Salvador

Bom dia from Salvador!

We are in Slavador now, which is a beautiful, hot, and laid back city about in the middle of the coast of Brasil. It is chock full of colonial architecture, and there is plenty of steamy music to go along with the weather.

A little bit about the rest of our stay in Rio - we stayed for the first two nights in a region called Catete - which is the ´budget´ option for travellers. It is close to what they call the ´bohemian´ night scene. After seeing this, I can only describe it as thousands upon thousands of people out in the streets having a good time. Every place was packed to capacity, and even the gas stations were set up as make-shift night clubs. By looking at some of the people on the street, we should have been frightened, but we never felt threatened.

After Catete, we moved to Ipanema, which is in the south of Rio. If you remember the song ´Girl from Ipanema´, this is the beach that the song is about. We hit the beach there and enjoyed cool coconuts and the grilled cheese on a stick (a very popular snack option in Brasil) on the beach and watching the throng of people massed on the beach.

From Rio, we headed north to a small beach town call Arrial d´Ajuda, which is a short ferry ride from the larger city of Porto Seguro. We stayed in a nice hostel there, and the owner led us on a hike one afternoon to see the forest surrounding the town and then to an overlook of the beach which many people don´t get to see. We didn´t see any monkeys on the hike (Melanie was dissappointed about this), but we saw plenty of lizards, razor sharp grasses, and wierd looking fruits.

The beaches in Arrial are set up so that you would go sit at a table at a restaurant on the beach and order stuff - they were all about the same, so we chose ours based on our favorite crazy waiter named Carlos. He was truly a character. We had a favorite restaurant, too, where we had a favorite waitress who recognized us and treated us well.

Here are some pictures that we have been meaning to post for a while:

Melanie and our friend Anne on the hike to the beach in Florianopolis:

Our host family and Anne in Florianopolis:



Melanie at the waterfall in Penedo:

Recognize this? It´s the fruit from which chocolate is derived (cacau). It makes an excellent juice, too:

They were getting ready for Easter in the German-founded city of Bluemenau:

Overlooking the beach in Arrial d´Ajuda:

Rio de Janeiro

Bom dia from Rio.

We´re in Rio! No, we haven´t seen anyone with fruit in their hat . . . yet.

Back to some things that I was going to write about before my time ran out at the last place. They say if you like humidity and beer, head for the city of Blumenau (the city where my German came in handy). I think you know that I like beer, and as a person who grew up in Houston, the humidity didn´t bother me too much. So, we enjoyed the beer and the German-style breakfasts. After having travelled for a while in Argentina, anything more than toast and butter is more than welcome.

After Blumenau, we headed for the little city of Penedo, which is in the state of Sao Paulo. This is another community founded by immigrants to Brasil - Penedo was founded by Scandinavians, mostly Finnish and Swedish. We stayed at a pousada the was owned by an older gentleman who came to Brasil from Austria when he was one year old. This place was one of those places you hear about - an old house with an amazing verdant garden on the edge of an alpline-looking stream in the middle (well, the edge) of the rain forest. One of the better places we´ve stayed.

Penedo is on the edge of a national park that preserves some of the last remaining Atlantic rain forest, so this sounded like a place we would like to visit. We might even get to see some monkeys, we thought. Reality is a bit harder to deal with, though. Things are set up for people who have cars around this city (and many other places in Brasil), so we didn´t make it to the national park. We did get to hike up a very large hill close to the city and got a great view of the valley with the city, as well as some bumble bees that were the size of my thumb. We hiked to several waterfalls outside of the town.

On to Rio. Melanie asked me what pre-conceived visions I had in my head about Brasil. I told her that I didn´t have too many - mine were mostly about rainforests and mosquitoes. One thing that I really didn´t expect to find was - get ready for this - popcorn with bacon. That´s right, popcorn with pieces of bacon in it that you can get practically anywhere on the street. This is my kind of place.

Seriously, though we haven´t seen too much of it yet, Rio promises to be interesting - good interesting and bad interesting. On the one hand, you can feel the energy of this place when you are walking down the street, on the other hand you are walking down the street with multitudes of poor and indigent people. The buildings are beautiful, but almost every vertical surface has some sort of grafitti on it. We will be exploring today and I will write more about Rio in the next post. And, yes, we will be careful.

Tchau!

Penedo

Bom dia from Penedo, Brasil.

