The Past Week: Planes, Trains and Automobiles...

Well actually, none of the above. More like Boats, Subways and Police Stations :) Mom, dad, don´t worry, the latter of the 3 was just bc i acted as the translator to my friend who was robbed in Montevideo - literally as we were entering the door to our hostel! And by a pack of 13 year old boys, such PUNKS. They are lucky it wasn´t me whose purse they tried to snatch cuz i would´ve gone medieval on their arses...anyway, it added a bit of excitement to our night nonetheless. Oh wait, but it was only 7PM when this happened! Ya, Montevideo, Uruguay gets immediately sketchy upon sunset. And we were like a block off of a main plaza. Thankfully the police recovered my friend´s wallet later that night, complete with her atm card, though lacking the cash of course :( So needless to say we didn´t leave the hostel Tuesday night! But the hostel staff was really nice and did what they could. Although that memory of Montevideo, my first stop in Uruguay after a quick 3 hour Buquebus (fast ferry thingy) from Buenos Aires, was not so fond, we (me and the 2 Irish lassies who i had met in Rosario - Rhona and Grainie - such irish names!) were able to take advantage of the sunshine earlier that day at the Mercardo del Puerto, enjoying the free "medio y medio" (uruguayan specialty of half champagne, half white wine) and Provolone appetizer that lured us to one of the great parillas, steakhouses. AFter we´d had our fill of entrecot steak, puré de papas (mash) and veggies (a rarity!), we walked around the town a bit. I think the bandit kids first spotted us then...grr...the girls clued me in on a place to get a cheap massage, which i did the following morning. THe one site i had been told to see, Teatro Solis, was not offering tours when i stopped by Wednesday. They wouldn´t even let me poke my head in to see it - i even tried name-dropping a guy I have met in my travels who used to work there, but that still did´t work!! I was ticked, but oh well. I was pretty ready to get outta there anyway, after the robbery and everything.

So yesterday afternoon I caught a bus to Colonia, just over the water from BA, and an even shorter ferry ride. A quick note about that...so this wasn´t a typical "cama" bus that i´ve come to get used to here in South America, replete with gross yet acceptable bathroom with a fold down toilet seat. No, this was for sure a "semi-cama" bus, pretty full, and if you think it´s hard to go to the bathroom on a plane, think again my friends! Try peeing whilst bouncing up and down, swerving back and forth, holding the toilet seat down with your knee while trying to cover it with toilet paper. It´s really fun, really. In the midst of my cursing and frustration, I looked in the mirror behind the toilet and just started laughing at myself. It´s nice that i can find some sort of amusement out of these small annoyances :)

So I knew th town of Colonia del Sacramento would be small and quaint, and indeed it is. As i walked into the hostel, i told a guy i was goig out for a walk and he said, "don´t go too far, you won´t have anything to see tomorrow. NO, seriously." Haha. He was kind of right, but i still managed to have a nice walk around today. Unfort. the weather is quite crappy, misty/foggy, so i can´t enjoy the waterfront as much as summertime probably is. Last night the hostel had an asado, and i enjoyed the sausage, but the beef was mediocre. I am becoming quite the critic of beef around these parts, esp since I have it at least once a day. Trying to cut back, and seriously i am going on an only white meat diet when I get back - i exactly 3 weeks i might add! all going by so quickly...anyway, Colonia was nice, relaxing, and i finished a great book this afternoon - Pilate´s Wife (about Pontius PIlate´s wife - a bit blasphemous at the end, but all in all a great story :).

So over the weekend I was in Rosario, a quick 4 hour busride from BA. I met up with a friend of CHarles´, named Ross, who hyas been living there 1.5 years. He was very courteous, and I felt a lady once again, not some washed up backpacker as I´ve come to see in the mirror. ha! We walked down the main street and found a great restaurant to enjoy dinner at. Unfort i had eaten a huge veggie buffet lunch in BA, so wasn´t able to take advantage of the many choice offerings for dinner. SHux. We grabbed a drikn at the newest club but called it an early night. The next morning he had to leave super early for work, so i clamored over to my hostel to try and check in, but since it was like 7:45am, they were´t quite ready for me yet. Th nice guy up front did let me go upstairs to the cafe adjoining to rest on the pillows and bean bags tehy had up there. I did do that and even though I felt homeless laying down up there and trying to catch some more shut eye, I was thankful for the chance to rest a bit more before setting out on my day.

