¡Bellisima Bariloche!

OK, I will try to keep this a quick one since I am sooooo behind on my updates!

Dan and I headed a bit further South along the Andean chain to Bariloche, a small, lakeside city in the Argentine Lake District.  Here we spent 7 lovely nights with a local host family while taking spanish classes during the days at La Montaña Spanish School.  We knew that early May wouldn´t be an ideal time to visit, so were somewhat prepared for the cool and variable fall climate.

Bariloche

Bariloche and the Argentine Lake District is best known for its trekking during the summer, world-class ski in the winter, and artisanal chocolate confectioners year-round.  Let's just say that we had our fair-share of chocolate. :)  Another thing to note about this pretty little, lakeside city is that it has a large Dutch, Swiss, and German influence from it's early European settlers... all looking for a place that looked like home!  You can catch the similarities in their artisanal cervezas (you should know that this means BEER!), chocolate, arquitectura, and mountainous scenery.

¡Mas Clases!

We signed ourselves up for 20 hours of classes this week... which sounds like alot for a couple of gringo tourists but it was exactly what we needed!  Our teachers were awesome and more than anything really helped us improve our conversational skills. Lucky for us, school was closed on Tuesday for the Argentine Labor Day so we had a full day to tour around and do a bit of hiking.

¡La Naturaleza!

When we weren't in class you'd find us trekking around las montañas, checking out las vistas (the views) of the glacier-carved lakes and surrounding andean peaks.  The cool and sometimes wet fall climate wasn´t ideal from a comfort standpoint, but the turning leaves made for beautiful scenery.  Depending on location, altitude and oxygen levels, some trees varied from a fierce red to a lush green.  Again, words just don´t do it justice... check out the photos below!

¡Nuestra Familia y Amigos!

We were lucky to receive room and board with such lovely people.  In our house lived Kuki, Roberto, their son Diego, Diego's son, Tomas, y Fahad (another foreign student earning his masters in aerospace engineering in Bariloche). We also became friends with Carolyn, a sweet Dutch backpacker at our Spanish school. 

Okey-doke, time for me to get on with my day! Stay tuned for my Chilean adventuras next!

Los Malbecs de Mendoza

Hola chicos!

I'm back with more updates from our travels!  After visiting the beautiful waterfalls in Iguazu, Dan and I jetted over to Mendoza, Argentina, home of the world-famous malbecs (in case you aren't a wine-o, malbec is a varietal of wine).  We spent five nights during late April in Mendoza, a large sprawling and historic capital city, just about 20 minutes from some of the best malbec wine makers in the world.  

April in this part of the southern-hemishere means turning leaves in the vineyards... drop in the impressive Andes Mountains in the background and you've got a pretty nice setting to taste a little vino!  

During our five night stay, I don't know how many times we were told how fortunate this valley is to receive 355 days of sun per year... I can tell you, however, that we experienced about 3 of the 10 days sin sol (without sun)!  It was cold and a bit wet, but we still managed to enjoy ourselves.  Lucky for us, our two sunny days were spent en las bodegas (in the vineyards). We had hoped to do a bit of Andean hiking while in Mendoza, but were more or less limited to drizzly, urban walks.   

Rainy afternoon... Why not go to the movies? We watched Las Piratas (The Pirates) en español :)

On our first full day, we hired a cab to take us out to Tapiz winery for a bit of wine tasting.  Before leaving the states, Federico, an Argentine-American friend of mine, told Dan and I that if we make it to Mendoza, we should contact his Aunt Carolina about arranging a tour of Tapiz, where she works in the events and publicity.  After a horse and carriage led tour through the vines, and several small glasses of wine, Carolina offered to drive us home and give us a brief tour of the sites along the way!

Our next day of wine tasting was a luxurious and completely custom tour organized by Javier, our private guide and trusty driver.  He called ahead of time to reserve us intimate wine tastings and tours at four highly-respected wineries.  The first was private tour and tasting at a small, family-owned and operated winery named San Diego.   

Our second stop was a tour at Mendel, where world-renowned wine-maker, Roberto de la Mota, makes his wine. 

Next was Ruca Malen, where instead of a classic tour and tasting, we sat down for a gourmet, seven course, wine-paired meal... wow!  

Our fourth and final tour was at Carinae, owned by a sweet French-Argentine couple.  Our grand wine tasting adventure left us with a wealth of knowledge about Mendocino wines, four bottles of malbec... and a little tipsy!  Thank you Javier for safely touring us around in your wine-mobile!

We rented a car and attempted an Andean adventure on our last day, but the low cloud cover inhibited the spectacular scenery we had heard so much about... :( Even so, we still had a fun time getting outside the city and driving through the mountains. 

That's it for now!  Next stop is a week in Bariloche, in the Argentine Lake District!

 

Las Cataratas del Iguazú

Hola Chicos!