We finished up our week of Portuguese classes in Florianopolis (stay tuned for pictures next time we find a place that will let us post them), and we both speak more Portuguese than when we started. I will let you draw your own conclusions from that statement. Our week ended up on Saturday with a trip out to the end of the island and an hour and a half hike to one of the remoter beaches. It was spectacular! Just coming down the hill to see the crystal blue waves crashing on the beach was great - and there were no cars or anyone trying to sell you home-made jewelry.

While we´re on the subject of languages, I never thought that my German would come in handy while travelling in South America, but it did. The south of Brasil is full of immigrants from all corners of the world. After leaving Florianopolis after our week of language classes ended, we headed to the nearby town of Blumenau. Try to guess where the immigrants that founded this city were from - you guessed it - Germany! While we were hanging around in the bus station looking confused, a taxi driver came up to me and asked if I spoke German - I said a little, so we started talking away (with a little bit of difficulty on my part . . . ). I was shocked to see how easily it came back to me after years of not speaking it.

Prepaid internet time running out . . . will post more soon!

Florianopolis

Bom Dia from Florianopolis, Brasil.

We are here in Floripa, as they call it, taking a Portuguese class for a week. We are staying with a family as part of the class, with two other students. The family is great - they are very friendly and extremely patient with our sorry attempts at communicating in their native language. They make breakfast and cook a huge dinner for us every day, which is nice after eating at restaurants for so long. And they have a black and white cat.

Some of the things that we love about Brasil so far - tropical fruits, ubiquitous fruit juice stands, friendly people, and nice beaches. One other thing that we love, and that would make a killing in the US - ice cream buffets. Why didn´t they think of this when we were growing up? You get to pick as many flavors as you want with as many toppings as you want and they charge you by the kilo (not that we have bought a kilo . . . yet).

Sorry we don´t have any pictures to post now - taking the camera to the beach is not the best idea. We hope everyone is doing well!

Tchau!

Torres

Bom Dia from Torres, Brasil.

We have been in this little beach town - little compared to other cities in Brasil, not compared to the last beach town we were in (Punta del Diablo, Uruguay) - for two days now. The tourist season has ended, so the hotels are cheap and the beaches are almost empty, but the weather is nice and sunny, and hot. Tommorow morning we head to Florianopolis to start our language course.

As promised, here are some pictures.

A sculpture-lined pedestrian street in Montivideo, Uruguay:



The waterfront of the Rio Plata in Montivideo - the fisherman was selling his catch on the sidewalk:



The cool place to be on Saturday afternoon in Montivideo is the old market, where you can eat as much grilled meat as you want (sorry, vegetarians). There are a couple of grilled vegetables, and grilled cheese. Yum.



The view from our cabaña in Punta del Diablo:



And the cabaña itself:



A view of the shoreline:



And the fishing fleet:



I mentioned the fruit in the last post, so here is an example - avacadoes that are almost as big as your head:



And, finally, the beach here in Torres - the cliffs in the pícture are part of a series of outcrops, one of which was made into a municipal park that you can hike around on (from which this picture was taken):

Porto Alegre

Aslkjls laksdjfn lkjasld asne gnaen gneosn aytgwqj alknfea alsn vçh0o sjhhnbg anshygenq asztqn alng al? Njeqyh ngloyqp alkjqngalk lkanonon lnm anqun. Aj qulkj qoiknm qneny nthyh qjuidl.

That is how we feel now that we have moved into Portuguese-speaking Brasil. I thought we would at least be able to pick out some of the words, but no, it´s not as easy as we (or at least I) thought it was going to be. It is actually getting a little better now that we are at least somewhat familiar with the way Portuguese sounds, but I am not as optomistic about picking it right up as I was before we came. We will be taking a week of language classes starting next week, so that will help.

Our stay in Punto del Diablo, Uruguay, was nice - it is a small beach town with (as one brochure described it) ecclectic architecture - read: thrown together - and a large fishing community. But the people were friendly, the beaches were great, and we were adopted by two dogs who sensed that we were missing our own at home. And our cabaña had a hammock on the porch from which we could sit and listen to the waves. We will post some pictures from the next place we can download from the camera.

Anyway, we are in Porto Alegre, a large city that is on the southeast coast of Brasil. I compared it to Houston, Texas, in the fact that it is a large, busy city and there is plenty to keep a tourist occupied, but there aren´t too many of them here. Oh, yeah, I think it is prettier than Houston (no offense to Houstonites). We´re headed to a smaller place on the coast, then to Florianopolis at the beginning of next week for our classes.

