Valdes Penninsula Wildlife!

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Yesterday I was happy to look out and see that it was dawn, but I went back to sleep for 15 more minutes. I woke up again and threw on my pants and went to wake up the girls – I was in a guys’ dorm and they were in the girls’. We had a crappy breakfast but were excited because we were going to Punto Norte, the furthest point on the desert penninsula. A two hour drive to see, hopefully, orcas that rode up in the waves and snatched seals off the beach.

We got in the car and started across the desert, still early in the morning, still what I´d call dawn, as the sun made long shadows and felt cool. We saw all sorts of wildlife on the drive, more than we´d seen the day before. We saw the regular llamas and sheep, but in addition we saw foxes and packs of emus crossing the road. The highlight was when a jackrabbit saw us coming and went sprinting ahead of the car. We pulled even with him – going SIXTY kilometers per hour! I was hanging out the passenger side (of my best friend´s ride) with the good camera and I managed to snap two really good shots of the thing, background blurry and all. It´s really a great picture because I think it´s very rare that people get to take a picture of a sprinting jackrabbit at the same speed.

We got to the North Point but unfortunately the tide was low (fun little miscommunication with the rangers). We got to see the elephant seals, though, which are nasty creatures. They´re essentially sacks of guts, poorly designed, constantly grumpy. They were screaming at each other and fighting all the time, not a quiet moment. There were some dead pups being fed on by birds, the mother occasionally scaring them off, but the birds did eventually get the best of the carcass.

From there we drove, pretty uneventfully, the rest of the way around the penninsula, the trip took about 4 or 5 hours on dirt roads, in all. We stopped at one point to look at an enormous salt flat, empty and hot looking. We couldn´t go out onto it because of a fence, but it was cool just to be on the “shore”. Autsy drove us back safely to the town for some lunch and a siesta.

When we woke up Azure and I went for a walk around the hill on the west side of the town to, you know, see what was there. It turns out that the ground dropped 20 feet down to the beach and the only way to access it was by lowering yourself down a rope. I was excited to do it, of course, but azure didn´t want any part. I liked how the beach was in plain view but almost inaccessible. It felt private. After I lowered myself down I saw there was a wall of mussels that was kinda a cave carved out by the waves and I saw the reflection of water on the ceiling even though the tide was low. I tucked my head in to investigate and found a little puddle with stuff sliming around in it, but the cool thing was I stuck my head in a parabola, so I could hear whatever was behind me, and I swear I heard a whale squealing. I didn´t see it, though.

Anyway, I climbed back up the rope and walked a little along the edge of the cliff looking at fossils in the ground. There´s this weird phenomenon at Piramides where the ground you´re walking on is all old mud that has fossils in it, so you´re literally walking on thousands and thousands of visible fossils the whole time. I imagine that when it rains, the top layer of the ground erodes and some of the fossils come loose.

After dinner I demanded that since we were so close to the desert and it would be a moonless night we should drive way out away from the lights and look at the stars. We took off just after sunset, and I´m glad we went so early because when we got to a lookout point, the sky was alarming… It was a clear, clear night and when you looked at where the sun had set, you could see the curve of the earth in the atmosphere where the dark sky and stars met the blue. I could see all the colors of the rainbow in the remaining band of sky. It was, I imagine, the most pure sunset you can see. No interference from land or pollution or dust or clouds. Just air and light.

At the same time the stars were appearing dozens at a time, so many that I looked at Orion´s belt and wondered why they picked those three out of the handfulls around them. We saw four celestial events: a plane, a satellite and two shooting stars. One of the shooting start tore a light blue streak slowly across the sky, only Autsy and I saw it. The Milky Way was cool and I had one of those moments, laying on my back on the ground, where I could actually imagine we were on a ball in the three dimensional space of the stars, that the black sky had depth. Times like that you feel like you´re not looking up, but out.

I managed to take some cool pictures, I guess I´ll see how they turn out on the computer. I´m really excited about them, but I don´t know if the smaller stars will come out they way they looked last night. I mean, I´m sure they won´t, but it would be cool if they did.

That arc of blue.

It came out well.

60 KPH!!

Fossil mud.

Desert in the morning.

Shut up!

Click here to see more wildlife pictures.

Autsy´s blog

For those of you who don´t, do check Autsy´s blog. She has some great posts and writes a lot even when we don´t. She has a great pictoral post of our time in and around Bariloche called ¨Fun for all.¨

Everyone loves pictures of water

Again, all these photos can be found here.

Algae

100-foot blue

Shallower blue

Pornography

Circle vs Line

Many Menagè-a-trois

Ok, so that was a completely unnecesary title, but Tom and Maya say that the more racy the title, the more hits we will get. It is also a tribute to our favorite hostel worker, Juanny Depp, whom Autsy has referred to in her posts. The night we went for the moonlight swim, he said, ¨After the swim, we can have many menage-a-trois¨, of course he meant orgy, but didn´t know the word, but the idea of the thirty people on the beach clustering up for many of them gave us a giggle. I love messed up translations.

Since my partners in travel have been very good about updating regulary, I thought I would just do another played recap. I´ll try to estabolish myslef as the big picture girl, while they can write about the details.

Thursday of last, the three of us hop on a bus to Bariloche. The ride is ok, except for the very loud Jack Black movie playing. If I haven´t commented on the state of the movies of the overnight busses, I should. They are horrible. I mean 2 of them were on the Seattle Times movie critic´s list of the 5 movies she wishes she could forget. The drive was beautiful, desolate for much of it and then out of nowhere comes trees and huge lakes. Our main goal for heading was to escape the heat and get some good lake swimming in, but like most places on this trip, it was not what we expected.