Rosario is a pretty big city, and has TONS of shopping! I bought 2 new pairs of skinny jeans for like $33 each, i mean, talk about a deal! I stopped at a cafe for breakfast, looking like a hobo since all my stuff was locked up at the hostel whcih i still couldn´t check into. I didn´t mind the stares though, i was used to it ;) I will say that Rosario has some FANTASTIC coffee. I had it a few times in teh few days i was there too...so i did my share of walking around, checked out th Monument de la Bandera, and met some new friends - mostly all Irish (aside from the 2 chicas previously mentioned, i also met Owen, from Cork). Owen and i kind of did the same touristy thing on saturday, had lunch, and convinced one of the girls to go out with us that night to one of the biggest clubs in th country/South America - MDM (pronounced "madame"). It holds 6,000 people, but friday is th bigger night adn since th night before we didn´t make it out of our hostel bar just chatting, we went Saturday. It indeed was big, and filled up more an dmore after our arrival at 2am. I couldn´t last past 4am, but i will give you a funny image. So there were multiple floors of dancing, etc, and we were at one point on th e "rock n roll" floor. why they called it that i wasn´t sure. By this point Rhona and I had lost Owen to the sea of people, and decided to dance. So as they blared "GLORIAAAA" I was soon the only person so excited to hear one of my favorite 80s songs that i was bounching up and down dancing. No one else seemed as thrilled as i was - maybe bc Rhona and I were the only white people there, who knows...before I left, some guy walked up and called me "divina" and tried to sweep me off my feet, but I said, nice try buddy, and made me way to a taxi! Those Argentine men, so sneaky ;()

Okay, running off to the p0rt to catch my boat. I´ll post photos tonight or soon. I fly to Sao Paulo in the morning, whoopeee!

IGUAZU FALLS!

Well, this place is unbelievable...seriously. ON a whim I decided to go with my new friend Ian up to Iguazu since i had to get my Brazilian visa stamped within the next week or so. So after my overnight terrible bus from Bariloche to Buenos Aires (which played probably the most ghetto video i´ve ever seen - it was likely a 1974 "C" list film from some latinamerican country full of terrible singing and even worse attire...and then they played the same horrid latinamerican music videos over and over and over!), I spent a day in BA, just taking it easy, meeting up with my friend Will from the Inca Trail, and then met a couple more of his buddies, Tim and Ian. 3 of us did a bike tour in the morning, and as I´d decided the night before to head to Iguazu, i did that night on another overnight bus. But this time I was flying back, no more buses!

So i got to Iguazu a bit later than i thought since there was an accident on the road. But arrived at the Hostel Inn which is one of the best hostels in Argentina! Just outside of Puerto de Iguazu, it had a huge pool, big open common areas, and little bungalows where my dorm was. I also ran into friends there from other areas on the "gringo trail" down here. Anyway, some guy i was sitting with at breakfast the next morning was also headed to the Argentinian side of the falls that day so Nick from New Zealand and I shared the day together there, exploring on our own rather than going with the tour from the hostel (more economical for us! look at me saving money ;) Anyway, I will let the pics speak for themselves. Took lots of them as it was impossible not to. You almost felt as if you were in a dream it was so surreal. i still can´t believe i was there! That night i was exhausted from a full day of walking and getting in a boat and driving straight into the falls! CRazy fun. We went into Garganta del Diablo ("devils throat") and the other parts. I think Iguazu, although not hte highest falls, is one of the widest in the world. Just breathtaking!

Got to experience something somewhat unique that night. Because it was full moon, I got to go on the full moon tour of the falls, a totally different experience, and also quite mind blowing. the pics didn´t turn out too well so I´m keeping them in my mind :) Next day I made it thru 2.5 hours on various buses and border crossings to get to the Brazilian side of the falls. Worth it, bc that was a different view and more amazing stuff! Saturday night our hostel had a big asado and mini show with Brazilian type dancers with large backsides. They have no shame about g-strings here people...even if they are "well endowed" back there. The guys were somewhat dumbfounded, ha!