Montivideo

Hola from Montivideo, Uruguay.

As a lot of people say, Montivideo is a nice place, but not really somewhere that makes you want to stay for a long time. The part of the city by the port, where we stayed for two nights, is the old part of town with once great architecture and is going through a restoration of sorts. This is still in progress, so there are still some dodgy parts. There are plenty of places to eat and hang out, but they don´t have the same lively fell as Buenos Aires.

Last night we wandered around town and saw a bunch of people filing into a building so we decided to follow them. This turned out to be a celebration of Mozart´s 250th anniversary in the Supreme Court building. The building was stunning, but we waited and waited and nothing happened, until we headed outside. There was a strange modern dance routine being done to a Mozart concerto. It was wierd - you don´t really think ´modern dance´ along with Mozart.

I don´t know if we´ve told you about the fascination here (I mean the countries we´ve been to - Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay) with meat, pasta, pizza, and starchy foods in general, but you can´t walk ten feet in this place without running into someone selling or eating french fries or hot dogs. WE NEED VEGETABLES!!! Send some down if you have them.

We are leaving here today for a small beach town called Punto del Diablo on the northeast coast of Uruguay, close to the border with Brasil. Who knows what the internet situation will be like, so don´t worry if we don´t post for a while.

Chau, chicos.

Colonia

After two days in Buenos Aires running errands and getting laundry done, we headed across the Rio Plata to Colonia, Uruguay. The three hour ferry ride is pretty uneventful, but when we got to the city, it was like being in a different world. Coming from the busy city of Buenos Aires where you have to be constantly aware of your surroundings and watching out for things, Colonia was a big change. The cars even stop for you at cross-walks (if you try to cross the street in front of a car anywhere else in South America, you will quickly become a splat on the road).

Colonia was the first city founded by the Portugese in South America and has a long history of being passed back and forth between Portugal and Spain. The old fortress part of the city is a UNESCO world heritage site and is a beautiful old city with cobblestone streets and very old buildings. It was nice to wander around the streets imagining what life was like several hundred years ago.

It wouldn´t be South America without a dog or two around. This one happens to be guarding the city walls:

After wandering around the city, we decided to rent a motor scooter and see what kind of trouble we could get into.

Some of the trouble we got into included seeing the world´s largest collection of keychains and pencils. Who would have known that these reside 6 kilometers outside of Colonia, Uruguay?



After waiting out the rain for an hour (there´s only so long you can look at a collection of keychains . . . ), we headed to the local winery where they were busily processing this season´s harvest. It was the first one we have seen that was actually making wine.

One of the good things about having personal transportation is that you can go to the out of the way places the locals frequent. We had seen a sign for homemade pasta and turned off to go get some for our dinner. We saw an older gentleman swinging a wedding ring tied to a piece of a pregnant woman´s hair. Strange, we thought. I asked him what he was doing as we left, and this started a conversation that lasted several hours. (He said he could tell the sex of the baby by the way the ring moved.) The gentleman turned out to be an Italian - a pasta shop, remember - who had emmigrated to the U.S. and then to Uruguay before World War II. After showing us his house and introducing us to his family and showing us pictures of the rest of his family, he gave us sauce for our pasta and bread to go along with it and bid us good travels. Here´s a picture of him and Melanie on his deck overlooking the river:


Now we are in Montivideo, Uruguay, and it is still raining. Stay tuned for more pictures - we will post some from Buenos Aires that we never got around to. Happy St. Patrick´s Day!

El Chalten

As of our last post, we were in El Calafate, Argentina, about to head for the small town of El Chalten. I mentioned something about the glacier that we went to see - some of you might have seen something about it in the news or on the internet. When we were there, it was two days before it formed the ice bridge that subsequently collapsed into the lake. Luckily, this happened at night, so we didn´t feel too bad about missing it. Here are some pictures from when we were there:

A shot of the glacier from several kilometers away:

Closer, from a different angle:



Even closer:



After spending another night in El Calafate, we rode the bus out to Chalten, which was a four hour ride along a rocky unpaved road, along with a half busload of people like us. When we reached the town, it was cloudy and rainy and we headed off along similar dirt roads in search of somewhere to stay. Luckily, it was the closing of the tourist season, so there was plenty to choose from and we found a four-person cabaña for (relatively) cheap. Chalten is a small and very relaxed place where everyone is there for one reason - to hike and enjoy the outdoors.

