Buenos Aires, the Cliffnotes Version

Must do's and see's in BBAA

- A tango show. It's supposed to be the best place in the world for it, and I believe it. Plus, it's supposed to be one of the best places in the world for beef, so spring for the show with dinner. And then finish your whole huge plate of steak, like I did. (Nothing's changed here.) While at said tango show, it is highly recommended that you not admit you don't know the words to the songs that everyone in the audience is singing along with, and just join in at the top of your lungs. They'll be too drunk to know the difference.
- People tangoing in the streets. For no other reason than I think it's spectacularly romantic. That's right, not only do I still eat tons, but I'm also still a sap. All hopes that South America would rid me of my vices are being dashed teh more I write.

- The architecture. Which isn't hard to miss, and is spectacular. No wonder they call it the Paris of South America.
- A "Tenador Libre" restaurant. Translated "Free Fork", it's an all-you-can-eat-buffet. And because, I will remind those who have forgotten, Argentines have strong Italian descendence, the food is usually quite splendid. I personally went to two: one for 7 USD and one for 3.
- Because, that's right, the other great thing about Argentina is the prices. All the prices look normal, and then you remember that you get to divide by three! Not that I'm one to take advantage of a country in economic crisis, except that... okay, maybe I am. My wardrobe is happier for it, and someone had to buy those adorable black leather ballet flats.
- Evita Peron's grave, adorned with flowers. I would not, however, recommend going when there's about to be a funeral in a neighboring mausoleum, but that, as Britney would say, is your perogative.
- The cemetary in which Eva Peron's grave is located. A given from the above recommendation, but I've now discovered that walking around a cemetary can tell a person a lot about place, interestingly enough. Slightly morbid, but interesting.
- the Aurolineas Argentina stewardesses. Really though, it's their amazingly stylish jackets that must be seen. I wonder how irresponsible it would be to run off and be a stewardess for a year, just for the cute jacket...
- And finally, the amazing view flying over the Andes, coming home from Argentina. Buenos Aires might have awesome food and shopping and tango and buildings, etc, but there's nothing like being like max two hours from beautiful mountains at all times. Or going to school on the beach for that matter. Here's to hoping I finish my work in time to get some sun soon! Sometimes it's just so good to be in Chile :)

Resolved

So I'm thinking blogs will never get put up unless I return to the old Georgetown way of Caitlin-blogging: procrastination tactics. And in little chunks. Whenever I can get myself to take a break from oppressive Chilean work. So here it goes, in my marathon of the next couple days, I promise to update on 1. the amazingly beautiful city of Buenos Aires, 2. my visitors from fa' fa' away, and 3. a brand new Chilean phenomenon: Nescafe. Of course, all will be posted in choppy highlight style, but I doubt any of the nice people that are still actually reading this care about what I seemed to think was funny after a bottle of wine in an Argentinian all-you-can-eat buffet, so I'll try to cut the extras ;). Without further ado, a few minutes from now, you should be seeing: Buenos Aires, the Cliffnotes version.

La Campana

”Parque La Campana…contains the highest mountains in the coastal cordillera, including Cerro La Campana (1880m), climbed by Charles Darwin in 1834.”

“Thousands of Chileans and increasing numbers of foreign visitors reach the summit of La Campana every year. On a clear day, the view from La Campana, stretching from the ships at anchor in the Pacific harbor to the Andean summit of Aconcagua, is spectacular.

“It’s possible to hitchhike or drive to the abandoned mine site at the end of the road leading into the park from the Granizo entrance, considerably shortening the hike to the summit, but it’s much more interesting and rewarding to hike the trail all the way from the park entrance. Figure at least four hours to the top and three hours back down.

“From Granizo, 373m above sea level, the abruptly steep trail to the summit climbs 1455m in only 7km – an average grade of nearly 21%. Fortunately, most of the hike is in shade, and there are three water sources en route: Primera Aguada, at an elevation of 580m; Segunda Aguada; and the abandoned mine site, where the trail continues to the summit.

“At the point where the trail skirts a granite wall, prior to the final vertiginous ascent, is a plaque commemorating the 101st anniversary of Darwin’s climb. At another rpoint slightly beyond this, the Club Montañés de Valparaíso has placed another plaque, honoring climbers who died in 1968 when an earthquake unleashed a landslide.

“Sturdy, sensible footwear is essential, as parts of the trail are slippery even when dry; sneakers can be awkward.”

~Lonely Planet: Chile & Easter Island, 6th edition, May 2003




‘Stoga still rules the hills!

For those of you who don’t know, Conestoga is the name of my high school, and “’stoga rules the hills” was a cross country mantra we used to write all over spirit shirts in a diluted attempt to convince ourselves we actually enjoyed the insane hill workouts we put ourselves through to prepare for races. Well, after Saturday’s excursion on the “hill” La Campana, whose LP description is written above, I can say it’s definitely still true.