So now i´m back in BA and have already done a tango dinner show with Irish Alison and her friend Sean, and last night went to this amazing drum show in some back warehouse. Just improve group making some crazy jams. Hippies, gringos and locals filled this place, freestyle dancing, whatever. It was great . I´ve met up with some friends that I met in south Chile, so we had a big group last night, some from my hostel too. Woo hoo! Should be a great rest of the week, assuming the rain stays away (yesterday it did but I still wnet and did some sightseeing!).

Cheers, and many blessings.

Bye bye Bariloche...

So I´ve been in Bariloche, Argentina the past 3 nights, and it is quite the beautiful place. It is nestled right in the Patagonia (though not too far south), and is on a lake in between loads of mountains. Pretty touristy place, full of lots of Brazileños and porteños (people from Buenos Aires), plus all of us backpackers from around the world. There are chocolate shops EVERYWHERE and omg they are so good. My fave is Mumushka :) This place is also well known for having the largest ski resort in the southern hemisphere, Cerro Catedral, though sadly i can´t say i visited it! There hasn´t been new snow since last week, and therefore I am not repeating my oh-so-fabulous experience of Los Penitentes again with bad snow and equipment that didn´t fit!

So what have I done? Well, the first night my 4 other friends from Pucón and I walked around the streets taking it all in, and had a nice dinner at a local spot. My steak was so so, yet another not great ARgentinian steak experience. When is it going to happen - that perfect bite?! Hoping in BA...anyway, it´s odd, they don´t sell alcohol in stores after 11pm here, which i guess is good, but then it forces you to go to a bar and pay almost as much for a pint of beer as i did for dinner! Which by the way was 17 pesos (the pint), or about $5.75. Pretty expensive for beer, but cheap for dinner and wine!

The 2nd day a girl I met from the UK, Madeline (who reminds me of Marissa! Happy birthday Mariss!!), and I went to Cerro Otto, and hiked to the top rather than taking the cable cars. Well, that was basically straight up for over an hour, so it was rough, and i was trekking thru snow in a t-shirt b-c i was so hot! Gorgeous views on top though, and worth it. Lucky for us, as we started our descent, we were picked up by 3 cute porteños who gave us a lift back to the centro. Nice! I walked around town a bit more, and bought a bottle of wine for the upcoming wine fiesta at my fantastic Hostel 1004 (which is so named for the apartment number on the 10th floor). That was a blast, and enjoyed a bit too much wine with some of my new and old friends. That then led to a night at South Bar with 3 Irish girls, 2 Scots, and loads of cute ARgentinians...

Yesterday i had a rude awakening at 8am for my all day visit to El Tronador, a huge mountain and glacier about 2 hours away. I sat in the bus almost all day with Alli and Elle, two British girls who were very sweet. We got out and walked around and had lunch, etc etc, and took in the sights. Last night I was ready for bed by 8pm, but made myself stay awake to figure out my situation with Buenos Aires. I am now taking a bus versus my Airpass flight since I didn´t book anything in time! It´s winter break and everyone apparently is traveling b-t here and there...so 19 hours from the time I leave i will be in the capital city! Oh boy! Overnight bus, sweet...but I have a "cama" seat so it´s not that bad :)

Alright, gotta go get the bus, Ill catch up more from BA! Enjoy the beautiful photos...having issues with flickr so the latest aren´t on there yet!

Valdivia and PUcon

After my restful stay at Happy House in Santiago, I made my way south to Valdivia, in Chile´s Lake District (by the way the rest of my happenings in Mendoza are posted below, also new). Valdivia is a pretty cool university town, though I wasn´t so sure after arriving on a Sunday evening, in the dark. I flew there, took a transfer to town, and landed at Airesbuenos Hostal, which really wasn´t my favorite place. A bunch of students live there full time, so it just wasn´t as well kept as I like. But alas, I had already been denied at one place and i didn´t have time to find another, so i stayed the night there. Well God has his funny ways of working, so although I was disappointed at the lodging situation, I was SO excited when I was walking out of my room only to notice a Bible next to one of the bunks. First sign of a Christian i´ve seen since i left Colombia. So i wrote a little note saying how encouraged I was to see it, and that i hoped to meet this person later that night...more on that later.

