South America Round-up

We spent 2 wonderful months in Argentina, with brief detours into Chile and Uruguay. Now that we've fled to Europe, here's a quick roundup of our impressions of our time in a small slice of South America:

Best Food
Rachel: The asado we made one night in El Chalten. But really, the lamb and beef all throughout the country were awesome.
Tom: Parilla La Cabrera in Buenos Aires. Amazing steak, made even better by the 40% discount if you dine at the absurdly early hour of 7PM.

Best Ice Cream
Rachel: Jauja's, El Bolson. Specifically the Tiramisu or Coco flavors.
Tom: McDonald's Oreo cone.

Chill little El Bolsón

Favorite Town/City
Rachel: El Bolsón. It was so chill and we met some really friendly people. Colonia de Sacramento in Uruguay comes in at a close 2nd.
Tom: La Colonia, Uruguay. Cobblestones everywhere, beaches, and great biking.

Best Hike
Rachel: For views, the hike up to El Pitriquitrón was the best. For the full experience, I preferred the W trek in the Torres del Paine.
Tom: Fitz Roy Range, El Chalten.

Favorite Quirk
Rachel: Everything is served with dulce de leche.
Tom: Empanadas are everywhere--breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Least Favorite Quirk
Rachel: The siesta's ever-changing hours. In some places, the siesta was from 2 - 5, but in others, it was from 1 - 4, or 3 - 6... and some places didn't observe it at all! It made running errands incredibly difficult.
Tom: See Rachel's favorite quirk.

Favorite Wildlife
Rachel and Tom: Penguins, hands down. There's no kind of wildlife that can beat the little penguins we saw at Punto Tombo.

Best hostel/hotel
Rachel and Tom: La Barraca Suites in Bariloche. It was small but cozy, with great views of the national park. The owners were awesome and it was such a great value.

View from our hostel in Bariloche

Worst hostel/hotel
Rachel and Tom: We stayed one night at a very odd hostel in Puerto Natales, Chile. It smelled pretty bad there and we're not sure if the eggs at breakfast were really eggs. We left very quickly the next morning.

Next time in South America, I will...
Rachel: Stay on an estancia and spend a week riding horses with some gauchos. And improve my Spanish!
Tom: Hike the Lost City route in Colombia. And Machu Pichu in Peru.

If you could change one thing about Argentina, it would be...
Rachel: Making the roads more pedestrian friendly. Or somehow shrinking the country so as to avoid 25-hour bus rides.
Tom: I'd ban instant coffee.

If you could take something from Argentina and bring it to the U.S. it would be...
Rachel: A penguin. Amazing views. Or, the general laid-back vibe around the country.
Tom: The glacial water of Torres del Paine... nothing beats drinking from a stream without the need for iodine tablets or filters.

What's New, Buenos Aires?*

* I'm sorry, I'm unable to say "Buenos Aires" without bursting into the Evita Soundtrack.

After our relaxing detour into Uruguay, we headed back to Buenos Aires to get a another taste of the city. We stayed in the Palermo neighborhood, which is filled with shops and restaurants and cafes. Though it's a bit removed from some of the major sites of the city, it was a good jumping off point for just living like a local (well, a local with a lot of free time).

Bar in Palermo, temporarily turned into a daytime marketplace

Crowds wandering around Palermo

One of our favorite spots was 'Nikki's Bar,' just a few blocks away from our hostel. We quickly became addicted to the delicious cappuccinos and sweet medialunas.

On our last stay in Buenos Aires, a bunch of the museums and famous buildings were closed to tourists due to the Easter holiday, so we were psyched when the Congress building was open for tours.

We showed up five minutes after the tour was about to start and hoped we were on the right side of the building. Everyone was incredibly friendly and welcomed us into the building, and the tour guide gave us a lovely tour... all in Spanish. I barely caught 5 percent of the tour. But, as a bit of a nerd, I was interested in hearing more details about the building and how their legislature works. As the tour ended, we thanked the tour guide and asked if they ever did tours in English. Yes, he said, and as a matter of fact, one was starting on the other side of the building in just five minutes.

Library ladder in the library in the Congress building

We ran around the building and at and sat until finally, nearly an hour later, the tour begins. We hear him say: "Welcome!" We think: "Phew!" We follow him into the building and then he says, in Spanish: "And that's the last word you'll hear me say in English. Stay with the group, please."

So yes, we ended up taking the tour of the Congress building twice, in Spanish. And of course, I still know next to nothing about their legislature.

Second time around

Thankfully, we managed a bit better during the (English) tour of the Casa Rosada, which is where the Presidential offices are located.

The building was pretty neat, with tons of gorgeous artwork and some more modern quirkiness.