The view from our cabaña:



I should have know by some of the names of the places in this town - for example, Paseo de los Viento (Passage of the Wind) - that we were in for a windy stay. The wind blew so hard that night that dust came through the walls of the cabin and made things gritty. The next day was sunny so we went on a hike that was supposed to lead us to a lake with a great view. We hiked for three hours and got within about 200 feet of the lake and the view until the hurricane-force winds stopped our advance (well, maybe it was only tropical storm-force, but it was still strong enough to knock us around) and we didn´t get to enjoy the view. Here are some pictures from before we got blown back:


The next day was supposed to be a hike to view the peak in the picture from our window, but when the wind finally stopped, the rain started. So we spent the day playing Scrabble and drinking hot coffee. Travel is hard, you need to take it easy every once in a while. Of course, the next day was rainy as well, but we decided to brave the rain in hopes that it would clear up while we were hiking. It didn´t, but the scenery was spectacular:

Another good thing about this small town is that they had a travel office that sold airline tickets. We scored some to fly from El Calafate to Buenos Aires, which involved a lot of waiting and delays, but was still shorter than the 40 hours required to take the bus. While we were having breakfast before our flight, Melanie saw the roof she wants for our house:

It´s the roof that you plant!

EL Calafate

Hola from El Calafate, Argentina.

Sorry it´s been so long since posting, but long bus rides and small cities make it easy to neglect the blog. And the internet places in small cities with slow internet connections generally don´t appreciate you posting pictures. So, alas, no pictures this time. But we have some great ones to post. Coming soon.

While we were still in Buenos Aires, we took part in a free Tango lesson that was sponsored by the Tango Festival that was going on. They didn´t tell anyone that you should have at least had some Tango experience before coming. So, I, along with my two left feet, left my dancing partner (Melanie) wishing she had worn steel-toed boots that night and wishing for a suave Argentenian to come sweep her off her feet. That was the night I almost got robbed.

So, that did it for Buenos Aires - it is a great city and there is plenty to keep one occupied, but it is a big noisy city, so it was time to get going. Which brings us to the next dilemma - remember how I was saying we were going to fly back down south? Well, that didn´t quite work out. Nobody heard that the tourist season was supposed to be over and that they shouldn´t be flying anymore. We didn´t want to stay in BA for another three weeks until the next available flight, so we headed south on the bus to Puerto Madryn.

Puerto Madryn is a small sea port on the Atlantic coast of Argentina. You reach it by driving through desolate and windy Patagonian steppe - we´re talking barren out here. The main attraction in Puerto Madryn is the peninsula with sea animal colonies. We got there and decided that all of the tours were either too expensive or didn´t offer enough for the price (it´s hard to be sans car or other means of independent transportation in a place where they have you by the neck), so we decided to keep heading south.

Which brings us to El Calafate, which is a relatively small town in the south of Argentina. Like many places, the town has one main attraction which everyone comes to see. In this case, it is the glacier Perito Moreno, one of the only stable (not retreating) glaciers in the area. It is, in a word, awesome. While there are tons of people there to see it and they have these balconies built on to the hill side so the masses can view it, it is worth it all to see this glacier.

The glacier terminates in Lake Argentino, where it calves off great chunks of ice that roar throughout the valley. We saw some chunks fall off that looked like pebbles from where we were but sounded like cannon shots from a few feet away. We took the ´alternative´ tour, so we got to hike around and see the glacier from a trail (where there weren´t so many people) and take a boat ride out to see the face of the glacier up close. Melanie wanted to ride a raft up to the face (they don´t offer this type of tour) which would have been even more exciting . . . and dangerous.

So, now we are heading a bit further north to El Chalten, which is even smaller than El Calafate and should offer nice hiking and not much else (this is good). And not much oppurtunity to post pictures . . . sorry.

Chau

Being a Tourist

I knew it would happen at least one time during our trip - and I am glad that it didn't turn out worse than it did.

We were walking down a busy street in Buenos Aires with some friends from Melanie's Spanish class. We were talking, having a good time, not paying attention to anything else than each other. When we stopped for a stop light, I felt a tug on my backpack, and looked back to see a woman quickly turn away from us. She was flanked by two men. I quickly checked my backpack and saw that the front pocket had been opened. Luckily, nothing was gone (nothing of importance was in that pocket anyway).

