Whales, Seals, Penguins, oh my!

I am quite the lucky girl. Lucas just graduated from Colby (congratulations!) and he came down to visit me. We had a wonderful time together, especially after not having seen each other except on skype for more than 3 months. We had some fun in the city, did the tourist thing, ate lots of steak, etc.

But what I really want to talk about is our very adventure filled trip to Puerto Madryn and the Peninsula Valdés of Patagonia!

Let's back up. Our flight leaves from the airport at 8 in the morning. The night before, we have dinner with my host family until midnight-ish, then go to a club. Obviously Lucas has to experience the nightlife in Buenos Aires, and meet my friends. We succeed in doing both. Back to the hostel at 4, wake up at 6. Every time that I have been in the little airport in Buenos Aires, Aeroparque Jorge Newberry, my plane is always delayed. Just the case this time too. We sleep in the chairs waiting for our flight to be called. We sleep on the airplane. We sleep, or at least I do, on the bus ride from Trelew to our destination of Puerto Madryn. Eyes wide open, we check into the hostel and go scout out the town and get some food for lunch. It's a cute place. There's a little square (obviously called Plaza de Mayo because that's what every square in Argentina is named), and you can see the bay from blocks away. After lunch I resolve to go running, but instead I lay down, and 5 hours later I wake up. Oh well! We head out for dinner, and went to the cutest place. Obviously since we were by the water we wanted fish, and so we end up in a restaurant inside a boat. It was on land, but still, super cool. And the food was quite good. We split a quarter kilo of ice cream and called it a day, getting ready for our big excursion to the peninsula the next day.

Peninsula Valdes is a barely inhabited, UNESCO world heritage site full of wildlife and open land. Even on the isthmus on the way there we found animals. And not just any animals--whales! So at this point, the sun is rising, it's 9 in the morning and Lucas' trip is complete because we've already had a cetacean sighting. We're standing on a beach and we see whales breaching and playing in the water 20 meters from us. It was beautiful and so incredible. There were also penguins floating in the water but I didn't manage to capture any pictures of those little guys.

Once we were finally on the peninsula, things were equally as cool. We spent most of the day driving around, getting from look out to look out, but that was okay. Our driver was fun the the two other people on the trip were very nice, even if they only spoke Spanish. On our next stop we saw elephant seals. They were just lounging on the shore and were also so cute, especially when they sneezed! Also the water was incredible blue and vibrant. It was just a beautiful place to be. 

During the rest of the day we saw wild horses and sheep, ñandus (like the south american ostrich), maras (patagonian hares), armadillos and guanacos (kind of like a llama). I tried to get pictures of as many as possible.

After getting back to the mainland I went for a run, a snagged a few nighttime pictures of Puerto Madryn all lit up. By day it reminds me a lot of a beach town, somewhere in Cape Cod or Florida, but you wouldn't be able to tell once it gets dark, there were so many lights!

At this point you're probably thinking, okay they've had a nice trip and they got back to Buenos Aires and Lucas left and Rachel was sad. WRONG.  We checked with the hostel that night about a bus back to the airport and found out our flight had been cancelled because of the volcano eruption in Chile. We'd seen the ash that day but it was just a dusting so we didn't think much of it. At least because our plane was cancelled we were able to sleep in. The next morning we went about buying bus tickets back to Bs As because the ash was everywhere and all airports were shut down. This is why Argentine-Chilean relations are not that good. Just kidding. Kind of. So we get on a bus, which is also late, and sit on it for 21 hours. We bring our own food and we each finish a book, and sleep. It isn't horrible. But a 21 hour bus ride at best, is slightly better than horrible.

We arrive in Buenos Aires 2 hours later than expected, run, shower, and eat a lot more steak. Lucas left the next day. I was so happy to have him come visit me, and grateful for a good excuse to try new restaurants and boost my iron! Now I'm finishing up classes and figuring out when I'm going home. Definitely in less than 4 weeks. Yay! I can't wait to go home to see my family and friends, to run, to be in warm weather, and to eat all of the foods i've been missing: bagels, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cake, brownies, cinnamon buns, pie, good ice cream, shrimp, good salads, cheeseburgers, cheese, breakfast sandwiches, my mom's cooking and much more.

Full of food but wanting more,
Rachel

P.S. The ash cloud from the volcano got all the way to Buenos Aires and flights are just now starting up again. It also got to Australia. We were lucky to be ble to get out when we did!

