South America Trip Report: Western Argentina

More tasty mate. Nacho makes a mean mate but then again, he's an expert.

Hello! Here's the fourth part of my South American trip report, although this one has mostly pictures. After we returned from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires, we stayed in a hotel for a few days, then finally caught a bus to Neuquén, in western Argentina. There we met up with our friend Nacho and stayed with him for a few days until his girlfriend Carla got to town. From there, Nacho --an excellent host, it must be said-- drove us all the way from Neuquén to Santiago, Chile, stopping in a few places on the way to visit and sleep. Here are some pictures:

On the bus from Buenos Aires to Neuquén. As it turns out, some parts of Patagonia aren't as majestic as magazines might have led you to believe; in fact, some parts of it look like Nebraska.

Angela eating some of Nacho's delicious food.

Nacho, El Nuevo Libertator, consummate host, CIA-trained extreme chef, and King of Deep Cuts on CD mixes. And Angela, who is also pretty great but who lacks such auspicious titles...so far.

We stayed at Nacho's place for a few nights and hung out in Neuquén, a pretty calm provincial capital. It was a bit like parts of Colorado, in that it was really dry, warm, and flat. After a few days, Carla arrived from Buenos Aires, and the four of us set off towards the north in Nacho's car.

Carla making mate in the back seat.

Our first stop was Mendoza. It seemed like a pretty nice city, and it would be nice to go back sometime and spend a bit more time there.

Angela and I in Mendoza

Nacho and Carla

For our second night on the road, we stayed in a town called Uspallata, on the road between Mendoza and the Chilean border. We also stopped at the Trapiche winery to see how the wine was made.

Carla and Nacho in front of the vineyards

Angela and a llama

Finally, after Uspallata, we made our way up the mountains to the Chilean border, relatively high in the Andes. We stopped on the way to take a look at Aconcagua, the highest mountain outside of the Himalayas.

The four of us

Aconcagua

Someone had problems, so they had to do a helicopter evacuation. Angela likes helicopters.

Our captain and his trusty Jeep.

The road after entering Chile. I wanted to take this picture earlier since we had already passed about half of the curves at this point, but there wasn't a good opportunity before this. But I think you get the point: it was curvy.

Once we crossed the border, we went down an incredibly twisty and curvy road with something like 32 switchbacks. The landscapes were very interesting, a mixture of Alpine, Mediterranean, and Desert scenery depending on where we were at the moment. And finally, we made it into Santiago, or at least the area near Santiago. It's probably good Nacho was driving, because he was fairly patient, but the roads were not clearly marked, and it was a bit confusing to find our way into the city itself. Once we were there, we also had to find a place to stay, which was another pain. But in the end, we found a hotel at a tourist info center, we actually got to the hotel, and then we went out to have a final dinner together.

The perpetually short Angela and her two gentleman heroes. 

At dinner in Santiago

The next day, Nacho and Carla headed back to Argentina, and Angela and I hung around the city. That just goes to show you what great folks Nacho and Carla are, going all that way just to keep us company and spend time with us. 

Anyhow, there are a few more posts coming up but if you want to look at more pictures from this part of the trip, you can check them out on Flickr in the meantime. Thanks for reading!

1 - Buenos Aires

2 - Uruguay

3 - Ushuaia

4 - Western Argentina

5 - Santiago

6 - Logistics

365: Picture a Day Project    365 Leftovers    All My Pictures    Sitzbook

South America Trip Report: Ushuaia, Argentina

All over Ushuaia you'll see references to it being "el fin del mundo," or "the end of the world." But why so negative, I ask? Why not call it "the START of the world"? Who says the world starts in the north? Maybe it starts in the south and works its way up.

When most people see the name "Ushuaia," they think, "What the hell's an Ushuaia?" Good question, although it should be formulated "Where the hell's an Ushuaia?"

Ushuaia is the world's southernmost city, at the very tip of South America. I'm not exactly sure why I decided to go there when I was planning the trip, but the more I read about it, the more interesting it sounded. And there were penguins!

Here I am, working on my Ushuaia street cred.