I woke up at 6:15 on Saturday to catch a train to the countryside and go hiking. My friends had hiked La Campana about a month and a half ago when there was snow on top and suggested it might be better in spring, so here we were, the first weekend in October, taking off for a pleasant hike. Well I’m glad I hadn’t read the above description beforehand, because, not knowing anything about hiking, I think I may have been a bit intimidated. Not to mention the fact that Chile has been expecting an earthquake for a few weeks now. Things I perhaps should have thought about before going on an intense hike.


La Campana

The climbing started out great. It turns out that my 5-mile runs have left me in better shape than I thought I was in, because I felt fine and was having a wonderful time. The hike was definitely rigorous but enjoyable and possible, and had several convenient resting points. We stopped at one such point to rest and fill up our water bottles from the clean natural spring (how outdoorsy am I?!) and eat lunch, including some awesome trail mix that Ashley made.

After our resting point, which was the half-way mark time wise, was when our hike got a bit interesting. Around that point was where the climb stopped being so much of a trail and was more of straight up and down rock climbing. But hey, whatever, it was something different and fun. The climbing was a bit difficult, and we were getting close to the time when we had to turn around to make it back down before sunset, but with a final push, we made it to the top!


me climbing


on top of the world!


the view from the summit

And then we started down. Now, it must be noted that two whole “Chilean phenomenon” blog entries could be devoted to 1) the seeming disregard for the value of life in Chile and 2) the lack of markings…anywhere. The lawsuit is certainly not an institution here as it is in Chile. You show up at a national park to walk around a bit, they say, follow the arrows, and make no effort to get one to sign any sort of waiver or warn a person that perhaps such an endeavor could be extremely risky. That being explained, it should not have surprised us that 1) climbing down a steep mountain of unstable rocks is difficult and 2) the “path” of unstable rocks is not clearly marked.

So we got lost.



Right about when I took this picture.

With every step, a mini-avalanche was unleashed, making mobility, and therefore getting un-lost, very difficult. But what is there to do but keep going down and keep looking for something resembling a path. Of course, during all this, we were also thinking about the fast approaching sunset. There was actually a point where we were thinking we were going to have to spend the night on the mountain, because once it got dark, it would not have been safe to move on the unstable stones. You know when you’re cheering yourself up with thoughts like “You can see the town, so if you just keep walking in that direction, you’ll probably reach it in a few days,” you’re at a low point.

But we kept cool, and kept walking toward what we thought would be a path, and eventually did make it back to the halfway point. At that point we had about an hour and a half more of walking to do and only an hour of light. So we booked it. And after that, we used the two small flashlights I had with me: one on my keychain and one on my cell phone. So take that all of you who make fun of me for being afraid.

And now, four days later, I learn that two days ago a boy died there on a school filed trip. So I have to ask myself, what the heck did I do this weekend? And I thought this weekend in Buenos Aires was what I had to be worried about when it came to safety. I feel like going to Tango shows and shoe shopping will be a walk in the park (no pun intended, I swear) after mountain climbing. Yep, I’m a city girl to the core. No more mountain adventures for me for a while!

My weekends in Europe

So, although is a long-overdue entry, I still want to briefly post about my travels to Valdivia, Chile and Mendoza, Argentina. Two weekends in a row, Ashley and I packed our nice big backpacks and jumped on busses to various parts of South America. Because really, when else in your life are you going to say “13 hours by bus? That’s not bad!” and then head to random South American towns for the weekend. Yeah.

So that’s what we did. Wednesday night, several weeks ago, we hopped a bus at 8:00 at night (sadly, missing our Pilates class, but sacrifices are made for the sake of travel) and arrived the next morning at 9 in Valdivia. Valdivia is a “city” in Chile that has the feel of a homey New England town. Which we didn’t realize until we got there. All we really knew was that a lot of Germans had settled there and that, as a result, there was a lot of good kuchen (a desert). Cool, we were headed to Switzerland for the weekend. (Which I say having never been anywhere near Switzerland or the continent on which it is located.)

Valdivia is where three rivers meet, and is surrounded by the volcano region. Mountains, water, and it’s only 20 minutes from the beach – it’s gorgeous. There were actually people rowing on the rivers too, as in crew. It was so familiar and happy. So the first day we did the normal tourist thing – take a boat tour of the rivers. Ashley and I had our own private tour from a salty old man with several teeth missing and a dog that didn’t bug the heck out of me. The rivers are beautiful and, because Ashley and I are somehow charmed, the day was gorgeous without a cloud in the sky…usually Valdivia has rain every single day, and we didn’t see a drop our whole weekend there.