The first day there, it was cool and windy. The town, as you can see in Mike´s photos looks quite German, set on a hill sloping down to the water. We went to the rocky beach the first night and realized why we hadn´t seen anyone swimming in the lake — it was haultingly cold. I mean, my foot cramped as my toe was barely touching the water. Perhaps I even gave a small yelp!

The first night we spent in a double room, Autsy and I on the bed, Mike on the floor (he offered!). It was really nice of the guy to give us the room, many people wouldn´t have allowed it. We really noticed how nice and relaxed people were when w got there. We think it might have something to do with the climate. That day we got our first glimpse of Hostel 1004, which has been raved about by both of my companions. The minute we stepped foot in it´s luxurious common room, we knew we had to stay there. Having no space avalable for the next 3 nights, we made reservations when we could get them and looked for a car rental place. The next morning we found the cheapest deal in town and headed to El Bolson.

In El Bolson, there were a lot of Hippies. Everyone had a backpack and people were all over the streets and the plaza. It was a small town set between two mountains. It actually looks a lot like North Bend, in a valley, with hills all around. Since we had a car, we were able to drive out of the center to a great little place in a the middle of a big garden or park or something. It was cute and made of great wood beams and had the nice wooden details that makes a place charming. We went to town and got to eat at what seemed like the most popular area in town. First had locally made beers and ice cream at an outdoor table, while doing some good people watching, then had diner inside. The food was pretty good, but we had to go back because Mike and Autsy had been having ¨stomach issues¨ since the buffet at the Iguazu hostel — another hazard of travelling, but we have been pretty lucky.

The next morning, we asked for another night, but they were full, so we decided to hang out at one of the nearby lakes and swim before returning to Bariloche. At breakfast, we picked up a fourth, a girl named Nadia from LA, who was spending time in a desert in Chile by herself to become happy again. Of course a long story, but detail is not the name of my game. We took her to the lake, which was f-ing cold as well, but Mike, Autsy and I were determined, so we went in to the stares of all the other people on the beach. More yelping and we mad Nadia take some photos of us for proof. I wish I could blog temperature, but this computer does not have the ¨feel function¨ yet, someday. We stopped at the cerveceria for some lunch before heading back to Bariloche. Stopped at a lake, Mike skipped rocks and took some photos. He is becoming a self-proclaimed ¨nature photographer¨, but much of the wildlife he captures is Autsy and I (see the photo of me eating the burger in his post).

Made it back to Bariloche, had a nice dinner, stayed at a nice hotel, left the next morning for the 7 lakes tour, which we ended up messing up and taking the longer route. It was beautiful, both Mike and Autsy learned how to drive stick and both took some really hard terrain. Stopped at some remote lakes, ate at a remote town, drove on dirt roads for probably 4 hours, almost ran out of gas, found a cute place that ended up being more than we thought, and turned the car in Monday morning. Having a car in my experience is always worth the extra money. Everytime we rent one, the feeling of freedom is tangible and we are always sop light and happy having control to stop wherever we want.

We cheacked in to the best Hostel ever and spent the next 4 days hanging around the town. We took a trip out to Llao Llao, which is the fancy hotel out on the point, our view was better and we only paid $13 per night versus $390 for the cheapest room. We met a bunch of cool people and got most of their cantact information. We cooked dinner in every night, which was a great experience because most of the 30 other people staying in the hostel did the same thing, so there was a sense of community and there were new people to talk to without having to go out. We went to the vegetable stand every night and cooked fresh veggies or had salads. Every morning, they gave us an oatmeal concoction for breakfast that was great. We went out for lunches and spent the days either walking around town or heading to the local rocky beach, the one that I dipped my toe in the first day, but now we would actually go in since the moonlight splash. It broke the seal in a way and we went in everyday following that event. At night, we could sit out on the balcony of the hostel and look at where the houses on the hill hit the water and across the lake to all of the untouched shores. From our room, we could see the lake and the moonrise and the plaza, which unfortunately came with a lot of teens playing really loud, not very good music at full blast from their cars. Who knew sound travels up so well.

The last night was a little sad, they had a BBQ, not for us, but sort of because we had asked about it. We got prime seats for the view and the weather was so warm we could sit there until well after sunset. We kept asking ourselves why we would want to leave, it was so good to us, but it was time. We caught a bus to Puerto Madryn last night, got in at 7am, a better idea in theory than in practice. Everything was shut down in the small beach town and we waited around until 9:30 to find a place. It is what all beach towns are in the summer, crowded and commercial, with lots of bad restaurants and families trying to have a good time together. It made me realize how little experience I have with this culture, as we never seemed to, and still don´t travel much in the summers. We have a car reserved to drive down and see some penguins and up to see some whales. In a way, I´m glad it is so different from Bariloche because at least it isn´t a lesser version of something great. The landscape is different and the feel is opposite. We are spending tonight readjusting, using the internet and catching up on some sleep that we lost on the bus last night.

For fun, here is a picture Mike took of Autsy and I on the last night at the Hostel. These are our prime seats for the BBQ.

Awe-inspiring views

All of these can be found here

Hostel 1004 swim

From the 10th floor we watched the full moon come up last night, enormous and orange and visibly rising.  The moon drew a path between us starting at our window and dropping down onto the windshields of cars below where it disappeared and reappeared with traffic. It then went white onto the stones on the beach and reflected broadly as a yellow band across the lake. It ran on the opposite shore, up the silhouettes of mountains and finally ended in some clouds where the sky glowed. We could find the moon no problem, we were connected. We could walk there if needed.  Slowly the full moon rose and the night felt like an event – like we might be there the one and only time this happened.

The doorman at the hostel organized everyone for a moonlight swim, we´d leave at 11:30 and take a plunge together.  He said that this was, in fact, the first time they´d ever done this with the hostel, so maybe it really was the one and only time.  I like to think so.

