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!

Change of Scenery

Hey Everyone -- I write this post from the airport in Bariloche, Argentina, as we prepare to fly to El Calafate. Let's just say that it's a whole new world here in Argentina. The culture shock after arriving here from Ecuador was quite incredible! Basically, in Ecuador, we were used to casually showing up at bus stations and taking short rides to our next destinations, then walking around and finding a hotel on the fly. Upon arriving in Buenos Aires after an overnight flight from Ecuador, we discovered that our 3 different options for hostels we had picked out were all completely full!! We ended up walking into a random hotel off the street, which had space but was really a pretty lousy room. This was our view -- which was sort of exciting, but really incredibly noisy!

From Buenos Aires ...

After realizing that we didn't want to stay in that hotel any longer than necessary, Carrie and I decided to accelerate our plan to leave Buenos Aires and head for the beach! After talking to some traveling friends in Ecuador, we decided that Uruguay would be a neat beach option, specifically the town of Punta del Este. They said that Mar del Plata in Argentina was really crowded and built up, and not as good a spot. With that decided, Carrie and I boarded a ferryboat and headed to Uruguay!

Our arrival at the dock was in the tiny town of Colonia. We spent 1 night here, and it was very pleasant. The town has lots of tree lined cobblestone streets, and is very calm and relaxing. We stayed in a lovely little hotel, and had our first "parillada (mixed grill)" experience! Here are some photos:

Carrie sitting on a bench by the water in Colonia:

From Uruguay

Carrie and I on our rented motor scooter!

From Uruguay

Our mixed grill platter!

From Uruguay

That restaurant experience was pretty special... Carrie and I had headed to dinner a bit later than planned, and we ended up walking around at about 10:45 or 11pm looking for a restaurant. While this would be fine in Buenos Aires, things in Colonia seemed to be geared a little earlier. We walked by one meat restaurant where the waiter saw us and invited us in. We sat outside, and ate the large mixed grill, which basically included all parts of the cow besides the parts used for typical steak. Afterwards, the waiter and cook came and said hello, and even though it was quite late and we were the only ones there, the cook / owner insisted that we have coffee. It was quite touching, really!

After the night in Colonia, we headed to Punta del Este. Unfortunately, it was very cold, and so the beach was definitely not an option. Also unfortunately, this cold and sometimes rainy weather persisted for 3 straight days! Since the beach is the main attraction in Punta del Este, we quickly got to know all of the non-beach options for activities. One option was riding a boat to an island containing a large sea lion colony. Unfortunately, the seas were too rough, and the boats never ran. However, when we went to the dock, we got a good look at an enormous sea lion eating fish from a fisherman:

From Uruguay

Another activity we did was rent a car and drive! One neat spot was the "Ruta Panoramica", which was basically a road that dead ended at the water. Right near there was also the Casapueblo museum, which as a neat art museum with crazy architecture right by the water:

From Uruguay

From Uruguay

This was all pretty neat stuff, and we have a bunch more pictures on our photo sight. Unfortunately, when we returned the rental car, the gas gauge floated just under full, and we had to fill the tank. At the gas station, the men "filled up" the car, and since it was the morning and we weren't really alert, we were charged $10 for about 1 or 2 liters of gas, which is too much money. We were pretty angry about getting ripped off, but by the time we figured it out, it was too late. At that point, we headed back to Argentina, where we set up shop in Buenos Aires and waited for the arrival of Joe!

Feel free to check out photos (even the recent ones are uploaded now to the photo sight), and we'll update again soon!

Isla de la Plata, Quito, and Galapagos

Hey everybody -- Carrie and I are now in Cuenca, Ecuador, preparing for their independence celebrations coming up this weekend. Unfortunately, our stay in Ecuador will be coming to an end soon, and we will be moving on to Argentina. We've decided to skip Chile, because we really want to make sure we have enough time to do Argentina and Brazil some justice. In any case, my last post left off on the coast of Ecuador...

One day trip we did from coastal Ecuador was Isla de la Plata. Our hostel set us up with a tour, and we headed to the nearby town of Puerto Lopez to board a boat. We were told that we might get so see whales on our way to the island, but that the mating season was coming to an end, so we might not. Let's just say we got lucky!

From Coastal Ecuador

From Coastal Ecuador

We also got a glimpse of some dolphins, but were unable to get them on camera. When we finally got to the island, we hiked for a couple hours and got our first look at the blue footed boobies.