Since it's the southernmost city in the world, you'd think it would be cold. It is cold, and we weren't even there in the winter, but it wasn't as bad as we had thought it would be. To put things in perspective, if you look at a map or a globe, the city is actually about the same amount south as Copenhagen is north. I guess there's just a lot more "stuff" in the northern hemisphere, and it gets all up in the North Pole's business, but that's not really the case with the southern part of our charming little planet. 

I've never been to Alaska, but I have an image of Alaska similar to this in my mind.

But yeah, it was cold. The main thing we had planned during our visit was a tour to a penguin colony, and it was a definite highlight of the trip. After a visit to Estancia Harberton, one of the first European settlements in the area, we took a small boat to an island where the penguins nest and we were able to walk among them for an hour. Many tours go on larger boats, and since the island's administrators have a tourist limit, the people in the larger boats have to take pictures from the water, and the boats only stop for a few minutes. The people from those boats aren't allowed on the land. But the company that ran our tour is the only one with a permit to land on the island, and it limits visits to something like 80 tourists a day. Anyhow, enough talk! Check out some penguins:

Angela making friends.

The boat we came in on.

One thing they don't tell you about penguins:
They often come with penguin crap.

The lone king penguin. The guide said he goes back there every year, even though he's the only of his kind on the island, and everyone's smaller. Like Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused, maybe?

Me with penguins.

They have advanced moisture-wicking technology, apparently. 

Angela (in a jacket borrowed from the B&B owner) laughs in the face of Mother Nature.

So, the penguins were great, although the day we went it was windy and chilly. What else is there to do in Ushuaia? Well, that's an issue, as it turns out. Because of flight times and based on online reviews, we had 7 days in town, and the forums I'd read indicated that wouldn't be too much. But we kind of ran out of things to do after a couple days. We went to the nearby Tierra del Fuego National Park, which was beautiful. And we walked around town a lot. But we mainly went through stores in town, or stayed at the B&B and read to pass the time. It was relaxing, but we had the feeling that we should have stayed a few more days in Uruguay and cut out a few days in Ushuaia. But as they say, hindsight is 20/20.

In any case, have a look at some of the National Park pictures:

A friendly German couple that was staying at the same B&B as us. We went to the national park together. The B&B was a great alternative to a (very expensive) hotel, since we got to meet quite a few very nice people from all over the world.

An inlet in the national park.

Angela and the Germans on the trail.

This repulsive-looking stuff turns out to be a kind of weird, spongy fungus. I guess when it hardens, you can even eat it.

Nice flower.

And here are some pictures I took while around town:

Angela walking in a former prison we toured. It was pretty interesting, actually.

Docked ships.

A boat that was grounded and simply left in the harbor because it looked good.

Angela

The Bed and Breakfast we stayed at was really nice, and the owners were very friendly and welcoming. Although we probably budgeted more time than necessary in the town, it was relaxing to have a place to hang out after Buenos Aires, and before continuing on our voyage. 

And there were penguins!

So, that's it for Ushuaia. Thanks for reading and looking; if you feel like seeing more pictures, you can check out my Ushuaia set on flickr here. And if you want to see any of the other sections of this trip report, follow these links:

1 - Buenos Aires

2 - Uruguay

3 - Ushuaia

4 - Western Argentina

5 - Santiago

6 - Logistics

365: Picture a Day Project    365 Leftovers    All My Pictures    Sitzbook

South America Trip Report: Colonia, Uruguay

Colonia, whose complete name is Colonia del Sacramento, won us over very quickly. Just across the Río de la Plata from Buenos Aires, it's amazing that after an hour-long ferry ride, you can find yourself in a world with a completely different vibe than the Argentinean capital.

Our biggest regret about our trip to South America is that we only spent two days in Uruguay. To be fair, it's a lot easier to say that with hindsight. When I was planning our trip I didn't know what there was to do in Uruguay, and like most of my readers, the only real previous information I knew about Uruguay came from this Simpsons reference:

I take that back. I guess I did know that it was really close to Buenos Aires, since I had been to Buenos Aires in 2006. When I looked on the map, I kicked myself for not having just crossed the stupid river for at least a day trip (I also realized that in that same 2006 trip, I came incredibly close to Bolivia when I was in northwest Argentina. Stupid me). I had already missed one chance to get another country under my belt, and this time I was determined to not let it happen again.

