Skiing Bariloche, Day 3

I spent a third, and final, day skiing at Cerro Catedral. Like yesterday the snow was extremely icy in the morning and then slushy in the afternoon, so unless we get more snow before I leave on Sunday, this will probably be my last day of skiing in Bariloche.

When I got back to the hostel, the 86 VW Bug ("el Ferrari") was parked out front which meant only one thing -- José and Bruno are back!

Skiing Bariloche, Day 2

I took a lesson this morning and am now feeling much more confident on the slopes. However I don´t actually have any pictures of myself skiing, so here are some of the pictures I took from the slopes--enjoy!

Skiing, Day 1

So I haven´t skied in a very, very long time, and I pretty much spent the day falling down the mountain. The resort, however, is beautiful, with amazing views of the surrounding mountains from the slopes.

The best part of the day was when I took a lunch break with some of the people from my hostel:

Tomorrow I´m definitely going to take a lesson!

Bariloche

I arrived in Bariloche this afternoon and checked into the hostel, which is by far the nicest that I have stayed at, and the location of the city itself is fabulous, at the foot of the mountains and alongside a giant lake (Lago Nahuel Huapi). The town is pleasant enough with lots of chocolate shops and souvenir stands, although it is very obvious that it gets packed with tourists during the winter high season, which is about to start.

Starting tomorrow I´m going skiing!

Esquel

After nine hours on a regular (Greyhound-type) bus I arrived in Esquel, and luckily the route to Bariloche is open tomorrow, because I can´t wait to leave. There really isn´t much here aside from a giant supermarket and La Hoya, a ski resort that still hasn´t opened yet.

Bariloche tomorrow!

Trying to get to Bariloche...

Originally, my plan was to leave for Bariloche tonight, via long-distance bus, but unfortunately the routes through the Andes have been closed by snowy conditions, which bodes well for the skiing, if I can only get out west!

For now the plan is to go to Esquel (more or less due west from Puerto Madryn) and wait there until the routes are clear.

Since I had an unexpected free day in Puerto Madryn, I went over to Punta Loma, another protected area located outside Península Valdés, with José and Bruno to check out the sea lions that live there. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera, so I don´t have any pictures, however the sea lions at Punta Loma were much better than those at Península Valdés, as there were more of them and they were making a LOT of noise.

After Punta Loma, we headed back to the hostel and hung out, as it was freezing cold outside, and then I went to bed early in order to not miss my bus to Esquel in the morning.

Tea and Cake or Death?

Many of the towns in this area, including Puerto Madryn, Trelew and Gaiman, were settled by Welsh seeking religious freedom in the 1860´s, and, in Trelew and Gaiman, Welsh is still spoken. More recently, Gaiman has become famous for its lavish tea services so, after sleeping in this morning I decided to head down to Gaiman and check it out.

I ended up at Ty Gwyn (¨White House¨):

The spread:

The tea and cakes were absolutely delicious and well worth the long bus ride (1 1/2 hours, each way). The proprietress gave me the leftover cakes to take home with me, but I fell asleep on the bus and accidentally crushed them -- oops!

Whales and seals and sea lions, oh my!

I woke up early this morning, or rather, I was supposed to wake up early to meet up with my tour group but overslept and was woken up by one of the hostel staff members instead (oops!). Despite oversleeping, we still left before dawn for Península Valdés, a nature preserve located outside of Puerto Madryn.

Península Valdés provides a sheltered breeding ground for Southern Right Whales, sea lions, and seals, and the land within the park is home to guanacos (similar to llamas), eagles, foxes and and other small fauna.

On the way into the park, we stopped at Playa Doradillo, where, due to a steep drop off close to the shore, whales occasionally swim almost up to the beach. Lucky for us, this morning the whales were up early, unlike me!:

We continued on into the park, which actually is mostly divided into estancias however the areas important to the marine mammals that come to the park are protected. At Puerto Pirámides our group boarded a boat for a whale-watching expedition. Luckily, there were tons of whales:

Towards the end of the whale-watching, one of the whales jumped several times:

After the boat trip, our tour group continued on to the sea lion and elephant seal breeding grounds. Unfortunately, their active season is during the summer and fall, so there was not a whole lot going on.