Recap: In the Clouds

About a month ago, as I mentioned in one of my last posts, I travelled with half of my program to northwestern Argentina, known as NOA (nor-oeste argentina) to the province of Jujuy. It was officially a seminar on ancient andean life, but mostly just a really good excuse to not do homework and hang out with friends. We saw lots of mountains, cacti, llamas, and textiles, ate llama and coca leaves and tea, tasted salt from a salt flat, felt the effects of 4000 meters above sea level (and the clouds!), and bought lots of tourist-y goods at every market we could find. Here are some pictures:

Our cabins at the hotel, right underneath the mountains

So many patterns and textures at the market in the square in Tilcara!

Cacti and stones in an old indiginous village

That means 4170 meters above sea level, and we know this because...

...we could see the clouds! coca tea was had to combat alititude sickness

Llama stew! kind of a cross between lamb and beef. nothing super special, but now i can say i've eaten llama!

Some friends overlooking the town of Humahuaca

Salt flats! Salt for miles, it seems

Fulfilling our daily sodium requirement

Colorful, beautiful mountains. Almost as pretty and incredible as Iguazu

Okay now we're in the province of Salta, which has a lot of colonial Spanish influences, like this statue

And this church

My apologies for taking forever to post, 

Rachel

Do Not Read This If You Are Easily Offended

A story:

This past Tuesday I'm sitting in my Argentine Fiction class, and we're reading a story outloud about a man whose mother was kidnapped and secuestered during the military dictatorship. He's looking for information about her and everytime he learns something he gets drunk to deal with it. In the end of the story he ends up drunk in a Chinese supermarket, which are all over Buenos Aires, communicating without words with the Chinese owner.*

At this point my professor says "it's awkward because the Chinese are so weird, don't you think? They're so odd. You can never understand what they're saying. And those eyes!" My class is only foreign students, so we're looking around at each other, stunned at the bluntness of our professor's comments.

He keeps going: "there are also Koreans too, but I can never tell them apart. They all have supermarkets and restaurants, that's all they do here. Their supermarkets aren't even that nice. I'd never want to get drunk there."

I'm actually paraphrasing what my professor said, but this next line is a DIRECT quote (translated of course, the whole class is in Spanish): "I don't think that there is anything worse than getting drunk in a Chinese supermarket."

And then class ended.

Bienvenid@s a Argentina!

Reevaluating my political correctness,
Rachel

*By the way, this story is called "Otras Fotos de Mamá" by Félix Bruzzone

Babies and Birthdays

Here she is, la bebé Antonia! She is so cute, when she's not crying. Which is not often but she tends to get stomach aches. It amazes me that my host parents know that when she's crying it's because of that, but this is why they're the parents and not me.

And so as not to feel left out, here is Manuela. She finally smiled for the camera for me:

Also, kind of a big deal, last Thursday I turned 21. I know that some people of an older generation read my blog and might not appreciate the less tasteful details, so let's just say that I celebrated as one should when one's 21st birthday falls on 5 de Mayo. It's not a big holiday down here in Argentina, but we did go to a mexican restaurant for traditional food and drink. 

Lo and behold, I even made it to class the next morning! 

Speaking of mornings, tomorrow at 6 AM I depart for the northwestern province of Jujuy on a trip with my program. It should be lots of fun and really beautiful, so I promise I'll take lots of pictures. 

21 is as 21 does, 

Rachel

A Boring Post about a Boring Place

Finally, it's here. The much awaited blog post about the Iguazu waterfalls. Or at least for me, because this has been my favorite trip, favorite place and favorite weekend so far of studying abroad. My friends all left last Thursday night on a 19 hour bus right, but since I have my class at UBA on Fridays and can't miss it, I flew down on Friday afternoon to meet them. They were in the hostel after a long day of traveling. We got dinner which our hostel very nicely provided for us, even if it was fried empanadas and gross pizza, and headed to bed for our big day at the Iguazu waterfalls the next day!

Let me just say that I knew Iguazu would be cool (which is why I'd ventured to the northern tip of Argentina in the first place) but I wasn't prepared for how unbelievable the waterfalls actually are until I approached the Garganta del Diablo, the devil's throat. We had decided to go here first because it's the biggest and most famous part of the park. I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to the falls. Here's what we saw as we neared the end of the bridge:

Oooh but wait it gets so much more incredible. Pictures don't do it justice at all, but I'm going to try...

Basically you can't see the bottom at all and there's 10000000 gallons of water falling and there's mist everywhere so you're soaked and you can't hear anything because the boom of the water is so loud. Oh, and its incredibly beautiful!