—
There was a woman from Sacramento who didn´t go.  Later that night, we´d be talking on the balcony and she´d tell me the stock market fell hard yesterday, the Feds dropped the rates again and the dollar plummeted against the Euro.
—

We left in a large group from the hostel – the elevator could fit 7 at a time so we emerged on the ground floor in clumps until finally everyone was down and ready to go.  It was cold out, and from earlier swimming we knew the water was freezing, barely tolerable.  None of us was really looking forward to the actual act, just the momentousness of it – that we were spontaneous and present.  Isn´t that travel?

It would be, I realized, one of the most beautiful things I´ve done – and I´m glad I realized that on the beach beforehand because it made it much easier to go in.  We took off our clothes (we were wearing bathing suits, unfortunately), stepped out of our sandals onto the stones, and we cautiously walked down the beach.  I waded into the water yelping, everyone else was screaming and splashing.  You could see the bottom, the moon being so bright and the water so clear, and I thought some people might break their toes on large rocks if they went running into the water. 

I dunked my head under and all my skin went numb. The water was shocking, it was literally breathtaking.  I stayed in maybe 30 seconds, just enough to enjoy watching everyone jump around in the moonlight against the mountains, then I scurried to get out.  Az and Autsy came in a bit after me, so I left them back in the water, screaming and howling themselves.  When we were all standing on the rocky shore the air and wind felt so warm that I actually let myself dry without using a towel.

Bariloche & the Seven Lakes Tour

Hola everyone!

The morning after I wrote the last email, we left the hippieish El Bolson (taking with us an American named Nadia who we met at breakfast) and started back on the 4-hour drive to Bariloche.  On the way we stopped and hung out at the rocky beach on one of the lakes.  I skipped stones and talked politics with Nadia while Az and Autsy waded and paddled around in the freezing water. 

We made it to Bariloche, managed to spend the night in a nice French-themed hotel (which we wouldn´t have been able to afford with less than 4 people) and the next morning headed out of the city, leaving Nadia behind.  We were going on the Seven Lakes Tour, which is a 180 kilometer loop north into the mountains, past lakes and rivers and streams and ponds and valleys, etc.

We had half a tank of gas when we passed the gas station, the first half had taken us 250km, so we figured we were fine. What could possibly go wrong?  We turned off the paved highway and drove next to a river into this valley that was untouched – there was some of that deserty brush and a lot of pine trees.  I seem to remember seeing a house or a barn or something, but I don´t think there was one in the first valley.  We were actually in more of a canyon, I guess, with rock formations on either side.  We were talking about what it would be like to spend a night out there, mountains blocking out all the city light, no sounds, no traffic, no planes overhead. 

The valley turned and we started an ascent.  To our left was another rock formation, like Mount Si, but smaller, and there were all these strange trees at its base:  they were large like evergreens but half the tree appeared to be dead while the other half was alive and well.  It was haunting, all those skeletons mixed in.  The dirt road continued to wind up the hill, through the strange trees, hairpin turns.  Every corner we had a view down the valley.  Finally we crested the hill and, guess what, another green valley relaxing in front of us, the dirt road ahead, the river next to it.   We drove down into the valley and I took my turn driving, my first time ever driving stick shift, if you can believe that.

We came to a bridge that really looked like a) it wasn´t fit for foot traffic, let alone cars and b) the tire paths were too wide for our little car.  Having never driven stick, I couldn´t afford to hesitate so we gunned it across the bridge.  No problem.

After a few hours in and out of valleys, mostly alone except the occasional vehicle going the opposite direction, we finally came to a cluster of buildings that I think was a town. It was on a little hill that dropped to meet the foot of an enormous blue lake, and we stopped for food.  Azure and Autsy had burgers, I had a ¨milanesa,¨ which is a piece of pork breaded and put in a bun about half its size.  Of course we´re in Argentina, so of course they put ham and cheese in the pork sandwich.  We sat outside in the sun, though it´s chilly here in the mountains, and the restaurant played a nice mix of Celine (I can´t figure out how to spell this) Dion and Christina Aguliera (I can´t figure out how to spell this). 

We hopped back in the car with Autsy driving, and I think it was about this time that we realized we were running low on gas.  It was also about this time that we realized that way back when we turned off the paved road, we actually turned onto the dirt road running on the NORTH side of the river, not the south side as we intended.  In other words, our 180 kilometer loop was actually going to end up being about 280. 

The ride from there on was kinda a blur.  I kept glancing at the gas gauge every 3 seconds and occasionally out the window at the lakes and valleys.  Autsy was driving, but Azure soon took over because she´s the most experienced of us three (and actually the only who had driven stick before this trip) and would hopefully be most economical with the gas.  It´s tough on a dirt road to coast, the rocks slow you down.  She´d try to speed up to 55 mph (we estimated) because we seemed to remember that was the most efficient speed, but there was always a reason to slow down, like another slow car or a weird curve.

Another half hour worrying about the gas and we passed a turnoff that we had thought was 40 km behind us. That was bad news.  I was sure we weren´t going to make it because the road took this weird route around the top of a lake instead of the other way.  The dirt road just never seemed to end and we kept getting stuck behind slow drivers.  The car was absolutely soaked in dust, inside and out.   It was crisis time, I started envisioning my night of hitchhiking into town, buying a gas can, buying gas, hitchhiking back out to the car and driving out of the mountains, hopefully making it back to civilization by sunrise.  I wasn´t excited about it.

Finally we came to the paved road and there was only 7 km to go, but the gauge had long been in the red.  Azure relaxed on the coasting thing (I think she figured that worst-case scenario we´d only have to hitch hike a short distance) but I got on her case, saying that coming up even 100 meters short of the gas station would mean pushing a car 100 meters. 

