Brett's Southern Crossing

Iguazu Falls, dreary in the rain

Iguazu Falls is taller and wider than Niagara and is made up of almost 200 individual cascades in a lush green area tucked between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.  On the Argentine side, visiting the falls takes an entire day for hiking the various trails and taking boat tours to various locations.  It was a lot of fun, which was a bit surprising because it was raining all day and I spent almost 10 hours soaking wet!

The town of Puerto Iguazu is small but pleasant.  I think that Foz do Iguacu on the Brazilian side is larger, but I didn’t have a visa to visit so I didn’t go (although in reality, Argentina is the only one of the three countries that bothers stopping people at the border).

It’s definitely worth visiting, but consider flying – Buenos Aires is 18 hours on the bus.  I did actually get an amazing night of sleep on this journey by buying a suite-class lie-flat seat.

After 4 and a half months living in Buenos Aires I feel like I should have a lot to say about it.  In a way I guess I do, but I’m not sure how to summarize it into a blog post.  My time there was split in half, 2 months living in Las Cañitas and 2 and a half months living in Recoleta with a 2 month trip though Argentina and Chile in the middle.

My Apartment Building in Las Canitas

The first time I enrolled in Spanish classes at the Universidad de Belgrano, which had good teachers and materials but was about 50% more expensive than most schools and class sizes were a far too large at 15-18.  Classes were 5 days a week, 5 hours a day.  It worked well enough for learning basic spanish, but I think it’s a poor way to learn advanced spanish or get proficient in conversation.  The second time I studied with two private professors, meeting in cafes and restaurants, for a combined total of about 10 hours of instruction each week.  This really helped my speaking ability but I have to admit I could have studied a bit more between classes.  Still, by having a resonable number of class hours I was able to devote more time outside of class to practice, which really helps a lot.  Too much class is counterproductive in the end.

Profesor Gérman

Profesora Natalia

Until the end of my time there I hardly did anything touristy.  It was nice because it seems like I really lived like a local for the most part.  Buenos Aires has a lot going on and an incredible number of cafes, ice cream shops, and restaurants.  Everything is available for free delivery from your laundry to ice cream to anything you want from the local minimart.  There are plenty of downsides too – terrible air quality, dog poop all over the sidewalk, etc.

I didn’t learn quite as much Spanish as I hoped.  I can talk to anyone about just about anything, but I’m still a ways from being fluent.  I’m planning to keep working on it in Austin though.

It was an amazing experience and I’m glad I made time to do it!

My last couple weeks in Buenos Aires I finally got around to doing a bit of sightseeing.  You really only need to spend 3-4 days in the cities to see most of the tourist sights, although it’s the kind of place you could easily stay for ages just to enjoy walking the neighborhoods, eating in great restaurants, relaxing in cafes, and going to special events.

In no particular order, here are the touristy things I thought were worth seeing:

Recoleta Cemetery

Where the rich and famous show off by building elaborate mausoleums.  Many of Argentina’s famous politicians and wealthy families are buried here, and it’s still a functioning cemetery where the modern-day elite aspire to rub their deceased shoulders with the likes of Evita.  The cemetery is huge and has the feel of a city, with a network of streets weaving through hundreds of mausoleums.  Most are ornate and in good repair, but some are really degraded.  I’m not sure exactly how it works, but it seems you (or your family) somehow need to keep paying for maintenance.  Some tombs were damaged and in a really unfortunate state considering there were still coffins inside.  Also, in case you were considering it putting a skylight in your mausoleum is not something I would recommend.

La Boca

Possibly Buenos Aires’ most touristy place, this famous neighborhood is known for its brightly painted buildings, art museums, and its association with tango.  There’s one street several blocks long packed with tango-themed cafes and restaurants with performers who will dance together and then drag tourists on stage to give tango a try.  If you’re interested in tango, it’s possible to take classes in many places in the city.  Attending a milonga (community tango dance) is another good option – you can watch lots of people dancing with their partners, and professors often give performances and demonstrations.  There’s something really cool about seeing aging couples dancing together dressed to the 9s.  Considering the dramatic events of the last 40-50 years in Argentina, it’s like watching a bit of history.

Downtown

There is a solid cluster of photo-ops in downtown Buenos Aires, including Avenida 9 de Julio (a massive 18-lane avenue), the Obelisk, Casa Rosada (the Rose House, where the President lives.  Tours available in Spanish), Plaza de Mayo, Teatro Colon (one of the world’s great opera houses, newly restored) and the main plaza surrounded by opulent government buildings.