I rolled out sola into town, which was practically dead, but found a great place, Entrelagos, for dinner. IT´s famous for its chocolate and hot chocolate but i didn´t muster the appetite after my dinner, so i just took their word for it. Ended up meeting an American girl studying there, who two nights later met me for a beer at the Kuntsmann cerveceria. Nice! SO, went back to my hostal and read a bit downstairs. THe chilean students weren´t all that friendly or talkative ith me, and by that point i knew i was changing hostels the next day. BUT, along came john, the guy with the bible, and we chatted for a while. It was great to encourage and be encouraged. He had been needing a pick me up as well, so that was just totally the Lord working in His ways. Anyway, we hope to meet up in Buenos Aires. He is teaching English in Patagonia region, and is on vaca.

The next day I found a good hostel, adn the lady who ran is was super nice. she even drove me back to Airesbuenos to pick up my bags and take me back to her place. Awesome! Every Valdivian i met was like that - helpful, really nice, and didn´t expect anything in returnm even when offered. Soo i tooted around Valdivia a bit that day and what a change from the day before! There were tons of people walking around, and teh city was very much bustling with activity, even in teh drizzle and clouds. After i had had enough of being cold outside, i stumbled into Cafe Hausmann where i had honestly some of the BEST cake i´ve ever had - called Kuchen (the town was colonized by Germans). It was walnut goodness on top over yellow cake with a layer of cream in between. omg, w.y.p. So worth the calories! And while in the cafe, i recognized the only two other people staying in my hostel, two French girls. They were super nice as well, and we decided to meet up later that evening in the hostel to go grab dinner. Also in the cafe was another American girl eating with her Chilean friend from school. Totally reminded me of being in Spain studying, and made me quite nostalgic actually :( Oh to be young again! haha.

so Frenchies and I hung out next to the heater for a few hours in our hostel, then went out for a nice steak dinner at a nice restaurant recommended by hostel owner lady. It was kind of expensive for my budget, but a nice meal. still not the "perfect steak". The next day the 3 of us met up and lucky for us, the sun even made its appearance. We ventured to Niebla, abouta 20 minute busride away, where you go to the port and catch a ferry to two other islands, Corral and Isla Macera, both which had these really cool ruins b-c they were used as strongholds to protect Valdivia back in the 1600 and 1700s. Anyway, absolutely gorgeous and not what i was expecting! check out my photos...we ate lunch on Corral at this tiny little spot, and i nearly threw up when one of the girls found a worm in her fish. We had each ordered a different white fish and shared with each other. Thank the Lord that none of us got sick, but i was pretty close, even before i saw the worm. That said, it was good food! But disgusting after the fact. And we basically had to fight with the waitress to tell her we weren´t paying full price for the wormy fish. She finally conceded at half price! So we decided to head to the third island after walking around Corral, but were hesitant bc they said the last ferry was at 5 and we went over at 430. Ya, well, we think they forgot us, and before we went into panic mode after the sun went down, we decided to go with the local fisherman who offered to take us on his little boat back to Niebla. Thank God for him! And he wouldn´t accept our pay...

SO i got off and went ot the beer factory and the girls went back to the hostel. Good times and met my friend Teresa there for some deep discussion about life, family, and Christianity :) Took the bus yesterday morning here to Pucón and am enjoying my time here! Got in adn was flagged down by Claudio, who owns a hostel next to the bus station and arranged a tour for the afternoon from 2 to 8 where me and 6 others went around and saw views of the beautiful mountains, volcanos, Ojos del Caburgua (waterfalls that come right out of the earth bc the water travels underground for 5km!), and finally ended at a hot springs, Termas Los Pozones. soo nice! 5 pools all different temps. It was so fun getting in a bathing suit too ;) Then we all came back and Claudio cooked dinner for us while we drank way too much wine (basically i didn´t have any water to drink so just kept drinking wine...oops!)- We all had so much fun though, and when I all of a sudden decided to stagger back to my hostel by myself to go to be d(they were all staying at Claudio´s hostel and I was in a different one), they all sent a "search party" out to try and find me! haha. Claudio knew I was gone but they all thouight it´d be fun to go knock on the door of my hostel and ask for me at 1 in the morning. Tehehe.

