier, because it was also expensive, it was still a nice day, and we wanted the exercise. We continued sipping mate and made our way up.

It took forever to get to the top of the chairlift, then there was still the actual steep trail up to the glacier. Let's just say, as we were climbing up this steep trail, the George Clooney look alikes passed as going down. They had visited a museum FIRST and somehow passed us completely, seeing the glacier before us and everything... By the bicycle pants they both wear, I knew they were well fit, but gosh.

-I believe they did opt for the taxi and chairlift, if I understood one George correctly. But, still.

Anyway, with walking slow and several breaks, all three of us made it to the snow of the glacier and took many pictures, and it snowed a bit on us, and I may or may not have slipped and fallen on the glacier snow when I was posing for a picture.

We walked the long walk back to town, hit up a grocery store, and arrived back to the hostel 7 hours after our adventure began. A great day in Patagonia!

Ushuaia

Bonnie and I safely arrived to the end of the world (after a night of little to no sleep and figuring out buses to the Aeroparque with the Rasta...a lot more difficult than it should be ;).

We decided to walk the 5 km from the airport of Ushuaia into town with our big backpacks (hey, they must be down to 20 lbs) and enjoyed the scenary. Blue skies, shimmering sea water, snow capped mountains, and brisk 55 degree Fahrenheit weather. That's what I'm talking about, after so much time in jungle and hot desert.

We checked into the cheapest hostel (don't worry, Shasha, we didn't sleep in homemade tents) and wandered around the first day to check out the cute touristy town. It's a lot more tranquil than the others and reminds me of a fishing town in any US state.

Sleep consumed me at 7.30 pm (after a long hot shower), and I did not wake up until a little after 6.30am the next day.

Lovely.

Acquaintences

In the Bolivia mine tour of Potosí we met two porteños from Buenos Aires capital and kept in touch with them through facebook.com, Omar and Marcelo.

We actually met up with them the evening before leaving for Ushuaia and they were our 'guias' so to speak, and brought us to the Casa Rosada, or the Pink House, where the Presidenta does business meetings and works. We went to la Boca, a colorful part of BA close to the water, with lots of art. We finished by eating some pasta and making plans for a cook-out when Bonnie and I return to BA for our flight home.

It'll be a blast. Marcelo is a musician in his early 40s and very talkative and informative. Omar is a sweetheart and knows everything about Patagonia, so we enjoyed getting some travel plans from him.

Reasons to like Buenos Aires

1. Pedestrian cross walks with lights.

2. Plenty of gorgeous parks to choose from.

3. Public transportation around the clock.

4. Trees!

5. Seven peso pizzas (the equivalent of $1.75) that are of medium size and taste delicious.

El Tigre

Close to the capital city, or just a posh neighborhood far from the central of the capital city lies El Tigre. We went by bus, and then walked along the riverside for a nice day out. We stopped at an ice cream place to listen to Bob Dylan music and grab fruit from the tree (but not actually eat ice cream), climbed a tree on the riverside, watched water traffic (kayaks and speed boats and jet-skis) where I noted porteños are less conservative than American men...Short shorts are in!

We finally made our way to the Museo del Arte. The art was actually really good, but the building is what enthralled me. A great place to get married, in my opinion. It use to be a club for the water sportsmen/women, and now houses paintings, but it is a palace!

The Tango

Porteños (folks from Argentina) prefer the night life. Night life until 5am night life. I prefer to sleep at 10:30 and wake up early.



As the Rasta insisted, 'Today is Friday. You cannot sleep. Positive vibrations.'


So Friday night we went out on the town, found a lovely plaza in the San Telmo area (fancy part of the capital city) and in this plaza a restaurant had set up many tables and chairs. Live accordian and guitar music filled the air and two women and one man danced tango and sang.



It was beautiful.


We were outside in the fresh air, we sat at a table (okay, only Bonnie ordered something in order to permit us to sit at a table).



Buenos Aires city has claim on the world's heritage for tango (or something like that).


And we stayed out until 3ish, and made it back to the house around 4am. I was tired. And still woke up early the next day...

The Circus Crowd

Our circus friends... Standing three people tall! They also juggle, do trapeze, and the guy in the middle does magic tricks.












And am I levitating from a magic trick, or bouncing on a trampoline?? Nobody knows...










And Beto (the Rasta), Bonnie and Luigi (yes, from the Nintendo game) in the back of a truck. (I was sitting pecariously in a chair in the back of the truck (upon their suggestion), then looked back and saw a bus and a lot of other traffic behind us in 4 lanes...Hmmm.)

The Circus Performers

Indeed, Bonnie and I are participating in www.couchsurfing.org to save a bit of money here and there, so we left our posh hostel downtown (way too many tourists there) and headed out 7 miles to la casa del Mago (Magician) and his roommate the Rasta.

Interesting to say the least.

We've seen them stand 3 people tall with a guy who looks like Luigi from the Nintendo game, we've jumped on the trampoline that happens to be inside the room we sleep in, we sleep on safety mattresses below an indoor trapeze, and argue against the extreme vegan-ism of the Mago. (Mago doesn't drink water. It's 'poison.')

Pictures will come eventually, believe me, the world must know...

Buenos Aires

Bonnie and I have been in Buenos Aires for a total of 2 days, and it is LOVELY.



This is the 'Paris of South America.'



We are in a touristy hostel (Hostel Suites, Hostelling International) downtown on Avenida Florida, which is a pedestrian street lined with boutique stores and vendors of trinkets in the middle of the street with their wares.



We went to a Cementerio de la Recoleta yesterday, which has giant statues and many coffins... We even found Evita Peron's resting site (just follow the tour crowds!!).

*Eva was the stellar first lady of Argentina once upon a time



Our plans keep changing, but as of now we have a flight to Ushuaia (on a map, this is the TIP of South America) on Sunday and will be busing up Route 40 all the way to Bariloche and seeing several outstanding national parks and continuing to Mendoza, where we will complete the triangle and return to Buenos Aires in time for a flight back to the US Apri 11.



Due to not knowing anything about the technology availability to come, I am unsure how frequent updates will be. Maybe more frequent. Probably not.

Ode to Guacamole

In honor of Julie's blog "Letras," I would like to write a letter, also.

Querido Guacamole,

You are amazing. You are filling, delicious with the right amount of sal and fresh pancitos (salt and bread, for you who no habla español).

You give me fruits and vegetables in my diet.

You are so easy to create.

And so delicious to eat!

Thank you. For being so tasty, more or less healthy, and very filling for a vagabond traveler.

Yours truly,

The girl with avocado stains on her t-shirt.

Puerto Iguazú

Bus rides are wicked expensive in Argentina (of course, we just came from two of the poorest countries in all of South America), but we chose to continue on to Puerto Iguazú, home of AMAZING cataratas, or waterfalls.

This is the second highlight for our second month in South America (the first month being Machu Picchu).

I'll let the pictures speak the rest of my joy.

Corrientes

We moved east to Corrientes, where we stayed with the lovely Lily and realized we are in a HOT part of Argentina.

So we SWAM!! It was great. The water was brown from rain stirring up the bottom, but clean enough. I still had a floatie to enjoy, too.