The Real Argentina - safely from a car window

A couple of weeks ago Francisco, another St. Lunatic, Fionna and I rented a car and planned a trip to see some of the real Argentina. We decided to trace a similar route to the one Francisco and I had taken previously to Bariloche - stopping in Santa Rosa, La Pampa, and staying with Francisco's father in Villa la Angostura. When I made this trip before, I took overnight buses to each new region, so I missed all of the changing landscapes and whacky local gas stations. From Villa la Angostura, we drove south and east, through the real Patagonian desert. Once at the coast, we stopped at Puerto Madyrn and the Valdés Peninsula, which was home to some of Darwin's old stomping grounds. Below is a map Francisco was kind enough to make to show you the route we took. (As always - click on the map to make it bigger - same goes for all photos)
After La Pampa, we traveled South towards Bariloche. The endles stretches of cattle land and crops soon became the orchards of Neuquén. "Apples, Pears, Wine and Dinosaurs" - or some variation on that was the tourism slogan for Neuquén. The dinosaurs part is about all of the fossils found here. We stopped here for lunch, I believe, but had to press on to make Villa la Angostura by night.


As the mountains began to appear...
This picture is of some cassette tapes we saw in a gas station. It reminded me of the rock tapes you see at truck stops in the U.S.
It is a dry time of year and an even dryer time for the climate in this region. Above is a dried up lake we saw - one of a great many. Below is a river that was almost gone.

We spent a few days in Bariloche and Villa, eating chocolate, climbing mountains and hanging out with Francisco's dad. At this point in the trip, we had planned to go back to Buenos Aires the same way we came. Thankfully, Mr. Fisher suggested an alternative route that would take us through the "real Patagonia" and up past the Valdéz Peninsula. It was an ambitious route, but the mystery of the Patagonian desert and beaches full of cute sea lion were too much to resist. In the photo above, you can see the gravel road that we encountered a few times in the middle of nowhere. When the highway turns to gravel, the next town becomes exponentially farther away. Below is an example of the landscape throughout Real Patagonia, which greatly resembled the wild wests of the U.S.


One thing that we had hoped to experience was the wild sage that grows all over the region. Apparently if you drive through areas with all this sage during the right time of year, it has turned a burnt red color and fills the air with a scent that makes you euphoric. We had also heard the sage could open your mind in ways you never thought possible. Obviously, the mystical sage alluded us, but there is always next time...

Above are some photographs of the sea lion on the Valdéz Peninsula. Around this time, my camera died, so hopefully I can get some photos from Fiona to complete this part of the trip. The peninsula was a large, gravel-roaded national park. People drive around the peninsula, getting out at certain points to few the various wildlife colonies. Penguins, sea lions, elephant seals, right whales, dolphin and orca are common at different points on the penisula. We did not see any orca, but think we saw some baby right whales underwater in an inlet. The peninsula is massive and largely not roped off from tourist invaders. Despite this, it remains well kept and respected - it must if the animals keep coming back. This was a great treat - someplace in the world that is pretty unique and has a lot of history behind it (the Darwin thing, remember?).

Overall, we traveled over 3000 kilometers (there are 2.2 kilometers in a mile). It was the best road trip I've been on yet and the highlight of my time here in Argentina. On top of that, I learned to drive a stick. Not many people can say they learned to drive a manual car in the Patagonian desert, but now I can. Hopefully, I will get some more pictures up.

-Kate

Casazul

James and I have neglected to take any photos of the house we have been living in since January. But since we both plan on spending the remainder of our time here in Buenos Aires in this house, called "Casazul," here are some images of our new home away from home.This was James' room for the month of January. He has since moved to the roof, in the room seen below.



The roof with excellent view of the church across the street.
Our pool.
Some roommates on the roof kitchen (there are two kitchens total). In the center is the owner of the house, Fernando.
This is the living room connected to the kitchen on the roof. It's like a greenhouse, but inside is a kitchen and living room. This is, by far, the best room in the house.

These stairs are behind the roof kitchen. They lead to the bedrooms on the 460 Pasco side of the house. Let me explain. The layout is two, two-story houses connected by a roof. Both houses have courtyards open through both floors. On top of the roof are two other rooms, a large glass enclosure (the roof living room/kitchen) and two large patio areas. I live on the 454 Pasco side of the house, upstairs. James used to live on the 460 Pasco side, but now lives on the roof. Get it? It's bizarre. Below is me in my room. You can see behind me the open courtyard.
The stairs outside of my room that lead down to the door/ground floor. The ground floor of both sides of the house is not connected to the 2nd floor or the roof. So, there are essentially 4 front doors, depending on where you live in the house. Each floor has about 4 or 5 rooms, so we have a ton of roommates.

