More Argentina!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Carrie and I are back in the US, enjoying the winter wonderland that is Massachusetts. We are in good health and arrived home safely, and enjoying things such as home cooked meals, speaking English, and having friends and family around. Now that we are back home, we can write more about what we did over the last month and a half.

Back in early November, after Uruguay, Carrie and I settled back in Buenos Aires. For a few days, we would work on logistical trip planning during the day, and doing fun activities at night. One night, we stumbled upon tickets to a dinner and tango show. The dinner, of course, consisted of a giant steak with potatoes, salad, and red wine. As an added bonus, we got to see a fun tango show:

From Buenos Aires ...

The show was a lot of fun, and we made friends with some Columbian ladies who were sharing our ride to and from the show.

The next night, we went to a soccer match at River Plate Stadium, between River Plate and Arsenal (the Argentine team). Of course, the game ended in a 0-0 tie before going to penalty kicks (reinforcing my idea that soccer is not a very exciting game). The crowd certainly was into it, singing throughout the game.

From Buenos Aires ...

I was amused when we decided to grab some food before halftime, and there was NOBODY at the concession stand, because everyone was too busy watching the game. The most amazing / interesting moment for me came at the end of the game, when Arsenal managed to win the game in penalty kicks. After they made the winning kick, the incredibly noisy crowd became dead quiet. The only sound I could hear was that of the players themselves celebrating, and the faint sound of the visiting fans celebrating in their own blocked off balcony section. For the home fans, to add to their pain, they actually had to wait in the stadium for the visiting fans to finish celebrating and leave the stadium before they could leave, because apparently in soccer the opposing fans cannot ever be in the same vicinity. Aside from the unfortunate outcome of the game, we had a good time and enjoyed seeing the soccer experience.

After that, our friend Joe arrived, and we saw more sights of Buenos Aires, witnessed the Gay Pride Parade, and traveled to Mendoza to enjoy the best of Argentine wines from their sources. Since Joe may be providing a guest post to the blog, I'll refrain from going into detail until after he's written his post.

After Joe left, it was Thanksgiving, and one of the toughest stretches of our trip. Missing Thanksgiving in the US was hard, especially hearing about how much fun our families were having and knowing we were by ourselves in a country that didn't care much about Thanksgiving. In addition, we had some difficulties making some of the travel arrangements, which were starting to wear us down. Luckily, we were able to find a restaurant in Buenos Aires that served us a traditional Thanksgiving dinner!

From Buenos Aires ...

The day after Thanksgiving, we packed up for our overnight bus trip that evening. During the day, we tried to view some downtown sights in Buenos Aires, but it seemed that every place we tried to visit was closed for renovations. Finally, we gave up and decided to have a steak lunch, which made things better for the time being (Argentine steak meals tend to do that). After that though, we went to the bus station, and had our bag stolen while waiting for our bus company's computers to come back online so they could print our tickets. After realizing that what they stole was not so bad, we began to feel better and boarded our bus.

Our bus was 19 hours, from Buenos Aires to Bariloche, in the Lake District of southern Argentina. We boarded a fancy "cama suite" bus with seats that reclined 180 degrees. It was extremely comfortable, and they even served hot meals, wine with dinner, and dessert with champagne and whisky! The only downsides were our seat location (in the back by the loud engine noise) and our window (covered by the bus exterior advertisements).

Barilcohe was incredibly beautiful. We stayed in a lovely hosteria called La Pastorella, owned by a friendly husband and wife. Our excursions consisted of white water rafting and bus rides providing beautiful views of lakes and mountains. The bus rides themselves became a bit boring due to the tour guide's rapid Spanish, but the scenery was nice. Here are some photos:

From Bariloche, Ar...

From Bariloche, Ar...

From Bariloche, Ar...

From Bariloche, Ar...

After Bariloche, we headed even farther south (50 degrees south latitude) to El Calafate, in Patagonia. It was here that we got to view some incredible Glaciers. We stayed at an incredibly charming place called "Las Cabanitas", and had our own A-Frame cabin:

From El Calafate, ...

From there we visited the Perito Moreno Glacier. I'll just show some pictures and a video here:

From El Calafate, ...

The most exciting part of the day might have been actually getting to hike on the glacier itself, using crampons on our boots, followed by a surprise whisky and candy snack at the end:

From El Calafate, ...

From El Calafate, ...

The next day, we visited an "Estancia", also known as a sheep ranch. We got to watch a sheep herding demonstration, a sheep shearing, and then eat a giant barbecue dinner:

From El Calafate, ...

From El Calafate, ...

For our last day in El Calafate, we took a boat cruise through Lago Argentina, visiting multiple glaciers in the area. This was very cold, but incredibly scenic!

From El Calafate, ...

From El Calafate, ...

El Calafate was one of my favorite places we visited on the trip. It was sunny until 10:45, not too cold away from the glaciers, and incredibly scenic. It was also very laid back and relaxing. On our flight back to Buenos Aires, the plane made a stop at Ushuaia, the very bottom of South America by Antartica. We had decided not to visit the town, and when we saw the view from the plane, we were happy with our decision:

From El Calafate, ...

After that, we headed north to Iguazu Falls and Brazil, which we will write about in future posts... Feel free to browse our pictures, as they are now all uploaded! Happy Holidays!

More Quito, and Baños

Hello!