Anyway, we turned a corner and finally, like the beacon of hope it was, the gas station came into sight.  What a relief!  We made it to the pump without incident.  Then that evening we made it to a little hotel that was lovely and ripped us off, then the next morning back into Bariloche.  We´re currently in a wonderful hostel on the top floor of the tallest building in town.   It´s an eyesore from the outside, but probably the nicest views in the whole city from the inside. 

Much love,

Mike (& Azure & Autsy)

I know it was our fault, but…

I never know how much of the bad parts of traveling to put in this blog. I usually feel like an idiot a lot of the time and it is hard to share all those times with all the people I know. I mean, I have been traveling for how long and I still make the same mistakes. The other reason many of these moments don’t make it up are because I spend a lot of time rationalizing things while traveling, so much so that by the time I get to a computer, it has been so worked through that I don’t even care to mention it.

This morning I got up to pay the bill for our perfect little house in the valley to find that the man had quoted us in US dollar. That means, our cheap cheap place is now not cheap, in fact it is three times what we had thought. The really frustrating part is that we had expressed our dismay at the price and he nor his daughter made no effort to clarify. We kept saying 100 pesos, and they kept responding Si, 100, but no currency. At no time did they find it necessary to clarify even though we were in obvious disbelief. Another frustrating thing is that they quoted everything else in pesos. Breakfast, tours, etc. WTF!!! We even had a whole conversation about how everything else in the area was so expensive, around 200-300 pesos and he kept insisting that his was so cheap because it was so small. Anyway, I never know what to do in situations like this, so I paid him his stupid money and went back to the room. Later, the three of us returned to express our issue, knowing full well that we would not get anything, but at least we were heard and I got to fight with someone in another language.

On the drive back to Bariloche I went through a whole spectrum of emotions. I am stupid, always ask the currency. I shouldn’t have paid. (BTW, does anyone know what happens if you just don’t pay? Do they prevent you from leaving the country or anything if they have your info?). The emotion that stuck for a long time was obviously anger, he had taken a great night that would have been remembered as very fun and peaceful into an issue about money and getting ripped off. In the end, we settled on revenge. For those of you who don’t know me, I am not extremely vengeful, but if I have all this time on my hands, as I do when I am travelling, why not. We had a long discussion about what a rightful revenge would be. My innitial response was to steal this picture from the cabin that I absolutely loved, but it was nailed to the wall. Of course I probably wouldn’t have gone through with it anyway, but I tried for a second to get it. We left without taking anything of course.

All I wanted was for him to not get the same amount of money that he decieved us about. We had planned to return to the place, but after this, we would not. I can credit that as him losing what we would have thought we would have spent that night. So the rest of the revenge is that I make one reservation and not show up, that will do for me.

The problem is that each time this happens, people like him take away a little more of my trust in society. I mean to be clear, we talked to him for a long time this morning. I said, at no point did you say it was in US dollars. If you were in the middle of the United States, would you expect to be quoted in British pounds or Reals? And even though we asked repeatedly about the price, you felt no need to clarify? He said it wasn’t his fault that we didn’t understand and maybe he is right, but it wasn’t like he had quoted a price and we said, fine. He qouted the price and we were like, really? Really? No, really? For real? Really? I don’t understand, really? 100 pesos? SI SI SI SI SI SI!

Mike had a great idea in the car which we have neither the patience nor the vengeful nature to execute, but is still fun to think about. Since this man takes little pieces of our trust in people’s honesty and full disclosure, we could take away his trust in reservations. If we bombarded him with fake reservations, everytime he wrote one in his book, he would have to question whether it was real or not. He probably would just set up a system for figuring it out, but that little effort is the same as our extra little effort to check people’s stories.

PS. I know that 100 USD for three people is cheap, but I get really really really wrapped up in going cheaper and cheaper.

We are now back in Bariloche at Hostel 1004, which has a great view and we are paying-checked and rechecked and written down and paid in advance- a nice room for a reasonable price that we will be in for a few days. The last 7 days, we have slept 7 different places, which is extremely tiring and it will be nice to sleep in and see something in depth.

Something great about traveling is that most problems can be overcome easily with a nice bitch session, some big beers and good gelato. Beer and gelato to come.

I wish I could bottle firsts

There is nothing like the first time for anything.  The other day when we were renting a car, the woman told me my spanish was good.  She was the first one to say that and it´s not, but that´s ok, I was flattered.  And yeas, I am bragging now, but who cares, it made me feel so great (ps. today I was almost in tears because my spanish was so bad).  I know I will spend the rest of my time here trying to get the same compliment, but it will never be the same.  We drove around today and had to look for housing late again (around 7pm) in another touristy town.  Lately we have been paying way too much for being unprepared, but tonight we were determined.  We went to a place that was very expensive, in a valley and very beautiful, but still way too much.  We told him it was too much and that we would head toward Bariloche to find cheaper and he went off about how everything was that price, but full.   Ok dude.  The next place we went, they give us our own hut with a loft and a kitchen for 1/3 the price.  Mike wanted to call the guy to brag, but unfortunately my spanish is not quite at that level.  Anyway, the first minute I found out that Autsy was not mistaken about the price and that we could have this cute little place for the night, was unbeatable.  Fortunately, when we travel, there are so many of these moments.  I think that is why we go away every year.  So many firsts and so much pure joy for such simple things.  Like a shower and some scotch, which I am going to partake in right now…

Have I mentioned it´s gorgeous?

We just spent the day driving many hours on dirt roads through untouched land, passing no other cars.  Every corner we turned revealed another stunning mountain, a strange rock formation, trees I´d never seen, valleys relaxed in front of us.  We´re on the north shore of the lake that Bariloche touches.  We found a little cabin (cabaña?) for cheap cheap and we´ll spend the night here, rushing back to Bariloche tomorrow morning to return the car.