Sea lions doing next to nothing.

Elephant seals really doing nothing -- according to our tour guide, they don´t have sweat glands, so when they are relaxing on the shore, they avoid moving around so as not to overheat. During the breeding season, the entire beach is filled with seals, and orcas (killer whales) swim up onto the beach to eat the seals.

After watching the seals for a while, our tour headed back to the hostel, where found I had two new Uruguayan roommates, José and Bruno, who will be driving an 86 VW Bug from Montevideo to Machu Picchu and back:

And yes, that is the same sweater, apparently there is only one type of sweater in Uruguay!

Boca Wins!!

After 18 hours on the bus, I got into Puerto Madryn this afternoon, checked into the hostel and then wandered around the town for a couple of hours. I ended up eating dinner and watching the Boca Juniors/Gremio match for the Liberators´ Cup with some of my roommates from the hostel.

Boca won with an aggregate 5-nil, and, about ten minutes after the game ended, tons of people started streaming past the restaurant towards the town square, so we left the restaurant and joined them:

After a while, the crowd left the plaza, marched around the block, and continued their celebration in front of a statute on the seawall, at which point we went back to the bar, and eventually back to the hostel.

On the road again...

Well, today is my last day in Buenos Aires for a while. It´s been a blast and I´m finding it kind of hard to leave, but I´ll be back in just about a month or so...

Anyway, here is the (tentative) plan for my upcoming travel:

Puerto Madryn: Whales, seals, and other Patagonian wildlife (Jun 20-Jun 24)

Bariloche: Skiiing, etc. (Jun 26-Jul 1ish)

(Possible side trip to San Martín de los Andes)

Mendoza: Wine country, possible side trip to Santiago de Chile (July 1-July 7)

Salta/Jujuy: Hopefully the Tren a las nubes will be working when I get there, athough I´m not really hopeful at this point. (July 8-July 14)

Catamarca: Poncho Festival! (July 15-17)

Córdoba: (July 18-21)

Return to Buenos Aires July 22(ish)

Feria de los matadores

I got back to Buenos Aires yesterday, and spent the day loafing around. Today I got up early and took a loooong collectivo (bus) ride over to Mataderos--a neighborhood on the southern edge of Buenos Aires--to check out the Fería de Mataderos, which is a weekly folk market that features traditional music and dancing.

A short clip:

Some more dancing:

Unfortunately, I forgot to go to the Gaucho Museum...hopefully I´ll be able to do it when I return to Buenos Aires after touring the interior!

Iguazu Falls, Take Two

I arrived in Iguazu yesterday afternoon, after a 15ish-hour bus ride (which wasn´t that bad--the buses here are approximately a thousand times better than the Greyhound/Chinatown buses in the U.S.), checked into the hostel and spent the afternoon in Puerto Iguazu and the evening hanging out at the hostel.

This morning, I woke up early, met up with my tour group and headed over to the national park.

The falls were AMAZING, although kind of hard to describe, so here is a video of La garganta del Diablo (the Devil´s Throat), which was probably the most impressive in terms of size:

Other views of the waterfalls:

After trekking around the park, I took one of the boat rides on offer under the falls, which was really fun, although obviously I don´t have any pictures to prove it!

Iguazu Falls, Take 1

I was supposed to fly to Iguazu, which is in the northeastern province of Misiones, today to see the waterfalls, but unfortunately when I got to Aeroparque this morning, the Aerolineas Argentinas check-in counters looked like this:

Aren´t those guys supposed to be on the other side of the desks?

After days of delayed Aerolineas flights (due to the fog that has been blanketing the city on a daily basis since Thursday) the check in staff, tired of being harassed by passengers (or being opportunistic, depending on who´s doing the explaining) instituted a work slowdown yesterday--which (inevitably) lead to a pissed off passenger assaulting an employee--and walked off the job this morning, meaning that all flights today were cancelled, in addition to those cancelled yesterday and over the weekend.