So we planned to go to the park this morning for a hike, but hte rain has been going ALL DAY since late in the night last night. I have accomplished nothing today aside from this blog and my adventurous trek to the supermarket. I decided agianst zip-lining in the rain bc i wanted to not die. The main thing here is to climb the volcano, but with this weather you can´t do much at all. Shame, cuz i´m leaving tomorrow for Bariloche. It´s supposed to rain for like 4 more days too. Poo.

Okay, people need the computer, but here are some photo highlights!

catching up on a rainy day! Rest of Mendoza...

OMG do i have so much to catch up on! i last wrote (well, really wrote) when I had arrived into the centro in Mendoza. I actually spent another 4 days there, i was having such a good time. yes, that totalled 8 days in Mendoza when I planned for only 4 or so. Haha, thanks to Lindsay and Emil, Alison and Kate (my new friends I met in the hostel), and the mendocino boys, i couldn´t possibly leave! After walking around the city a bit and my wine tour, i had dinner that night with the most fabulous group of people at the opening of their friend´s restaurant, Karma. Indian food argentina style...food was only okay, but we drank loads of wine, therefore the pictures we took at the end were hilarious. I am now best friends with all of them of course, even though I think the youngest of the group was 37, and the oldest late 60s. Love it. came back to my hostel to run into my friend i met earlier that day and we proceeded to have a soda outside and some conversation, which led to me arguing with him about politics, being a Christian, 9-11, etc. So that ended quickly and i went to bed at 3am...with plans to get up an hour and a half later to go snowboarding. Well we all know that didn´t happen, but i did wake up at 6:30 thinking the bus that left half an hour before that i was suipposed to be on. I was kind of mad at myself though for taking the time to rent equipment, walk to the bus station and all that, when i just messed it up! Thankfully, "TIA" (this is Argentina) and i was able to do everything the next day! The onesy WOULD make its appearance! But before i go into Los Penitentes, that night me and the girls met up with our new argentinian friends, Oscar ("flaco" which means skinny) and Diego, who was a hottie. We had a couple beers then i made sure to go to bed early (soo responsible!).

Los Penitentes was a freakin bust. THe snow was absolute crap, the mountain was a piece, and the staff was kind of laqsidasical (ok no idea how to spell that one). Anyway, the one redeeming thing was that I met a very nice girl, Clare, from Australia. Funny story - so we´re sitting on the bus, trying to sleep, when more and more people keep coming on at each stop. I was already worried that i was using yesterday´s ticket, but figured i was in the clear bc i didn´t see any seat numbers on it. Oh but wait, in walks this 300 lb woman who taps me and says that i am in her seat. What? how could that be possible i ask?? SO being the stubborn gringa that i am, and fearing for Clare´s life sitting next to her, I asked to see her ticket...indeed she had seat 15 reserved! At this point (not even an hour into our 4 hour busride) i am thinking, mierda, i´m going to have to stand the rest of the time! Lucky for me, this nice military guy signalled that the seat next to him was open, so I abandoned Clare to the big Argentinian lady. And I thought I had the bad end of the stick having to move seats...hardly...even better, a guy on our bus caught on film the sight of little tiny Clare sitting next to this lady, which he showed us on our way back. We were roaring with laughter, it was hilarious.