Patagonia! (?)

I´ve been meaning to write for a few days now, but we´ve been busy, been on the road.  If you check our blog you´ve already seen that we went to the impressive Iguazu Falls last weekend. Azure described the excruciating details in a long post.

 

We got back and spent a few days with Tom and Maya in Buenos Aires, getting clean and resting up for our current adventure.  On the last night there, Tuesday, there was an amazing electrical storm that had the sky pulsing with lightning – none of it was a shocking crash like a heartattack, but it was more constant, arhythmic flashes scattered through the sky, like an irregular heartbeat in light with rumbles.  It went for hours, there are pictures.

 

The next evening we caught a 20-hour bus down to Bariloche, one of the best places on earth.  I think we´re in Patagonia.  We rode those 20 hours through sparse land that could have been the ugly part of Eastern Washington.  At the 19 hours, 45 minute mark we came over a hill and saw the beautiful city of Bariloche resting on the edge of a lake, in a field of mountains, what a welcome.  The water is so clear.  When I look out at the blue part of the lake it looks blue in a way that isn´t on a color spectrum, but has got to be described as a depth, like 100 feet blue or something. I remember seeing this effect on a ferry in the Mediterranean, looking down and not being able to understand it as a color, only as a depth.

 

Last night we went down to the shore and stood at a parking lot where a bunch of RVs were parked – a bunch of brilliant people who woke up this morning and saw 360 degrees of mountains and 180 of that blue water when they first opened their eyes.  We stood there – last night – with the wind tearing across the lake and throwing the icewater into the air.  It was 10:30 but still light because we´re south and west in the timezone.  It was so clear last night, the air is so clean.  

 

Anyway, we rented a car and we´re now in a town to the South called El Bolson, another idyllic place, but there are more hippies here.  We wanted to go swimming, but my feet ache when I stand in the water for more than 10 seconds because it´s so cold.  We´re trying to take pictures of the mountains, but of course we can´t do it justice.  Every corner we turn we´re reminded of the best places we´ve been – Seattle, Tahoe, Northern Italy, etc.  We´re freshwater fish, I guess.

 

Take care,

 

Mike (& Azure & Autsy)

The South

I´m on a really slow computer, but just wanted to update that Autsy , Mike and I headed out Wednesday night on  20 hour bus ride to Bariloche in the middle of Argentina.  It is located in the Lakes District, which means it is surrounded by lakes and the Andes Mountains.  We got in around 4pm and it was actually cool.  Temperature-wise.  It felt a lot like Seattle in early summer and we all mimmeduiately felt happy and at home.  No more humidity.  We stayed the night in town and booked the hostel we wanted for Monday night, so we decided to kill the time in between by renting a car and driving around.  We made it to a town called El Bolson, which is a beautiful 2 hour drive south.  The worth of the car is immeasurable.  We got to stop whenever we wanted to take photos or dip our feet in the clearest water I´ve ever seen.  I have been around mountains before, but it seems like they rise so fast here, you can look across the valley and see the exact point that you could reach your hand out and touch the mountain. 

 

El Bolson is actually a place that we had intended to go because a friend of our friend Nicole told us about an organic farm she stayed on here, but we just came and got a nice room in a bed and breakfast set on a huge garden.  Tomorrow, we´ll drive to a lake and hopefully do some much needed lake swimming.  The locally-made beer here is great and it stays light until well after 10:30pm.  More updates and photos to come.

Electrical Storm, Buenos Aires

There was a beautiful electrical storm last night – flashes all over the sky every half second. I took hundreds of photos, having to set the exposure to 2.5 seconds and hope that in that time something would happen. Results below:

Cloud texture, I love this one. You can see the lower right is getting brighter.

Gothamish.

Industrial sky – again, this was at night, though it looks like dawn or something.

Night city.

The good bolt. If you zoom in on this one there are some strange “pieces” of light, like a lightning bolt that happened at one point.

Chacarita Cemeterio, Buenos Aires

I visited another cemetery today, this one was more enormous and poor people could be buried there.

Many of the graves have little hedges over the coffins.

This grave had a cherry tomato plant growing on it, with ripe tomatoes. (No, I didn’t.)

A brick wall with plaques. I don’t know where the people are.

A more interesting part of the wall.

Tough to see, but there’s a line of ants going in and out of this tomb.

A part of the enormous basement.

Water Water Water

I know people are most drawn to pictures of other people, but I still like non-people pictures. Here are some of my favorite water photos from Iguazu Falls this weekend.

Fall’s Edge

Droplets

On a plateau under the falls

Power

More droplets than stars

Wet rock

We stood there!

Picture Adventure – Brazil Iguazu

We set out on our full-day Brazilian adventure on a very nice path.

No biking today, the weather is too bad? Ride or walk? The group decides to walk half-way before being picked up.

We set out on the 4.5km walk through the jungle.

Why are you doing this to me?

A little rain makes Autsy happy.

A lot of rain makes Mike pee.

You want us to ride now?

Finally, shelter! We can wring out our clothes…the driest we will be all day.

Everyone is wet.

There’s food on that boat?

Huddled like penguins- for 60 minutes on the boat. Communication is cut off when Autsy’s camera dies immediately after this photo was taken.

Another 4.5 hours without dry clothes and the van finally picks us up to go back to the hostel. What a day!

Miserable Joy

We are standing huddled together like penguins in a boat during a rainforest style rain. We have been wet for over 3 hours and there is more to come. I am so cold and miserable, pants are too cold to wear, we are in the middle of the jungle and there is no way out. All I can do is accept the situation and be grateful that I will remember this for the rest of my life with people I love.