At first, I was mad. I didn't do anything right away - just told everyone to check their belongings. We crossed the street. The group of people stopped at a kiosk another half a block down to buy something. I was still feeling angry, so I ran into the woman with my shoulder. Looking back on it, that was a pretty stupid thing to do. But sometimes emotions take over being smart. She shouted "Ay, estupido". We kept walking down the street.

When we stopped at the next light, they came up from behind us and the woman spat something on me. I think it was just water, but whatever it was, I didn't really want it spat onto me.

And that's where it ended. We are lucky that we didn't have anything stolen in the first place and the two hoods that were with the woman didn't decide to do something in retaliation for me being dumb.

Travelling Tip From Dave-O: When you're travelling and someone tries to rip your stuff off and you catch them don't get mad and try to eke out some sort of street justice.

Buenos Aires - 2

Well, we´ve been in Buenos Aires for a week now. The pace of life is returning to something closer to normal - we have seen the things that you need to see and now we can take on a more regular routine. Melanie is taking Spanish classes in the morning and I am being obstinate in my belief that I don´t need to take them (though I probably should). I take my lessons by reading the newspaper with my coffee.

We have been having a nice time in BA - it is one of those cities that, though there are tons of tourists here, you can get lost in the sea of people and not feel so conspicuous. And, like any other big city, there is plenty of stuff to keep one occupied. The owner of the hostel we stayed in the first week was born here and says she is still surprised at what she finds here.

They are having the Tango festival at this time, with many free events. The tango is big here. I mean really big. Everywhere. I am not a big dancer but it has been enjoyable watching the tango bands and the informal dancers who start tango-ing on the street (every time I speak to someone about the Tango, I try to tell them of the ´two left feet´saying that we have in English, but it doesn´t really work). The festival itself is more like a group of events that take place over the city. We watched a tango band (consisting of two accordionists, two violinists, a pianist, and a bassist, and sometimes a singer). Melanie has me convinced that we should take some of the free lessons they are offering as part of the festival. We´ll see how that goes.

On Saturday, we went to a football game. River Plate vs. Arsenal. It was in some ways a let down. I have been wanting to go to a real football game for a while (mostly after I heard my friend Sachin´s stories about a riot at one that he went to in Europe). What could be more fun than watching a bunch of soccer hooligans beat each other up (from afar)? The normal stadium they played at was being used for the Rolling Stones and U2 concerts, so they played at a different stadium. That, and the fact that everyone is still on vacation, meant that the stands were not filled with riotous fans. There was one section that was filled to capacity (the standing room only part) with hooligans, and they did make a lot of noise. I couldn´t understand the chants, but I think they involved calling the other team part of the anatomy that are better left unsaid. So, overall, kind of a let down. I didn´t get to see anyone cause a riot. The universal axiom that food and drink costs more at a stadium applies in Argentina, as well - we paid a whole dollar for a choripan (sausage on bread) and another dollar for a drink. Can you believe it?

We went to the San Telmo antique market on Sunday. As we were walking through the city towards the market, it seemed abandoned - there was nobody on the streets. Then we got to the market and saw where they all had gone. Wall to wall people and tourists and antique hawkers selling everything imaginable. Neither of us are very heavy into antique collecting, but I know some people (yes, I am talking about you, Mom and Sarah) who would love coming here.

Well, that is all for now - I will post some more pictures when I find an internet place that will allow me to hook up my camera.

Editing . . .

I have just noticed that things get kind of screwy when trying to use special characters or trying to use the spell checker (which I desperately need to use).

Sorry for any weird looking words. Will try to be better in future posts.

Thanks For Reading . . .

Thanks to all who have commented - we enjoy reading them and getting a glimpse into who is keeping up with us.

A temporary answer to the toilet puzzle -

Most of the toilets do not flush like American toilets. They use two opposing streams of water (at least the ones here in Argentina do), so any Coriolis effects are cancelled out.

We still have a lot of countries, so we will let you know when we find out.

Buenos Aires

From Bariloche, we decided to take the bus to the capitol and most important city of Argentina, Buenos Aires. After a 19 hours, three bad movies, and a Nalgene of wine we arrived in Buenos Aires. (Well, we didn´t finish the Nalgene because they really know how to do a bus trip in Argentina - they gave us wine with dinner and champagne (!) as a digestive after dinner. Maybe more people would take Greyhound if they were this nice.)