The next day, Friday, we were going to go to the coast, but that morning, the Spanish-speaking, German owner of our hostel knocked on our door and asked if we wanted to go on a “tour” – his personally assembled off-road trip to a mini-mountain and the beach for hiking and rock climbing. Why not? So we put on our Merrels – definitely the best thing I brought with me to Chile, and squeezed with two other gringas into his truck. We drove off-road to a national park where we climbed mentioned mini-mountain, took lots of pictures of the thirteen volcanoes we could see from the top, drove down to the coast and climbed on the rocky shores looking at local wildlife, and then took off on a terrifying trip along the coast to watch the sunset on the Pacific. Mario, our guide, told us how terrible the bus drivers are as I prayed I wouldn’t meet each telephone pole we passed head on. Because really, would you have a random Chilean tour along the Pacific any other way?









Saturday we hopped a bus to the beach, where we checked out an old Spanish fort, met up with a very odd Swiss man who seemed only to want to talk about himself, and then proceeded to walk a mile or two up the beach (again, climbing over plenty of rocks to do so), accompanied the whole time by aforementioned Swiss dude. Trying not to be too embarrassed of his very poor Spanish-speaking ability whenever he tried to talk to locals. After hanging out there for a while, we hopped a bus back to Valdivia, reclaimed our items from our hostel, bid farewell to Mario, and hopped the 8 pm bus back to Valparaíso. Just in time for the Sunday procrastination payback…in which I work like a maniac to finish everything for the coming week.





The next weekend was my girly relaxing weekend. Which worked out well since I happened to get a really bad cold that weekend. (If anyone was wondering, it turns out “flem” is the same word in Spanish too…I was informed that my cough had it. Cool.) That weekend, Ashley and I only had to be on the bus for 7 hours. We were headed to Argentina (that’s right, I have more stamps in my passport!) for the weekend, to a town called Mendoza. Mendoza has a lot of Italians (and therefore really good food) like much of Argentina, but is best known for its shopping. So basically, this was our weekend in Italy. We arrived on a Thursday and decided to take the weekend slow. Thursday night we walked around all the stores and looked. Friday we entered some stores, tried some things on, and thought about buying. And finally, Saturday, I bought myself two new pairs of shoes (because really, who doesn’t need cute shoes when they’re sick?) for less than $20 total together (yay countries in financial crisis with big leather markets and without sales tax), gifts for friends and familiy, and two skirts to keep me going through the eternal spring that seems to be the Chilean climate. Which trust me, I’m not complaining about at all.



Of course, we also based much of the weekend on what we were going to eat, when. Because really, what else is more important than food when traveling? Especially when you haven’t chosen your own food in months due to living with host families. Italian food it was, and lots of it. We went to two Italian restaurants, an Italian pizzeria, and two “tenedor libre” (all-you-can-eat buffet) restaurants, the last category being the most interesting. The first we went to for a huge lunch with every possible type of food you could imagine. I even had some stir fry for the first time since arriving in South America. And a salad with all the vegetables mixed together; for whatever reason, they’re very big on piles here. Then, the next night, Ashley and I found ourselves in a vegetarian restaurant (quite a rarity in the beef capital of the universe that is Argentina) owned by a little Argentinean woman who had lived in New York City for several years and seemed determined to practice her English with us. I’m not completely sure she spoke either English or Spanish completely fluently. She also informed us that all Chileans are liars, that if you’re a liar you’re a thief, and that jealous neighbors had cut off her gas lines and so all the food we were eating had been cooked in her house and then reheated in the microwave in the restaurant. “Colorful” would charitably describe our new friend. It was incredibly amusing.

Also amusing, was the laundry list of things that we had to pick up for Ashley's host mom in Argentina. Because facial cream is apparently much too expensive in Chile. But it wasn't just skin products that we left with. One of the items on the list was more of a treasure hunt, and one that we're hoping was within all boundries of the law. Ashley's host mom gave us the address of a leather store in the town, where we were instructed to go and ask for Maurio (or some similar name). He was, of course, there, and we gave him a letter from Ashley's mom requesting several prescription drugs along with a wad of cash. And then we stopped by the next day and picked them up. All looking totally legitimate except for the lack of the pharmacy receipt on the outside. Hmmm... smile and nod. And maybe run. Drug deals in Argentina is one way to spend your South American weekends.

The last night, Ashley and I decided to ditch our fun little hostel and treat ourselves to a one star hotel. Because if we were going to be able to afford someplace with a private bathroom and towels, Argentina would be the place to do it. Besides, we weren’t exactly cool enough for our hostel where there was pizza and beer every night…and we were going to bed at 10 pm. It came out to about $20 for the night (split two ways). Not too bad. And the next morning we hopped a bus back to Chile, over the Andes again (where someone told me my cough was surely a result in changing temperatures from crossing the mountain range, something I somehow doubt) and were back in Valpo by 3-ish on Sunday, again in time for me to freak out about the fact that I hadn’t finished enough work (mostly a result of the fact that I was sleeping 12 hours a night trying to overcome my cold).

Well, I did my best to make the recap short but interesting, and it looks as if I haven’t succeeded in either. Kudos if you’ve made it to the end, if you haven’t, I don’t blame you. Hope you at least enjoyed the pictures!