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!

Fing BsAs

They finally did it. They tried to do it while we were walking down the streets of La Paz, Bolivia, and again while riding a bus from Quito, Ecuador, but they finally succeeded while at the bus terminal in Buenos Aires. I always keep the important pockets of my backpack safety pinned shut. This proved especially essential on the bus from Quito because even though I was sitting with the bag on the floor between my legs, the guy behind me still managed to reach under the seat and open my bag as far as the safety pin would let him. He was gone before I knew what had happened, but got nothing.

Unfortunately, safety pins don´t do much good when they steal the whole bag. We make a point to always keep our passports and most money in our pants. The guy who stole our backpack didn´t get anything of value, or at least of much value to him. When you´re traveling for 3.5 months and each carrying only about 35 lbs of stuff, everything is valuable. The stolen backpack had the following:

- Dan´s jacket
- Bottle of nice wine from Mendoza
- Half of our toiletries (toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, shampoo, soap, shaving cream, Dan´s deodorant, Dan´s razor, sunscreen, and laundry soap)
- All of our travel books

The other small backpack, that was fortunately not stolen, contained much more, including the better of our two cameras, backup photo CDs, and my medicine. Basically, stuff that is much harder, if even possible, to replace. But it still sucks.

When I realized what happened my hands got all tingly and I thought I might faint, but I ended up just screaming a bunch. Dan remained fairly rational and ran around looking for the bag. We seriously considered finding a way to fly home right then, but that would almost definitely have resulted in staying at least one more night in Buenos Aires. Being in BsAs without a hotel reservation can be very stressful even under good circumstances, so instead we decided to continue with the original plan and take a 20 hour bus ride to Bariloche.

The ride would have been great if our windows weren´t painted over and our speakers actually worked so we could hear the movies (2 of the 3 were English w/ Spanish subtitles, the other Spanish w/ English subtitles), but at least we had the super fancy seats that reclined to be totally flat and we slept fairly well for at least 6 of the 20 hours (it would have been more if I wasn´t so stressed from the robbery). I wouldn´t mind taking another one of those fancy buses for another 20 hours, as long as I didn´t have to go anywhere near the BsAs bus terminal. Maybe from Iguazu to Rio.

We´ll probably survive with just having to buy a new travel guide for Brazil, probably something to keep Dan warm in El Calafate, and of course, the essential toiletries. Definitely Dan´s deodorant, but I doubt he´ll replace the razor.

¡Uruguay!

Top 10 things I learned while in Uruguay:

10. Uruguay is pronounced "oor-ooh-GWHY".

9. Uruguayan sea lions are at least four times fatter than their Galapagos cousins.

From Uruguay

8. Uruguayans love meat so much, they even have meat flavored potato chips (which are actually pretty good)

From Uruguay

7. Uruguay is a lot like Argentina with the steak, Gauchos, mate, funny accent, etc.

From Uruguay

6. Peak season in Uruguay is December through February.

From Uruguay

5. Uruguayan hotels and restaurants are very expensive by South American standards. Hotels are less espensive in the offseason.

From Uruguay

4. The offseason in Uruguay is terribly cold, the harbors are often closed, and the nightlife is dead (even in November, which is only one month away from peak season!).

From Uruguay

3. Do NOT rent a car in Uruguay. Gas cost us $10 for less than a litre.

From Uruguay

2. Uruguayans are usually nice, but watch out for their lies.

From Uruguay

1. Uruguay has a surprisingly large amount of mosquitoes. Despite the frigid temperatures, they manage to thrive and I got multiple bites in every city we stayed in. Even when I was totally bundled up, they still bit my hands, face, and scalp.

Guayaquil (the second time around)

After Cuenca, we headed for Guayaquil on a bus. There are two bus routes, and we took the one through Parque Nacional Cajas, because it is only 3.5 hours instead of 4.5 hours. Fortunately for us, it also had amazing scenery along the way. Unfortunately for us, the road was extremely curvy, and the girl behind us apparently could not stomach it. She spent most of the trip emptying her stomach into a plastic bag and periodically tossing the plastic bag onto the roadside(including while we were in the national park!).

From Guayaquil, Ec...

Once we were in Guayaquil, we began searching for a hotel. It is usually really hard for Dan and I to make up our minds about hotels, but this time we had a clearly defined goal: find an inexpensive hotel that was showing the Patriots vs Colts game (personally, I´m not a big Patriots fan, but both teams were undefeated, and the Colts are probably my least favorite team). In South America it is normal to ask to see the room before taking it, so this time while we would see the room, we would turn on the TV and look for the game (we got into Guayaquil just as the game was starting). After three hotels, we finally found the game, and it was well worth the search because it turned out to be a very close game with the Patriots finally pulling through at the end. Below is a picture of just before the Patriots made their comeback:

From Guayaquil, Ec...

The next day in Guayaquil we walked around the Malecon, which is the area along the river that Guayaquil had recently restored for the new millenium. We had gone to the Malecon the last time we were in Guayaquil several weeks earlier, but it was at night and we were not very impressed. However, this time around we were there for a lovely sunny day and it was great.

From Guayaquil, Ec...

Near the end of the Malecon is a recently built up neighborhood called Cerro Santa Ana. It is basically a 465 step, outdoor stairwell with shops along the way. By that point in the day it was way to hot to climb to the top of the hill, so instead we decided to cool down at an internet cafe that was supposedly 1/3 of the way up the hill. However, we somehow missed it, because we found the top of the hill before we found the internet cafe. Fortunately, it was still worth the climb because the top of the hill had a very nice view of the city. (On the way back down we found the internet cafe, but it was closed)

From Guayaquil, Ec...

That night we took a red-eye flight to Buenos Aires. We had ended up spending so much time in Ecuador and still had so much we wanted to do in Argentina and Brazil, we decided to skip Chile. However, fortunately for us, the cheapest way to fly to Buenos Aires was to have a two hour layover in Santiago, Chile! Unfortunately, Chile charges Americans $100 to enter their country (Chile and Brazil do this because the US charges everyone entering our country $100), so we decided against leaving the airport. However, that time we spent in Chile between 5-7 AM was really swell! Here are some of the highlights of our trip to Chile:

Dan at the airport giftstore:

From Santiago, Chile

View from the airport window:

From Santiago, Chile

Close-up of the mountains:

From Santiago, Chile