blood’s a rover

Last night’s overnight bus ride south from Mendoza to Neuquén was less restful than usual, but our timing was good and we were able to hop on another bus to the tiny town of Junín de Los Andes less than twenty minutes after getting off the first.

Our ride into the Argentine Lakes District lasted another five hours, and though Brianne and I both slept for much of it, we woke occasionally to admire the incredible vistas that the slowly rising sun was illuminating, as if solely for our pleasure:

- An expansive, endless plain of scrubby desert brush, gray brown and so thick it looked like suede.

- The gray plants slowly replaced with moss green and yellow, the plains now dotted with fat, wide plateaus, in some ways evoking the crisp deserts of easten Oregon or northern Spain.

- A distant spot of caramel brown distinct from the rest of the brush, a single horse, its head marked with white, oblivious to our passing.

- A small stand of white-barked trees shining in the morning sun like crystal, leafless, but still doing their best to protect a modest ranch house.

- Five small coyotes halfway up a hill, gathered together to feast, on what, we couldn’t tell.

- The sudden appearance to the east of a towering, perfectly symmetrical white cone -Volcán Lanín- which marks the northern end of a similarly white range stretched out like the spine of an unlucky member of a cattle herd.

- A swift descent through a wide canyon, followed by a glacially slow crossing of an extremely narrow bridge… its squat guardrails mere inches to either side of our bus.

And finally, the pleasant surprise of Junín de Los Andes, a tiny but obviously prosperous mountain village that apparently attracts a huge number of trout fishing enthusiasts in the summer and sustains itself the rest of the year with its backyard proximity to the Lanín National Park, which is exactly where we’re headed tomorrow.

From what we can tell, we’ll have the whole park to ourselves, and in places like this, the whole park may as well be the whole world.

P.S. The stars here are the clearest we´ve seen in Argentina.

Leaving Buenos Aires

Our first glimpse of the Andes (from our hotel)

Malbec vines at rest

Delicious.

Super delicious.

View from the vineyards

Brianne and I did almost no planning prior to coming to South America, but I didn´t want Amanda´s time down here to be wasted so I did map out a rough itinerary for the time she was with us. I wanted her trip to have at least one major sight, so we planned on a circuit to Iguazu Falls and back while she was here.

The thing is, prior to looking up things to see around Buenos Aires (and by around I meant within a 20 hour bus ride), I had never heard of Iguazu Falls, and did not realize how incredible a place it is. If I kept a list of places to see before I die, Iguazu would certainly have been on it. It´s simply mindblowing.

The town nearest the falls is called Puerto Iguazu, and it´s filled with good value lodging and very, very good (and cheap) restaurants. My incredible Argentine steak dinner count is up to a respectable 5.

We spent two days in the park, which was just enough to see everything once and a couple of things twice. Yesterday we saw Gargantua del Diablo (Devil´s Throat) and hiked around the upper circuit and a nature trail to another, smaller waterfall. We´ve seen coatis, which are South America´s version of racoons, as well as beautiful birds, butterflys, rodents of unusual size, and a few more caiman.

Today we hiked the lower circuit, visited San Martin Island, went on a 20 minute boat trip that took us under the falls and got us completely soaked and exhilarated, and then went back to Devil´s Throat in the afternoon.

Tomorrow afternoon we catch an overnight bus back to Buenos Aires, where we´ll have just enough time to eat lunch (steak #6?), get Amanda to the airport, and hop back on another overnight bus to Mendoza, Argentina´s largest wine region. Oh well, sleeping on the bus means we´re saving on hotels, and that means more great meals, great sights, great travel.

Ultimately, the photos say more than I ever could, so check them out. Ciao!

Continue Reading…

Because my sister Amanda was only in Argentina for 10 days, we thought it best to limit our stops to just a few points of interest. Our first stop after Buenos Aires was the Reserva Natural Iberá, a gigantic marshland preserve located in the province of Corrientes. The only village inside the reserve is called Colonia Carlos Pellegrini, an 8 block x 20 block town with dirt roads, three restaurants, and more people traveling by horseback than car.

It was raining when we arrived to Pellegrini, so after checking into our rustic hospedaje (family run hotel), we went out to dinner, got some groceries, and called it a night. The weather the following day was cold but rain free, and we were able to go on a nature hike and boat tour, during which we saw capybara, monkeys, tiny deer, caiman (small freshwater alligators), and a plethora of exotic birds.

The day after that we were off again, headed north for Posadas, though our final destination was Iquazu falls. We didn´t expect to spend so much time on buses, but we´d better get used to it. Down here the points of interest are a challenge to get to, but absolutely, positively worth the effort.

Early morning in Mercedes.

Badass transportation option.

Say QUESO!
This is a group of amateur and professional photographers that we shared the transfer to Colonia Pellegrini with.
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On our last day in Buenos Aires, we walked around the Recoleta Cemetary. It reminded us a little of Pere Lechaise, but the tombs were in much better condition and the aisles were far more orderly- no crawling over some graves to access others.

We saw Eva Peron´s grave, as well as a boxer who was robbed of the world heavyweight title eighty years ago… one odd thing was that some of the tombs have glass doors, and the caskets are visible, occasionally draped with a sheet. Creepy.

Continue Reading…

Brianne and I did almost no planning prior to coming to South America, but I didn´t want Amanda´s time down here to be wasted so I did map out a rough itinerary for the time she was with us. I wanted her trip to have at least one major sight, so we planned on a circuit to Iguazu Falls and back while she was here.