So I spent the day waiting in line to talk to an Aerolineas employee, received a cash refund of my ticket, and booked myself on the bus to Iguazu, which leaves at 9pm tonight and gets to Iguazu at 1:30pm tomorrow.

Something Touristy!

I spent today downtown, trying to buy all of the stuff that I´m going to need during my upcoming roadtrip (details are forthcoming, I promise!). Since I was already in the area, I went over to the Casa Rosada and the Plaza de Mayo.

The Casa Rosada is the presidential palace, although, unlike the White House, the President of Argentina also resides in Olivios when he isn´t working at the Casa Rosada. Constructed in 1873, the pink color of the Casa Rosada is said to be due to either Domingo Faustino Sarmiento´s desire to demonstrate unity between the two political parties of the time, the Unitarists (white) and the Federalists (red), or it is due to the use of cow´s blood in the original paint job to protect against damage from humidity.

At any rate, the Casa Rosada used to be light pink, but it is currently being restored and is now more of a manly, um, pink:

The former color can be seen in the upper right hand corner of the picture, above the roof. The balcony in the center is where Evita, Madonna, etc did their thing.

Fería San Telmo

After getting back from Uruguay last night, I slept in this morning and then headed over to San Telmo to check out the antiques/flea market that is held every Sunday in Plaza Dorrego, although in reality the street fair extends for multiple blocks on either side of the plaza and even further up Calle Defensa.

During the 19th century, San Telmo was a fashionable neighborhood to live in until a yellow fever epidemic struck in 1871 century and the surviving porteño elites decided to move to higher ground north and west of the city center. The mansions of San Telmo were then converted into conventillos (tenements), however a lot of the neighborhood´s original colonial-style exterior architecture, as well as the neighborhood´s cobblestone streets, have been preserved.

The flea market was packed with merchants and shoppers, so there wasn´t really anything to take pictures of aside from other tourists, however the colonial architecture and overall atmosphere may make San Telmo my favorite Buenos Aires neighborhood so far.

On the way, back, in the subway station, I noticed these decorative tiles incorporated into the mosaic next to the platform:

Karen--any ideas? =)

Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

Today, for a change of pace, I went on a day trip to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay, which is right across the Río de la Plata, and accessible by high speed ferry. Unfortunately, the Port of Buenos Aires closed right before my ferry was supposed to leave due to heavy fog, so I was delayed for a couple of hours while the officials waited for the fog to disperse.

Nevertheless, I arrived in Colonia about 1pm, which left plenty of time for exploring the Historic District, which was named a UNESCO world heritage site due to its Spanish and Portuguese colonial architecture.

Calle de suspiros, with Portuguese-style cobblestone street

Colonia was founded by the Portuguese in 1680, however it was later captured by Spanish forces, and subsequently changed hands between the Spanish and Portuguese numerous times until Spanish rule was established at the end of the 18th century.

I spent pretty much all of my time wandering the streets of the historic district, and also walked to the top of the lighthouse:

View from faro (lighthouse), Colonia

Aside from the very cool colonial architecture, the city itself had a great vibe -- very laid back and friendly for what is, during the summer, a resort town overrun by tourists. Additionally, aside from the occasional moped, the streets were very quiet and I could hear the waves of the Río de la Plata against the shore, which was a nice change from the hustle of Buenos Aires.

Fall foliage, Colonia del Sacramento

SMB Graffito

WARNING, THE FOLLOWING POST MAY NOT MAKE ANY SENSE TO PEOPLE OVER THE AGE OF THIRTY AND/OR NON-NERDS

From a collectivo (bus) stop on Av. Callao:

"Sorry, but your Princess in in another castle"

Of course, this was a lot funnier yesterday, when it was written on Jorge Telerman´s forehead*, rather than the soap bottle you see here but I didn´t have my camera with me, and the advert was changed out in the meantime.

*There was an election on Sunday for the new head of the government of Buenos Aires, Telerman was the sort of incumbent as he is the current interim jefe because his predecessor got kicked out, and he didn´t get enough votes to make it to the runoff round.