Carrie and I are actually in Punta del Este, Uruguay right now! We had stopped over in Buenos Aires (and will be back), but we wanted to try out the beach here. Unfortunately, mother nature is once again interfering, but hopefully things will warm up soon. Ecuador was truly a wonderful place -- out of Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, we would be most likely to return to Ecuador for another vacation someday. My last post ended with the Galapagos... After that, we were back in Quito for a more extended stay.

Our main goal after arriving back in Quito was to arrange a flight out of Ecuador to Argentina. We were quickly getting worried when one-way fares were exceeding $600 and $700! However, we got lucky when we ran into another one of our mysterious contacts. In Quito, we frequently ran into a friendly older guy named Diego, who was originally from the US. He seemed well versed in all things Ecuador, and had given us advice on other things before. He told us to go to a specific travel agency (Galasam) to look into airfares. Low and behold, this travel agency hooked us up with flights to Buenos Aires for less than $400. Thank you Diego!

One day in Quito, we headed into "Old Town", or the historic center of the city. We were disappointed by many museums and sites being either closed or under construction, but still enjoyed ourselves walking around and seeing various buildings and plazas. Even walking the streets is scenic. I love how you can look down a street and see mountains looming in the background:

From Quito, Ecuador

Another neat place we found in Quito was Parque Carolina (recommended by our friend Diego). This was basically a very large park with lots of activities, and we found a little museum containing lots of snakes! One of the feature activities was actually holding a snake. In this photo, the snake is actually licking Carrie's back!

From Quito, Ecuador

Since we always stayed at the same hotel in Quito, we got quite used to our neighborhood. Our hotel didn't include breakfast, so we quickly found favorite places for breakfast. One of them was called "Friends", and they really hooked it up for only about $3!

From Quito, Ecuador

All in all, we felt like Quito was one of the first cities we felt that we could live in. It had an easy to navigate transit system, lots of good restaurants, fun bars, and friendly people. I found bars where I could watch the World Series, and was amused by how the Ecuadorians cheered at every exciting play, regardless of who was making it. When we were finished with Quito, we followed some other traveler's recommendations and headed to the small town of Baños, about 3 hours south of Quito.

We quickly realized that Baños was a great town! It is nestled in a valley between tall, beautiful, and green mountains. There is a volcano nearby that we occasionally got glimpses of, but it was frequently covered over by clouds. Since we were missing the wedding of our good friends Jessica and Anthony at this time, we decided we would do a scenic bike ride in their honor. From Baños, you can rent bikes for $5 and follow the road to Puyo, a town about 60km away. The ride is advertised as being all downhill and full of scenic waterfall views. Other than some occasional bike chain problems, the ride did not disappoint! Here are some photos:

From Baños, Ecuador

From Baños, Ecuador

This picture is from a cable car we took across the valley towards a waterfall:

From Baños, Ecuador

"The Devil" Waterfall:

From Baños, Ecuador

After lunch, we found out that the ride wasn't entirely downhill, and faced some rough uphill stretches. For this reason, and because we spent so much time exploring waterfalls, we didn't go all the way to Puyo. We waited by the side of the road, and after about 10 minutes, a yellow minivan taxi pulled up, offering to take us (with our bikes) back to Baños for $3!

Another highlight of Baños was the abundance of thermal springs to bathe in. After an outdoor activity during the day, we would go to one of the bathing areas to relax. Most places had pools of different temperatures, and since we were there during the week, the crowds weren't too bad. We don't have bathing pictures, but here is me at one of the places before we got in:

From Baños, Ecuador

On the day after the bike ride, we decided to go white water rafting. There are a couple popular rivers for rafting there, and we opted for the more challenging (and more fun) Rio Pastaza with its class 4 rapids. Our company (Geotours) was great, and the guide would often intentionally lead the boat into situations that resulted in everyone getting brutally splashed, without tipping over the boat. I don't have photos from the actual rafting, but we did take a break midway through where we got to jump into the river from the surrounding rocks:

From Baños, Ecuador

The other major event in Baños was the Red Sox being in the World Series! Suddenly, having cable tv available became a high priority, as the games were all on ESPN Deportes (the spanish language ESPN). After having some room switching issues with our hotel, I was able to watch the deciding game 4. Here are some photos of me celebrating with all of Red Sox nation in Baños:

From Baños, Ecuador

After the final out, I went into the streets to celebrate with everyone!

From Baños, Ecuador

All in all, Baños was a great time. It was mostly relaxing (other than our hotel situation), and it had beautiful scenery. I loved how you could do fun athletic activities during the day and then relax in soothing baths while gazing at a waterfall at night. How can you beat that?

To any potential Baños travelers reading this post: A note on our hotels... The Hosteria Monte Selva seems like a great place. It has some nice cabins up on the hill, as well as its own jacuzzis and thermal baths. However, their staff is very deceptive and sometimes tells you outright lies. For instance, if your cable isn't working and they say someone will come up to help you, that is not true. Also, despite the cards in the room that say the jacuzzis and thermal baths are open every day, they are in fact only open on the weekends! So, if you're like us and arrive on a Sunday, you will be disappointed the next day when you discover everything you had paid extra for is closed. If you're coming during the week, I'd highly recommend the Hostel Isla de Baños, literally right across the street, with nice rooms for half the price!

After Baños, we headed to the beautiful town of Cuenca, before heading out of Ecuador. Look for a post from Carrie soon!