As I mentioned before, it's just an hour-long fast ferry ride (or three hours on the slow, "loser" ferry) from Buenos Aires to Colonia. It's a bit expensive for the fast ticket; I think it was around $100 per person for the round-trip, but it was very nice service, and the new Buenos Aires terminal for Buquebus (the name of the ferry company) was really nice:

Angela in the Buquebus terminal, complete with a wall-sized waterfall.

The ferry's economy class waiting area. They were even playing classical music.
Why can't airport boarding areas be this nice?

Compared to the hustle, bustle, and full-on hugeness of Buenos Aires, Colonia is much more relaxed. A few people we talked to in Argentina expressed that they didn't like the city because it was a "typical Spanish colonial town," but neither Angela nor I had been to a typical Spanish colonial town, so it was cool for us. There's an older section of town that fills up with tourists from Buenos Aires during the daytime and especially during the weekends, but we found it wasn't too crowded when we were there. We spent the first day mainly wandering around town, and eventually we made our way to the beach.

I guess old towns attract old cars, because there were lots of old cars in Colonia, like this Studebaker.

Some columns on the sidewalk between the old town and the harbor.

A flower from the beautiful ceibo tree.

On the second day we just relaxed, ate delicious greasy food, and made our way to the beach again, this time to hang out a bit. The beach is close to the Atlantic, but it's still on the river. Although there's nice, white sand and the beach is clean and welcoming, the water itself isn't that nice since the Río de la Plata is a bit muddy with sediment. For a few hours of relaxing in the sun, though, it certainly was more than sufficient.

Angela at the beach. It sort of reminded me of the beaches near Copenhagen in Denmark.

A tree in the water.

Before we went to Uruguay, people told/"warned" us that Uruguayans drank a ridiculous amount of mate, and that we'd see people even carrying thermoses under their arms while walking down the street. We thought we might see one or two who fit this description, but nearly every other person on the street seemed to be drinking mate. It was kind of cool.

When researching our trip most of the forums I came across said that even a day trip to Colonia was more than sufficient, but with two days we felt tempted to hang out in the town a while longer. However, we had a flight out of Buenos Aires coming up and we weren't able to stay. It was a curious town, in that it did have a sort of tourist-town feeling, but once you leave the historic core, it's a "normal" city, and a nice one at that. Most places were very clean, the houses were really nice, food was cheaper than Argentina, everything seemed pretty relaxed but not too relaxed, the weather was wonderful, and everyone was very friendly with us. I actually kept wondering what the catch was; I was sure that there was some sort of dark secret that the town was hiding, but maybe it's simply a nice place to visit and live. Then again, maybe they sacrifice a bunch of tourists on the 15th of each month at the boat docks, and we just missed it by a day or two. Who knows.

Sure, it probably doesn't hurt tourism, either, but houses covered in plants and flowers added to the city's charm, and they seemed to be all over the historic center of Colonia.

In any case, I left Colonia intrigued not only by the city, but by Uruguay itself. It seems like it's the South American country that everyone forgets about, or at best confuses with Paraguay. If I make my way back to South America --and I certainly hope I will-- I will definitely have Uruguay on my list of places to go to.

Thanks for reading, and if you feel like checking out the rest of my Uruguay pictures, you can check out the Flickr set here.