Puerto Madero

This port was constructed for many years, only to be deemed too small once it was finished.  The area was instead converted into an upscale place with fancy restaurants, cafes, ice cream shops, waterfront promenades, condos, and a museum on a retired naval ship.

San Telmo

A bit sketchy at night, but packed with great restaurants, bars, and clubs.  During the day on Sundays there’s a huge antiques fair in Plaza Defensa, and at night the plaza is filled with tables and chairs for an outdoor bar.  One of the city’s most popular neighborhoods.

Palermo

The definition of Palermo has crept over the years to become an area so large it now has to be subdivided into Palermo Viejo, Palermo SoHo, Palermo Hollywood, Palermo Chico, and a few others that I’m sure I’ve forgotten!  The neighborhoods are filled with cafes, restaurants, and boutique shops, but this is still primarily a residential area and is a great way to see what a typical nice Porteño neighborhood is like.  Don’t miss a night in the outdoor bars near Plaza Serrano followed by dinner at any of the nearby parillas (Argentine grill restaurants).  Order a parillada to share among the table; they’ll deliver a massive grill filled with coals and heaped with chorizo (sausage), morcilla (black sausage), vacio (steak), costillas (ribs, usually beef), and perhaps some exotic bits like the intestines or even tripe.  It’s a great value, delicious, and about as Argentina as food gets!

Cafes and Bookshops

Buenos Aires has lots of cafes and bookshops that stand out.  El Ateneo Grand Splendid is an amazing bookshop set in a restored old theater.  Las Violetas is an ornate old-school cafe with waiters in white bow ties.  They serve absolutely massive hamburgers, and if you go with a group you can order a picada platter crammed with a variety of sandwiches.  They also have a bakery with dozens of different types of cakes and candies.  Las Violetas isn’t near much of anything else on the tourist circuit, but you can go there on the A-line subway, which is an interesting experience itself.  The A-line was the first metro in Latin America and many of the trains still running on this line are rickety antiques with wood-paneled interiors and manually operated doors.  Classica y Moderna is another neat bookshop that is a good example of a typical city bookstore.  It’s got a nice cafe up front and tall racks of books crammed in the rear.  Cafe Tortoni is classic cafe downtown, known best for its history of having famous Argentina writers, artists, and politicians among its clientele.  For Example, Luis Borges, Carlos Gardel, and Alfonsina Storni.

And More

Of course there’s plenty of other options too.  A futbol match, going to the horse races at the hipodromo, taking a train to the river delta in Tigre, going to a milonga (tango dance), etc.  And remember that a typical weekend night out is dinner from 11pm-1am, drinks for a few hours, then a club til dawn!

Video Screen in Parque San Martin

One of the cool parts of staying in Buenos Aires for so long was the chance to spend an entire World Cup in a cities with a team in strong contention to win.  I had been looking forward to it for months, and though Argentina didn’t go all the way it was still pretty nice.

Most of the Argentina world cup matches I watched in a local restobar near my apartment, and I watched USA matches and quite a few other matches in my favorite cafe in Las Cañitas.  The Argentines seemed excited if not truly pumped for the matches I saw, although I really only watched the group matches in the restobar.  So there wasn’t too much on the line.

I went to Uruguay for a weekend partway through the cup, and got two see Uruguay defeat South Korea to make it to the final 8.  The last time they had advanced so far was 1970, and I have to say they were really worked up for their knockout round match.  I watched the match in a small restaurant in a little town called Colonia de Sacramento and after they won tons of Uruguayans were zooming up and down the streets on motorcycles towing huge flags and setting off fireworks.  The news was live for hours showing crowds celebrating in the streets of Montevideo.  The next day I went to Montevideo to see Argentina defeat Mexico, and was interested to see that the Uruguayans were not supporting their neighbors!

The last match I saw was Argentina vs Germany.  All the matches had been screened on massive video boards downtown in San Martin Park.  By this time I was out of my apartment and living in a hostel, so I went with 4 English girls in my hostel to see the match.  Unfortunately Argentina was pretty much dominated by Germany so it was more of a funeral than the party I was hoping for.

After seeing Argentina dominated we were able to look very serious with this guard at the Presidential Mansion

All in all it was great to see matches in two countries who were really into the cup.  I know that in a lot of cases schools and businesses closed, and an Argentine friend told me her office had brought in TVs and popcorn makers for the staff to enjoy.  I learned a lot about the game and know quite a bit about the players now as well.