My goal for the day on the mtn was to conquer the T-bar chair lift, which was honestly harder than any black diamond i have ever skied! For whatever reason, i could not seem to get going on that thing...and fell about 10 times before giving up. It was just not designed for a snowboarder. I did make it over the first hill only to fall on my arse and be dragged a while until i could release the thing from under my one leg (mind you this is to get to the TOP of the mtn, not the bunny slopes - why in the world would they put a t-bar there anyway?! and this was no normal t bar either...terrible). It was and is still the most UNcomfortable thing i´ve experienced...should´ve taken a picture of it...SO, to relieve my pain and angst, Clare and I had lunch, where i proceeded to gain some confidence by drinking a liter of beer, dark beer. Mmm. Oh, and it worked bc i managed to endure the horrendous flight up the mtn on T bar after that! Yessss. Not that the top was any better than the chunk, crusty bottom. But slightly. I at least took my pride back after the Argentians laughed at me for falling so many times...anyway, the day ended at 4pm and we took our bus back to Mendoza, this time much quicker bc no stops.

sooo, that night i got to experience my 2nd asado, with Flaco, cousin Seba, and other friend Leo, who was a cutie. They brought us to Seba´s house around 10, the girls starving, and then didn´t feed us til midnight! We were exhausted. Theyy don´t really know the concept of appetizers either, or even of offering to grab us something when they went to the store for more beer (or letting us know they were leaving!)...real cool guys, real cool. But again, worth the wait, it was fabulous meat. and finally a good steak from Argentina. Flaco was entertaining us with his impressions of Mick Jagger and some great dance moves, evidenced by that particular photo where he looks like a lunatic. Anyway, fun night. Are you getting tired of reading this yet? Well, if you´ve even made it this far, kudos to you. BUt fyi, this blog is probably more for ME than for YOU, since i´ve not been journaling much at all! shame on me...

so the next day, Alison and I went for a wine/bike tour, which probably wasn´t the best idea after me still being sore from riding the T bar - i mean, what could be a better idea than sitting on a hard bike seat? Ya, well, i tried my best not to think about it, which was hard for the first leg when i hadn´t had any wine yet! anyway, i was more scared about riding/falling off a mountain bike than i was about the bruises that would be added to my groin area. anyway, it turned out to be a super fun day, and we met two other clansmen (from Ireland) who joined us, Shevanne and Neil. We were chagrined to find out though that we had been duped - we thought all the wine tastings were included in the tour, but they weren´t!! so that sucked, but we still went to three bodegas and the olive oil factory (again for me, but this time i didn´t even get to hear the tour in English, we just sampled). Ended up hanging at the 3rd bodega a while, getting a bottle and soaking up the sun. then we made the last stop for some bad chocolate (how can chocolate be bad! it was - just lacked flavor. booo). We didn´t technically have lunch so we were all looking forward to a good dinner.

Alison and i met up with Kate the Aussie again, and went to a nice steak place, where they totally butchered Kate´s order. She sent it back (hesitantly) and of course was then given an even worse piece of meat. She was not a happy camper, and actually complained about it the whole time! haha Alison and i were happy with our meat (but i still wasn´t of the opinion that this was the best steak in teh world...maybe when i go to Buenos Aires? hope so). Then Flaco and another new friend (who was a TOTAL catch and whose name i forget) met us at the restaurant to share wine, then head to the boliches, the discotechs. We didn´t like the first one so ended up at some ¨rustic¨ place where there was a GREAT PInk Floyd coverband - and not in some cheesy Spanish accent coverband singing. Plain good. They later cleared out the tables and started the dance music! i was a happy camper. Danced the night away til 7am, though i probably had to force out a 3rd amd 4th wind at times. Hung out with more of Flacos friends, and Kate and hot guy got together. Darn ;). Anyway, i knew better than to try and sleep for a couple hours before my bus, so i just packed up and headed to the station, had to pay extra for an earlier bus, but i wasn´t about to hang out in the sketchy bus station! So after 8 days I finally left Mendoza, one of my fave places! Some of my pics are below, but of course, check flikr.

Photo Montage

So I won´t have time to blog at the moment, gotta get outta Santiago to catch my flight to Valdivia, in Chile´s Lake district. I have been taking it easy past day b-c of my last night out in Mendoza resulting in zero sleep. it´ll happen when you go out til 7am...but being my first all nighter, i am recovering just fine. Slept 3 hours on the bus from Mendoza to Santiago, and am staing in the fabulous Happy House Hostel here. Very serene! Enjoy photos from wine tours, more asados with our new Mendocino friends (and we seriously ate at midnight and were STARVING! the boys said, "these girls eat well". You´re darn right we do when you don´t feed us til midnight!). As usual, check out all my photos at flickr link on left.