For the rest of the trip report, you can check the links below:

1 - Buenos Aires

2 - Uruguay

3 - Ushuaia

4 - Western Argentina

5 - Santiago

6 - Logistics

365: Picture a Day Project    365 Leftovers    All My Pictures    Sitzbook

2011 Complete Pictures of the Day

2012 is here, and I've started on yet another "365 project," wherein I take a picture a day. Back on December 1, I completed two years of the Picture of the Day project, and it's been a lot of fun. Have a look at the 2011 pictures if you'd like:

If you want the captions and explanations for each picture, you make the slideshow full-screen and then click on "show info." If you've got a quick eye, you'll see that the first picture is one from February, since the actual first picture is of me and my Decembeard, which is a gross way to start off a slideshow. You may also notice that there are more than 365 pictures in this set; that's because I included December of 2010. For some reason, I started right in on the project on December 1, 2009, so I was always a month early with the milestones. If you're really bored, you can also check out the 2010 pictures here. Maybe there's some evidence of progress and growth in my photography, but I'm not sure. In any case, it has been a great way to motivate and push me to think of new ways to take pictures, and I do feel like I've enjoyed the hobby more and more through this project.

Thanks for reading and looking!

365: Picture a Day Project    365 Leftovers    All My Pictures    Sitzbook

Sitzbook: "Quicksand" by Nella Larsen

Author Nella Larsen. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

I won't write a big review about this book, but I did say that I wanted to at least mention each book on my Sitzbook list this year. If you remember, that's a book a week, i.e. 52 books, and if I do 52 big book reviews, this blog may become a bit dull. But we'll see...

Anyhow, let's look quickly at Quicksand. I found this in one of the Norton anthologies of American Literature that I had around the house. I left it in Fort Collins when I was visiting my family over Christmas, though --it was getting mold here in Costa Rica-- so I'm not sure if I made any notes or dog-eared any pages so I wouldn't forget any important piece of information.

But I don't think so. I was a short book, as was the other book I've read by Larsen, Crossing Over. Both deal with a half-black, half-white protagonist trying to cope with the pressures of society in the early 20th century. Larsen herself had a Danish mother and an African-American-West Indian father, and apparently both of her books have somewhat autobiographical overtones. If you want to know more, you've gotta roll up your sleeves just read the Wikipedia article about her, like I did. Lazy readers...

The book was good, although other than Crossing Over, I'm not sure I've read too many other pieces of literature to compare it to. The main thing that I noticed was that no matter where the protagonist Helga Crane found herself, whether teaching in the south, living in poverty in Chicago, living with a friend in Harlem, or living with relatives in Copenhagen, she seemed to suffer from discontent, restlessness, and anxiousness. But I suppose that may have been the point of the book; that a person in her circumstances, with her background, at that point in time, couldn't truly feel at home and in peace anywhere in the world.

I was glad I read this book, although I couldn't really say I "enjoyed" it, since it was a bit of a downer when all was said and done. I did like the Copenhagen part, if only because I hadn't expected that at all, and I also have found myself staying with Danish relatives outside of Copenhagen for a while (that sounds strange, but it's true).

So, that's all for the moment. Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

365: Picture a Day Project    365 Leftovers    All My Pictures    Sitzbook

South America Trip Report: Buenos Aires

The gate at the Congress building in Buenos Aires.
No one I asked seemed able to explain why the national seal featured a hat on a stick.
While I'm sure a quick internet search would tell me, I'd prefer to let the mystery be.

Hello! I'll finally start writing a bit more about our trip to South America in November and December. We were gone for a month, so in a way it was like we had three or four little "trips of a lifetime." I'll divide to report into six sections:

1 - Buenos Aires

2 - Uruguay

3 - Ushuaia

4 - Western Argentina

5 - Santiago

6 - Logistics

When I get each section finished, I'll link each post in the list above. I also realize that the "Logistics" section may seem a bit weird and not necessarily self-explanatory. In that part, I just intend to talk a little bit about the traveling itself, like how we got tickets (the tickets to South America were basically free because of frequent flyer miles, so I'd like to explain how that worked, in case some of you can benefit from the information).

So, let's get into it!

BUENOS AIRES

Ah, Buenos Aires, city of tango, gauchos, Evita, legendary cafes, and monetary crises. Sort of. Of those five things, it seems we only saw Evita's grave, but perhaps we're just crappy at planning tours.

I guess we also saw Evita rocking the mic on this skyscraper. She lit up at night.