Yesterday, Mike, Austy and I went on the ¨Full Day Brazil Adventure¨ on the Brazilian side of Iguazu falls, which included biking, kayaking, hiking, and a fast boat trip into the falls. Since the day before had been about 90 degrees, we packed ready for a day of heat, lots of water, tank tops and shorts. We took Mike´s small bag for personal items, but it wasn´t large and since we assumed they would give us plastic bags for the wet parts, it wasn´t waterproof either. We were thankful that it was overcast when we woke up at 7am for an 8am pickup because the biking was first. We thought we would escape the heat at least until the kayaking. Our pickup got to the hostel around 9:30 and we crossed the border fine, picked up some more people along the way and got to the park around 11am. We then had to pay more for entrance (we had already spent $60 per person for the day, which doesn´t sound like a lot, but is a ton down here), so we were a little irritated.

We walked along what seemed like a dock in the jungle for a little while and got to a dirt road. We were told that we couldn´t bike due to the weather. It was barely drizzling and I thought about saying something to them about being from Seattle and how this was nothing, but didn´t want to be ¨that person¨. We had the option to walk or get a ride in this open jeep and one woman was like, we might as well walk, so we all sort of followed along, even though Autsy and I are pretty much the laziest people and would have much rather been transported on beds if given the choice. It was to be about a 4.5km walk followed by a 4.5km open jeep ride, so we started walking. At about 1km it started to rain. At 1.2km it started raining hard and at about 1.5km it was a torrential downpour and I mean torrential. It was exciting at first, a nice break from all the heat and humidity we have been having down here, but the sky just kept getting darker and darker and it just kept raining hard. After a while, there was no more road, it was only 2 rivers with a small path in the middle that was extremely slippery to those of up wearing flip flops. It wasn´t so bad, you know, just the average day walking 3km in a shower, no big deal. The jeep picked us up and that was when it got worse. The rain was so strong still and we were not under any cover, so the speed of the jeep made it colder, wetter, and more painful. The worst part at this point was that we were going farther into the jungle and this was only the first activity.

We stopped at the boat port on the river, which consisted of an open air hut and some bathrooms. There was no food and no more clothes. We couldn´t just turn around and catch a cab out, we had walked and jeeped and now had to boat to our next stop. I would have to say the only reason the three of us willingly left the hut for the boat was that they told us there was food on the boat. Such a cheap trick, but it worked. We spent about 6 minutes extremely content as we ate our lunches and then proceeded to clean out everyone else´s lunch box as they passed them to the back to be thrown away. People were actually throwing away food when we were stuck in the jungle, we couldn´t have that, so we salvaged it all. We waited in our tank tops and wet shorts for the rest of the group and then took off to the kayak center. This was probably the darkest time for me, I can´t account for Autsy or Mike during this time because I was curled up in a ball shaking on my seat for the next 20 minutes. I looked up a few times when Mike pointed out a bird or something on the shore, but it was pretty bleak. We got to the kayak place and about half of the group decided to go. Not us, though afterward, we found out the water was really warm, but at this point we were almost dry and it would have made us colder to get in and out. The three of us huddled together in the middle of the boat to keep warm and it worked. Sort of. It had been 3 hours of total wetness, how warm can you really get when you know you have another 3 to go.

Another boat ride, another jeep ride and we get dropped off again at some station in the jungle and don´t know what to do. I want to point out another important detail of this day–at no point on this trip did it seem like any of our drivers or guides knew what they were supposed to do with us. It appeared to be everyone´s first day and after a constant series of walkie talkie conversations with other people, they would hastily wave us in one direction or another. The communication was not stellar and there were people speaking their second or third language to others also speaking their non-native language. We were waved onto a bus by our second guide, which I am still not totally sure was the right bus, but we followed our group to the falls to walk on the path to see the falls. It was about 4:30pm and it was the first time we actually saw the falls. I still wore no pants and we were all still extremely cold. We joined to other tourists who had taken the bus in from the park entrance and were all happy and excited to be there. On the bus we heard an announcement in Portuguese and then in English about some wildlife that was very hungry and to not let it bite you or to feed it, possible large mosquitoes or some crazy rabbit animal. I always panic a little when we go somewhere new because everyone has horror stories, we were warned about the mosquito problem here, sometimes they create huge pus-filled welts, there are none, but I was still scared. For some reason, I still always believe them. Anyway, it turns out they were simply the Brazilian version or raccoons, most of them drinking Fanta out of the trash or running around digging holes. Nothing to be alarmed about.

We walked around for a while and took another bus back to the place where we would take the fast boat into the falls. By this point, I had bought a poncho and was wearing it over my wet shirt, but it kept the wind off. I tried to convince Autsy and Mike to get one, but they decided to stay strong. Whatev, I was happy. We took another jeep trip down and got on the boat with about 8 other people. It could have accommodated more, but due to the weather, most people had gone home. The driver started out fast. It was still raining, so it was hard to look up because it would it you in the face. He was swerving all around and Mike made the comment that he was driving us towards rocks , which was supposed to scared us, but since no one could look up, was completely lost on this group. He drove us so close to the black holes and finally into the falls. I could see Mike shielding his face and looking up. I opened my eyes once and it was awesome. We were directly under them, looking up at the most powerful waterfall in the world. Every time we would turn or bump, Autsy would yelp, and we later heard her again on the video that they took of us, that we considered buying to You Tube, but later thought we would recreate at some point. Another Truck ride back and we were still wet after 6 hours. We waited for the others and took the bus back to the hostel.

It was an exhausting day. We all slept like rocks, even though Austy and I were in a dorm with some loud guys who came in really late. I couldn´t care less. Today, with pleasant weather, we did the Argentine side. We did it cheap and took the city bus there and back. We walked every path in the park and took the water taxi to thisland. It was a complete day. We got a little burned and took some great photos. In most respects, it would have been the perfect trip to the falls, but to us, I´m sure we will remember our Brazilian adventure when we think of this place.