There´s not much to write now, as we are just beginning to discover and enjoy BA. We are staying in the theater district at a hostel that just opened - the place is extremely nice and the owners make you feel like one of the family, but it is in a semi-shifty neighborhood. We are looking for another place to stay next week, but as it is the high season, everything is jam packed.

When we arrived, it was hot and humid (think Houston without any air conditioning), but now the rains have come and cooled things down. The rain isn´t too good for walking around, but it is supposed to stop here in a bit. And there are plenty of cafes to sit in to wait out the heavy stuff. We go to a football (yes, I mean soccer) matomorroworow, so hopefully the rain will quit by then.

Hasta luego, chicos.

Random Sightings

Anyone familiar with Austin will recognize this:



which we saw pasted on the wall at the La Cruz brewpub in Bariloche. They also had Stevie Ray Vaughn playing on the stereo. I tried to ask if they had been to Austin, but my rudimentary Spanish and sign language didn´t get the question across.

Puyehue

There are a couple of things you can´t throw a stick at without hitting in the Andes, and one of them is volcanoes. I´ll get to the others later.

We decided to rent a car in Bariloche and drive into Chile to the Parque Nacional Puyehue and explore the surrounding area. We left at 11 am, thinking that the 200 kilometers we had to travel would be easy. Then we got to the border crossing. After three hours of waiting in a kilometer-long line of cars:



we finally made it through the crossing. The Latin American way of doing things does not make crossing international borders very easy.

The border crossing is at a pass, and we descended into Chile. I told Melanie that this was ´the place´, meaning that this was the place that I had in my head all of these months of planning and waiting to go on the trip. The park is situated in a river valley (el Rio Gol Gol) that you descend into from the pass. The valley is formed by two steep ridges that are covered with vegetation (Chile is on the wet side of the Andes). In the background you can see volcanoes and other mountain ranges. Spectacular.

After camping for the night, we headed for the park´s namesake, el volcan Puyehue. When you are looking for hiking trails in the Andes, take the difficulty rating with a grain of salt - these people are used to walking up hills. ´Easy´ means that you will be walking straight uphill for four hours. I would hate to see what ´Difficult´ means. So after four hours of walking uphill, you are greeted with this view:



which makes it all worthwhile.

And the volcano:



There are hot springs and geysers at the end of the trail, but we are not equipped for overnight backpacking, so that will have to wait until next time.

The next day, we headed along dirt road (an addendum to the joke about rental cars my brother always tells: what is the fastest car on a dirt road? the one you just rented) to Puerto Octay. This city is located near a:



You guessed it, a volcano (el volcan Osorno). We talked to perhaps the most friendly tourist information stand operator in South America who told us that there are two perfect cone volcanoes in the world - Mt. Fuji and Osorno. Of course, he was partial to the one in his backyard. He was a bit off his rocker, though, as he tried to give me the same map three times.

Puerto Octay was founded by German settlers and still retains the German style architecture and the tradition of making Kuchen (fruit-topped cakes). We enjoyed a nice slice of kuchen while viewing the volcano.

On the way back, we decided that it would be a good idea to head for the border the day before we were to return the car just in case. And of course, it took only twenty minutes to cross this time. Better safe than sorry.

Bariloche

Hola from Bariloche, Argentina.

All is well - it has been a while since posting, just because we have been waiting to get somewhere with cheap(er) internet. Since we left Mendoza in the wine country, we spent an uneventful day in the oil town of Neuquen. Not very exciting, and kind of expensive.

From there, we went to Junin de los Andes, which is a small, sleepy town in the foothills of the Andes. The bus ride was quite interesting - the landscape of the northern stretches of Patagonia are remarkably like western Texas and eastern New Mexico. You can tell where the people are by the stands of wind-break trees. One difference is that there are herds of rheas running around (I chanced to look up from my book and see five running along a fence line). The ranchers hang foxes they shoot on the barbed wire - foxes can learn not to eat easy prey like lambs and chickens by seeing their dead relatives, I guess.

Junin is small, and I guess the people are a bit jaded by the amount of non-natives there. Melanie said buenos dias to the neighbor of our hosteria three times and each time he stared at us like we were from Mars. No matter, because close to the town is the Parque Nacional Lanin, in the center of which is a volcano (Lanin) and a nice waterfall where we had our lunch:



This park has been our favorite out of the three we have been to so far, but it was kind of a pain to get to on the bus. And dusty as hell. One good thing about it is that there are no RVs running around trying to squash hikers (and like most other parks, once you get 15 minutes up the trail, the ammount of people drops precipitously). The backpacker culture here in Argentina is very strong, with many, many people backpacking (nonecessarilyly as much in the backcountry) to campgrounds.