I am VERY excited to share my adventures in Iguazú with you, which will most definitely be one of the highlights of the trip! I wont blab too much because I think the photos will do a much better job of explaining the beauty and magnitude of these falls.  To fully understand, you'll need a little background, so here it goes:

1. Las Cataratas del Iguazú = The Waterfalls of Iguazu;

2. there are over 250 falls that comprise Las Cataratas del Iguazú, and reach a height of over 80 meters;

3. they are located in a subtropical rainforest in Northeastern Argentina and straddle the Brazilian-Argentine border;

4. we only visited the Argentine side since we would have needed a Brazilian Visa (expensive and harder to come than the Argentine) to cross la frontera (border), though we hear that the Brazilian side has impressive views; and

5. you HAVE TO see them for yourself...  there's no way I'll be able to do it justice with my unpoetic discriptions!

Day 1

Anyways, we arrived in Puerto Iguazú by plane on Saturday around noon, checked-in to our hostel, jumped onto the next bus to the falls, and were snapping photos of the falls by around 2pm.  We only had about four hours to explore before park closing but saw some unreal scenery from the superior and inferior senderos (trails).  From theses view points you can see several falls in one panoramic snap shot.  What you can't see is La Garganta del Diabola, which is located a bit deeper into the scenery and requires a seperate trail to get the full picture.  

Day 2

Today we had about a full day to check out Las Cataratas, but even so there wasn't enought time to see it all! We started the day off with a walk/hike through the subtropical rainforest to a small fall, a bit isolated from the rest.  The fall itself wasn't anything spectactular (with respect to its competition), but the trail was well worth the trek.  The trail is much less visited thus has much more exotic wildlife.  Walking through a subtripical rainforest, natural habitat to jaguars, monkeys, tucans, and more was quite the experience! We missed the jaguars but were walking directly underneath a family of monkeys climbing in the tree canopies above us!

Next was our visit to a group of falls called La Garganta del Diabolo (The Devil's Throat).  The parks service built a system of elevated walkways so that we were able to walk over the calm river waters, up to the bustling point of no return.  This area is a semi-circlular fall that covers about 3km and spits out an impressive 1800 cubic meters per second.  I was there watching it and still have a hard time wrapping my head around it!  It's amazing to see how peacefully the river flows up until the the cascades begin... makes you wonder about the first few people who encountered the falls while floating downstream... ahhhh, row, row, backwards, backwards, faaaaassssteeeerrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!  Welp, there goes another one!  Yikes, gives me the creeps just thinking about it!

On our way out of the park we met Lucca, an Italian guy who moved to Buenos Aires about six months earlier.  It was fun getting to know him on the way back to town, and it turned out that he had one of the clearest forms of spanish that we had heard in a good while.  When we invited him out to dinner, he countered with a homemade italian meal prepared at the hostel he was staying at... we just had to provide the beer!  

Approaching La Garganta

This one!

That's the one!

Wooooooowwwwwwww!

Trying to take a little home with me

View in the opposite direction, from La Garganta looking outward

Unfortunately I cannot share all 300+ photos with you, but hopefully this gives you a taste of the experience!  If you have an itch to travel, these falls are definitely worth the trek!

OK, time for me to get some rest.  Next stop, Mendoza, Argentina!

Muy buenas noches!

Hugs and besos,

Kristen :)

Colonia del Sacramento

Hola chicos!

OK, another adventure, another update!  Last week our adventures took us across the Rio Plata to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay, a quaint, cobblestone-paved, colonial town located about an hour [by ferry] outside of Buenos Aires.  We probably could have covered the sites of this town in less than a day, but having the two days allowed us to linger at the same pace of the quiet town atmosphere.  

Anways, the highlights! Historical walking tour, gorgeous sunsets, cafe-lined shady streets, another Tango lesson and our new Urguayan friends!

Walking tour

Great way to kill two birds with one stone: history lesson and language class, just like that! Lucky for us, our spanish-only walking tour of the hitstorical district ended up being private... even so, understanding the entire story was a bit complicated.  To make a very long story short, the old fortress town changed hands between the Spanish and Portuguese army during the conquistador era as it was a prime spot to guard against or stage an attack against Buenos Aires, the wealhiest/most important port city of that time.  

Our guide

  

Los Puestos del Sol

BEAUTIFUL, just see for yourself!  On clear days you can see the Buenos Aires skyline.

Day 1

Day 2

Más Tango?!

Thumbing through a local magazine we saw an advertisement for a nearby Tango dance class, and since we've both got the "why not" sense of adventure, shrugged our shoulders and threw on our dancing shoes! Everyone in our class was surprised to see us there... apparently we were the first (or two of very few) foreigners to join their weekly Tango class.  A group of about 10 invited us out to a nearby pizzaria after class to practice a few moves.  So, we followed them there, ordered a few liters of beer, couple pizzas, and pushed some tables aside to clear out room for a make-shift dance floor.  Every one of them were so sweet to us, and eager to hear about our adventures in South America.  These are the types of experiences that really make the trip.  Getting to know the locals is really the best part about traveling for us - there is no better way to understand a culture than from the perspective of a native.

We would have loved to explore nearby Montevideo or Punto del Este, but as we are learning, it's impossible to go everywhere on your first go around!

OK, that's it for now... next stop: Iguazu Falls, Argentina!

Buenas noches :)

Kristen