Below is James looking out the window to his room. Note Mitre, the white cat to the left. There is also a black cat that lives on the bottom floor.


In our kitchen, below the roof, we have a lot more room to cook than we did at the Lavalle apartment, which was more like a college dorm kitchen. Here are a couple of pictures from the night James led us in figuring out how to make our own empanadas.

Also, in order to leave our mark at Casazul, James and I commandeered a large, blank canvas in the roof living room. We are currently painting a large piece to hang in the living room. The painting will heavily feature pandas, as you can see.

Coming soon! Videos from James!

Uruguay: The Little Brother that Became a Best Friend

I recently returned from my visa-renewing trip to Uruguay with Francisco. This is the easiest way to renew your tourist visa, which expires every three months. They even have special day-trips (probably for people like us) that include a boat over to Uruguay, a meal and then a boat back.

The boat we took, Buquebus, was not your standard fairy. Taking so many people across only a few times a day, the boat was massive. It had your standard on deck hang out areas, complete with bar and blaring music. Below deck was three levels with shopping, an arcade, several bars, a cafeteria and live music. There was plenty to do for the three hours it took to get from Buenos Aires to Colonia. However, we remained on the deck most of the time.

Hasta luego, Buenos Aires!

I didn't want to go to Uruguay for the day just to renew my visa, so we made a long weekend of visiting several different cities. I paint brushed crude arrows on this map of Uruguay. It is the route of our trip. Click on it to make it bigger.
The majority of the photographs that I took on the trip were in Colonia. There was little else to do here. Colonia was a very small tourist town and site of structures dating back to (you guessed it) colonial times. It was first colonized by the Portuguese, who were quickly thwarted by the Spanish. This may explain my impression that it was very much like St. Augustine.
[Above] The old lighthouse with ruins of something colonial. We think it might have been a convent? Either way, this is the image on every postcard from Colonia. Where I lack in actual knowledge of Colonia, I tried to make up for with nice photographs of the place.


Keep in mind, we're not to the ocean yet, just the wide mouth of the Rio de la Plata, which Uruguay and Argentina share. Below is the sunset on the river.

From Colonia, we took a bus to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. We only spent time in Montevideo to catch the bus to La Paloma (the beach) and then to catch a boat back to Buenos Aires. I imagine you get to know very little of a city by hanging around the bus station and the port, but that was the extent of our time there. I liked what I saw and what I saw was pretty much like a smaller Buenos Aires. On the whole, we also saw more antique cars. This was exciting for Francisco, but as I am a girl, I could do little but take a few photographs and say, "that's nice."
The main event was La Paloma, a small beach town that I picked randomly on the map. The major beach city in Uruguay is Punte del Este. Punta del Este is very big and ritzy, attracting tons of tourist and Latin American celebrities. I would still like to go; the pictures look pretty cool. But I thought if we could get out to a smaller place on the beach, we might have a better time this trip. So we went to La Paloma, which turned out to be perfect.
I only took this one picture of our hostel in La Paloma. Unlike Colonia, I had much more to do here than take pictures, like lay on the beach all day. We stayed in a little hostel on the beach, employed with surfers who drove Francisco around looking for the best surf. We finally ate seafood, which to our dismay was just as crappy as in Buenos Aires. I should do a separate post about the issue of good seafood ANYWHERE. Another time, another time...

There were lots of people camping in the heavy woods that were around. Some beaches had lots of rocks and tide pools and some were sandy and crowded with people playing a form of bocce ball with discs. Some beaches were covered in dead, stinking mussels that wash on the beach with each tide. There was a lot of variety for such a small place and I would go back in a heart beat.

The trip back was a bit stressful, as finding transportation back to Buenos Aires from Montevideo on a Monday was nearly impossible. Should anyone be in the same position, I would recommend booking your return to BsAs from Uruguay ahead of time. We ended up taking another Buquebus back from Montevideo. This time, the boat was small and fast, making about twice the distance in the same amount time as the big boat to Colonia. This boat was considerably smaller and much more like an airplane (we couldn't go on deck). It did, however, have a duty free store selling Clinique products and liquor, both of which I always need. Not to get into too many details, but we had the opportunity to buy liquor that was about half the price it would normally be in the States and Buenos Aires.

A nice end to a nice trip to Uruguay. On the whole, there was little difference between Uruguay and Argentina, besides a currency that was around 22 pesos to every 1 U.S. dollar. And perhaps Uruguay was a bit more relaxed, as hard to believe as that may be.