So we dried off, lunched and took an ecological boat ride down the river before we saw the next waterfalls. The ride was lame, except that we saw some little caymans. I'd say that they're cute but they're really just little alligators so I am not a fan.

Next we headed to the upper and lower trails of the rest of the waterfalls. They were only SLIGHTLY less impressive than the Garganta del Diablo. Not quite as dramatic but there was a lot of greenery and it looked like Paradise. We even saw a rainbow, thus proving it's paradise. And we could see Brazil. I thought I was being super tricky having discovered the "panoramic assist mode" on my camera (which I've only had for 4 years) so I took a lot of 180 degree picture series, but then they didn't turn out panoramic. I'm still working on it. Meanwhile, it's not least bit uglier in regular photos: 

We also saw some birds and coatis, which are cute but evil, and that about wrapped up our first day. We returned to the hostel tired and sweaty, showered and ate and called it a night. The next day was already Sunday so we packed up, dropped off our bags at the bus stop (I still had to buy my ticket, since I was joining the plebs in my long journey home), and headed back to the park. Since we'd already done the big stuff the day before, we took a nature trail into the spider-infested forest to a secluded cascade and natural swimming pool. Seriously we saw so many giant spiders and even a hairy one that I have no doubt was a tarantula. I was really jittery by the time we got to the pool. We hopped in and took some pictures, and then I got too cold so I got out and took more pictures. It was a nice, chill day and we got in a lot of walking, thank goodness, so that our legs didn't clot and die on the bus ride back. The ride was uneventful; I meant to do a lot of homework but instead watched some not so great movies, ate some not so great food and got some not so great sleep. Anyways, here are more pictures that ARE great!

I hope you all agree with me that Iguazu is beautiful and breathtaking. As always I have lots more pictures up on facebook so go check those out. Stay tuned for my next post when we remember together my 21st birthday, and pictures of baby Antonia surface. Also Mac and Cheese? No more clues than that for now!

Just kidding about the title of this post, 

Rachel

Wearing Patagonia in Patagonia

The last few days when my family was here we ventured waaay down south to El Calafate and El Chalten, in Patagonia! The two towns are on the southwestern end of Argentina, almost in Chile. Even the flight down was exciting because we had a quick layover in Ushuaia, the southern-most city in the world! We didn't actually get off the plane to touch the ground, but I got to see it. Ushuaia is in Tierra del Fuego, which means land of fire, is named so because the mountains are all red and ,well, look like they're on fire.

We finally got to El Chalten, and went for a few hikes. The first one was freezing rain and so I didn't bring my camera. The coolest part though was that there was a biathalon going on, with people biking and then running through the mountains. During our hike they would pass us, soaked and covered in mud. They looked so intense and exhausted but when I looked up the race, its only a 6 mile run. I don't get why they all looked like war victims but because it was so cold I'm glad I didn't do it.

The next day luckily was much nicer. El Chalten is known for its mountains, (there's really nothing else to do in the town) Cerro Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre. We did a six hour out and back hike to see Cerro Torre. It was beautiful. And so varied in terms of terrain. First we were in forests and then plains (like the Earth's Children series, I kept waiting to see cave people) and then glaciers. Lets see if I can condense the hike down to just a few pictures:

It was sunny and it snowed a little on our way up but all in all it was a great day. And Easter Sunday, too! No Easter bunny though. The one thing is that my parents had SUCH a nice time that they took an extra half hour walking back taking pictures and so David and I had to sit in the wind waiting for them, and that was cold.

From El Chalten we bussed back to El Calafate. This town reminded me a lot of Jackson Hole--kind of rugged and unspoilt with incredible nature. The big attraction here is the Perrito Moreno glacier. We did a "mini-trekking" expedition and got to go up on the glacier. It would have been super cool except that it was raining and cold and we were all soaked. So that kind of ruined it, and I didn't think that our whole expedition was worth it. But here are some pictures anyways:

I couldn't leave Patagonia without going for a run, and I took my camera as I went out back in El Calafate. Good thing I did, because it was dusk and beautiful. The lake/pond/bay/I'm not sure which is really pretty. There are even flamingos...!

Finally, we went to a parilla on our last night. While Argentina is known for its beef, Patagonia is actually known for its lamb. We got an asado with both, and then calafate mousse, which is a little berry from Patagonia. I'm drooling just thinking about it all now!

Patagonia was really cool and all that I thought it would be. I'm glad that I got to go, and do it with my family. However, my trip the following weekend to the waterfalls of Iguazu totally overshadows Patagonia. I'm a little jaded and whole lot lucky!

Winter outwear,
Rachel