One last note… Both of the camera´s we took with us (Autsy´s and ours) broke at some point during the wet day, so photos will be pieced together from ours, which died first, hers, which died a little later, this Danish couple we met, who we had take photos of us after, and from today, when we went back under much more pleasant circumstances. Those photos will be up as soon as we can get them up, probably Monday or Tuesday.

Hope all is well with everyone. We love and miss you.

Iguazu

Hola — We made it to Iguazu via 16 hour overnight bus that was better than it sounds.  We´re off to see the Brazilian side of the waterfalls today, doing a full-day tour that includes all sorts of fun stuff.  More later!

 

Mike

Email 6: A day in the Life, BA

I wasn’t really sure where to start with this email, as daily life in BA becomes more unremarkable, but I know I love reading about ANYTHING written by travelers when I’m at home so I figure I should make the email happen.

On Saturday we woke up in our friend Nathan’s apartment. The futon was lumpy so Azure sleept on half of it while I sleept on a single mattress on the floor. It worked fine, the air conditioner is a must and the sound puts me to sleep. It gets bright and hot early here, by the time we woke up (11am) it was already in the 80s, it had been bright since 6, but they have these metal shutters here that can block out 99% of the light so you can actually sleep until the afternoon and have no idea what time it is. On Saturday we took a cab to Rob & Autsy’s hotel, then crossed the street for the same breakfast we’d had every day that week: the “Training” breakfast… fruit salad, yogurt with frosted flakes, toast with cream cheese, a shot glass of orange juice and a cafe con leche (latte). I rarely drink lattes when I’m at home, but I rarely go without one a day here. The cafe is in the lobby of a hotel and it’s on a main street corner. It has enormous floor to ceiling windows and reminds me a lot of a Parisian cafe. The waiters are idiots.

We went to Recoleta Cemetery that afternoon. I went in and took a bunch of pictures (which you can see at http://quarteryear.blogspot.com) while Rob, Autsy and Azure walked around the flea market that’s set up outside. It’s actually a very nice part of town and the flea market has a ton of stuff, from hand-made leather goods to clothing and art and bags and lots of things you’d never even imagine. A couple weeks ago I bought a nice white jacket that I’ll definitely be sporting at home. The market is pretty well known, I think, and I’ve met a lot of Americans there. When we were on the see-saws, Rob and I traded jokes with some guys from LA who were next to us. One of the guys started asking me about our trip and where we were going, but that’s no fun. It would have been better to just joke a lot then go our separate ways. There’s an art in developing travel relationships. Many are transitory, occasionally one is special. Recognizing the context of the encounter helps you figure out the nature of the relationship. The guy who asked me about our plans was a young traveler, new to the pace.

After taking my pictures, we met under the huge tree – Rob was playing some guitar in the park – and went our separate ways. I think both couples went back and had a siesta to escape the ridiculous heat of the day. It’s been in the 100s here. At 7pm Azure and I went to El Alamo, the American bar, to watch the Seahawks. Rob and Autsy arrived about 20 minutes later. The Alamo has this smart promotion where women drink for free (yes, for free) M-F, and men drink for cheap all the time. I got a cheap whiskey or six, Azure had her share as well. We watched the Hawks intently at first, then a little distractedly in the middle, then intently at the end. Rob and I had great conversations throughout the night, as per the usual.

That night I met a dude from Omak, Washington. He was amazed not only that I’d heard of Omak, but that Azure and I had been there about 6 months ago. It blew his mind. He had dreadlocks and was rooting for the Hawks, so I made him for some kind of hippie Seattlite, but he was Eastern Washington through and through. He asked why we went to Omak and I told him it was to look for “Apocalypse property…” you know, land we could run to if things weren’t going well. He was way into it – “That’s exactly it, man! Everyone on the East side of the mountains knows that’s going down a lot sooner than anyone thinks, it’s coming SOON and everyone on the West side is going to be screwed!” He said he was 1/3 Native American (impossible) and his French side had been in Omak since the 1500s. How? They came over with the Vikings. The Native American side was there for 20,000 years, which is before the last Ice Age. I joke and judge, but all my historical knowledge is informed by misogynist & racist industrialists, so what do I know.

After the game we went to a restaurant called Sudestada that makes Southeast Asian cuisine, though it’s more of a modern take on it, in my opinion. It’s tough to cook here – I had this idea one night that I’d make a stir-fry in Valparaiso and got together onions, peppers, asparagus, mushrooms and chicken. We took it to the kitchen but the knives were SO dull that I literally used a spoon to cut some of it, even tearing up the mushrooms and peppers by hand. Then they didn’t have a frying pan, so we had to use a pot. But the pot was so thin that it burned really quickly on the gas stove, so we had to put water in the bottom and cook everything together on low heat (as opposed to timing it right). The result was the same bland shitty veggies we’d been served throughout Chile. The tools design the craft, I guess. Sudestada was good, I think I may have made a drunk fool of myself, but I was entertained.

It occurred to me while writing this that we’re living a life very similar to the Parisian ex-pats in the 1920s – Ernest Hemingway specifically is who I know about. They’d have breakfast with a friend, then take a cab to have lunch and a drink with a friend, then take a cab to have more drinks with more friends, then take cabs to have dinner and drinks with friends. We’re not really taking part in actual BA culture, I believe, but we’re kinda living on its surface like a slick of oil on a pool of water. We’re just living luxuriously and playing. We could never ever know BA the way I know and love Seattle nor the way Buenos Airesians know their city. I can love Paris but it’ll never be mine. Buenos Aires is a great city and we’re really enjoying ourselves, probably in a way that many people here couldn’t.