Argentina, along with several other South American countries, are celebrating their 200th anniversaries this year.  As Napoleon caused chaos in Europe, most of South America took advantage of the situation to declare independence from Spain, or at least begin the process.  In Buenos Aires there was a week of celebrations culminating in a huge parade down Avenida 9 de Julio.  In Argentina’s case, while July 9th is independence day they celebrate the nation’s birthday a little earlier in May, since the first local government was formed in May of 1810 (independence wasn’t declared until 1816).

In true Argentine fashion, the parade started well after dark at 9pm.  The floats were really well done and covered all of the major events of Argentine history including the indigenous peoples, wars of independence, political upheaval, military dictatorship, Malvinas/Falkland Islands war, the Madres y Abuelos de Plaza de Mayo, Peronism, the industrial revolution, democracy, and more.  I took a video, which was difficult since with 3 million people attending the parade it was kind of a mosh pit just to stay in my spot!

A great photo album of the festivities can be found here.

Mendoza has just about everything going for it:  Easy to get to from both Buenos Aires and Santiago, a great place to ski, surrounded by mountains (most famously Aconcogua, the higher mountain in the Americas), a really pleasant and easygoing town full of cafes and restaurants, and maybe most famously a large part of Argentina’s wine country.

I hope I can return someday, because my few days there barely scratched the surface.  It was too early for ski season, and I was just about mountained-out by this time.  So I spent 2 days enjoying the cafes and parks in the city, and a day doing the typical tourist activity of drunkenly riding bikes between wineries.

Gulp!

What made this stop great was my hostel, Hostel Lao.  It was named Best Hostel in Latin America last year, and I can see why.  It’s in a great spot, the staff are really helpful, and it has bathrooms as nice as a downtown condo.  It’s also got a nice little courtyard with hammocks and chairs.  But the best part was that they set up a great bike tour for me and a few other people in our hostel.  Most people go with a big bike company in the Maipu area, which is crowded with tourists and the wineries have high fees for entrance.  Hostel Lao set us up with a small family company called Baccus, and they in turn set up appointments at 3 wineries in a different suburb of Mendoza.  It seemed to me that we were the only ones visiting these wineries all day, and it was a nice way to do it since we didn’t feel rushed and the staff seemed happy to give some personal attention.  The last winery was an organic winery owned by a small family, and we spent at least an hour talking with the owner and vintner.  This was especially nice since she could describe all the ins and outs of adding a bit of a certain grape for color and other technical details of the process.  Her wine is mostly exported to the USA, so I feel a bit like I’ve got my own private bodega in Argentina I can shop from when I get home.

Salta feels a lot like Buenos Aires, which is probably why I liked it a lot.  There wasn’t much to see or do, but I could have been happy for a week just walking around and relaxing in cafes.

A colorful church near the city center

The most interesting thing I did here was visit the Museum of High Altitude Archaeology.  It’s signature attraction are the mummified remains of 3 children sacrificed by the Incas on a nearby mountain.  The Incas didn’t intentionally mummify them like the Egyptians, instead it was a natural occurrence based on the environmental conditions of the mountain.  The Incas worshipped the mountains and the highest altitude peaks, so the children were sacrificed at a high altitude with low barometric pressure, no humidity, and other conditions that prevented any bacteria from decomposing the bodies.

The children were a 15-year-old girl, a 7-year-old girl, and an 8-year-old boy.  After the arduous journey to the top of the mountain they were fed a meal that included enough alcohol and sedatives to knock them out, then left to die of exposure.  Gruesome, but what I found interesting was that these were the children of the highest ranking families in the empire – No leaving the tough stuff to the serfs.  They were also buried with lots of toys and trinkets made of gold.

The three children are now kept in special low pressure chambers with treated air and minimal light.  They rotate each of them through the display every so often.  When I went, the child on display was the boy.  This was probably for the best, as the boy’s head is curled down towards his chest making his face not visible.  The 15-year-old girl is more or less in perfect condition and the 7-year-old girl is in good condition as well but was struck in the head by lightening so she’s a bit charred.  In the end the boy is probably the least disturbing to actually view.

Definitely one of the most interesting museums I’ve been to.  The displays were all in Spanish, but the staff can provide a packet of written translations to bring along with you.

The easiest activity near Bariloche for tourists is to climb one of the many cerros (hills) near the city.  Most of them are easily reachable on the main bus routes, and quite a few even have chair lifts for those that don’t want to climb them.  The peaks give some really nice views of the surrounding lakes and valleys.

I also took a trip out to some caves north of the city, the name I can’t remember.  There are a lot of caves in Argentina that have hand paintings, the most famous being Cuevas de Los Manos.  I didn’t visit that one because it’s so far away from…well anything.  It would have meant a 2 day detour just for that cave, and I hear it’s expensive.  So I decided to try out this one, and it honestly was underwhelming.