Virgin Mary in the Presidential office building

The President's office

Very modern area of the building highlighting Argentinia's icons from pop culture

Mirror shot

Before we left Argentina, we wanted to get one more awesome steak dinner. When we were hiking in El Chalten, we met a young college student on the trail who raved about a great steak restaurant in Buenos Aires. We were skeptical. We learned our lesson in Bariloche that not all rumored favorites are as amazing as they are promised to be. But then, we heard this famed restaurant, La Cabrera, had a major happy hour-- 40% off all of the food and drink. So of course we couldn't pass that up!

And wow-- it was definitely one of our favorite meals in all of Argentina. The place was filled with tourists, but every bite was delicious. The steaks were served with all kinds of dipping sauces and sides, and we savored our delicious Argentinian wine.

On one of our last nights in Buenos Aires, we decided to tackle the infamous tango. Some friends we met in Puerto Madryn (no, not the penguins) recommended the Armenian Cultural Center to us. It seemed like kind of an odd place to take a tango lesson, but it was a really neat experience with a mix of locals and tourists.

The instructors demonstrating tango. They were better than we were.

See above.

Crowds dancing tango

We took a half hour class to get a feel for the basics and then danced a bit of tango, swing, and just good ol' rock and roll for the rest of the night. We couldn't have asked for a better way to close out our Argentine adventure.

-R

Food on the Road: Argentinian Supermarket Staples

Grocery shopping in Argentina is about as exciting as grocery shopping in the United States. (Meaning: not very.) In all but the smallest of towns, people shop at big supermarkets that very closely resemble the Price Choppers or Giants back home. They have most of the same products that we do, many of the same brands, and only a handful of items that are even remotely interesting.

Even though we've mostly been picking up the same ingredients that we do back home, there are a few things here that are just a bit different than back in the States.

Bon-bons

Although these little pieces of chocolate are referenced in songs and television shows all of the time, I'd never eaten one... until Argentina.

Man oh man. We put two in our cart one day out of curiosity and we've quickly become addicted to these little guys. Plus, they're about 20 cents each. Amazing.

Pate

We'd never eaten pate and don't fully understand what it is (please don't tell us), but we met some friends on the road who raved about it. We've been eating it as a snack on long bus rides, and in between meals.  [Update: We are officially sick of pate. That addiction lasted about 3 weeks.]

Zucchini-pumpkins

Okay, that's not the real name of these pumpkin-shaped squashes, but it should be. These taste like a mixture of zucchini and eggplant, and look like a green pumpkin. They're great grilled, but we've been putting them in almost everything. 

Purple Sweet Potatoes

They're not quite as sweet as the kind we're used to back home, but that makes them more versatile. We throw these in soups, veggie stir-fries, and eat them on their own.

Dulce de Leche

We haven't actually purchased this in the grocery store because we get it for free with our breakfast nearly every day. But if we did want to purchase it, we'd have to think very carefully because the selection is immense:

Yes, these are all tubs of dulce de leche.

Wine

This is cheating; we buy wine quite often at home, too. But rarely do we have dozens of choices for great wine, all between $3 - $5 U.S. per bottle. 

Store-brand Cheese Puffs

These are better than any kind of cheese puff in the U.S. No contest.

Still, there are things from back home that we're craving. This list is by no means comprehensive.

- Kale. I miss you, you versatile leaf!

- Franks hot sauce. The picante sauce here just can't replace you. My addiction just will not die.

- Greek yogurt. Apparently this just hadn't made it down to Argentina yet. 

- Salsa. I've only seen this in one store, and it was incredibly expensive.

- Peanut butter. I guess it's true that the rest of the world just doesn't understand the usefulness of peanut butter. I especially missed this during big hikes.

-R

Hello, Buenos Aires!*

*Yes, you should be singing the title of the post, just like Madonna

I don't know if you could tell this from our posts, but we've spent a LOT of time in the wilderness. We've climbed more mountains in these two months than we'd climbed in our lives pre-trip. We've camped a bunch, breathed in tons fresh air, drank straight from glaciers, and generally gotten covered in a lot of dirt.

Perhaps that's why we were so psyched to head to Buenos Aires-- not only was it a welcome change from the great outdoors, but it was a giant metropolitan area with a variety of food (sushi, anyone?), new energy, and, unlike many of the trekking towns, it has more Argentinians than tourists.

The Congress Building in Buenos Aires. It's modeled after the U.S. Capitol

Evita, not a man eating a hamburger, as a tourist we met thought

The city definitely has an energy to it. Everything seems to move in hyperspeed-- cars especially-- perhaps due to all of the little shots of espresso everyone drinks here! There's graffiti everywhere, protests in the street at least once per day, and performance art on the trains. It was a refreshing change from the quaint little towns filled with only outdoor equipment shops and ice cream stands.