The thing is, prior to looking up things to see around Buenos Aires (and by around I meant within a 20 hour bus ride), I had never heard of Iguazu Falls, and did not realize how incredible a place it is. If I kept a list of places to see before I die, Iguazu would certainly have been on it. It´s simply mindblowing.

The town nearest the falls is called Puerto Iguazu, and it´s filled with good value lodging and very, very good (and cheap) restaurants. My incredible Argentine steak dinner count is up to a respectable 5.

We spent two days in the park, which was just enough to see everything once and a couple of things twice. Yesterday we saw Gargantua del Diablo (Devil´s Throat) and hiked around the upper circuit and a nature trail to another, smaller waterfall. We´ve seen coatis, which are South America´s version of racoons, as well as beautiful birds, butterflys, rodents of unusual size, and a few more caiman.

Today we hiked the lower circuit, visited San Martin Island, went on a 20 minute boat trip that took us under the falls and got us completely soaked and exhilarated, and then went back to Devil´s Throat in the afternoon.

Tomorrow afternoon we catch an overnight bus back to Buenos Aires, where we´ll have just enough time to eat lunch (steak #6?), get Amanda to the airport, and hop back on another overnight bus to Mendoza, Argentina´s largest wine region. Oh well, sleeping on the bus means we´re saving on hotels, and that means more great meals, great sights, great travel.

Ultimately, the photos say more than I ever could, so check them out. Ciao!

This is as perfect as the planet gets.

Leaf-cutter ant hard at work.
And I just want to say, this new cheap camera of mine has nice depth of field.

Coatis: Racoon V2.0

Awwwwwww!

Before the soaking.

This is almost certainly the best $15 I´ve ever spent.

This weird looking butterfly landed on my can of beer and then started drinking it.
True story.

There´s something ironic about such a tiny thing making you forget all about the gigantic spectacle just a few feet away.

Evening in Iguazu.

…and so, after a flawless rendezvous with my sister Amanda at the Buenos Aires airport, an exciting taxi drive into the city, and an afternoon exploring the city, everything was going just great.

Then, on our subway ride back to our hostel, my camera was quite deftly removed from its camera bag, and we spent the rest of the ride trying to decide if it was stolen by the shady teenager standing behind me or the nearby nun in the gray habit who was acting just a little too nonchalant.

Being ripped off brings with it a series of physical and psychological symptoms. First off, I felt like a fool, particularly after managed to circumnavigate the globe almost entirely without incident. Next, a dull ache appeared in the pit of my stomach, and finally, complete frustration (borne of helplessness) took up residence squarely between my shoulders.

Fortunately, the next few hours were able to address at least a couple of those symptoms. We were already planning to celebrate our arrival to South America with a nice dinner, and losing the camera didn’t change the fact that we were happy to be there. The restaurant we picked, La Cabrera, served us large, perfectly grilled pieces of BY FAR the best meat I’ve ever eaten in my life. Served with it were about 20 different bowls of side dishes ranging from corn salad to mustard seed mashed potatoes to pepper chutney. We also enjoyed a lovely bottle of Argentine Malbec that served as a fine introduction to a variety that is as ubiquitous in Argentina as Pinot Noir is in Oregon. By the end of that supremely enjoyable dinner, the ache in my stomach had been replaced by rare, juicy beef, and the tension in my shoulders began to fade with help from the rich, lightly wooded Malbec.

I was still feeling foolish as we walked back to our hostel after dinner, but the sonorous sound of an evening downpour striking the tin roof of the patio left little room for unnecessary thought, and so it was with suprising ease that I drifted off to sleep.

***

We spent the following day visiting Buenos Aires wonderful Fine Arts Museum and the less wonderful but interesting Contemporary Arts Museum. We also bought a new (intentionally inexpensive) camera and overnight bus tickets to Colonia Carlos Pellegrini, which is inside a large nature preserve that is home to anacondas, swamp deer, caiman (small alligators), and capybara. We ate dinner at a small place in the Recolata neighborhood and got to experience Locro (white bean and pork stew- mine had two meaty vertabrae in it) and a dessert made from mozzarella-ish cheese covered with candied squash and walnuts. Everything was really tasty.

Later in the evening we visited Confiteria Ideal, a Buenos Aires Tango hotspot where we ended up in an hour+ tango class (right, left, right, left, left, right, repeat) and spent the remainder of the night talking over a bottle of wine and watching people who actually knew what they were doing get down.

***

Today we walked all over town and explored the Recoleta Cemetary, Buenos Aires’ answer to Paris’ Pere Lachaise. 4,800 grand old tombs including those containg Eva Peron and the mother of (Argentina’s most famous author and poet) Jorge Luis Borges. Speaking of Borges, I recently discovered his poem, “Canto al vino” (Song of wine), which includes the lines:

En la noche de jubilo o en la jornada adversa
exalta la alegria o mitiga el espanto

(In a night of rejoicing or the day adverse
Joy is exaulted, or fear assuaged)

According to Borges, wine can help in many situations, but unfortunately for me, paying better attention while riding subways is not one of them.

Exactly 24 hours ago we left Portland, Oregon behind, marking the start of the final leg of our trip, South America. After a loooong layover in Mexico City and a night in the air, we have arrived safely in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I was planning to use the last few weeks to catch up on two months worth of missed Europe posts, I really was. But with South America sneaking up he way it did, that just doesn’t seem likely. We may eventually get around to sharing all the great experiences we had in Belgium and France, though there is a part of me that really likes keeping a portion of the trip set apart for our memories alone, making those memories…well, sacred.

However, we do plan on posting regularly while we’re down here, and if our SA guidebook is any indication we’ll never be short on material over the next four months.

¡Adios!