Then we headed further south to Bariloche, which is a largish, busy city nestled in the Andes on a lake. I can understand why people like to live and visit here - it is in quite a stunning setting. The downside of that is that there are tons and tons of people (now is the high season, when the Argetines have their vacation - the place is packed with people).

We took an all day hike to El Catedral:



Again, it is easy to see why people like to come here.

We have also been sampling the local beer scene, which is stronger here than anywhere in Argentina. There are several brewpubs, at one of which we met the guy who supplies all of the brewing equipment for microbreweries in the country. He will be a good contact for when we start ours down here. :)

You can't walk ten feet in Bariloche without seeing a a) chocolate shop b) ice-cream shop (our favorite . . .) c) an alpine themed building.

From Bariloche, we headed to El Bolson, which the book describes as the Berkley of Argentina. Nonecessarilyly a high selling point, but when I read that the valley was the major growing region for hops, I was on. El Bolson is sleepy and a bit run down, but still a nice place to stay for a couple of nights.

We hiked and had lunch next to the lake:




but the hikes were not as beautiful as our last two. Oh, well, because we then tried the big brewpub in town (El Bolson, with a camping ground in front), at which the lights went out and we had to have our beer by candlelight. Not too shabby. Then we tried the smallest one (Cavall de Foc), where the owner brews with homebrew equipment.

So, we are back in Bariloche now, as there is not much south of there that is not a painful busride. Sotomorrowow we pick up a rent-a-car and head across the border into Chile and some more parks. Then, we head to Buenos Aires, stay for a while there and then fly down to the southern most portion of Argentina to see some glaciers and more parks (it's much cheaper to fly from BA than from here).

Mendoza

Hola from Mendoza, Argentina.

The bus ride from Santiago to Mendoza is something to be done during daylight hours, as the views are spectacular. You can see the road we came up on the Chilean side:



Our last days in Santiago were nice - it is always nice to have a local show you around, as our new friend Vinka did. She was born and raised in Santiago, and she went overboard in helping us out and showing us her city. It was interesting to hear from her about the repressive Pinnochet regime and how it affected her life and how it has left an impression on the Chilean people.

Some of my friends have told me that they didn´t care for Santiago too much, which, I must admit, I wasn´t diggin´on it too much at the beginning. But, with someone to show you around, things are different and we had an excellent time.

Dave at the top of the Cerro in downtown Santiago:



Here´s a random arty photo because I was feeling like a photographer:



On to Mendoza - we are struggling to understand the Argentinian Spanish, but when the locals realize we are staring at them blankly, they speak slower and we can understand most things. Mendoza is a nice place - the Argentenians enjoy the sidewalk cafe culture and hanging out with friends and family. This is a nice change after the ´work,work,work´ culture back in the states. And the wine . . . it is nice to go to a place and spend six bucks for a great bottle of wine. Not that I could tell you what great wine is, but it tastes good to me.

Tonight we take the overnight bus to Neuquen - one step closer to the national parks in the south of Chile and Argentina. I am looking forward to being outdoors outside of a city.

Santiago

Hola from Santiago.

We made it fine - all night flights are not the most fun in the world, but you gotta do what you gotta do. On the bus from the airport into town (. . . watch out for the ravenous taxi busquers if you come to Santiago . . . ) we sat next to two women from Atlanta who 1) had quit their jobs to come to South America 2) are going to stay five months 3) had originally planned to go around the world 4) are traveling the same route as we are 5) etc. I think we were living in parallel universes. They had a lot more stuff than we did, so we got them there (though we need to get rid of some of ours).

A bit about Santiago - it is a big city . . . I don't think we'll be spending too much time here. Earthquakes have taken care of most of the colonial architecture prevalent in many Latin American cities, though there are some nice old neighborhoods here and there. There are many sidewalk cafes where the locals like to drink their coffee and many sidewalk bars where the locals like to pound beers. The food is decent, though not much to write home about. Melanie described one thing we had - pastel de choclo (kind of like grits with some meat mixed in) - as a 'mound of carbs'. They do like their carbs here. They like fresh salads, too, which is nice when you are traveling and eating at restaurants often.

We are trying to meet up with a local (met through a friend at the old job) - we are looking forward to having a local to talk to and get advice from.

On to Mendoza, Argentina, next.