It’s tough to write about the things we see around us because we’re getting used to shot glasses of tonic water with our coffees and putting your hand straight out to hail a cab and all the other minor things I can’t remember right now. Something I remember distinctly about applying for colleges is that I wanted to go away because I not only knew the fastest route from point A to B in Bellevue, but I also could do it with my eyes closed. I didn’t notice the beautiful, impressive things in Bellevue/Seattle (like evergreen trees… I hope you’re all taking time to enjoy them in the wind), and I felt I needed to go away to appreciate that. It’s true, I think, and thank god it’s temporary. I appreciate Seattle more and more every time I go away and never do I think I wouldn’t want to come back. Nothing touches the beauty of being surrounded by lakes and mountains on all sides, nothing. But getting to know a new place is so rewarding… I never had any concept what a street looked like in BA. It’s so empowering to go to these new places and not just sit there and cry… to actually function.

Anyway, we’ve updated our blogs a couple times and have uploaded a bunch of photos to Flickr. The set linked below (“Recent”) is a selection of our most recent uploads, so you don’t have to sift through the crap to find the good photos.

I hope everyone’s happy and healthy!

Take care,

Mike

Quater Year: http://quarteryear.blogspot.com
Chicken Wall: http://thechickenwall.blogspot.com
Flickr (Recent): http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikegoldstein/sets/72157603670152526/
Flickr (All): http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikegoldstein

The major players

Just so you know who we’ve been rolling with for the past few weeks, I decided to do a character sketch of all the major players, who interestingly enough were all at the same restaurant last Tuesday in many ways out of coincidence. It is a huge city, but small if you have the same favorite places.

Maya & Tom Frost
Maya is Mike’s maternal first cousin. She and her husband, Tom moved to BA almost 2 years ago. They met while teaching abroad in Japan in the 80s and have 4 daughters (in age order- Taeko 21, Tara 20, Teal 18, Talya 17). They lived and worked in a suburb of Portland until 3 years ago, when they decided to move to Mazatlan, Mexico. After a year there, they found that there wasn’t enough of a life there or at least one that they wanted, so let their youngest daughter, Talya pick their next city of residence, since she was the most influenced by the moves, being the only one still attending high school. She picked BA and here they are. We have been staying with Tom and Maya off and on for the past 3 weeks. When we got here, we though we were going to stay for a couple weeks and get an apartment of our own. Those thoughts soon vanished when we figured out how amazing they were and how nice they were to us. They have a great 3 bedroom apartment in the Belgrano neighborhood of BA. There are several photos taken here, including the rooftop BBQ that we used on Christmas day. Since they have a spare bedroom, we have pretty much moved in.

Talya Frost
The youngest of the sisters, she is the only one that still lives at home here in BA. She is finishing her 2nd year of college here (similar to running start) as a 17 year old. She has so many stories about her high school experience because she has never actually been to high school in the states, only in Mexico and Argentina. She is now fluent in Spanish and takes care of us all in that respect. She is extremely mature and patient and hopes to work in conflict resolution. She is applying to colleges now, so it is fun to see what she is doing for her essays, which has sparked several interesting stories, being enrolled in a Mexican high school without speaking Spanish, traveling through India when she was a 2nd grader, etc.

Teako Frost
Taeko visited for 2 weeks, but left on Saturday. She currently lives in and works at a free health clinic in Harlem, where she counsels patients. She encounters more life-changing situations each day then most people encounter in a lifetime. She has an extremely high tolerance for stress, which helps her tremendously in her job.

Nathan Livni
In the interest of full disclosure, Nathan is the ex-boyfriend of our really good friend, Aviva. Yo Aviva! After they broke up, but I’m not sure because they broke up he moved to BA 2 years ago. We had met him when he was living in Seattle during a couple different game parties. Mike and he have the jewish bond going, but other than that and those few amazing nights of Mafia playing, we didn’t really know Nathan that well. We met up for the first time at his apartment and I’m pretty sure he had no idea who we were from the emails. It didn’t really matter. He turned out to be an extremely interesting and friendly guy. He is currently working here in IT or something that sounds a little boring, but is also really into his side project, which is creating murder mystery type events, but without the murder. He is really into creating games that don’t necessarily reinforce the “us versus them” mentality. This is a long-discussed topic that is really interesting that I won’t get into here because I don’t transcribe my conversations. We ended up staying with Nathan for 4 nights to give Tom and Maya a break and to get to know Nathan better. It was really nice and were able to have some great evenings together.

Steve Nelson and Crew
I met Steve at Evergreen Junior High School in Redmond Washington. We were friends through HS and into college. We had lost contact, but through the miracle that is Facebook, reconnected a couple months ago. It turned out that he was going to be traveling in S. America for 2 months starting at the end of December. He and his 5 friends spent this last week in BA, but are leaving tomorrow. It was nice to see him when we did and will maybe see him again throughout S. America, possibly in Brazil. Stay tuned.

Autsy and Rob
Autsy, whose real name is Jennifer Sung got into BA last Tuesday. We lived together for 2 years in the dorms at UW. She now lives in San Francisco and got laid off from her job in November (don’t worry, the good kind, she is still getting paid and she had been hoping to get laid off for 2 years now). She and her boyfriend, Rob traveled with us in Europe the winter before last and we stay with them whenever we go to SF. Rob is leaving on Wednesday to go back to work (he didn’t get laid off) and she will be traveling with us for 2 months until the end.

Hopefully, this quick reference will be helpful when reading this blog- past present and future. It is these people that have defined the trip for us. More so than the culture shock, the language, the food or the city. They are the reason that this blog goes unupdated for days at a time, we are just having too much fun with them.