For our first 5 nights in town, we stayed in the downtown area, right down the road from the Congress building and Plaza de Mayo, one of the most important places in Buenos Aires' history.

Nope, not the Washington Monument!

The Casa Rosada, the President's office building.
Yes, it's lit up pink at night.

We also visited Evita's grave. A bit morbid, yes, but the Recoleta Cemetery, where she's buried, is a really neat cemetery for the rich or famous of Buenos Aires. Some of these gravestones were bigger than houses. Unfortunately, our pictures have gone missing for now, so if you can't use your imagination, check the official site for pictures.

One night, we also stumbled into a tango performance, which was incredible. Apparently you can see or dance the tango any night of the week while in Buenos Aires.

Awesome old theater converted to a bookstore/coffee shop.
This would be heaven if I could read Spanish.

An encounter with an old-fashioned elevator. This is my "acting confused" face.
I expect my Oscar any day now.

Sipping a cafe con leche at one of Buenos Aires' oldest cafes

Residents and tourists going through the Stations of the Cross
 on the streets of Buenos Aires

Hanging out in our favorite park near Plaza Italia

During Holy Week and the run-up to Easter, the city began to clear out. So, we decided to be like locals and join them! We took a small break from big city life to jet off to Uruguay for a vacation from our travels.

-R

12 Things We've Lost or Damaged in 9 Weeks

This will be a long list, but a short post. We're flying to Turkey today, and I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on all of the things we either broke or, more commonly, lost during our two months in Argentina.

1) Olive Oil. Three bottles lost... at least one of them had to be my fault.

2) My only winter beanie.

3) Socks... many.

4) Tupperware.

5) Kindle. This is the last screen it ever displayed.

6) My Chromebook didn't react well to the spilled jar of pickle juice.

7) My camera decided to shut down on me in El Chaltén, although $75 in Buenos Aires fixed the problem.

8) An ATM ate my debit card and wouldn't regurgitate it.

9) My hiking shoes decided to stay on a bus somewhere down south. These found their way back to me on another bus, though I still have no idea how...

10) Electric razor. [Rachel's note: Guess the beard is here to stay.]

11) Ultra-light traveler's towel.

12) And finally, Rachel's Chromebook. This problem isn't as fixable as mine was, but as long as you keep whatever you're working on away from the black hole, it works fine.

When you pack up and move most every day, it's easy for things to fall through the cracks or break. We were actually reflecting on this when we arrived back in Buenos Aires from a jaunt in Uruguay. Rachel's Chromebook had just broke, and that, in our minds, was the final straw. It was late, we were tired, and we were just getting off the crowded underground subway line when we felt a splatter of goop hit our backs and legs.

We turned around, saw nothing, and then a woman was at our sides telling us how a pigeon had just flown by and plopped one on us*.

When we got to our hostel, we sent all of our things out to be washed and then stepped into the shower. But since I didn't have a towel anymore (as per the list above), I had to use my long underwear to dry off.

We'll replace things eventually, but for now, there isn't much for Turkey to take from us.

-Tom

* For those travelling through Buenos Aires, it turns out that the lady and the goop were actually distractions to give a friend the opportunity to pickpocket us. It's a common scam that we weren't aware of at the time. They didn't succeed.

Photo Tour: El Chaltén

When in Patagonia a few weeks ago, we lugged a large box filled with produce, beans, pasta and other food staples to El Chaltén. Fellow travelers warned us that it was nearly impossible to get reasonably priced food in the small village, so we entered town fully stocked. As these things go, the warnings about no food in El Chaltén were a bit of hyperbole.

But it's no exaggeration to say that El Chaltén is one of the tiniest towns I've ever been to. (This coming from a woman who lived in a town of 900 back in the day.) It's also brand new; the town wasn't even created until the 1980s. It's definitely developing now, though. It seemed that there was new construction going on in every street.

Tiny little village between the mountains

The town itself is quaint and quiet, but the real draw is the scenery around it. The Fitz Roy range is one of the most iconic mountain ranges in Patagonia. As we drove into town (on yes, another bus), we stared out the window in awe. The mountains just kept getting bigger and more impressive.

The Fitz Roy range

 A turquoise river marks one of the town's boundaries

The great part about hiking the Fitz Roy range is that the mountains are just a quick step outside of town. Unlike the hike at Torres del Paine, we didn't need to take a bus to another bus to a ferry to get to the great hikes. All we had to do was grab a map and just start walking to enjoy the views.

We met this little guy at our campsite. He has nothing to do with hiking, but isn't he sweet?

This guy too. 

View of a glacier in the mountains

 -R