We used Buenos Aires as a sort of "base" for our whole trip. For the first week, we stayed in an apartment I'd found at airbnb.com. I suppose this could also go in the logistics section, but it's just a quick note. For about 450 dollars a week, much less than a hotel would have cost us, we got a flat in the heart of Buenos Aires' historic San Telmo district. The apartment had a bedroom, kitchen, living room, full bath, wi-fi, and even a cell phone to use. I mention this not only because you could benefit from the site, but also because it fundamentally influenced the nature of our trip, letting us to feel like we were "experiencing" the city more. It was obviously not as "full-service" as a hotel, but it allowed us to relax and feel at home in a way no hotel can.

Angela with a graffiti mural near the apartment we stayed at in San Telmo.

Our time in Buenos Aires was spent on three main activities: visiting, walking, and eating. But most of all walking, it seemed. Although we could have taken cabs, buses, or subways, spring was in full swing when we were there, and the beautiful weather pushed us to walk. That is, it pushed me to walk, and I in turn pushed a slightly more reluctant Angela to walk. On one day we even apparently covered 76 blocks, but I only told her that after we were back in the apartment and I checked it out on a map. I thought she'd be proud about how much distance we'd covered, but instead I think she tried to use the information as an excuse to call for a walking hiatus the following day.

Our first day, our first walk. It was also the only day it rained a bit, so we waited it out in front of a huge, golden bank door.

The two of us in the Plaza San Martín. The trees and blossoms were beautiful.

The "generic flower" sculpture. The park is really nice, and the sculpture apparently opens and closes while following the path of the sun.

We also were able to see various friends. It was Angela's first time in South America, but I had previously been to Buenos Aires in 2006 to visit my friend Andrés, who I had met when the two of us were exchange students in Germany in 1998/1999. In that 2006 trip I also met some of his friends, and we were able to see some of them on this trip, as well. For example, I had met Leandro and Vicky on that trip, and on this trip they were living in a lovely apartment in the city. They kindly let us crash at their place after between our jaunts to Uruguay and Ushuaia, and they were very gracious hosts. We also got to see some of Andrés' family and met a friend of his name Paula, as well as the two enormous dogs living at the house Andrés and a friend are renting.

Andrés (left) and Leandro with a diminutive-looking Angela. It was great to hang out with them and other friends.

One of the glorious beastdogs that Andrés uses to guard his house.

Oh, and eating. We ate a lot of beef, empanadas, ice cream, and Italian food, as well as anything else that we happened to come across and that was too slow to escape from us. Of course, we also drank copious amounts of mate, which is basically a tea made from an herb called yerba mate and drunk from a gourd through a metal straw.

Angela drinking mate in the apartment where we stayed.

A provopan, a basic sandwich made with grilled provoleta (provolone) cheese on a bread roll. The dark parts are grill marks (they actually put the cheese itself on the grill) and a bit of herbs and oil. It looks a bit revolting, but it was absolutely delicious.

I think the best part of Buenos Aires was probably the people, and not just because we knew some friends there. I know that everyone says the best part of a trip is "the people," and I'm sure I'll also say it when I do the reports for the rest of our trip, but at least in this case, it's true. The people in Buenos Aires can be loud and suffer from a slight superiority complex at times, but they're nevertheless very welcoming and friendly. And they know how to make delicious food, especially grilled beef, so for me that goes a long way after spending over five years in Costa Rica, which is a bit of a culinary boondocks.

In the end, we ended up staying in Buenos Aires at three different points. The first was in the apartment we rented, the second at Leandro and Vicky's, and the third was in a Sheraton (I'll include more about how we managed to swing this in the Logistics post). Normally this would have been very well out of our price range, but I was able to use points and money for the stay, which reduced the cost substantially. We loved the hotel and our room, but the best part was possibly the pool and hot tub on the hotel's roof, which gave a scenic view of most of the city.

The view from the hotel's rooftop pool area.