The caves are very small, essentially just little overhangs in the rock and a few small holes in the side.  The paintings are very difficult to see, because they’ve faded considerably over time.  All in all, something that can easily be skipped.

Hiking in Bariloche is easy because there are tons of refugios which are cabins in the forests that offer a place to sleep and eat.  They’re mostly run by Club Andino, the local mountaineering club and it’s a great service because it allows you to hike for the day, spend the night, and hike out the next morning.  A lot of places that couldn’t be managed as a round trip in a single day can be done by taking advantages of the refugios (important since I’m not carrying any camping gear).

Most of the hikes are easily reached by local bus from the city center, but on the advice of my hostel I decided to take a bus a few hours away to a park near Monte Tronador (Mount Thunder).  This mountain is on the border with Chile and is named for the glaciers on the mountain which calve pieces off over a cliff.  The sound of the ice falling down the cliff echoes through the valley as a low rumble that sounds just like thunder.

The climb to the refugio took about 7 hours and was up the whole way.  I had sat next to a Spanish guy on the bus from Bariloche and we decided to hike to the refugio together.  The path was a nice change from other hikes where it seems like every time you ascend 20 meters you then walk back down 10.  The first 4 hours are a gradual switchbacking trail through a beautiful old forest with massive trees, wildflowers, small waterfalls, and lots of moss and lichen.  Daytrippers can enjoy this area too because a local estancia (ranch) offers horseback riding and there’s a side path over to a glacier that still leaves time to hike back the same day.

Eventually we reached the caracoles (literally translated “the snails”) which is a 30-minute section that is extremely steep and made me glad my pack was nearly empty.  Past this is the tree line and a couple of hours of hiking, marked by paint splashes, over large boulders and shale to the refugio.

The refugio is still a few hours from the peak of the mountain.  It’s located in a gap between two glaciars and has some really nice views.  From here there’s a menu of guided tours available to ascend higher on the mountain.  We could have gone to the peak, to another refugio higher that has a descent route that cris-crosses the border (requiring advance permission from Chilean immigration), or just for a hike on the glaciers.  These all require crampons, ice axes, and guides to prevent you from falling into crevasses though.

From the outside the refugio looks like a decaying shack, but inside it’s pretty nice.  It has lots of wood paneling, almost a log-cabin look.  It turned out the only other people that came that night were two German guys, so we had 4 visitors and 3 staff!  The staff made made me a huge tenderloin steak with mushroom sauce and roasted vegetables, and I swear it’s one of the best meals I’ve ever had.  The four of us also split a bottle of wine, so it was kind of posh for being so remote!  The winelist had prices up to $450 ARS (about $115 USD).  Dinner was $50 ARS ($12.50 USD) and to sleep was $40 ARS ($10).  A bit expensive for Argentina, but given the challenges of operating the refugios it seemed fair.

It was interesting to talk to the staff about the logistics of running the refugio.  They bring in supplies (including food) mainly by having horses bring them up the main part of the trail, and then having the staff carry them in packs through the caracoles and across the rocks to the refugio.  I think the staff can probably do one packful in about 4 hours.  Occasionally the Argentine military drops supplies by helicopter (fuel, building materials, etc) because they use the glaciers near the refugio to train for Antarctica.  Hard work!

Bariloche is amazing, and I would recommend that anyone who visits Argentina spend some time here.  It’s really got everything going for it:  Beautiful deep blue lakes, lots of tree-covered hills and mountains and parks surrounding the city, a good ski destination, cheap and accessible transit, and inexpensive food.

Since I was a bit sick of hiking, I spent a couple of days just walking through downtown and relaxing.  The town of Bariloche is nice but mostly unremarkable.  One fun day activity is to bike the El Circuito Chico.  This is a somewhat fuzzy term for a bike route (on a normal road) from Bariloche along and around Lago Nahuel Huapi, the huge lake near Bariloche.  You can do the loop starting and ending in the city, which is about 65km.  What I did, and I would definitely recommend this, is to take bus 20 out to km 18 and rent a bike there.  There’s a rental agency right by that marker, and they provide maps of the recommended route.  This cuts the loop down to about 30-35km, and the portion of the road that you skip is very busy with traffic and probably not very fun.  By starting at marker 18, you can limit the ride to about 6 hours and it’s the most enjoyable section without much traffic.

The ride took me past a number of really nice lookouts, as well as the the Colonia Suiza.  Colonia Suiza is an old German settlement area, which today is a bit touristy.  There are some German restaurants and lots of small merchants selling crafts and snacks.  It was a really nice break from yet another hike!