From Coastal Ecuador

We found it especially amusing when the birds would set up their nests in the middle of the tourist path!

From Coastal Ecuador

We also got a look at the masked booby (one of my favorites):

From Coastal Ecuador

The last bird we saw was the frigate bird (the male is puffing out):

From Coastal Ecuador

After the hike, we went back to the boat and did about 30 minutes of snorkeling. This photo is from the boat before we jumped in and went swimming with the fishes...

From Coastal Ecuador

Overall, we enjoyed the Isla de la Plata experience! If Galapagos is too expensive or time-consuming, this is a great alternative. It is especially great if you can go during whale mating season (I know September is included, but I don't know how much earlier it goes).

After our stay on the coast, we boarded an overnight bus to Quito. As usual, we didn't sleep much, but we eventually made it. Here we found our staple Quito hotel, Hotel Pickett. We settled in a bit here, and then headed for the jungle, which Carrie detailed in her most recent post.

After the jungle, we had a couple days in Quito before we headed for the Galapagos. We decided to head to Mitad del Mundo, or the "Middle of the World", where the true equator is located. First, there was the large monument, which actually isn't at the true equator:

From Quito, Ecuador

After that, we headed to the Museo del Solar, which had the true equator:

From Quito, Ecuador

At this museum, they had a demonstration of water draining in different hemispheres. Carrie and I of course decided to take videos:

At the equator:


In the southern hemisphere (only a couple meters away):


In the northern hemisphere (also a couple meters away):


At the equator, Carrie succeeded at balancing an egg on a nail (due to the fact that there are no sideways gravitational forces):

From Quito, Ecuador

After the Mitad del Mundo, we got incredibly lost on our bus ride back to Quito, so after trying 4 different local buses, we eventually gave up and took a cab. Remarkably, it turned out we had gotten to only a few blocks from our hotel! After that, we got ready to head to the GALAPAGOS!!

A quick note on Galapagos planning: We booked our trip before we headed to the jungle, or about 1 week in advance, in Quito. We paid our travel agent IN CASH, which resulted in many trips to the ATM! With Galapagos, if you have the luxury of time, I do recommend booking your tour "last minute," since that's when the prices drop more, even for nice boats. For truly last minute bookings, you can actually fly to the town of Puerto Ayora in the Galapagos, and book right then! We had booked our tour on a "tourist superior" boat, which basically had small bedrooms with private bathrooms, decent food, transit to the islands, and not much else. When we got back from the jungle, we found out that our original boat had been canceled, and we were re-booked on a nicer, first class boat for the same price!

Our travel agent told us that the boats reserve seats on airplanes so that all of the tourists can fly together. We were given stickers with our boat's name, so we could easily find our guide and group when we landed. However, in the airport, we didn't notice other people wearing our stickers. Our plane was then delayed, and we ended up boarding a plane with a different flight number, which took us to Guayaquil. From there, we switched planes to a Galapagos bound plane, although everything was extremely confusing. Carrie and I suspected that they canceled our original flight, but just wouldn't admit that they did.

When we finally got off our plane, we didn't see anyone from our boat. Suddenly, this older man came up to us and told us that he was the one to take us to the boat, but that we were very late and the entire group was waiting! We told him that we needed to get our bags, and then we'd be all set. While we waited for our bags, he came back up to us and said he was leaving with the rest of the group! We were left behind, and told to join this other group to go to the port, where he would meet us and take us to our boat. Of course, the guide of the group we joined didn't have money to pay for our bus / boat transfers, so we had to pay them ourselves, which was unexpected.

Once we got to the port, the old man rejoined us, and introduced us to our actual tour guide. The guide proceeded to tell us that this was supposed to be his afternoon off, and joined us on a water taxi to our boat. On the boat, the rest of our group had just finished lunch, and Carrie and I ate our meal while they finished off dessert. Luckily, the rest of our group was extremely friendly and understanding, and things got better fast.

What we ended up learning was that in the Galapagos, the logistics can be completely messed up, but nothing can screw up the islands themselves... the rest of the trip was pretty fantastic! After lunch on the first day, we went to the Charles Darwin Center, where they are breeding endangered Galapagos tortoises:

From Galapagos Isl...

From Galapagos Isl...