So, that was Buenos Aires. If you want to see any more pictures from Buenos Aires, you can check out my Buenos Aires set on Flickr. I'll try to put up the other reports in the next few days, so look for them if you're interested.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

365: Picture a Day Project    365 Leftovers    All My Pictures    Sitzbook

Sitzbook Preview: "The Old Patagonian Express"

I've been busy lately uploading pictures from Iowa, Colorado, and Arizona (if you want to check them out, click on the place names), so I've not had a chance to write trip reports or book reviews in the last few days. I've also been reading, though, and I came across a passage in Paul Theroux's The Old Patagonian Express that I thought was interesting. The book is from the 1970s, and it's about a train trip he took from Boston to Patagonia. I'm only on page 50 or so, but it's very entertaining so far. He really does write about traveling and the trip itself, while most writers would just focus on the destination. On page 4 he says:

"My usual question, unanswered by these--by most--travel books, is, How did you get there? Even without the suggestion of a motive, a prologue is welcome, since the going is often as fascinating as the arrival. [...] we have become used to life being a series of arrivals or departures, of triumphs and failures, with nothing noteworthy in between. Summits matter, but what of the lower slopes of Parnassus? We have not lost faith in journeys from home, but the texts are scarce."

In any case, I've run across quite a few quotes already, and I'll share more of them with you when I'm done with the book. In the meantime, have you read other books by Theroux? If so, which ones do you recommend? 

Thanks for reading!

365: Picture a Day Project    365 Leftovers    All My Pictures    Sitzbook

2011 Sitzbook Wrap-Up

At the start of 2011 I decided to try to read a book a week, and that I'd call my project Sitzbook (click here for the Sitzbook page, which has the list for 2011, along with links to books I reviewed). I'm happy to say that I accomplished my goal, and that I'm not sick of reading. I decided I'd do it again for 2012, and I'll try to do at least a brief review or mention of each book, which is something that I wasn't able to do with my 2011 list.

Before we move on to 2012, though, let's look back on 2011. One thing I think I'll do with this year's list is count the page numbers, at least out of curiosity. Some books that I read were quite short and fast (like Daisy Miller or Illusions), and some were longer (like Crime and Punishment or Captain Corelli's Mandolin). A couple were gigantic (like 11/22/63 and The Stand, both by Stephen King, the former over 800 pages, and the latter around 1,100!). It's difficult to have an accurate page count because some are on the Kindle, which doesn't have "pages" for some books, and a few were from literature anthologies, which number things differently. In any case, I'll try for that this year.

So, how about a few winners and losers?

FASTEST BOOKS:

I read a few of these books within 24 hours, but I think the champion(s) must be the three books in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games series. I read all three of them in less than two days, much of which I spent on our exercise bike. So in addition to broadening my brain, I hopefully worked against the broadening of my waistline. The three books were all great, of course.

SLOWEST BOOK:

Probably The Stand. It seems to have taken a good chuck of March and April, partly because we were working and traveling, and we also had house guests (Henni and Andy). Plus it's 1,100 pages or so, and I read it in German, and I'd already read the English original, so it wasn't as suspenseful as some other books. It was still really good, though, but just slow going. Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian was also a bit difficult to get through, albeit not especially slow.

"WORST" BOOK:

I honestly can say that all the books had something I liked, but if there were one or two books that failed to catch my attention, they were Thomas Mann's Death in Venice (dreadfully dull, no real plot) and Germs, Genes, & Civilization by David P. Clark (a free book from Amazon).

BEST BOOK:

With 52 very different books, it's hard to choose one. So I won't. Perhaps because they're still fresher in my mind, I might say 11/22/63, Stephen King's time-traveling story about a man who tries to stop the Kennedy assassination, or Chuck Klosterman's The Visible Man, a story about a psychiatrist whose voyeur patient has developed a way to hide himself. I'm a big fan of both authors, and both books were a bit of a departure from their normal styles, so that also gave these books an air of novelty. Plus they were simply well-written and very entertaining. Although I'd love to read 100% "deep" books about "important" things, it's nice to have a distraction, especially if you're trying to get through a book a week.

So, that's it for the moment. Have you read any of the books on the list? If so, what did you think? Do you have any suggestions for 2012?

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

365: Picture a Day Project    365 Leftovers    All My Pictures    Sitzbook