After the Darwin Center, we headed back to the boat for dinner and sleeping. The next day, we went back to the same island we had started in and viewed some lava tubes and did a short hike. After lunch, the boat left for the first time and we went to the Island of Santa Fe for snorkeling and a hike. I don't have photos of snorkelling, but we saw some colorful fish, and Carrie had a sea lion swim directly underneath her! When we got to the beach, we were introduced to the Galapagos sea lions for the first time:

From Galapagos Isl...

From Galapagos Isl...

From Galapagos Isl...

From Galapagos Isl...

Needless to say, we enjoyed ourselves quite a bit! The incredible thing was that the animals were mostly unafraid of humans! This is likely due to the fact that the islands have been protected for so long, so humans haven't bothered the animals much here... only taken lots of photos!

For the third day, we went to Española island, where we saw more amazing things. Here are some highlights:

Marine Iguanas and Lava Lizards:

From Galapagos Isl...

I join a beautiful moment between mother and child:

From Galapagos Isl...

Carrie and I at the edge of the island:

From Galapagos Isl...

Masked boobies up close:

From Galapagos Isl...

From Galapagos Isl...

A sea lion joins Carrie on the beach:

From Galapagos Isl...

For Day 4, we headed to Floreana Island, which featured some good snorkelling that proved to be difficult due to the strong current. We also got our first look at Galapagos flamingos (supposedly the most pink in the world), a beach full of stingrays, and more sea lions!

From Galapagos Isl...

Notice the flamingo's path visible in the water:

From Galapagos Isl...

Luckily the rays didn't give anyone the Steve Irwin treatment:

From Galapagos Isl...

We liked this pose:

From Galapagos Isl...

On Day 5 in the early morning, we got our first look (in the Galapagos) at the male frigatebird showing off for the females:

From Galapagos Isl...

We also got a look at a newborn sea lion with its mother, and a bird attempting to eat the placenta. The mother had to keep growling to keep the bird at bay:

From Galapagos Isl...

Unfortunately, during day 5, the boat spent a long time at Baltra, the airport island. This is because some tourists opt for 4 or 5 day Galapagos tours, and those tourists are mixed in with the 8 day people (like us). For the 8 day people, we basically had to kill 6 hours of a beautiful afternoon doing nothing, because they were dropping off and picking up tourists, as well as cleaning the boat. After some coaxing, at least they let us hang out on an army beach for a couple hours, which wasn't particularly exciting, so Carrie built this fortress around a sleeping sea lion:

From Galapagos Isl...

For Day 6, we headed to Genovesa Island. It was here that we got our first look at the red-footed booby:

From Galapagos Isl...

From Galapagos Isl...

The very beautiful red footed booby with white feathers:

From Galapagos Isl...

The swallow-tailed gull (one standing on top of the other):

From Galapagos Isl...

This day also featured some great snorkeling, where we saw SHARKS and giant turtles. Unfortunately, I do not have photos.

For Day 7, we spent time in Bartolome, as well as Santa Cruz's Black Turtle Cove. Here we saw the Galapagos Penguin:

From Galapagos Isl...

We also had some nice views (you can see our boat in the background):

From Galapagos Isl...

Bartolome also featured one of our unforgettable moments, when we snorkeled with sea lions! We had snorkeled before and had sea lions swim by, but this time the sea lions actually swam WITH us and really seemed to be playing with us. They would do barrel rolls and jump out of the water, and even pose underwater. While we don't have any photos of this, I doubt I will ever forget it.

In the afternoon of day 7, we moved to a different area of Santa Cruz. While in transit, two frigate birds followed us for the entire time! Notice how happy I look at this moment:

From Galapagos Isl...

I was lounging on the boat's top deck, when suddenly one of the frigate birds that had been following us decided to relieve itself:

From Galapagos Isl...

I cleaned up, and for our afternoon excursion we went in small boats through some mangroves, reminiscent of the jungle. We saw some pretty neat stuff.

Mating turtles:

From Galapagos Isl...

SHARKS!

From Galapagos Isl...

Turtle underwater:

From Galapagos Isl...

On Day 8, we did a brief (and fairly uneventful) hike before heading back to the airport. In summary, I would HIGHLY recommend the Galapagos to anyone who loves wildlife. If you have the luxury of time, I would certainly recommend the 8 day tour, booked in Ecuador. Just make sure you have something to do midway through the trip when the 4/5 day passengers switch. Also, get the nicest boat you can afford, since you'll be spending a lot of time on it! We took a lot more pictures than were posted on this blog, so please feel free to look at the full photo albums if you like what you see.